Quick Tip: Using Shadowdark RPG for Sword & Sorcery gaming

[CapnZapp]

I’m one of those dissenters who thinks S&S is just fine with multiple alien/vigorously nonhuman species (Your Honor, I call Grimjack to the stand). But I like different than usual ones, and I love the other human species. So we can imagine Sisyphus happy. Ditto for the reskinned monsters.

Let me state for the record: you can absolutely feature demihumans in your S&S.

 

[xoth.publishing]

Let me state for the record: you can absolutely feature demihumans in your S&S.

You can feature [whatever] in your [whatever], but this thread is specifically about how to replace demihumans and goblinoids in a high fantasy book to make it humanocentric.

 

[CapnZapp]

You can feature [whatever] in your [whatever], but this thread is specifically about how to replace demihumans and goblinoids in a high fantasy book to make it humanocentric.

I was reassuring Autumnal I am not considering their playstyle bad or wrong. As for my own preferences, I am definitely on board with the thread's aims

 

[xoth.publishing]

"Pteor-Voth, Sorcerer-King of Shargallah, looked out across the sands of the arena, littered with the bones of dead champions. He raised his hands and shouted: "Release the Krathuul!" The small group of men and women who stood in the arena, naked except for simple loincloths, nervously grasped their simple weapons of stone and bone as the rusted iron portcullis was lifted by unseen slaves, and the roar of the feared Krathuul was heard from within..."

Just a little inspirational swords and sorcery fiction... perhaps the start of an S&S Shadowdark game?

 

[S'mon]

Good ideas thanks Thulsa! I was just looking at the Midlands SnS sandbox yesterday and thinking how well it would suit Shadowdark with these kinds of tweaks.

I loved my Dragonbane Xoth campaign, one of my players is still raving over it - I'll probably stick with Dragonbane when I run Xoth again, but I am using Shadowdark for my version of the Wilderlands and it works great. I can also see using Shadowdark for the Primeval Thule SnS setting which would avoid the problems I encountered with high level 5e, while being easy to convert 5e materials over.

 

[Nightfly]

I can also see using Shadowdark for the Primeval Thule SnS setting

Shadowdark and Primeval Thule seems like a match made in heaven.

 

[Theory of Games]

Great ideas here, but for S&S I'd drop the non-humans and magic for PCs, while keeping Alignment. Looking forward to the ideas of others

 

[S'mon]

Not sure why half the people in this thread have apparently been banned
I think Shadowdark is a good fit for 1980s style SnS such as Thieves World, which often had magic using protagonists. Also fits well with Elric and other Moorcockian settings. For a more purist Conanesque game without PC casters there are probably better OSR choices.

 

[S'mon]

My campaign page for Shadowdark Midlands SnS setting - The Midlands of Argosa (Shadowdark) - I'm doing humans plus half-Skorn only, though the setting does technically have elves and dwarves.

 

[xoth.publishing]

Not sure why half the people in this thread have apparently been banned
I think Shadowdark is a good fit for 1980s style SnS such as Thieves World, which often had magic using protagonists. Also fits well with Elric and other Moorcockian settings. For a more purist Conanesque game without PC casters there are probably better OSR choices.

Truth be told, I've never run a Sword & Sorcery campaign, in any game system, without at least 1 PC as a magic-user.

I think that even though the ("purist Conanesque") fiction doesn't have magic-users as protagonists, RPGs are a different medium and it's okay to have PC casters, as long as you remove the "superhero" spells (fireball, fly, etc).