Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Scribe]

Also, you can see what's on the new core screen in a blurry fashion if you zoom in a bit. And yeah, it's all the basic rules for Shadowdark, as requested by the backers on Discord, plus the NPC generator, but that still feels odd to me.

Hmm does that come with the 'Everything' package? I'm assuming it does.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmm does that come with the 'Everything' package? I'm assuming it does.

Nope. Added recently. The screen that came with the everything pack is the Western Reaches screen, with Western Reaches specific stuff. This is a new one meant to replace the original screen. (I guess people were complaining about it.)

 

[Scribe]

Nope. Added recently. The screen that came with the everything pack is the Western Reaches screen, with Western Reaches specific stuff. This is a new one meant to replace the original screen. (I guess people were complaining about it.)

Thats a bit tilting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thats a bit tilting.

I gather it was an 11th hour decision after people realized the new screen was Western Reaches specific and it turned out there was an audience that wanted a new core screen for some reason.

 

[Scribe]

I gather it was an 11th hour decision after people realized the new screen was Western Reaches specific and it turned out there was an audience that wanted a new core screen for some reason.

Yeah, kind of is what it is, but since I have everything else the completionism vibe may pick at me.

 

[Scribe]

As for CS 5.

Like the classes, like the spells, Dismember is pretty grim lol, and looking over the Library, looks really cool. The tone is dark, and I'm really wondering how much the Chittering is going to get people, but it is a high level zone.

The Shadowdark doesnt mess around.

I think CS 4 is still my favourite, and I cannot wait to get the chance to play it still, but looking forward to digging into this one over the next few days.

 

[Velderan]

Per the latest Kickstarter update, Kelsey still expects everything to be delivered by "late spring," which means before June 21.

I've never fulfilled a Kickstarter project, and she has, but that still feels optimistic to me. But I certainly hope she's right!

Yeah, that definitely feels optimistic given my experiences with basically any other crowdfunded project I’ve backed. Obviously she knows better than I do so here’s hoping!

 

[Velderan]

Also, you can see what's on the new core screen in a blurry fashion if you zoom in a bit. And yeah, it's all the basic rules for Shadowdark, as requested by the backers on Discord, plus the NPC generator, but that still feels odd to me.

Are these rules so complicated that people are forgetting them in play? I was open to getting this new screen if its contents made me slap my head and say "yeah, I'm always looking that up!" but they aren't, at all.

Maybe it's all the years of TSR D&D and now 5E, but I don't ever find myself looking up basic rules in play. At most, I need to double-check a specific spell listing or magic item, which is beyond the scope of a screen to help with.

Basically. The main thing I want in a screen is tables I won’t be able to memorize that stand a good chance of coming up in play. My wife bought me a Wyrnwood screen a few years back as a surprise gift (which then later led to a crappy conversation when Lin Codega did a story on them..), so I usually change out the info I put in it from session to session when we play in person with tables and such specific to what we’re actually playing that day.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Basically. The main thing I want in a screen is tables I won’t be able to memorize that stand a good chance of coming up in play. My wife bought me a Wyrnwood screen a few years back as a surprise gift (which then later led to a crappy conversation when Lin Codega did a story on them..), so I usually change out the info I put in it from session to session when we play in person with tables and such specific to what we’re actually playing that day.

I agree. I'm just not sure "this is how combat works in Shadowdark" is necessary to put on the screen.

Kelsey updated the post, so now we can see the screen has:

• Distances
• Difficulty class
• When to roll (which uses the Knock magazine three-part test!)
• Spellcasting rules
• Movement rules
• How hazards work
• How combat works
• How rest works
• XP values
• d6 decider
• Random encounter distances, activities and reactions
• And the NPC generator

I don't mean to be a jerk, but at least half of that screen is stuff a GM would reasonably know if they just read the GM's quickstart guide, not even the full corebook. And even without doing that, if they'd ever played a TSR D&D game/OSR game and 5E, they could just intuit how to do all of this, assuming they know that Shadowdark is where those two styles of play meet in the middle.

I'm glad this screen exists for people who need it, but I have a feeling that this was demanded by AD&D DMs who haven't actually gotten around to running Shadowdark yet (there's a lot of those folks on the Shadowdark Facebook group in particular) and don't realize that AD&D needed a screen like that because it was heavily reliant on looking up hits and saving throws on special tables, rather than using a unified d20 mechanism. And the end result is they don't end up using the screen in actual play.