Where There's Smoke

With Where There's Smoke, Mendes takes the gritty, high-intensity stakes of Forged in the Dark and refines them, both mechanically and narratively, smelting and reforging a completely new narrative structure. To call this game a "softened" FitD system would be a disservice—it is still dangerous, in the way that children's stories are dangerous, but the the mechanics are streamlined in a fresh and enticing way, and the lore of the text balances the rubble of this sundered earth with tantalizing whimsy (the creature, worldbuilding, and plot hook tables in the back of the book are worth the cost of purchase alone!) A fantastic game, in every sense of the word.