A "Shadowdark" For High Fantasy Adventure

[jian]

I’d personally say various modern D&D spin-offs with simple mechanics (usually based on 5E or Black Hack for accessibility) and more high fantasy, folkloric, or narrative concepts.

Examples include Romance of the Perilous Land, Felwoods, Hearthfire, and maybe even D&D Story Mode.

 

[zakael19]

No, Nimble really is the “heroic fantasy d20 streamlined down” you’re looking for mostly.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Ooh. I did not realize nimble had an accessibile face. To be perfectly honest (and I fully admit this is unfair assumption) I had kind of written it off as yet another 5E variant made by an influencer more interested in KSer dollars than game design.

It’s really good and really smart in lots of ways.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I think this game exists, or will soon.

IMHO Shadowdark is the 5E chassis ruthlessly stripped down to its purest expression, then paired with OSR procedures, vibes, and lethality.

So a high fantasy version would maintain 5E's character options and power, yet somehow be simplified and streamlined. Which is a bit of an oxymoron. Because how do you do both?

Well, I think Mike Mearls is nailing it with Project Moldvay, which is in active development on his Patreon. It has the same classes as 5E with a distinct modern D&D feel, but slimmed down to 10 levels and expressed in the cleanest way possible. Monsters have a 4E vibe but their stats can fit on an index card. It's elegant. I'm excited to jump on the bandwagon when it presumably crowdfunds in the months ahead.

 

[bsss]

So, with that in mind, what would a Shadowdark-like focused design look like if instead of being aimed at old school dungeon fantasy, it was aimed at modern neo-trad high adventure and heroic fantasy? What game or family of games would be the best foundation to start with? What aspects of play would it emphasize and how would it do so in its mechanics? How would one keep it fast, lean, and focused without sacrificing playability, but also not getting over-burdened?

I think there are certainly elements of these objectives in 13th Age, thinking especially of the "environment" DCs and backgrounds approach that streamline a lot of non-combat stuff, and it is absolutely focused on high adventure heroic fantasy. The game eschews fiddly rules for a lot of roleplaying scenarios by distilling checks to ability mod + level + background vs. one of three DCs, and there's immense flexibility there. Insofar as I understand "neo-trad", I think 13A is inside that space due to icon connections and one unique things and so on.

However, the tactical combat part is perhaps outside of the scope of "fast, lean". Or maybe the combat itself is in scope, but the character build phase is not? Neither are that heavy to me, but I could see that being a sticky point.

 

[Reynard]

So a high fantasy version would maintain 5E's character options and power, yet somehow be simplified and streamlined. Which is a bit of an oxymoron. Because how do you do both?

I don't think you can. I think you would have to distill each class to a small number of core class-fantasy schticks and leave the entire idea of "builds" behind.

 

[Xenolith234]

I think this game exists, or will soon.

IMHO Shadowdark is the 5E chassis ruthlessly stripped down to its purest expression, then paired with OSR procedures, vibes, and lethality.

So a high fantasy version would maintain 5E's character options and power, yet somehow be simplified and streamlined. Which is a bit of an oxymoron. Because how do you do both?

Well, I think Mike Mearls is nailing it with Project Moldvay, which is in active development on his Patreon. It has the same classes as 5E with a distinct modern D&D feel, but slimmed down to 10 levels and expressed in the cleanest way possible. Monsters have a 4E vibe but their stats can fit on an index card. It's elegant. I'm excited to jump on the bandwagon when it presumably crowdfunds in the months ahead.

I think there could be value in Prestige Classes (as mostly initially intended) but without adding vertical power, just horizontal power and access to in-game resources they wouldn’t otherwise have.

 

[zakael19]

I don't think you can. I think you would have to distill each class to a small number of core class-fantasy schticks and leave the entire idea of "builds" behind.

Shadowdark can get away with this because OSR play is used to super bare bones classes + B/X is already like that. If expressing a character is a key component of high-fantasy play(and I think it is), bringing some degree of customization and diversity is requisite.

Nimble does this about as streamlined as you can get.

 

[Tigris]

I don't think you can. I think you would have to distill each class to a small number of core class-fantasy schticks and leave the entire idea of "builds" behind.

Its not exactly what you are looking for, but this part is something Beacon does provide quite well.


Classes are distilled down to mainly 1 page and you still have possibilities to different builds thanks to impactfull feat and weapon/spell choices.


I do not think this fits your other aspects for shadowdark (random and procedure and generally the vibe), but I do think this part can be done well.


Beacon does not have subclasses instead it has (relative many) classes, here an example one: https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTE2MDE1Ny8xNDM1Nzc0NS5wbmc=/original/kjWBLp.png (this is from the official itch store which currently is down..)


strike also has the distilling down done in a really nice way: https://jimbozig.itch.io/strike&ved...EQFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3SgipouQvjeEPuSBSWskT8 (page currently down), and still has some build options, but mostly through the role (like defender striker etc.) being separated from the class.

 

[Reynard]

I do not think this fits your other aspects for shadowdark (random and procedure and generally the vibe), but I do think this part can be done well.

To be clear, I am not saying classes should have random abilities like in Shadowdark for this theoretical game. But you can't really pile on a bunch of player options and still call it "lean."