Shadowdark Finally Played Shadowdark

[Scribe]

Yeah, I think it's safe to say Shadowdark isn't for me. In fact, I'd say that the entire OSR isn't for me after many years of trying to make it fit to get the feel of what was my nostalgic D&D. That's probably because we fudged so much and put so much plot armor on the heroes that they were like Iron Man. This is probably why I've struggled with 5E as well, since it has a toe in the OSR.
We had stories and legends. We had high stakes narrative scenes and intriguing mysteries. We didn't have dungeoncrawls or hexploration.
As I'm exploring other systems like Wildsea and Daggerheart, I'm starting to think that they're closer to how I played in the 1990s. (Even if the systems and worlds look different.)
We built the worlds together. We shaped conflict based around the character backstory. The DM was a fan of the characters, not a neutral referee (and certainly not an antagonist).

Are you sure you dont want 5.5?

 

[Retreater]

Are you sure you dont want 5.5?

I have it - got it with store credit from my LGS.
I'm starting to think D&D is too deadly and adversarial. Since 2014 I've had only one D&D campaign that didn't end in TPK.

 

[Scribe]

I have it - got it with store credit from my LGS.
I'm starting to think D&D is too deadly and adversarial. Since 2014 I've had only one D&D campaign that didn't end in TPK.

Hmm. Yeah I guess start looking at story first games or house rules.

 

[mamba]

Yeah, I think it's safe to say Shadowdark isn't for me. In fact, I'd say that the entire OSR isn't for me after many years of trying to make it fit to get the feel of what was my nostalgic D&D. That's probably because we fudged so much and put so much plot armor on the heroes

I'm starting to think D&D is too deadly and adversarial.

since you seem to want something that has a bit of OSR DNA, maybe give Land of Eem a chance

Land of Eem RPG

Land of Eem is a rules-light, less crunchy more creative, tabletop roleplaying game from the creators of Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo.

landofeem.com

Land of Eem

Publisher and web store for Indie Role Playing games, Role Playing game supplements, weird art, doom, horror, and all that sort of thing.

www.exaltedfuneral.com

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/517422/land-of-eem-deluxe-set-bundle

It's pretty modern, with narrative parts, and should not be very lethal either, so might check a lot of your boxes

 

[Fenris-77]

Please stop saying that. It's not true. Spellcasting success rates are dependent on your casting stat. And some spells also are cast with advantage by default and other spells can be cast with advantage based on talent rolls.

He's pretty set on his version of events I think.

 

[NN]

I have it - got it with store credit from my LGS.
I'm starting to think D&D is too deadly and adversarial. Since 2014 I've had only one D&D campaign that didn't end in TPK.

Did the party pick those fights or did the plot funnel them there?

Was retreat an option a) mechanicalliy or b) narratively ?

I wonder if its a software not a hardware issue

 

[numtini]

Having played for 5+ years with roll-to-cast in DCC, as well as more recently in Shadowdark, it works just fine. The old D&D alternative is a 1st level magic user gets one spell and casts it once, then chucks daggers. Having played both, I vastly prefer roll-to-cast.

In terms of casting chance, almost everyone uses the "reroll if you don't have at least one stat that's 14". With that, the average wizard will have +3 to cast spells at first level. Also, a very frequently use of luck tokens is for those times when you absolutely have to have something go off. They also get automatic advantage on magic missile, so they're not reduced to just chucking daggers.

And having had a cunning plan that cannot fail and have that roll and a luck roll fail, that's what emergent gameplay is all about. We pivoted very quickly and managed to pull our fat out of the fire. It was amazing.

 

[nevin]

You make sure magic isn't the only way to solve a problem.

Then you have to make sure no class only has magic to solve their problems. Only way I see for this type of game to work is no magic classes and we just do rituals.

 

[Mannahnin]

I never played 1E, but I played AD&D 2E for close to a decade. As I understand it, the systems are similar mechanically.

I don't think it felt like AD&D.
In AD&D you could count on magic working. You can't have a utility spell fail when it's absolutely necessary for pulling off the plan.
In AD&D races/ancestries matter. (Darkvision, magic resistance, ability score adjustments.) They basically do nothing in Shadowdark.
In AD&D you can get skills, non-weapon proficiencies, weapon expertise - if you want to use those options.
In AD&D your ability score bonuses weren't as impactful as they are in Shadowdark, which was seemingly designed for a different method of generation.
In AD&D the monsters had more that a paragraph of detail, including ecology, background information, treasure charts, and a variety of mechanics.
In AD&D you could customize your thief with different percentages in thief skills, your cleric could be different depending on spheres, and your wizard could specialize in schools of magic. Druids, rangers, paladins, and bards gave interesting options as well.

I'd definitely prefer a AD&D-inspired game to Shadowdark. Sadly, the OSR is stuck on B/X.

In AD&D you can mostly count on your utility spells working. Other spells usually allow a saving throw. At higher levels enemy saving throws get really good, not to mention magic resistance! The tradeoff you get for utility spells not always working in Shadowdark is you get more spells in general (three spells for a 1st level Wizard in SD as opposed to one for a 1st level M-U in AD&D), even before we account for the chance to cast them multiple times if you roll well.

Ancestries don't do "Basically nothing" in SD. Mechanically they give at least one special ability and they determine starting languages. They don't give ability score bonuses, which I rather like because it makes them less of a tool for min-maxing, although Dwarf, Elf, and Half Orc do each give a simple numerical bonus (to HP or particular key checks) so you can do that a little. SD is definitely a lighter rules-set than AD&D. Whether a given gamer prefers lots of mechanical detail or less is a matter of taste. I haven't run SD for a long enough period to know whether it's too light for long-term play for my tastes, but I'm certainly hearing other folks report that it works fine for them. Mike Shea of Sly Flourish recently finished a year-long campaign, for example.

Skills, non-weapon proficiencies, and monster details are definitely more of that rules light vs rules detail preference. Kelsey clearly focuses on making the rules quick to read and reference and letting the DM fill in most of the fluff (or get that from supplements). Shadowdark has Backgrounds which function very much like the Secondary Skill system from 1E AD&D, though more generous. Classes also specifically have skills in the form of abilities which give advantage on particular kinds of checks, like Thievery gives for five different ones for Thieves.

AD&D ability scores are funny. At the extreme ends you can get big bonuses. Gary tells us in the '78 PH that it's usually essential to a character's survival to have no fewer than two scores of 15 or better. Dex gives a big +4 at 18 and starts giving benefits at a mere 13. But for even a +1 to Damage you need at least a 16 Strength. The huge benefits of an 18/00 are reserved for the very lucky and the cheaters. A 16 Intelligence will only give a Magic-User a 65% chance to learn a desired spell! Gary was clearly expecting people to use much more generous ability rolling schemes than OD&D's 3d6 down the line. B/X starts bonuses at 13, which is just within one Standard Deviation from the mean of 10.5 on a 3d6 bell curve, so the B/X and BECMI bonus scheme is much better fit to the math of 3d6. Shadowdark letting bonuses start at 12 and ramp up every 2 points like WotC D&D is also designed to work well with the 3d6. Kelsey gives the optional rule of re-rolling if you don't have at least one score of 14 or better, which does help ensure competence. I prefer the "flip/mirror" house rule, which I think I described in my first contribution to the thread, which doesn't guarantee a 14 but does guarantee that you never have a set below average on the whole and that you never need to re-roll.

Most of the character customization you're talking about in AD&D sounds like 2E rather than 1E. Shadowdark is definitely deliberately built to reduce the character build game. Characters within a class can certainly be different from one another by rolling different Talents and making different choices- which weapons to have Mastery with for Fighters, for example, which abilities to focus on for Thieves, which spells to pick and which to get Advantage with for casters, etc.

It's not "in-fiction" as OSR titles are not (in my opinion) fiction-first games. Instead, they reward clever planning and the use of resources to navigate challenges.

If all magic must work the same in Shadowdark, then it must all be reliable, else the system fails to reward clever planning, leaving the whole venture to a coin flip. The hallmark of the OSR is that clever planning needs to be rewarded, that player agency is a GM virtue. As long as magic works as it does in Shadowdark, this cannot be true.

How many times has a plan hinged on the ability to turn a character invisible or give the ability to fly/levitate/spider climb. After the plan is forged with deliberation, a 50/50 chance can make the spellcaster unable to use the magic for 24 hours. In my case, I had to vacate a crumbling tower and had the foresight to take feather fall. I should be safe, right? Nope. 50/50 chance of spell failure. Nothing you can do - you're dead from impact.

It's not really 50/50. With the min 14 rule in place a human or elf caster usually starts with a +3 or better to casting rolls, which means a 60% baseline for their three spells for a Wizard or two spells for a Priest. Having more spells means more chances to succeed. Getting Advantage on a spell of your choice is one of the most common talent rolls for Wizards, and it comes automatically with Magic Missile. At higher levels chances get better, especially with the lower tier spells. On the Wizard talent chart 30 out of 36 possible rolls improve your chances to cast (the others give you a free magic item or an additional spell - both of which give you more power and more chances to use magic).

And Luck Tokens are a core rule, which speak to the OSR philosophy of rewarding planning and resource management. Giving Advantage to a key casting roll makes it much more reliable. It's not a 100% guarantee, but I don't think your premise is valid that rolling for magic eliminates player agency or the value of planning.

Mike Shea reports that at higher levels once PCs accumulate bigger bonuses, between those bonuses, spells which have Advantage, and luck tokens, his experience was that key spells become very reliable. And of course every time you succeed you also have the spell available to cast again...

 

[Retreater]

AD&D ability scores are funny. (...)

I agree. Even Gygax didn't stick to the 3d6 in order. It's been a mess since AD&D, and shouldn't be a standard method, because you end up having to mulligan and spend way more time than needed to generate characters (like rolling 15 sets of stats or whatever).
I think Dionne's error (IMO) is pairing the 3d6 method with the ability bonus chart of 3rd edition and onward. While making ability scores even more important to character success than they were in older editions.
But all this is to say that Shadowdark (and the OSR) just isn't for me. I recognize that people love these games, so it must be hitting something right for those audiences. For me, if I'm gonna play a dungeon crawler, I'd prefer just playing HeroQuest.