Shadowdark Finally Played Shadowdark

[Retreater]

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?

The fighter and priest used shields. The two thieves and two wizards did not use shields. Therefore, there were four characters capable of carrying the torches for the party.

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.

Yeah, there are a couple adventures in the Dragonbane boxed set that used water creatively like that. This adventure just didn't have a good opportunity for that. It was designed as a goblin settlement, so having to cross deep water to navigate the tunnels wouldn't make sense.

 

[Arilyn]

Shadowdark sings best with the current O/NSR framework of telegraphing danger, interesting choices, dungeon factions or at least weird/interesting NPCs.

It sounds like the adventure itself isn't great but maybe it was just a night of bad rolling. It happens. Definitely feels like players were at least somewhat disengaged.

I hope your table is willing to try again. Shadowdark can really be a ton of fun.

 

[Retreater]

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.

So I took mercy on the player of the wizard who lost his Magic Missile early in the adventure. He had Floating Disk. I allowed him to cast it, flip it vertically, and use it as cover. It was at least an original thought, and I wanted to reward it.
There really aren't many abilities on the sheet to use. And in this case, the fiction (the adventure) didn't provide much for the GM. And - you know - I could've added literally everything to this adventure to make it interesting. But heck, what's the point of using an adventure then?
One thing I really liked from Dragonbane is that there are terrain cards. "Oh, this area has a wasps nest that you can launch at an enemy." Something like that as an add-on would at least get players thinking creatively.
Playing it as a "stripped down 5e" is NOT the way to go.
Strangely, every person I've talked to IRL has had bad experiences with Shadowdark.

 

[Retreater]

Shadowdark sings best with the current O/NSR framework of telegraphing danger, interesting choices, dungeon factions or at least weird/interesting NPCs.

It sounds like the adventure itself isn't great but maybe it was just a night of bad rolling. It happens. Definitely feels like players were at least somewhat disengaged.

I hope your table is willing to try again. Shadowdark can really be a ton of fun.

I don't think they're interested in the OSR style, regardless of the system. They want fast, reckless, madcap adventure, not counting scarce resources, crafting plans to avoid danger, searching every crevice for the presence of traps and secret doors.
Honestly, I started in the hobby in 1989 with AD&D 2E. I never played B/X. I didn't play 1st edition until this March at GaryCon. I don't have nostalgia for any of this. And it doesn't tell the kinds of stories I like in an RPG. If I'm honest, my style is closer to Daggerheart, Fabula Ultima, Call of Cthulhu, and other narrative-focused games than D&D and its adjacent systems.

 

[Arilyn]

I don't think they're interested in the OSR style, regardless of the system. They want fast, reckless, madcap adventure, not counting scarce resources, crafting plans to avoid danger, searching every crevice for the presence of traps and secret doors.
Honestly, I started in the hobby in 1989 with AD&D 2E. I never played B/X. I didn't play 1st edition until this March at GaryCon. I don't have nostalgia for any of this. And it doesn't tell the kinds of stories I like in an RPG. If I'm honest, my style is closer to Daggerheart, Fabula Ultima, Call of Cthulhu, and other narrative-focused games than D&D and its adjacent systems.

I have no nostalgia either, as I disliked AD&D intensely! The modern philosophy of the NSR, OSR (confusing mess) is so much better because players should not be poking along at a snail's pace trying to avoid "gotchas."

I also love Daggerheart. Fabula Ultima is also a fantastic game. Really captures the vibe of those old turn based fantasy computer games. And man, is character creation such a blast.

Have you had any experience with Nimble? It has heroic player abilities and is great fun to run.

And yes, I do have too many games on my shelves... Nah.

 

[Retreater]

Have you had any experience with Nimble? It has heroic player abilities and is great fun to run.

Not yet. Initially I wasn't interested when I thought it was only a 5E variant. Now that I've learned more about it, I've backed the second Kickstarter, but I'm waiting for the books to ship, since I don't want to run the whole system off PDFs.
I'm optimistic that I might be able to use it to run some 5E content that I've accumulated over the years.

And yes, I do have too many games on my shelves... Nah.

Same.

I also love Daggerheart. Fabula Ultima is also a fantastic game. Really captures the vibe of those old turn based fantasy computer games. And man, is character creation such a blast.

Right. So my first RPG experiences were with NES console games - Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy I. When I tried to teach myself how to run AD&D (I was the first person in my neighborhood to try to figure out RPGs), I ran it like those console games. So Fabula Ultima is very nostalgic form me.
When I did learn AD&D, it was after the Hickman Revolution, where narrative arcs were more important than site-based dungeon exploration. So Daggerheart is a natural fit for that - after struggling to make D&D work as a narrative game since 2000's d20 movement.

It's difficult to say what exactly I'd want from an OSR game. I'd like something more like AD&D 2e. I want character options, survivability, the rich history of the game and many settings to choose from. Scenes - not encounters. OSR mimics a D&D I never played.

 

[Scribe]

I don't think they're interested in the OSR style, regardless of the system. They want fast, reckless, madcap adventure, not counting scarce resources, crafting plans to avoid danger, searching every crevice for the presence of traps and secret doors.
Honestly, I started in the hobby in 1989 with AD&D 2E. I never played B/X. I didn't play 1st edition until this March at GaryCon. I don't have nostalgia for any of this. And it doesn't tell the kinds of stories I like in an RPG. If I'm honest, my style is closer to Daggerheart, Fabula Ultima, Call of Cthulhu, and other narrative-focused games than D&D and its adjacent systems.

Systems are tools, you seem to keep choosing the wrong tools.

You want higher powered 2e, Or narrative games, even if you are resistant to building things out yourself.

Round hole, square peg, and your players don't seem to be interested in the style either.

I don't eat Vegan food, nor would I ever play Romantacy RPGs. I'd be unhappy wasting my time or money on either.

You seem to just continue to force things that you probably know won't fit what you want.

 

[Retreater]

Systems are tools, you seem to keep choosing the wrong tools.

Agreed. The biggest, loudest, flashiest systems with the most support are the ones that get my attention. I hear the praise, read/watch the reviews, see the books in the game stores and raking in millions on Kickstarter. So I naturally gravitate to them, only to be disappointed time and again.
If the right systems are out there, it's hard to find them, and even harder to convince players to try them.

You want higher powered 2e, Or narrative games, even if you are resistant to building things out yourself.

I'm working on it.
I found a sci-fi Daggerheart variation on itch.io. The creator has offered to help me with any questions I have about it. I've started creating a campaign frame document inspired by Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy for my group.

I think I've gotten used to bad habits since the 3E era (which goes back decades, obviously). I've erred on the side of using official material. I haven't wanted to homebrew anything, mostly because modern gaming is so crunchy and ponderous. (Which is why I've been drawn to Shadowdark, even if it's not the right fit.)

 

[Fenris-77]

Agreed. The biggest, loudest, flashiest systems with the most support are the ones that get my attention. I hear the praise, read/watch the reviews, see the books in the game stores and raking in millions on Kickstarter. So I naturally gravitate to them, only to be disappointed time and again.
If the right systems are out there, it's hard to find them, and even harder to convince players to try them.

I'm working on it.
I found a sci-fi Daggerheart variation on itch.io. The creator has offered to help me with any questions I have about it. I've started creating a campaign frame document inspired by Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy for my group.

I think I've gotten used to bad habits since the 3E era (which goes back decades, obviously). I've erred on the side of using official material. I haven't wanted to homebrew anything, mostly because modern gaming is so crunchy and ponderous. (Which is why I've been drawn to Shadowdark, even if it's not the right fit.)

I've found that big fast adventure is often best done with a system that gets away from HP and some of those common D&D-isms. For example, Spire is a great game for big damn adventure (in its setting) in major part because the Resistance Engine (RR&D's house mechanical chassis) does a great job freeing the game up from physical harm as ther lingua franca of action adjudication. Or you could look at something designed to do rollicking adventure like Outgunned or The Trouble Shooters.

 

[Keldryn]

So I took mercy on the player of the wizard who lost his Magic Missile early in the adventure. He had Floating Disk. I allowed him to cast it, flip it vertically, and use it as cover. It was at least an original thought, and I wanted to reward it.

Pulp Mode might make the experience better for you and your players. Being able to have multiple luck tokens (and the DM giving them out more freely) should make players less reluctant to spend them.

There really aren't many abilities on the sheet to use.

The fighter's Grit ability can be applied to any sort of combat stunt or maneuver that the player wants to attempt.

One thing I really liked from Dragonbane is that there are terrain cards. "Oh, this area has a wasps nest that you can launch at an enemy." Something like that as an add-on would at least get players thinking creatively.

You must have been running a really terrible adventure of there was nothing described in the environment that could get players thinking creatively. Or would they not think of throwing wasps nests at enemies unless that option was explicitly stated?

Playing it as a "stripped down 5e" is NOT the way to go.

Playing Shadowdark as a stripped down 5e is virtually guaranteed to result in a disappointing experience. It's a procedural dungeon crawler at heart; the essence old-school D&D without the clunky old-school mechanics.

I don't think they're interested in the OSR style, regardless of the system. They want fast, reckless, madcap adventure, not counting scarce resources, crafting plans to avoid danger, searching every crevice for the presence of traps and secret doors.

It doesn't sound like they're interested in OSR style play, and fair enough, it doesn't appeal to everyone. Every RPG is going to have its own style of play, and most of them don't do a fantastic job of emulating other styles.

It's difficult to say what exactly I'd want from an OSR game. I'd like something more like AD&D 2e. I want character options, survivability, the rich history of the game and many settings to choose from. Scenes - not encounters. OSR mimics a D&D I never played.

The ironic part is that AD&D 2e was essentially the same dungeon crawling mechanics as 1e, but it kept claiming to be a heroic, narrative-style game. Which it wasn't. I'm not saying that various supplements and settings didn't do their best to try and make it play like that. But it never did a good job of it. We were just very young when we first played it and didn't know any better (I started a couple of years before 2e's release, with BECMI and AD&D).