How would YOU change Shadowdark?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don’t even think there’s a blurb in the book about just go with your gut or go with Todd Howard it just works

Page 87 is about stealth and surprise rules.

 

[Reynard]

Shadowdark RPG Rules FAQ

In this FAQ, the creator of Shadowdark RPG, Kelsey Dionne, answers rules questions posed by members of the game's official Discord server.

www.thearcanelibrary.com

Thank you very much.

Here's the text for anyone else interested:
How often should thieves be able to sneak up and backstab a creature?

Usually at least once per combat, and potentially more times if the thief invests the effort in hiding out of sight and sneaking around to an unaware creature. I don’t feel this should be given as readily as in a system like 5E D&D – it really requires the thief to go fully out of sight and then sneak around, undetected, into a surprising new position.

This does not tell us much we did not already know from the rules, except illuminating Kelsey's own preferences on the matter.

I am not inclined to "ensure" that the thief always gets to use their backstab at least once per encounter. It just isn't practical and the thief is balanced mostly by their skills, not their ability to be a combat Cuisinart as in 5E.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Right but you sound like an experienced gm but for some this could be their first time as they came here due to the kickstarter news

I don’t even think there’s a blurb in the book about just go with your gut or go with Todd Howard it just works

When Dungeon World was spreading, somebody...not one of the designers...wrote a great essay (for lack of a better word) explaining how to play DW. I could see the value of a similar thing for SD. But I would not be in favor of adding more explanatory text to the rules.

 

[Bill Zebub]

3d6 straight down has always been dumb. I love me some BECMI, but I'm using 1d8+10 instead. PCs should be capable, not Jar Jar Binks.

No! "4d6-1 + arrange" has always been dumberer! PCs should be regular folks, not super-heroes!




Actually, I jest. Neither is dumb, and there is no correct thing that PCs "should" or shouldn't be.

When I'm playing D&D (ok, I don't anymore...) I like me my high stats. When I'm playing SD, I love some randomness.

Your dislike of something does not make it bad design.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Thank you very much.

Here's the text for anyone else interested:
How often should thieves be able to sneak up and backstab a creature?

Usually at least once per combat, and potentially more times if the thief invests the effort in hiding out of sight and sneaking around to an unaware creature. I don’t feel this should be given as readily as in a system like 5E D&D – it really requires the thief to go fully out of sight and then sneak around, undetected, into a surprising new position.

This does not tell us much we did not already know from the rules, except illuminating Kelsey's own preferences on the matter.

I am not inclined to "ensure" that the thief always gets to use their backstab at least once per encounter. It just isn't practical and the thief is balanced mostly by their skills, not their ability to be a combat Cuisinart as in 5E.

In determining whether a Thief can open with a Backstab, I take into account what the player described their character doing before the combat started, but I'm fairly generous.

Once combat starts, my default "rule" is that if you spend a turn being sneaky/devious (e.g. hiding and moving), instead of attacking, you can then attempt a Backstab. It's not a strict rule, but a useful guideline.

 

[Scribe]

I would challenge anyone being attacked by one person, to also maintain 100% awareness and focus on another person.

Add in a few other bodies to the mix, and tell me it would be impossible to have attacks happen that one is 'not aware of'.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I would challenge anyone being attacked by one person, to also maintain 100% awareness and focus on another person.

I'm having trouble keeper my attackers straight just in this thread.

 

[Reynard]

I would challenge anyone being attacked by one person, to also maintain 100% awareness and focus on another person.

Add in a few other bodies to the mix, and tell me it would be impossible to have attacks happen that one is 'not aware of'.

This is one of those things that the single combatant's skill level is going to have a big impact on. For 5E as an example, it might be interesting to say that in order to gain the flank bonus, the attackers' total proficiency bonus must exceed the single defender's. That's just spitballing.

Anyway, the point is that we should be looking at rules and house rules as ways of achieving goals in play. that is what Kelsey did with all of Shadowdark and why it has such charm: it is built for a specific style of play. But it is simple enough to be hackable, so we can change it to suit our preferred style of play if it differs from the SD baseline.

(You can do that with 5E as well, but since 5E has more moving parts, it is easier to screw it up unintentionally.)

 

[TiQuinn]

I am not inclined to "ensure" that the thief always gets to use their backstab at least once per encounter. It just isn't practical and the thief is balanced mostly by their skills, not their ability to be a combat Cuisinart as in 5E.

Yeah, I think the emphasis on sneak attack on most attacks came with an overall de-emphasis on dealing with traps, locks, and general “thievery” in 5e. But that’s not the case in SD.

 

[Nightfly]

Shadowdark unfolds a little differently. To quote a friend of my 11-year-old, "You git what you git and you don't throw a fit." You get this array of numbers and think, "What on earth can I do with that!?!?!" And so you end up with a Wizard who is actually pretty deadly with a staff. Or a Fighter who is as good (or better...for now) at talking than fighting.

And then you extrapolate that across the party, and you find that instead of a finely-tuned commando team, you have a ragtag group of questionable heroes.

My friends. This is the way.

If you've never played a character with an intelligence of 4 -- who is therefore illiterate! -- you're missing out. Playing a character like that is frickin' fun. It's also loads of fun to play a wizard who can punch out a troll because your strength equals the fighter's. But modern point-buy or standard array systems don't give you experiences like that. Shadowdark will -- but only if you surrender to the 3d6, as intended.

Dungeon Crawl Classics once forced me to play a character with a high stat of 13 and a low stat of three. He sucked. But when my poor schmuck persevered, through wits and little luck, it gave me a thrill that 5e never did. Experiences like that are why I take breaks from 5e to play OSR games in the first place.

Not rolling stats is not bad or wrong, because nothing is bad or wrong if you enjoy it. But it is less authentic. Back in the Stranger Things era which Shadowdark is attempting to channel, we did not build characters, we rolled them. If you're picking your class and stats at the outset, that's kind of like ordering a burger in a sushi restaraunt: you're missing the intended experience. Play the game however you like, but my humble advice is to think long and hard about removing the dice from character creation.