Let's talk about game design for a sec. According to the notes I have so far regarding the systems that I've been using (or plan to use since the game is still being written) as inspiration to make this version of HAT, here's the current status:

1. Apocalypse World: connections between characters; agenda & principles
2. Blades in the Dark: character background & drives/goals; flashbacks; heat/rep; progress clocks; skills?
3. Inspectres: confessionals
4. Kids on Bikes: worldbuilding
5. Honey Heist /  Lasers & Feelings / You Have Two Stats: duality of skills?
6. Mouse Guard: conditions?
7. Query Six: the outcome range (more info on #Ideas)
8. Quest: character sheets
9. Schema: consequences table
10. Threadbare: different levels of violence based on the difficulty; montage-style combat

Side note, you can tell I'm not sure yet where I want to take the skills for this game since they appear mentioned in both BitD and HH/L&F, which have very different types of skills. Anyways, back on topic.

This list means that, right now, I'm potentially drawing inspiration from a total of 10 games. And this is just when it comes to different game systems and some notes about them that I jotted down from the top of my head. Here's what I have in my Research folder for this game:

Suddenly, that starts adding even more systems to the list. Alone Among The Stars, Cortex, Gumshoe, GURPS, Trophy, as well as games created using their own original system, such as Dungeon Thief, Heart, Leverage, Mausritter, and Score.

If we go back to that list of 10 games, you'll notice that I tend to only focus on one or two mechanic elements from the game that I think might fit what I'm trying to do for HAT. For Blades in the Dark, however, there are a total of 7 potential mechanics. But, when I started designing this game, I was planning on pretty much using all of the BitD mechanics except for Stress and Position/Effect which means that, over time, I've been dropping more and more of BitD's mechanics as I progress on my game design (and I might still drop some of these 7), which means the game is starting to slowly but surely be less and less of a Forged in the Dark game and more and more of a mesh of multiple games.

So, when is a FitD no longer a FitD? 🤷🏻‍♀️