Plenty Of Time To Die: A Shadowdark Review

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Blockbuster Kickstarters tend to be examples of the old adage of “An overnight success years in the making”. The recent Shadowdark one that raked in over a million USD is a perfect example. While The Arcane Library wasn’t as well known as some third party 5e creators, it was doing excellent work in the 5e space and racking up a fan base that reacted well to Shadowdark. It also likely hit at just the right time as D&D fans were looking for a new flavor of dungeon crawl. Creator Kelsey Dionne was kind enough to give me an advance copy of the full PDF and discussed the game at Gary Con where she was running full table demos for enthusiastic backers. How does the game recapture that dangerous feeling of classic dungeon crawls while still keeping popular elements of 5e? Let’s play to find out.

Shadowdark throws things back to a classic dungeon crawl experience with quick character creation, deadly encounters that players must weigh between fighting, avoiding or outright fleeing. Dionne has said that she wants to deliver those old school elements but not be stuck with legacy mechanics. Take the best stuff from those older sourcers but also elements from more modern designs. There are also a few things in the game that make it unique. The most well known one is the use of a real life timer. Torches last one hour in the dungeon and things get much more difficult in the dark. Time and light also seem like resources that can endanger characters beyond the claws of monsters and the spikes of traps. Staying out of the dark becomes something the DM can use to complicate encounters. Monsters go after whoever holds the light source first. Players have to find a place to stash the torch during a treacherous climb. That timer also puts pressure on the players to act rather than planning to plan.

Character creation wears its ancient influences on its bracers. Six traits, 3d6 for each all the way down with four classes to choose from. All of these classes fit on one or two pages for ease of reference and simplicity of choice. That randomness extends to a handful of charts where players can roll for a completely random character. The breeziness of the process makes it easy to ditch a set of rolls for a new character or not get too broken up should that character become a grue snack early on in the game. Randomness continues as characters grow with level ups coming off of a chart that contains the usual mix of class talents, ability improvements and such. Rolling a 12 means the player chooses, otherwise progression is left a little to chance. XP is handled by collecting treasure, allowing for players to grow without having to throw down in combat. As someone who prefers to design characters, this isn’t my usual cup of tea, but I’ve also come to enjoy playing characters as they lie too. Gaining a +1 to longsword attacks tells an emergent story based on what happened in the dungeon. It brings to mind those moments where a fighter pulls out their trusty weapon and says “We’ve been through a few things, haven’t we?” that fits this kind of story better.

There are also modern bits of design in Shadowdark. The most obvious lift is advantage and disadvantage but there are others that stand out from the general classic D&D base. Ancestry is another, both in using the modern terminology and being a broad feat-style bonus rather than a predetermined number of bonuses and penalties. These characters also are given smaller, wider bonuses as they level rather than cranking up the math to higher levels. Armor Class goes up, ability scores turn into d20 modifiers and casters only lose spells on a failed casting roll. Though the fights are brutal, death saves of a sort exist. Characters have 1d4 plus their CON modifier to either roll a 20 on their turn or get healed/stabilized. Enough of these elements exist that make this an excellent game for older D&D players to show new 5e fans how things were done in the “old days” without worrying about explaining THAC0 or why the wizards must carry around a dagger.

A few elements blend the old school and the modern together. Players gain XP for gaining treasure but they also gain it for spending treasure on raucous nights at the pub. The more players spend, the more XP they gain. There are charts of course, that offer other consequences of those blurry nights of carousing. Consequences that can tie in to later adventures. When that mysterious tattoo the wizard picked up during their last trip to town starts glowing in the dungeon, it’s a good way to weave a longer story into the game.

And if the rules included aren’t enough, Shadowdark provides options. Even something central like the torch timer has options as something the players can watch on the clock or something the DM tracks behind the screen. GMs can turn the dial towards hardcore with choices like death at zero hit points or making stabilization harder or they can lower the difficulty through more use of luck tokens or giving out XP for dead monsters. Though the four basic classes offer a lot of options more official ones, like the Pit Fighter and the Hell Knight, have been seen in upcoming Cursed Scroll supplements. Kickstarer backers also chose the ranger and the bard to be developed as stretch goals. The lightness of the classes means making one that feels like an old favorite very easy for homebrew and third party options.

Beyond official expansions, rules edits or third party community choices, Shadowdark captured one of 5e’s most underrated strengths: adaptability. With a minimum of prep time, I feel like I could run everything from King’s Festival to The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho tonight for a mix of players who’ve never played and ones that have been around since the 80s. Shadowdark cuts most of the fat of other versions of D&D, leaving a lean, mean dungeon crawling machine.

You don't have to take my word for it. This Shadowdark Quickstart contains everything you need to try out the game.
 

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Rob Wieland

Rob Wieland

Last week my players (5th level PCs) captured some bandits and are turning them in. What do you think is a reasonable bounty and how much XP should it net?

(Haven't played yet so this is just from reading the game) Going by the rules I'd think a good gp reward/3 XP reward looks right, but if it was a major quest I might raise it to 5 XP given they're 5th level, and that is 10% of the XP needed to level up.
Standard award at level 5 would be 50 gp per PC, that could be doubled to 100 gp/PC for a major endeavour.
 

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I am on the verge of deciding that the world outside the Arcland is a "Sumerian era" one rather than a "medievalish" one. That is to say, early bronze age, dawn of civilization. I can't think of anything I would have to change in.the SD rules, and I like the vibe -- especially juxtaposed against a high tech science fantasy "adventure zone." PCs could be from not-Sumer, not-Egypt, not-Indus Valley, as well as some anachronistic Greek-ish and pre-Celt-ish cultures. But everyone wants the metals and beam weapons from the Arcland...
This is exactly the set up I use for my published setting, Scavenger, and is something I'm seeing more people start to incorporate themselves. Another person I know on blogspot has a similar Bronze Age meets Super Advanced Civ setting; I think they're super interesting and seeing more people independently come to these makes me super happy.
 






Over Nov 1 - Nov 3 at Carnage on the Mountain in Killington VT, I ran a 3 session con-campaign that was my take on a Barrier Peaks style adventure using Shadowdark.

I created a total of 12 4th level pre-gens using Shadowdarklings dot net. I was lucky enough to have the same 5 players for each of the 3 sessions (continuity always improves these things) as well as a straggler 6th player in the final session. Two PCs died and one betrayed the party throughout the adventures, and I allowed the PCs to level up for the final session.

The premise of the Arcland is thus: it is a blasted wasteland where electrical storms emerge from the ground rather than the sky, and sometimes those storms are accompanied by the opening of a "Well" -- a tunnel down into the strange world of arcane machinery and strange mutants and robots. This is not the result of a long buried alien spaceship crash, though. Rather, the technomagically enhanced Hollow Earth civilization long ago set their machine to reach for the surface, but became corrupt over time.

When it was discovered that Arcane Crystals could be looted from the Wells, the Arcland became a gold rush and the rough and tumble town of Arcverge appeared. Controlled y the Artificers Guild, who did the buying of the Arcane Crystals for their own endeavors, Arcverge was also home to other factions. Various "Gate Gangs" similar to thieves guilds controlled access to certain Wells, charging fees to enter and taxes on what was retrieved. There were also to Osterions, a cult that sought to severely limit access to the lands below for their own mysterious reasons.

The PCs arrive and make an Artificer contact who they call Wheels based on his, well, wheels instead of legs. Wheels gives them the rundown of which Gate Gangs to trust and which to avoid, and ultimately the PCs contract with Wheels and decide to go on their first delve. It is full of weirdness and wonder and they successfully pull a bunch of Arcane Crystals from below. They do make a negative impression on a couple factions in the process, and this will come back to haunt them.

Note: I knew the lore and setup and factions of the game, but due to educational and professional responsibilities I had not really had a lot of time to prep for Carnage. I am a light prep pantser anyway, but I needed a little more meat for dungeon crawling. So I turned to Shadowdark's dungeon generation rules and flavored everything with the technomagical theme I wanted for the game. I also made sure every creature or obstacle was weird and unique. no goblins here, or stock enemies of any kind.

So it was that a couple random rolls and how I interpreted them turned the whole thing on its head with session 2. This was much more of a puzzle dungeon than the first, which had more of a tradition ruin vibe. In session 2, they discovered a room full of cryogenically frozen Hollow Earthers (100 of them, in fact). Again, this came out of some weird die results and my own weird interpretation of them.

One of the PCs happened to be a Grave Warden (NOT a necromancer!) and asked if they could speak with dead. it was a philosophical question, and I debated it, but finally went with "Sure" because a) saying Yes is fun, and b) I did say they were frozen, not hibernating. The short conversation they had with the poor soul caused one thing to lead to another and what do you know, tey ended up thawing the fellow out.

To make a long story short: this individual turned out to be essentially Khan, and would try and use the Osterians to help him wake the 99 other Hollow Earth super soldiers in their nigh indestructible nanomachine suits. The PCs were forced to align themselves with an insane AI, which they accidentally uploaded into a robotic Purple Worm, and ultimately had to fight "Khan" with Horizon Zero Dawn style cobbled together electrical weapons (that was the "nigh" part of "nigh invulnerable) to defeat him and save Arcverge and the wider world.

I really love Shadowdark.
 

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