Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Fenris-77]

I understand there are people who like standardized trade dress, but as good as Shadowdark layout is, it's not the last word in it. I definitely support stealing good ideas from everywhere, including how Rot Black Sludge is laid out in Mork Borg.

Johan Nohr also did the layout for the remaster of Into the Odd, and I stole a little from each (they're pretty similar). I find a lot of dungeons have really cramped writeups and are hard to use at the table, especially if you're a little older (as I am) and struggle with poor contrast and micro fonts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Johan Nohr also did the layout for the remaster of Into the Odd, and I stole a little from each (they're pretty similar). I find a lot of dungeons have really cramped writeups and are hard to use at the table, especially if you're a little older (as I am) and struggle with poor contrast and micro fonts.

Yeah, I appreciate the goal of one page dungeons, a few years ago, streamlining the written content of a dungeon way down, but I think it inadvertently did so at the expense of legibility. I welcome our new professional layout overlords who have since come into the space and shown you can have it all, with (sometimes substantial) effort.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, I appreciate the goal of one page dungeons, a few years ago, streamlining the written content of a dungeon way down, but I think it inadvertently did so at the expense of legibility. I welcome our new professional layout overlords who have since come into the space and shown you can have it all, with (sometimes substantial) effort.

I'm trying very hard to walk that fine line between incuding enough evocative prose to give people the feels but to keep the writing overall as tight as possible. It's not the easiest task, but I think it's probably best practice.

 

[Bae'zel]

I understand there are people who like standardized trade dress, but as good as Shadowdark layout is, it's not the last word in it. I definitely support stealing good ideas from everywhere, including how Rot Black Sludge is laid out in Mork Borg.

I like a fine balance of cool style and really solid, clear readability/ usability.

The Black Sword Hack is just about perfect to me.

 

[Fenris-77]

I like a fine balance of cool style and really solid, clear readability/ usability.

The Black Sword Hack is just about perfect to me.

Yeah, Kobayashi is a great designer. All his stuff is awesome.

 

[Bill Zebub]

With a tip of the cap to Mork Borg, I think I have a dungeon page layout I'm happy with. I'm straying away from what the 'standard' SD dungeon looks like a little as I have some (I suppose) slightly different design goals. I'm trying to achieve a less cluttered and more accessible page layout. So all the fonts are 12 and 14 pt and I'm trying to leave lots of white space.

View attachment 408231

I very much like this layout.

 

[Reynard]

I still think people should get weirder with Shadowdark than they generally do.

Rats and goblins and skeletons, oh my. Boring. The rats should be inside out and cause gelatinous fever. Goblins should be marauders from the moon. Skeletons should be wicker men full of lilliputians. Or whatever.

I know. I know. People like "classic D&Disms." But Shadowdark feels wasted on that stuff.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I still think people should get weirder with Shadowdark than they generally do.

Rats and goblins and skeletons, oh my. Boring. The rats should be inside out and cause gelatinous fever. Goblins should be marauders from the moon. Skeletons should be wicker men full of lilliputians. Or whatever.

I know. I know. People like "classic D&Disms." But Shadowdark feels wasted on that stuff.

I think Shadowdark appeals to at least two camps:

1. People who've tried multiple RPGs and like Shadowdark as one of multiple systems, to be used for a specific task
2. People who mostly know TSR D&D, are excited to find something that runs better than it, and just want to play the stuff they loved in the 1980s without having to wrangle to-hit charts and saving throw matrices

I like Shadowdark getting weird as well -- I'm super-excited to use Glumdark and Into the Wyrd & Wild with it, which are basically both heavy metal versions of fantasy roleplaying -- but I have come to understand that, for a lot of people, this might be their first new RPG since last playing AD&D in 1993 and they're initially mostly interested in picking up where they left off.

Witness everyone on the Shadowdark Facebook group who want to play Dark Sun, Spelljammer and Gamma World with this new ruleset they've encountered, which has the benefit of three decades of better design that it's built on.

 

[Scribe]

Witness everyone on the Shadowdark Facebook group who want to play Dark Sun, Spelljammer and Gamma World with this new ruleset they've encountered, which has the benefit of three decades of better design that it's built on.

Considering the not-SpellJammer kickstarter, the current not-Ravenloft kickstarter, the default leans at least a little into Sword and Sorcery...yeah.

Its just a cleaner, perhaps cleanest, D&D.

 

[Bae'zel]

I still think people should get weirder with Shadowdark than they generally do.

Rats and goblins and skeletons, oh my. Boring. The rats should be inside out and cause gelatinous fever. Goblins should be marauders from the moon. Skeletons should be wicker men full of lilliputians. Or whatever.

I know. I know. People like "classic D&Disms." But Shadowdark feels wasted on that stuff.

I mean, would it be so hard to reskin those things? The rules are so light.

But I’m with you: i want to see weirder fan made stuff.