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I actually sympathize with this view, although I think "nearly identical" is a reach. The game that's most like Shadowdark in my eyes is The Black Hack, and those two are not identical. Black Hack has a wonky way of handling armor that never quite clicked with me, and its leveling system is...

Actually, I'm pleasantly surprised by how many people in the troglodyte corner of the OSR world in fact like Shadowdark. By no means all, but a shockingly large number of the He-Man Woman Haters Club cohort are fans. Of course that just enrages the haters even more. :)

Possibly! First, it's important to clarify what type of "discontented grognard" we're talking about. Although the emphasis in Shadowdark is on dangerous dungeon crawling, it has none of the icky edgelord vibe that marks the worst of the OSR space. It cherishes the style of play of the 70s and...

That makes perfect sense. Initiative order out of combat seems like a great idea when the people at the table don't know each other, but maybe unnecessary if they do. Also I'm delighted that one of my "house rules" is apparently a house rule for Kelsey herself! Can't lie, that strikes me as a...

I ran Curse of the Crimson Throne. I started with some monster conversions I found online, then converted week-by-week when those ran out. I was proud that my group made it all the way to the end! All six adventures. It took close to two years. If anyone has any questions about it, I'm happy...

In tonight's game, we had our torch timer go off in the middle of combat. Good times! We lived, but that an unpleasant surprise. I really like the real-time torch timer. It's easier than counting rounds or turns, and it discourages the players from debating endlessly about whether to go left or...

I think we all agree that the weirder Kelsey gets, the better. I love the new Delver and Duelist classes, which don't really correspond to anything in established D&D tradition, and more power to them.

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...

The quality of their 5e stuff varies. None of it is bad, but generally it doesn't rise above the level of pretty good either. I haven't yet read a 5e adventure from Goodman that was truly great in the way that Harley Stroh's best stuff is great. I mostly like them because they're short --...

Whoa, friend. No need for ruffled feathers. I meant no disrespect or insult. Just my opinion, and heaven knows my opinions are often stupid. I apologize if I expressed myself a little too forcefully. It's like the old The Ship of Theseus question: at what point have you changed a thing to the...

(accidentally hit enter, sorry)

The only rules that I modify or ignore are: I don't use initiative out of combat. I can see how it might be good for some groups, but I never did it that way in 45ish years of playing D&D and I'm not keen to start now. I give casters a free luck token to minimize the chance they completely...

Good lord, NO. Noooooooooooo! I would never want to tell another player that they're having badwrongfun, but if we're not rolling for stats, I honestly question the entire point. Just play 5e! And that's not a knock, because I love 5e. But Shadowdark is going for a different vibe, and rolling...

I'm a huge, huge fan of Kelsey's one-page adventures. You can see one of them here for free (along with Bryce's rave review of it): https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=7945 Whether it works better as Shadowdark particularly is a matter of opinion. But it's great, and I think very few...

Previous issues of Cursed Scroll were not covered, and the FAQ made a point of saying you couldn't use any material in those issues, so it's probably safe to assume none of this will be covered either. Kelsey apparently wants to be generous in allowing use of the base game but disallow the more...

No. Kelsey was writing Shadowdark when the OGL debacle happened, leading her to rewrite a good bit of the game. Stirges became "stingbats", for example. Kelsey originally made her name writing adventures for 5e, but she apparently won't ever do so again. One of many creatives burned by that OGL...

Shadowdark embraces a certain style of play. 3d6 down the line, the way we did it back in the day. Your stats determine your character concept, not the other way around. Dungeons are deadly and combat is deadlier. Your character is fairly likely to die, but rolling up a new one is super quick...

Depends on what you mean by "modern". Certainly not all of them are dungeons: there are hexcrawls and others set outdoors. But they all have an old-school feel and are surprisingly minimalist. The one-page dungeons I was raving about earlier in this thread could literally fit on an index card...

Kelsey gonna be using diamonds as luck tokens

Seriously, the amount of free stuff in the previews is insane. Several new classes, tons of new spells, downtime activities, and more. Possibly even more material than is in the free quickstart rules, which is nuts.