Agency of Destruction
Blades in the Dark is one helluva brilliant game. Players are given so many dials to turn and switches to flip. Lots of agency built right into the game mechanics. In fact, so much agency is put into players' hands that they're the ones largely deciding on all the harm that befalls their characters.
- Fall from a zipline and you'd like your character to ninja roll to safety rather than take damage? Spend your "armor."
- Feel your character might somehow withstand and shrug off that stabbing? Take points of stress as you resist.
- The councilwoman summons a trio of bluecoats to take you into custody and you would just rather not? Choose to accumulate stress for a flashback where you already paid off the bluecoats.
- Want to really make sure this next dice roll is a perfect success? Take on stress for extra dice.
Players are given a toolset to deny or accept the harm that happens to their characters. The GM is really just a facilitator for those choices.
Giving players the agency to choose their character's harm is just awesome gameplay.
Bringing this around to Black Light, players must have the agency to drive their character's destruction.