How would YOU change Shadowdark?

[thullgrim]

I run the game without always on initiative and torch timers and it works fine.

Same. I do use something close to B/X OSE turns though. If a fight breaks out in the last turn on their torch I roll a d4. That’s how many rounds they have before it goes dark.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Each of the Cursed Scrolls has a detailed adventure, plus a hex crawl, plus new monsters and player-facing stuff. It's like a themed issue of Dragon, but for Shadowdark and all by Kelsey.

Looking at CS1, a nice dungeon crawl area that looks really good and the hex crawl stuff is nice though the blurbs for it need the GM to create and flesh them out. "This hex is a troll den. Inside is a magic sword."

 

[overgeeked]

I’d change it (and do) to a more traditional XP system. It’s basic XP system makes more work for the DM who wants to run old school D&D modules a pain in the butt.

Could you expand on this? I'm not that familiar with Shadowdark.

 

[overgeeked]

The game is at its best when Kelsey lets her freak flag fly and we get weird monsters like the goat giant -- a goat-headed giant

I remember those from Dark Sun. Good to see they're still around.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Could you expand on this? I'm not that familiar with Shadowdark.

Every time you level up, your XP goes back to zero

 

[Velderan]

Every time you level up, your XP goes back to zero

View attachment 399483

@overgeeked to add to this, here is the table for what different treasure types are worth in xp.

Off the top of my head, the only other way to earn xp is 1 xp for a particularly clever idea. I'm still in the reading the rules phase of the game though so someone who has ran it will hopefully correct me if I just haven't gotten to something that shows how you might award xp for defeating an enemy and such.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Every time you level up, your XP goes back to zero

View attachment 399483

We have always kept the remainder, instead of setting to zero. Just realized maybe that's just a house rule.

 

[SlyFlourish]

It's fun as is, but could use a touch-up:

• Get rid of the spellcasting checks (no chance of failure)
• Get rid of the classes (put all the class features in a pool and players can select any two for their PC)
• Just one Death Save (when dropping to 0 HP the player rolls once to see if the PC stabilizes or dies)

One thing to recognize is that spellcasting checks replace spell attacks and saving throws. Most of the time, when you succeed on a spell's check, it just does the thing. There's no saving throw on the monster's end (most of the time). So if you got rid of spellcasting checks, all spells would auto-succeed all the time.

 

[overgeeked]

Every time you level up, your XP goes back to zero

View attachment 399483

@overgeeked to add to this, here is the table for what different treasure types are worth in xp.

View attachment 399488
Off the top of my head, the only other way to earn xp is 1 xp for a particularly clever idea. I'm still in the reading the rules phase of the game though so someone who has ran it will hopefully correct me if I just haven't gotten to something that shows how you might award xp for defeating an enemy and such.

Right. I was more asking how that made running old-school TSR modules a pain in the ass. At first glance it reads like it would make things easier, not harder.

 

[darjr]

One thing to recognize is that spellcasting checks replace spell attacks and saving throws. Most of the time, when you succeed on a spell's check, it just does the thing. There's no saving throw on the monster's end (most of the time). So if you got rid of spellcasting checks, all spells would auto-succeed all the time.

It's this kind of simplifying that I love about this game, it's genius.