Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Fenris-77]

It occurs to me that a similar approach might be cool for running Inquisition detachments as well. I have the Inquisition as something closer to a chaos-focused Mi6 than the Spanish inquisition in SoE.

 

[Velderan]

We had a couple players out Monday for our usual PF2e campaign, so we went with the Shadowdark gauntlet I mentioned upthread a bit. This was our first time playing SD, so here's some observations.

• We played on Foundry VTT, so keep that in mind for some of these observations. Session was about 2ish hours.
• None of us had ever played a gauntlet/funnel style game, so it was a big change of pace. The players had fun with it, despite losing somewhere around 6 characters between the 4 of them.
• I stuck strictly to the always on initiative to get an extended look at it and figure out where we might be able to relax it a bit. Overall it worked wonderfully at making sure everyone stayed involved and had an equal chance to find loot or discover something. It did create some weirdness when they wanted to move from room to room with only 1 torch lit. I think next time that is when I would relax the initiative order to allow a smoother transition.
• Torch timer created a nice sense of urgency that helped move things along. I don't think the players knew they could roughly see how much time was left on the Foundry character sheet of the PC holding it, so beyond me telling them when there was a couple minutes left that the torch was beginning to sputter a bit they didn't know how much time they had. I don't see a reason to ever stop using this in situations where light is an issue.
• To the best of my knowledge all of the players first experience with TTRPGs was either D&D 3e or 5e, so they're used to the game having some sort of skill or talent system. Not having skills to fall back on to ask to roll checks wasn't really any issue to figure things out. I don't think I made them roll many checks all night either.
• When combat did happen, it flowed really quick which was a nice change of pace.

They made it about halfway through the dungeon, so we'll probably finish it up in 2 weeks when we'll be missing the same 2 players for our weekly game again. We've discussed giving the game an extended look playing level 1 characters during an in-person session next month, we'll see how that goes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It seems people either really immediately get Shadowdark's de facto skill system or are completely baffled by it.

It sounds like a great session. If they do get caught in the dark next time, I predict they will work hard to never let it happen again.

 

[Velderan]

Oh the other observation: starting at 0th level with randomly generated characters was fun. Foundry lets you generate a random 0th or 1st level PC in 2 clicks, complete with random inventory. Immediately only 1 PC had a flint and steel and another had a torch, so figuring out how to get light before they proceeded was the first challenge. Half of them didn’t have weapons so using what they had until they found actual weapons was funny. And when they found a regular long sword? You’d think they just found a +5 weapon, which is partially what I was worrying they might not feel rewarded finding after years of playing games where they got used to stacking up magic weapons to sell when they got back to town.

We left off with them accidentally waking a troll while trying to tie it up so they have the benefit of 2 weeks before we play again to figure a way out of that one.

 

[Scribe]

Oh the other observation: starting at 0th level with randomly generated characters was fun. Foundry lets you generate a random 0th or 1st level PC in 2 clicks, complete with random inventory. Immediately only 1 PC had a flint and steel and another had a torch, so figuring out how to get light before they proceeded was the first challenge. Half of them didn’t have weapons so using what they had until they found actual weapons was funny. And when they found a regular long sword? You’d think they just found a +5 weapon, which is partially what I was worrying they might not feel rewarded finding after years of playing games where they got used to stacking up magic weapons to sell when they got back to town.

We left off with them accidentally waking a troll while trying to tie it up so they have the benefit of 2 weeks before we play again to figure a way out of that one.

I needed some good vibes so thanks.

I have to get back to my stuff and finish it off, my Psion was close before things kind of fell off the rails with holidays and travel.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm going to be running a one-shot playtest of my newest SD adventure Blood in the Water this Saturday if anyone wants a seat. It'll be early afternoon EST or dinner time for peeps in the UK. I have one seat, perhaps two. Let me know if you want to play. The adeventure is 80 pages and I have to whittle it down to a 2.5 hour one shot time slot for a live play in early October, so I need some reps.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In today's episode of Between Two Cairns, the hosts answer a mailbag (moodsack) question about how to stop players from endlessly deliberating about a course of action. They immediately say, "well, in Shadowdark, the real-time torch timer solves this," and then spend 15 minutes trying to come up with a general solution for other games. (They settle on "whatever's right for your game.")

I know a lot of people are skeptical about Shadowdark's torch timer, but it solves a real problem I think most DMs have encountered at some point, sometimes in every single session. I have some deliberators who play in my Shadowdark game, and even though we're playing online, I can feel their eyes watching the clock when they start discussing what to do.

 

[Bae'zel]

I'll tell you one thing that Shadowdark has taught me: "always on" initiative has been a godsend with keeping order with larger groups of players. Such as going around the table to ensure everyone has a chance to declare their reactions and intentions (sharing the spotlight).

I've used this method a few times and it's really helped me manage my games.

 

[Scribe]

In today's episode of Between Two Cairns, the hosts answer a mailbag (moodsack) question about how to stop players from endlessly deliberating about a course of action. They immediately say, "well, in Shadowdark, the real-time torch timer solves this," and then spend 15 minutes trying to come up with a general solution for other games. (They settle on "whatever's right for your game.")

I know a lot of people are skeptical about Shadowdark's torch timer, but it solves a real problem I think most DMs have encountered at some point, sometimes in every single session. I have some deliberators who play in my Shadowdark game, and even though we're playing online, I can feel their eyes watching the clock when they start discussing what to do.

Time pressure is something that I think is really key. SD Torch, and various clocks (Daggerheart) that tick on Short/Long Rest? Great tools.

 

[Mannahnin]

Random encounter rolls or just Colville-style "orcs attack!" are also reasonable solutions.

But yeah, the combo of real time torches + how much encumbrance torches take up in SD is definitely a solid solution.