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Plenty Of Time To Die: A Shadowdark Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Emberashh" data-source="post: 9083375" data-attributes="member: 7040941"><p>As said, soulless is defined as tedius and uninspiring. </p><p></p><p>Its uninspiring because it has next to no personality and because the few places it does have interesting ideas it seemingly refuses to explore them. The random levelup tables for instance are an interesting idea, but the execution is just dreadful in all ways <em>but</em> presentation. </p><p></p><p>And because of that, and the fact that its just another OSR book (that Ive already read, played, and run countless variants of), makes it tedius.</p><p></p><p>For comparison, my group is playing DCC in the interim while I keep chipping away at my own game. DCC, for its flaws, is a system I can read to this day and still get excited to go play. </p><p></p><p>Layers on layers on layers of flavor and interesting ideas in every single page, and it still presents mechanics in an easily referenced way. </p><p></p><p>Hell, even 5e still fits that bill in terms of exciting me.</p><p></p><p>Shadowdark in comparison to these is just empty of all of that, and intentionally as far as I can tell, as it appears to trust users will fill in the flavor but not take any consideration to people that will fill in the rules instead; as said, SD is just another OSR game. It doesn't anything that any other game doesn't other than a small handful of unexplored and boringly executed ideas. </p><p></p><p>So if SD has no unique personality to it that makes me want to explore it, and is basically useless as a rulebook, its not good. </p><p></p><p>That won't be the same for everyone, sure, but for me I don't think its a zero sum where I couldn't have been appealed to better without disrupting the appeal to others. The game could only have been better had it been allowed to be more than it is.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Emberashh, post: 9083375, member: 7040941"] As said, soulless is defined as tedius and uninspiring. Its uninspiring because it has next to no personality and because the few places it does have interesting ideas it seemingly refuses to explore them. The random levelup tables for instance are an interesting idea, but the execution is just dreadful in all ways [I]but[/I] presentation. And because of that, and the fact that its just another OSR book (that Ive already read, played, and run countless variants of), makes it tedius. For comparison, my group is playing DCC in the interim while I keep chipping away at my own game. DCC, for its flaws, is a system I can read to this day and still get excited to go play. Layers on layers on layers of flavor and interesting ideas in every single page, and it still presents mechanics in an easily referenced way. Hell, even 5e still fits that bill in terms of exciting me. Shadowdark in comparison to these is just empty of all of that, and intentionally as far as I can tell, as it appears to trust users will fill in the flavor but not take any consideration to people that will fill in the rules instead; as said, SD is just another OSR game. It doesn't anything that any other game doesn't other than a small handful of unexplored and boringly executed ideas. So if SD has no unique personality to it that makes me want to explore it, and is basically useless as a rulebook, its not good. That won't be the same for everyone, sure, but for me I don't think its a zero sum where I couldn't have been appealed to better without disrupting the appeal to others. The game could only have been better had it been allowed to be more than it is. [/QUOTE]
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