Shadowdark looks so good!

[darjr]

 

[Sacrosanct]

Take modern mechanics and marry it with an old school B/X feel. I wonder why that sounds familiar... Just goes to show, that to get great success of a KS is getting someone with a lot of followers to promote it.

In all seriousness, it looks great and I am very happy for them. Yes, just a little bit jealous lol.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I couldn't find anything particularly new in terms of mechanics. Everything I could find came before in other OSR games (correct me if I am wrong).

It's enthusiastically marrying OSR and 5E, taking the simplest aspects of both. So no, there's probably nothing new (although the real-time nature of it is interesting, and something I'll probably steal for both OSR and 5E games, when it comes to light sources), putting it all together this way is.

I like the art, and I hope there will be a lot more. Right now, the pages look sparse (300 words on a full-worded page is oof). I appreciate the bigger font.
I like that it focuses on rules for the game, not adding fluff just to meet some imaginary page count (cough, A5E's 100 pages before you even pick a class *).

If you've used any of her adventures, you'll know that Kelsey is aggressively focused on usability at the table. Having things broken up this way improves things, IMO. This isn't an art-for-art's-sake book (although both covers are gorgeous), but "can I find the thing in the book, can I find the thing on the page" design.

 

[darjr]

Take modern mechanics and marry it with an old school B/X feel. I wonder why that sounds familiar... Just goes to show, that to get great success of a KS is getting someone with a lot of followers to promote it.

In all seriousness, it looks great and I am very happy for them. Yes, just a little bit jealous lol.

Oh my games will include your contributions

Edit
Also she has 12k subscribers, not huge but her channel and creations have been influential in the hobby

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For me personally, it's not that interesting. It doesn't really bring anything I'd consider new to the table (except for the emphasized real-time aspect, which I consider more bug than feature), and the impression is more that of a 5e take on OSR gaming than an actual OSR game. But for people who just want to branch out from their 5e game, it's probably fine.

I think we'd need to define what an OSR game is, then. I run both OSR and 5E and I think they do very different things.

While one could run courtly intrigue in OSR or mega-dungeon crawls in 5E, it's not what each is best at. OSR characters tend to be a lot leaner, mechanically, and focused mostly on dungeon crawling. Even the most melee-focused 5E characters have abilities and skills that apply to life outside the dungeon.

For running rogue-like adventures, where the chance of death is extremely high, and players explicitly should not expect to have a long-term relationship with their characters, OSR games are simply a better ruleset -- if nothing else, it doesn't take 30 minutes of fiddling around in D&D Beyond to make a new character after the last one dies hideously.

Now, a lot of OSR games are interested in replicating the fiddlier forms of old D&D -- to-hit matrices, saving throw charts, etc. -- but I'd say that's more of a hallmark of a retroclone rather than simply what makes an OSR game. There are plenty of OSR games that aren't trying to be a retroclone, like Mothership. This is another one.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I agree. Looks like a great game. I have backed it as well. Appreciate that Kelsey has game all done before putting it on KS.

She is becoming one of my favorite creators. She's a great writer and communicator, is focused on making quality gameable material and, even when I disagree with her on something, she has thoughtful explanations of why she did what she did. (Her livestreamed videos on adventure design are a great class for DMs to take.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't need another OSR engine -- I only need one, really -- and I think the four stripped down classes with random traits is probably just too spare for me. I would love a system that combines Flatland Games' playbook style with some of the system side stuff I see in Shadowdark.

I suspect I'd need to make my own system, though, or just build characters with a Flatland game and use Shadowdark to power things on the other side of the metaphorical screen.

One of the nice aspects of OSR games is how compatible they all are -- I think there'd be very little problem marrying these two together, building dungeons on the fly with Grizzled Adventurers and then tossing in Monster Overhaul as the main monster book.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, this Kickstarter has the best art I've seen in ages. This is exactly my OSR art sweet spot. Black and white line art, gritty but not "look how metal we are," and clear and easy to parse.

I'm kind of surprised that she didn't include dice in her campaign, but the new Black Death dice from Black Oak Workshop seem like a perfect match for this book's aesthetic.

 

[darjr]

Also, this Kickstarter has the best art I've seen in ages. This is exactly my OSR art sweet spot. Black and white line art, gritty but not "look how metal we are," and clear and easy to parse.

I'm kind of surprised that she didn't include dice in her campaign, but the new Black Death dice from Black Oak Workshop seem like a perfect match for this book's aesthetic.

I have a set of those, black, and a clear and pink d20 to go with em. I use em with my DCC dice.

That death saves die is calling my name though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That death saves die is calling my name though.

Yeah, I generally avoid one trick pony dice, but I will probably pick that up separately from their store later this year.