Dolmenwood general discussion thread [+]

[Voadam]

I nabbed the player's book when it was the deal of the day and I grabbed the hex crawl setting when GM's day started. I figure I will eventually grab the monster book as well.

OSE and its Dolmenwood variants are not a system I expect to run, but I love a lot about the B/X system they are based on and have a ton of material for those types of systems. Most are great inspiration and things that would be easy to convert if I wanted to. I also really like Dark Forest settings a lot too, I had fun running an Oathbound Wildwood campaign. I had a bunch of the old Necrotic Gnome Wormskin zine stuff and liked the tone a bunch, and I have liked similar things such as Kobold's Tales of the Old Margreve.

 

[darjr]

I would be very interested in the mechanics.

 

[cbwjm]

It’s a B/X derivative with several of its own classes (Enchanter, Friar, Bard, Hunter, Knight) as well as almost entirely new races, including cat fae, mushroom people, and bat people who love music and arson.

It’s also woven tightly around a very specific setting that’s sort of a fairy medieval Britain, and the supporting setting info and flavor text is very, very well done.

We’re about a dozen sessions into it, and outside of the general weirdness of a modern D&D group trying to play old-school (the group is generally flustered by the lack of modern-style skill checks), it’s been quite fun.

The cat fae has a fun bit with its language, regular cats can understand and speak it and they are quite surprised when they find out. That's one of those small details which makes the game fun.

 

[Reynard]

As I understand it, there is an effort to convert this to Shadowdark. Does anyone know how that effort is progressing?

 

[darjr]

As I understand it, there is an effort to convert this to Shadowdark. Does anyone know how that effort is progressing?

Talk was in the discord, I haven’t been following it.

 

[darjr]

As I understand it, there is an effort to convert this to Shadowdark. Does anyone know how that effort is progressing?

Redmage did a monster conversion. He isn’t sharing it but has a video going over doing it.

 

[darjr]

As I understand it, there is an effort to convert this to Shadowdark. Does anyone know how that effort is progressing?

Here is a link to the thread.

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I haven’t gone thru it nor will I. Seems like a lot of people put things up and it’s a collective of posts and documents.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Redmage did a monster conversion. He isn’t sharing it but has a video going over doing it.

That's the challenge with these sorts of things.

I know I could convert the Pirate Borg classes to Shadowdark super-quickly, for instance, but if I put what I've done out there in the world, doesn't that harm Limithron?

I have similar concerns over converting monsters, treasure, spells, etc., for other systems. I'm more comfortable doing conversions than most people, I think, so putting that stuff out there would likely be helpful to a lot of people, but taking away even part of the financial incentive for people to make their original content that I then convert isn't something I ever want to do.

(If any companies want to have me convert their content to Shadowdark and then have them publish that themselves, I'd be thrilled to do so. I actually reached out to one company that had expressed fondness for Shadowdark about the idea but never heard back.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

@Bill Zebub I had a similar experience about a thread owner ignoring me XD

Could someone refresh my memory, what exactly is Dolmenwood? I know I have heard the name before but cant remember what the game was about.

So since this is a plus thread, what would you say are the things making it stand out / your favourite part of it?

My interpretation is that it has a classic northern European fairy tale "scary woods" aesthetic, amped up for adventuring.

Somewhat weirdly, there was a thread some time (a couple of years ago) asking people what their set of "core classes" would be, and I proposed a set that turned out to be almost identical to the Dolmenwood classes. I guess that alone suggests I should buy it...

 

[Bill Zebub]

The campaign book is amazing.

I think it’d work reasonably well in many OSR games.

And really how you run 5e and your group that might work too.

Yeah I'm primarily Shadowdark, which would be super easy to convert. (Also Dragonbane, but I would probably stick with Shadowdark.)