Shadowdark Shadowdark Discussion Thread [+]

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

Knock magazine is amazing, although you definitely want good reading glasses, because the text is tiny.

What issue/article is the 3 rules you mentioned?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What issue/article is the 3 rules you mentioned?

I am 90% sure it's in Knock 1.

 

[Xenolith234]

Monte Cook is running Shadowdark and has come around to presenting adventures in a simpler fashion than he did in the past. (I'm currently running Banewarrens, and it's good, but it could definitely be presented more simply.)

Monte Cook on dungeon design, Gygaxian feedback, and shaping the $5 PDF

And why he didn't stay on the design team for D&D 5e.

www.rascal.news

Shadowdark version of Ptolus when...

 

[darjr]

@Whizbang Dustyboots thank you for posting that!

@Morrus

 

[Keldryn]

I would like to better educate myself on what the Shadowdark experience is like, as well as what the storytelling and encounter design mentalities at the system are.

The best way to describe Shadowdark is that it is the essence of classic/old-school D&D re-imagined with modern design sensibilities.

It plays best as an exploration-focused game in which resource management matters. This involves using the procedures provided by the game: tracking crawling rounds, torch timers, rolling for random encounters, reaction rolls, morale checks, etc. Shadowdark plays much better when you maintain that structure (which keeps time and resource pressure on the PCs) than if you just sort of wing it until it's time for a battle.

Approaching Shadowdark just as a streamlined 3/4/5e will likely be a disappointing experience.

Most of the time, it's advantageous for the PCs to NOT fight if they can avoid it, as that burns through resources quickly and has no inherent reward (XP). There's no real concept of balanced encounters. Place what makes sense and let the players figure out how to deal with it.

The best way to get a feel for the intended Shadowdark experience is to run one of the official introductory adventures, either The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur (in the free Quick Start) or The Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub (Cursed Scroll 1).

Both are non-linear dungeons with multiple factions that the players can interact with. CS1 provides a hexcrawl as well, but only the one location is fully detailed.

Is there anything in particular that you have added to your core Shadowdark set that has enhanced your experience? (A Scroll? A rule or concept that you imported from a different game? A particular third party supplement that you recommend?)

Cursed Scroll 1 is pretty great. It adds 3 classes that tie in very well with the themes of the setting, plus a detailed 1st level dungeon adventure.

I started with just the core and CS1, and have slowly added other Cursed Scroll zines, as well as Western Reaches preview material. I haven't found a need to add additional rules or 3rd party material yet.

 

[Fenris-77]

I've been thinking a lot lately about both factions and how skill rolls look over the SD level spread. A thief with +3 to Dex and ADV on opening locks form his class starts the game about as good as they will ever be at lockpicking. That's cool, but p0art of me wants a little bit more range, but I also didn't to get crazy with DCs or add whole new skill mechanics.

This brings me to the idea of ranks, which comes initially from the faction rank mechanics from Blades in the Dark. One, PC would have ranks from 1-4 based on level (1-3/4-6/7-8/9-10). Two, objects, NPCs, locations, and factions can also have ranks in the same 1-4 range representing general quality/scale/complexity/whatever. These ranks can be compared to determine whether or not ADV is applied based on class skills. A thief, for example, would only get ADV on opening locks of equal or lesser rank than their own. If all you are doing is dungeon crawling this probably represents too much granularity, but in more complex environments, like cities, where you would reasonably have a lot more range compared to level I think it's a useful idea.

So a first level thief will encounter a lot more very difficult to open locks in an urban environment than a level 8 thief will, which makes perfect sense to me. I also think this idea provides some soft gates for engagement by the party. If the party knows that a given faction is rank 4 and they are only rank 1, they know it'll be a tough go to break into their base, or bluff their agents, or what have you. In also think it's pretty reasonable to make high level NPCs harder to bluff and fool for low level characters.

Within each rank you'd still get the same range of DCs you'd expect of course. I'm still not sure about the exact mechanical implementation, but I like the idea a lot. I think it has some wide and useful application for SD play. Anyway, that's my design idea of the day. Thoughts?

 

[Reynard]

I've been thinking a lot lately about both factions and how skill rolls look over the SD level spread. A thief with +3 to Dex and ADV on opening locks form his class starts the game about as good as they will ever be at lockpicking. That's cool, but p0art of me wants a little bit more range, but I also didn't to get crazy with DCs or add whole new skill mechanics.

This brings me to the idea of ranks, which comes initially from the faction rank mechanics from Blades in the Dark. One, PC would have ranks from 1-4 based on level (1-3/4-6/7-8/9-10). Two, objects, NPCs, locations, and factions can also have ranks in the same 1-4 range representing general quality/scale/complexity/whatever. These ranks can be compared to determine whether or not ADV is applied based on class skills. A thief, for example, would only get ADV on opening locks of equal or lesser rank than their own. If all you are doing is dungeon crawling this probably represents too much granularity, but in more complex environments, like cities, where you would reasonably have a lot more range compared to level I think it's a useful idea.

So a first level thief will encounter a lot more very difficult to open locks in an urban environment than a level 8 thief will, which makes perfect sense to me. I also think this idea provides some soft gates for engagement by the party. If the party knows that a given faction is rank 4 and they are only rank 1, they know it'll be a tough go to break into their base, or bluff their agents, or what have you. In also think it's pretty reasonable to make high level NPCs harder to bluff and fool for low level characters.

Within each rank you'd still get the same range of DCs you'd expect of course. I'm still not sure about the exact mechanical implementation, but I like the idea a lot. I think it has some wide and useful application for SD play. Anyway, that's my design idea of the day. Thoughts?

I like it. Ut is simple, which fits the SD paradigm, but still offers some variation.

Yoink.

 

[Fenris-77]

I like it. Ut is simple, which fits the SD paradigm, but still offers some variation.

Yoink.

That's why I posted it! I'm going to get this down in more detail tonight, so I'll circle back with any new ideas and details that come up. There is more than one way for GMs to apply this idea and I want to get granular with that idea.

 

[Mannahnin]

...doesn't that three part test come from the 5E rules? I feel like "roll for everything culture" is like a self-reinforcing meme, growing out of jokes about how 3E handled skills.

I saw it in Knock magazine, which got it from Google+, which predates 5E.

Aha! Thank you. I was thinking "three part test" referred to a related but different concept, to determine whether or not to roll at all. Basically, don't call for a roll if there's no reasonable chance of success, no reasonable chance of failure, or if there's no meaningful consequence for failure/it's something you could just keep trying until it works. Which I believe may originate in 5E 2014, though is mostly an evolution and simplification of the guidelines/rules for Taking 10 and Taking 20 in 3E. I've been using this at least since 2018? In the last big 5E campaign I ran (2018-2020) I made a point of telling the players not to roll unless I asked, and to tell me first what they were trying to do and how, and I'd tell them if they needed to roll at all.

What issue/article is the 3 rules you mentioned?

I am 90% sure it's in Knock 1.

Found it; Knock #4. Page 112, Time, Gear & Skill. Though originally from Lars Huijbregts' blog dicegoblin.blog, an article from 2022.

 

[Keldryn]

Actually, I have made a small number of rules tweaks or changes in my Shadowdark campaign:

Character generation: roll 3d6 in order, reroll one stat of your choice (keep if higher). You may reroll the whole set if you don't have at least one at 14 or greater. You may also swap one pair of stats.

PCs start each session with a luck token. I always forget to award them during play, and this makes one less thing to track between sessions.

Morale: I don't really like the "WIS Save" for this, so I just use the 2d6 checks from B/X.

Ability damage only recovers at 1 point per ability per rest. This makes CON damage from undead or exhaustion more impactful.

I've been using the expanded Carousing and Downtime rules in Cursed Scroll VI: City of Masks for a while, and they really add a lot to the game.

Letters From the Dark IV: Borderlands has rules for mercenaries and hirelings that looks pretty good (I haven't used them yet). Mercenaries seem like a good balance between a full PC character sheet and a monster/NPC statblock. I haven't used them yet though.

Tales From the Bottom of the Barrel is a set of expanded tables for carousing, for when you get tired of another bard or priest ally. I've read over the tables and they look pretty entertaining, but I haven't used them in play yet, as I've been using the tables in CS6.