Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Arilyn]

Every torch being held is a shield or a weapon not being held. The overlit party will be weaker elsewhere.

If you've got multiple torches burning, things that take out your light are going to hit them all. You don't want to be caught in the dark with 0 torches and a fizzled light spell.

 

[overgeeked]

If you've got multiple torches burning, things that take out your light are going to hit them all. You don't want to be caught in the dark with 0 torches and a fizzled light spell.

Why would they? If the point of having a unique timer for each torch is because it's more "realistic" it then breaks that sense of "realism" if you have a monster attack one torch and somehow they all go out together.

 

[Mannahnin]

If you've got multiple torches burning, things that take out your light are going to hit them all. You don't want to be caught in the dark with 0 torches and a fizzled light spell.

Some things that take out your light would hit all of them.

Others, like a monster attacking a torch-bearer or throwing a bucket of water on him, would only affect one.

 

[kermit4karate]

And PCs are quite capable of dying horribly in sumptuously illuminated dumgeons.

Probably making any resource critically vital will lead to countermeasures and bookkeepingification.

Normally, I'd agree, especially when it comes to 5E and other additions of D&D.

And PCs are quite capable of dying horribly in sumptuously illuminated dumgeons.

Probably making any resource critically vital will lead to countermeasures and bookkeepingification.

The timer is pretty foundational to the SD experience though. I don't look at that game as just another OSR-like game. It stands well apart in its own niche to me due to the total package it offers.

 

[NN]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Shadowdark is an excellent OSR engine and the darkness mania is selling it short.

 

[Basic Expert]

I have the rules, but I haven't had a chance to play this yet as our group has a full list of campaigns going or on the horizon.

My question is how receptive players are towards random-talent leveling? My players aren't serious optimizers, but I don't know how much they would go for completely random character development.

I certainly get the design-ethos of ditching Spreadsheets & Splatbooks, but does the system inhibit long-term playability or a lack of investment in the resulting character?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'd be curious to hear more from @Whizbang Dustyboots about how the use of multiple timers affected the tension in his games, because I struggle with that element too -- the use of the timers. I LOVE SD and the impact the timer has on the game. I just don't like the suspension of disbelief required on my part and that of the players to accept...how they don't make any logical sense at all.

The torch timers serve a number of purposes, with only one of them being the fear of combat. Limited resources getting used up for every second that the group deliberates over whether to search the room more closely or quoting The Princess Bride encourages them all to keep it moving, which in my experience, means more things get done.

Also, the multiple torches thing isn't a big deal, IMO, because you can always have things attack the light. Having a back-up torch makes those torches a more viable target without it being a super-dirty trick for GMs to use. (I have homebrew monsters whose abilities explicitly extinguish light sources, either one by one or in an area of effect.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Shadowdark is an excellent OSR engine and the darkness mania is selling it short.

The conversations around most games sell them short. Over on the Shadowdark Facebook group, you'd come away with the impression that everyone is going through three or four characters per session, which just isn't true, generally speaking.

Always on initiative and the torch timer are different than most RPGs, so it's not surprising that people would want to discuss them.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My question is how receptive players are towards random-talent leveling? My players aren't serious optimizers, but I don't know how much they would go for completely random character development.

I have players who are serious 5E optimizers in my Shadowdark game, and they seem to be fine with it. It probably helps that we alternate games so they can scratch that optimization itch regularly with 5E.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think it also helps that many of the talents include an element of choice (like the ability increase ones, or a bonus to attack rolls which lets you pick melee or ranged), and that they're pretty much all fundamentally "you get better at your job". 31/36 possible results on the Wizard table, for example, make you better at casting spells if that's what you want (either +1 to all or advantage on one). The other two possible results give you an additional spell known (more spells and more versatility) or a free magic item.

The only ones which I can sort of read as pushing you in a direction which might not have been your first choice are something like 3-6 vs 7-9 on the Cleric chart, where the former gives you an attack bonus and the latter a casting bonus, where maybe you rolled one and would have preferred to specialize more in the other, but fundamentally you probably wouldn't have picked the class if you didn't want to do both, right?