Having gone through our first session of Blades in the Dark, I have to say, I’m loving the creation process. It brought back the only thing I’d been missing, which is that collaborative “who are we and what are we doing here” emotion. Listening to everyone else come up with characters, and especially since we were down a person, having to decide what skill set we would be “without”, made me really enjoy coming up with both the character and the gang, as well as deciding what kind of jobs we were going to pull.
I think that might be something that I used to get from Shadowrun, or World of Darkness style books. Apocalypse World & Monster Hearts set players against each other to create fiction from friction, and Dungeon World/Dungeon Planet/Monster Of The Week create a “team” but one where everyone still feels like an individual. Blade in the Dark though made me really want to know “what can I do for the team?” and I look forward to our vices interfering with our plans, and the downfall that comes when you get everything you ever wanted.