Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That moment when one of your players tries a level 1 spell in a creative way for the first time, casting a Protection from Evil to exorcise the spirit inside animated armor.

 

[Scribe]

Scroll 4 release!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Scroll 4 release!

I don't remember the two adventures that come with the newsletter sign-up. Does anyone remember their names?

 

[Scribe]

I don't remember the two adventures that come with the newsletter sign-up. Does anyone remember their names?

I don't. I was checking email running errands haven't checked things out yet.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just discovered this dungeon generator via an itch.io jam. Pretty great, in an abstract OSR adventure design sense (it's based on early TSR generators, boiled down): Six-Room Dungeon Diagram Generator, based on BSD by Traverse Fantasy

 

[Scribe]

Quick overview of Scroll 4.

Basilisk Warrior Class - Can get a pet!
Ranger Class - Perfect Ranger, sorry not sorry.

Some new weapons, I need to update a weapon property now, new features 'Breakable', and 'Returning'.

The new 'Druid' Spells, also used by the Green Knight.
"The Black River" - the new zone/hex map of the zine.
Overview of the region, Rumours, new Hex Crawling Rules some of this I think is from the core book, but I would have to check and its been far too many days of travel to do that.
Points of Interest table, this doesnt look tied to the settting/zine, you could drop/reference this into your game.
Special Encounters, this is tied to the setting.
Hex Key, theres a lot going on here.
9 Maps/Dungeons!
18 Monsters, supporting the above content.

So, less rules, but a whole region/setting which I wont spoil, with a lot of support throughout, and of course...

The Ranger.

 

[Fenris-77]

I find "being forced" to be a curious way of thinking about it. If we were talking about PCs then, yeah, I agree that failing a Wisdom checked and being required to flee combat would qualify as "being forced" to do something, of the rules hijacking player agency.

But morale checks determine the behavior of NPCs. So I see it less as anybody being forced to do anything...certainly there's no magical fear affecting the NPCs...and more just using dice to offload the tricky decision of when to flee combat. The players make that decision for themselves, but because GMs have perfect information it's a hard to really put yourself into the mind of the NPCs and make the decisions for them. At least, I personally find it hard to do that sort of thing objectively. So the morale check creates a kind of behavioral symmetry.

We (the Shadowdark community, and the OSR community more broadly) like to brag about how, in our obviously vastly superior form of roleplaying, knowing when to run away from a fight is part of wise "skilled play", I agree it seems odd that when NPCs do the same thing it's because they fail a Wisdom check.

Not that I plan on changing anything, but I do think it's a great question.

EDIT: That said, and maybe what you are trying to say, is that the morale check really just indicates a collapse of courage, not a rational decision to make a tactical retreat, and that the latter would be up to the GM to decide, not the dice. All of which I think is also a totally fair interpretation.

Obviously I'm not talking about the players, but GMs have agency in the same way. That agency is what's being ompacted by a failed morale roll, and I see that as a 'negative' because it forces me to do X.

I think what this looks like at the table really depends on how the GM runs their beasties and NPCs. If you, as the GM, make regular use of tactical withdrawals, use fo choke points, false retreats and ambushed, or anythgin like that, then failing a morale check is a big negative. For those GMs that mostly just have monsters fight to the bitter end mitigated only the the morale test it's not so bad. It is an interesting topic though, for sure.

 

[orangefruitbat]

That's money they're spending on not getting armor, weapons or equipment (including torches). I've found that the issue catches up with players pretty quickly and they have to stop spending all their cash on carousing unless they want to be geared like a level 1 character forever.

Our group's biggest problem with carousing is that we keep getting banned from the only tavern in town...hard to carouse when you can't buy a drink.

 

[Scribe]

Looking over Scroll 4 in a bit more detail, this looks awesome.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

LOL. No well-adjusted person would ever willingly leave the relative safety and comfort of home to go risk life and limb in some dark and dangerous dungeon. I always remind players of this when they try to justify PC cowardice as some kind of smart, self-preservation strategy. Sorry, no. A coward would not have gotten this far. They never would have left home. When making a character, make an adventurer.

100%. Like, I get that people want their characters to survive. But when they get so very cautious and precious about it that they are essentially avoiding playing the game, I kinda wonder. Sure, we can play Peasant Crawl Classics or Cyberpencilpusher Red, where your biggest challenge is getting your harvest in or how to deal with the nasty memo Colin sent around behind your back. But while those might be interesting for a bit, they're not going to be as exciting as when you are facing danger, putting your character at risk.