Shadowdark Shadowdark Discussion Thread [+]

[Jahydin]

I have to say, one of my favorite aspects of Shadowdark is remaining in initiative order and taking turns when out of combat. It really combats the bystander effect and helps those that are shy to feel more included.

Anyone else run it this way?

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Yep its really good for that! It definitely spreads out the load of decision making throughout the players by rotating who is acting, much like Spotlight Shifting that various storygames use.

I do something similar to combat bystander effect in OSE - when a player declares an action, before resolving it I go around the table and ask what everyone else's characters do during that timeframe. Then I resolve everything at once. It doesn't quite work as well as shadowdark's initiative at pushing people out of their comfort zones though, actually specifically asking and focusing on a single player at a time is much better for that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have to say, one of my favorite aspects of Shadowdark is remaining in initiative order and taking turns when out of combat. It really combats the bystander effect and helps those that are shy to feel more included.

Anyone else run it this way?

I have found it useful for the same reason, so much that I've incorporated it into other games I've played, just to make sure everyone gets a chance to talk.

 

[The Firebird]

I have to say, one of my favorite aspects of Shadowdark is remaining in initiative order and taking turns when out of combat. It really combats the bystander effect and helps those that are shy to feel more included.

Anyone else run it this way?

I quite like it for table management. Sometimes as a player, I don't love it for dungeon crawling. The issue being, everyone wants to do something and there are a limited number of things to do, and so it causes the party to move through the dungeon more rapidly than is wise.

E.g., if in the room there are two barrels to search, a chest, and a passage going further, player 1 starts messing with the chest, player 2 starts messing with the barrels. Ime the GM may rule "these take time so we'll resolve it when it comes around to you again". But then player 3 has nothing to do...so they choose to move onto the next room, and then the goblins hear the party and attack, while players 1 and 2 are still in the middle of their search.

I think that's avoidable with skilled GMing or skilled players, but I've seen it as a failure mode at cons especially.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

E.g., if in the room there are two barrels to search, a chest, and a passage going further, player 1 starts messing with the chest, player 2 starts messing with the barrels. Ime the GM may rule "these take time so we'll resolve it when it comes around to you again". But then player 3 has nothing to do...so they choose to move onto the next room, and then the goblins hear the party and attack, while players 1 and 2 are still in the middle of their search.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

I quite like it for table management. Sometimes as a player, I don't love it for dungeon crawling. The issue being, everyone wants to do something and there are a limited number of things to do, and so it causes the party to move through the dungeon more rapidly than is wise.

E.g., if in the room there are two barrels to search, a chest, and a passage going further, player 1 starts messing with the chest, player 2 starts messing with the barrels. Ime the GM may rule "these take time so we'll resolve it when it comes around to you again". But then player 3 has nothing to do...so they choose to move onto the next room, and then the goblins hear the party and attack, while players 1 and 2 are still in the middle of their search.

I think that's avoidable with skilled GMing or skilled players, but I've seen it as a failure mode at cons especially.

I think the advantage of the initiative system+real-time clock is you don't really need to wait to resolve each player's action like that - you can just resolve each action as its declared, rather than going around in a circle "collecting" actions and resolving them after a delay.

 

[The Firebird]

I think the advantage of the initiative system+real-time clock is you don't really need to wait to resolve each player's action like that - you can just resolve each action as its declared, rather than going around in a circle "collecting" actions and resolving them after a delay.

Agreed, and this is how I would run it. I suppose the habits from initiative in combat carry over in some cases.

 

[Retros_x]

while players 1 and 2 are still in the middle of their search.

But arent they already done with their search? Like player 1 has their turn, search the barrel, you resolve, next player turn, they search the other thing, you resolve? They would still stand there of course, so maybe thats what you mean.

Also a single player going alone in the next room, especially if he is not a sneaky scout, is also a player problem I would say They could also just go to the door and guard it during the search eg. and after that they regroup and move into the next room as a group. I would let it play out the first time and afterwards do a little ... post-mortem heh. Or maybe if they are total noobs I would give player 3 the classic warning: "are you sure you want to move to the next room alone?"

 

[Fenris-77]

I think it's an acceptable expansion of time to facilitate the clean turn. Each successive action takes into account previous actions. You can get declarations from everyone and then resolve them in order, but that's pushing back against the basic rules a little. In the case of the character leaving, another player should just say, Hey, wait a second broheim, we're still searching here...

 

[The Firebird]

But arent they already done with their search? Like player 1 has their turn, search the barrel, you resolve, next player turn, they search the other thing, you resolve? They would still stand there of course, so maybe thats what you mean.

Thats how I would run it. But I've seen GMs keep the kind of "combat initiative" where you get one action per round, and decide searching takes multiple actions, so they are still in the middle.