Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Fenris-77]

Since my son decided he needed to wake me up, and I'm not yet ready to jump back into work, lets gaze upon the navel a bit.



First, I'm not against domain play, or urban intrigue, or anything else really that people want to do with Shadowdark, I'm not resistant to the idea, my point was that to me (emphasis on my own view) Shadowdark's core conceits, its gameplay loop, and its tone, are all very intentional.

I've still never sat down and put out my thoughts on SD as a whole, spare time was going against writing my own stuff. So...lets see how far I can get before I'm interrupted.

(Spoilers, I didnt even get to finish that sentence lol)

Frustratingly then, heres the Coles Notes version on how I look at SD, and its appeal to me.

1. The game is realized, immediately. While Casters will gain spells, and there are some Talents which are locked under specific and low odds rolls, for the majority of the players experience, they immediately are the Class in full. There is no 'build'. There is no 'I'll be awesome once I hit level X and my character is online!'

You roll your stats (this is also central but I likely dont have time to go into it all) you pick your class, and you are off and the game is the game.

2. The loop is direct, and simple, because the systems all work together.

A: Why do you adventure? To get loot.
B: Why do you get loot? To party, and level up.
C: You are now out of loot.
D: Return to A.

Thats it, Level 1 to Level 10. You begin the game as your fully realized class, you 'finish' the game as your fully realized class, and you pick up some loot and experiences along the way and these systems work together. Treasure has a purpose, its baked right into the game. That Treasure also has a cost (Gear Slots) which are limited, which ties into the gameplay as well but again I dont have time for a full deconstruction.

So, we then come to where I (again, me personal) do not see Shadowholds, as working with that loop but subverting it or working outside of it.

The A to D loop, assumes you have a need to adventure. You are not some land owner. You do not own a business. You are not for lack of a better term, established.

You are Conan (check out my Barbarian soon once I get the art sent to me!) and just as with many of those types of tales, you start...broke. So..off you go, to take your Treasure.

Once a Shadowhold (and yes thats now what its called) is in play I assume we can all see that the basic driver is gone. You are not broke, you have a Castle that needs to be maintained. Sure maybe you are house poor now, but thats still a different driver, to me.

--

TLDR: I believe that the core SD loop, and the game design are extremely intentional, and clean, and while I have no problem with Shadowholds as the 'End Game' level 10 loop, I do believe its fundamentally different, and communicates a different goal, than the base SD loop.

Now, its off to Real Life BS for the rest of the day.

Yup, we're talking about the same play loop. I wasn't suggesting that everyone should be equally interested in domain or intrigue play. Just that neither runs counter to the core loop, except in ways you mention above that are, no offense, simply a specific version you added for your example. If you think owning a castle means you don't need money I have to wonder if you've ever owned a home? Or restored a classic car? I think that the need for money would very much go up, not down, with the addition of domain play (written well, anyway). You have to maintain and repair things (a constant drain) plus any system worth playing will also give you lots of cool upgrades to buy. The gold for all that isn't going to collect itself! Some versions of domain play might not go that direction (versions where domains always pay for themseleves and then some) but I don't think they'd be as interesting and they certainly wouldn't be written very well for Shadowdark.

A system that really hits on resource management and constant costs, like the one in Forbidden Lands frex, would be awesome.

 

[Scribe]

I have to wonder if you've ever owned a home?

I do, and its that experience that colours my view on 'domain management' vs 'I'm free to adventure'.

Even Conan, wanted to give up the throne and get out there one last time.

 

[Fenris-77]

I do, and its that experience that colours my view on 'domain management' vs 'I'm free to adventure'.

Even Conan, wanted to give up the throne and get out there one last time.

I get it, I really do, but I think that's another part that's entirely in the hands of the implementation, not really a bug that's part of the idea itself. Anyway, I don't want this to seem like an argument, I'm just keen on the idea. There's no reason you need to be though.

 

[Nightfly]

1. The game is realized, immediately. While Casters will gain spells, and there are some Talents which are locked under specific and low odds rolls, for the majority of the players experience, they immediately are the Class in full. There is no 'build'. There is no 'I'll be awesome once I hit level X and my character is online!'

This is indeed perhaps the very best thing about Shadowdark.

By way of contrast, look at 1e or Basic and notice how incredibly bad first level thieves are at thievery. They have an astonishingly low chance of succeeding at doing anything related to their profession. Like, a 15% chance of picking a pocket? I've never tried to do that even once in my life and I'm not sure my chances would be much lower if I tried to steal someone's wallet.

While Shadowdark thieves will get even better over time, even at first level they make Dex checks with advantage to sneak and pick locks and whatnot. So the professional, trained thieves turn out to be -- gasp! -- rather competent at thief-y stuff.

 

[Fenris-77]

If anyone here bought Shadows of Empire I just released a bespoke character sheet for it on DTRPG that has entries for careers and a corruption tracker. This isn't the thread for links, but it's there is anyone wants it.

 

[Scribe]

23 Hours left on Aetherdark.

 

[Jahydin]

This is indeed perhaps the very best thing about Shadowdark.

By way of contrast, look at 1e or Basic and notice how incredibly bad first level thieves are at thievery. They have an astonishingly low chance of succeeding at doing anything related to their profession. Like, a 15% chance of picking a pocket? I've never tried to do that even once in my life and I'm not sure my chances would be much lower if I tried to steal someone's wallet.

While Shadowdark thieves will get even better over time, even at first level they make Dex checks with advantage to sneak and pick locks and whatnot. So the professional, trained thieves turn out to be -- gasp! -- rather competent at thief-y stuff.

This is also why Castles and Crusades sees a lot of play in my house too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is indeed perhaps the very best thing about Shadowdark.

By way of contrast, look at 1e or Basic and notice how incredibly bad first level thieves are at thievery. They have an astonishingly low chance of succeeding at doing anything related to their profession. Like, a 15% chance of picking a pocket? I've never tried to do that even once in my life and I'm not sure my chances would be much lower if I tried to steal someone's wallet.

While Shadowdark thieves will get even better over time, even at first level they make Dex checks with advantage to sneak and pick locks and whatnot. So the professional, trained thieves turn out to be -- gasp! -- rather competent at thief-y stuff.

Knock #1 (if I recall correctly) had an article that suggested a test before doing any kind of roll:

1. Does the character making the roll have the skills to accomplish the task?
2. Does the character have the tools necessary?
3. Does the character have the time necessary?

If the answer to all three is "yes," then there's no roll, and the character automatically succeeds. So an ordinary lock could always be opened if the thief had the time to work on it safely and quietly, under good conditions.

If the answer to all of those is "no," then there's no roll, because it's impossible; the cleric is not going to figure out how to pick a lock with their holy symbol having never tried to do so while under direct fire from archers.

I believe the Knock article suggested that characters should roll if two of the conditions were met. So the thief has the tools and the skills but is facing archer fire.

In systems with advantage/disadvantage, like Shadowdark, I would also allow it if only one of the conditions was met and give out disadvantage (or cancel out advantage, in the case of a thief's skills) in those circumstances. The thief has the skills, but they broke their last lockpick and they're under archer fire. Good luck and maybe open up a tab to the Shadowdarklings character generator!

And this is, unfortunately, a newer "OSR" principle. I think if it had been enshrined in TSR D&D, and thieves were only rolling when the crap hit the fan, their low levels of skill wouldn't matter most of the time. Instead of thieves falling to their deaths trying to climb perfectly ordinary walls, it would only be a challenging situation if the circumstances weren't ideal, which would incentivize the thieves getting the circumstances to be ideal, which feels right for thief characters anyway.

Mothership works in a similar fashion: If PCs are rolling all the time, they're going to fail a bunch (and deal with stress, which is bad in Mothership). But they're not supposed to be rolling most of the time -- they just succeed at ordinary tasks when circumstances are relatively normal.

 

[Reynard]

Mothership works in a similar fashion: If PCs are rolling all the time, they're going to fail a bunch (and deal with stress, which is bad in Mothership). But they're not supposed to be rolling most of the time -- they just succeed at ordinary tasks when circumstances are relatively normal.

I don't know why the above made me think of this, but:

In a horror game where relatively normal folks end up in a bad way, have the ramp p include rolling for mundane tasks. As time goes on, the difficulty gets higher and the players have to roll for more and more mundane things. The players and their characters will start to get frustrated and they know something is wrong, but what?

Maybe there is a gas leak in the building and they are getting poisoned. Maybe an alien parasite is feeding on their brain energy. Maybe ghosts are messing with them. Whatever it is, it manifests in the very easy becoming incredibly difficult and even dangerous.