Shadowdark Shadowdark Discussion Thread [+]

[Bae'zel]

I'll be running @SlyFlourish 's one-session Castle Ravenloft game for my son's birthday next week.

Pretty excited; been planning this for a long time.

I want to keep things fast and loose as the players explore the castle, so the turn-based Shadowdark structure works fine. Most of the time it will be theatre of the mind, but will be using my Darkest Dungeon board game minis and tiles for running combat set pieces.

Thanks to @Fenris-77 's book "Shadows of Empire" I've even got some handy black powder firearms rules for the Musketeer and Highwayman.

 

[zottel]

I'll be running @SlyFlourish 's one-session Castle Ravenloft game for my son's birthday next week.

Pretty excited; been planning this for a long time.

I want to keep things fast and loose as the players explore the castle, so the turn-based Shadowdark structure works fine. Most of the time it will be theatre of the mind, but will be using my Darkest Dungeon board game minis and tiles for running combat set pieces.

Thanks to @Fenris-77 's book "Shadows of Empire" I've even got some handy black powder firearms rules for the Musketeer and Highwayman.

That sounds really fun! Can you maybe post a short report about how it went, what worked well and so on?
I have Mikes go at Ravenloft on my bucket list, and recently have purchased Shadows of Empire as well. And Darkest Dungeon is a huge influence on the vibe I am going after frequently.
So, to sum it up, would really love to see how it goes!

 

[SlyFlourish]

Here's the article about running Ravenloft with Shadowdark as a Halloween one-shot game:

Running I6 Ravenloft with Shadowdark RPG

This article has been updated from the one published on 23 September 2024. Each year I like to run Castle Ravenloft, either through the original I6 Ravenloft adventure from 1983 or the updated Castle ...

slyflourish.com

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

what is that again?

To accomplish a task, a character needs the following:

1. The time necessary to complete the task
2. The tools necessary to complete the task
3. The skills necessary to complete the task

If they have all three of those, there is no roll under normal circumstances, they're just able to do it. (Obviously, lockpicking the vault of the god of secrets or something would be an extraordinary case.)

If they they don't have any of those, don't bother rolling. It's just beyond their capability. The cleric is not going to be able to pick a lock on the dungeon door with a hairpin while the group is taking fire from goblin archers.

If they have two of those, they can roll, because the success is clearly possible, but will be challenging. (That cleric will probably still need to roll with disadvantage if there's no arrow fire, even with the dead thief's lockpicks, since they're figuring out how to do lockpicking.)

In Shadowdark (this three-part test was created for B/X and OD&D style games), I'd say if you only have one of those, you roll with disadvantage. Even the thief, without their lockpicks and under fire from the goblins, is going to find it harder than usual to pick the lock.

This test means you're not rolling the dice for stuff that PCs should obviously be able to do, so you don't end up with nonsense like low level AD&D thieves falling to their deaths trying to climb perfectly normal walls -- the roll only is required when they're under pressure.

 

[Reynard]

To accomplish a task, a character needs the following:

1. The time necessary to complete the task
2. The tools necessary to complete the task
3. The skills necessary to complete the task

If they have all three of those, there is no roll under normal circumstances, they're just able to do it. (Obviously, lockpicking the vault of the god of secrets, or something, would be an extraordinary case.)

If they they don't have any of those, don't both rolling. It's just beyond their capability. The cleric is not going to be able to pick a lock on the dungeon door with a hairpin while the group is taking fire from goblin archers.

If they have two of those, they can roll, because the success is clearly possible, but will be challenging. (That cleric will probably still need to roll with disadvantage if there's no arrow fire, even with the dead thief's lockpicks, since they're figuring out how to do lockpicking.)

In Shadowdark (this three-part test was created for B/X and OD&D style games), I'd say if you only have one of those, you roll with disadvantage. Even the thief, without their lockpicks and under fire from the goblins, is going to find it harder than usual to pick the lock.

This test means you're not rolling the dice for stuff that PCs should obviously be able to do, so you don't end up with nonsense like low level AD&D thieves falling to their deaths trying to climb perfectly normal walls -- the roll only is required when they're under pressure.

I like that paradigm and I feel weird for never having encountered it before.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like that paradigm and I feel weird for never having encountered it before.

Knock magazine is amazing, although you definitely want good reading glasses, because the text is tiny.

 

[overgeeked]

To accomplish a task, a character needs the following:

1. The time necessary to complete the task
2. The tools necessary to complete the task
3. The skills necessary to complete the task

If they have all three of those, there is no roll under normal circumstances, they're just able to do it. (Obviously, lockpicking the vault of the god of secrets or something would be an extraordinary case.)

If they they don't have any of those, don't bother rolling. It's just beyond their capability. The cleric is not going to be able to pick a lock on the dungeon door with a hairpin while the group is taking fire from goblin archers.

If they have two of those, they can roll, because the success is clearly possible, but will be challenging. (That cleric will probably still need to roll with disadvantage if there's no arrow fire, even with the dead thief's lockpicks, since they're figuring out how to do lockpicking.)

In Shadowdark (this three-part test was created for B/X and OD&D style games), I'd say if you only have one of those, you roll with disadvantage. Even the thief, without their lockpicks and under fire from the goblins, is going to find it harder than usual to pick the lock.

This test means you're not rolling the dice for stuff that PCs should obviously be able to do, so you don't end up with nonsense like low level AD&D thieves falling to their deaths trying to climb perfectly normal walls -- the roll only is required when they're under pressure.

My brain's need for symmetry wants to put in something more, another criteria to get a spread of:

1. Automatic fail.
2. Roll with disadvantage.
3. Straight roll.
4. Roll with advantage.
5. Automatic success.

 

[darjr]

Needs to be a cyberpunk post apoc RPG in a giant generation ship called “Automatic Fail”.

Using Shadowdark of coarse!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Needs to be a cyberpunk post apoc RPG in a giant generation ship called “Automatic Fail”.

"Automatic Fail" feels like a patch that would come as a bonus for a Mothership crowdfunding campaign.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Monte Cook is running Shadowdark and has come around to presenting adventures in a simpler fashion than he did in the past. (I'm currently running Banewarrens, and it's good, but it could definitely be presented more simply.)

Monte Cook on dungeon design, Gygaxian feedback, and shaping the $5 PDF

And why he didn't stay on the design team for D&D 5e.

www.rascal.news

I read a lot of game products, not just ours, but a lot of game products. I currently have a Shadowdark game, and I'm using some adventures that other people have written and everything. Some of the reason for that is just out of necessity, and some of it is because I want to see for myself. Everyone's designing adventures and dungeon adventures and making choices on how to present the material, and I have developed very firm opinions about the best ways to do that. I look back at some big adventure that I wrote 20 years ago, and I just say, what a hassle this would be to run. It's a constantly honing process to the point where the thing that I'm most excited about Jewel in the Sky is actually the boring format of the way the information is presented.

In Jewel in the Sky, every section of the dungeon gets four pages, and the first page will just be background and stuff that is fun to read, but it isn't necessary to have access at the table. And then there's a two-page spread, which has a map, and all the information that you need to run all those encounters and do all that stuff is right there in succinct bullet points. Then, all the game stats are on the fourth page.

I'm picking up a lot of stuff that the OSR is doing. I think there are things about OSR gaming that I don't understand — the randomness and all of that. But the clear and concise nature of giving the Game Master the tools, I like very much.