Shadowdark Finally Played Shadowdark

[Fenris-77]

They've done it with their simian characters in Daggerheart.

See? It's a doable thing.

 

[Retreater]

So why not use an adventure from Kelsey, some premades and provide some guidance on how to play?

Well, I had this adventure at the ready, printed and good to go. Sometimes you can't tell it's bad until you play it.
They wanted the experience of making their own characters and it didn't take too long.
I didn't provide guidance because there wasn't the opportunity to do any different. They didn't have access to Bless. They didn't have the opportunity to backstab because they were fighting enemies that couldn't be surprised. And besides that, they said the setting up of a sneak attack was wasting several rounds of damaging combat, so a bad return on investment.

 

[Scribe]

Well, I had this adventure at the ready, printed and good to go. Sometimes you can't tell it's bad until you play it.
They wanted the experience of making their own characters and it didn't take too long.
I didn't provide guidance because there wasn't the opportunity to do any different. They didn't have access to Bless. They didn't have the opportunity to backstab because they were fighting enemies that couldn't be surprised. And besides that, they said the setting up of a sneak attack was wasting several rounds of damaging combat, so a bad return on investment.

I don't know man, seems people need some guidance, and there are good adventures out there.

What were the stats for attack and casting checks? If people are not filling in the gaps, then ya that single die roll is going to go around the table quickly.

 

[Retreater]

I don't know man, seems people need some guidance, and there are good adventures out there.

Yeah. I'm sure there were better ones. Ultimately, I had about an hour to prep the game, so it was what it was. I picked a short adventure that was written by a respected third-party company for Lurking Fears to run at conventions to introduce people to Shadowdark.

What were the stats for attack and casting checks? If people are not filling in the gaps, then ya that single die roll is going to go around the table quickly.

I have a few examples, but not all six characters (two of the characters left with their player).
Thief 1: +4 to hit with an amazing 18 Dex using a shortbow and finesse dagger.
Thief 2: +2 to hit with a 15 Dex using a shortbow and a finesse dagger.
Wizard 1: +1 to casting, advantage on casting Magic Missile and Protection from Evil.
Wizard 2: +3 to casting (14 Int and +1 for being an elf)
Characters were rolled 3d6 in order. I did let them swap out a stat of their choice for a 14. And could swap two ability scores to play a class they wanted - for example, could swap a 15 Cha for a 15 Str to be a fighter.)

 

[Scribe]

I picked a short adventure that was written by a respected third-party company for Lurking Fears to run at conventions to introduce people to Shadowdark.

The same respected third party that failed utterly to run the game for you, twice?

Thief 1: +4 to hit with an amazing 18 Dex using a shortbow and finesse dagger.
Thief 2: +2 to hit with a 15 Dex using a shortbow and a finesse dagger.
Wizard 1: +1 to casting, advantage on casting Magic Missile and Protection from Evil.
Wizard 2: +3 to casting (14 Int and +1 for being an elf)

And these characters failed to land abilities time after time??

I mean dice happen.

 

[Retreater]

The same respected third party that failed utterly to run the game for you, twice?

To be fair, one of the terrible adventures I played was written by Kelsey. Sometimes it's the execution. Sometimes it's the writing. In this case, I'm sure an excellent GM with prep time could've made it amazing. In this case I was neither.

And these characters failed to land abilities time after time??

Well, one wizard rolled a 4 and a 5 on his first casting of Magic Missile. He didn't want to spend a Luck Token on a re-roll. So that was essentially his only combat spell for the session.
I guess you can't do anything about bad luck.

 

[Scribe]

To be fair, one of the terrible adventures I played was written by Kelsey. Sometimes it's the execution. Sometimes it's the writing. In this case, I'm sure an excellent GM with prep time could've made it amazing. In this case I was neither.

Well, one wizard rolled a 4 and a 5 on his first casting of Magic Missile. He didn't want to spend a Luck Token on a re-roll. So that was essentially his only combat spell for the session.
I guess you can't do anything about bad luck.

And he didn't use his token.

 

[Retreater]

And he didn't use his token.

Yeah. He held on to it. Ended up giving it to the Priest so she saved Cure Wounds. I guess it worked out

 

[GMMichael]

Like their monkey ancestors they can fling poo. Poo is always an option.

I was going to recommend flinging their other useless teammates. But poo is a better option.

They had 12 torches among the party. They weren't going to run out in a 5-room dungeon one shot adventure.

So they didn't face the conundrum: torch or shield? Torch or slowly-burning shield? Throw torch at enemies and hope they don't snuff it, or throw torch behind allies and fight in awkward shadows?

Deep water obstacles are a good way to reduce the number of available torches. Unless the PCs throw their torches across the obstacle before swimming, and hope no one on the other side steals them/kicks them into the water anyway.

 

[Retros_x]

But nothing really mattered. The fighter didn't push the creature away from the wizard using her shield. The thief didn't sneak behind to do a backstab. The priest didn't cast Bless to help guide the party's blades to victory.
It was just a generic move up and drop a d20 and stand there until something died.

This is weird. "The game is boring, all we did was attack" - well maybe do something else then? Either your abilities on the sheet or something in the fiction? Sounds like a case of players having not a good introduction into OSR playstyle. The adventure also sounds extremely boring and uninspiring. But not like the systems fault and it makes me sad that the players seem to think it was the systems fault.