Shadowdark looks so good!

[Jahydin]

Listening to her talk excitedly about her new mega-dungeon idea (not ready to share yet) has got me interested.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

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 *).

Shadowdark is digest-size. That's why the word counts are like that.

 

[kapars]

I want to like this game, but each time I read about it, something feels like it's missing for me.

Games like forbidden lands, mork borg and DCC spark my imagination, butbfor some reason this one doesn't spark joy for me.

I like the real time torches rule and the always on initiative, but I'm a little bummed about the single magical mishap table for all spells. I also don't know why ability scores are being kept after character creation. The Borg games are perfect for me, you roll your stats, get the modifier from a table, then throw away the rolls. Same could be done here so i'm not sure why they've been kept.

The classes in the first zine use a diabolical mishap table with different and amusing effects.

 

[kapars]

If I was to buy an osr like game this would probably be the one. All in one book is great, and it seems to have a unique charm and personality. But as with all osr games, I’m kind of put off by the sole focus on dungeon crawling. The worst part of any dnd campaign I’ve played.

Because it has the 5e resolution mechanics (streamlined) I feel like it would actually be much easier to handle the non-dungeoneering aspects of play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Because it has the 5e resolution mechanics (streamlined) I feel like it would actually be much easier to handle the non-dungeoneering aspects of play.

Yeah, it's pretty straightforward, IMO: 5E-style ability checks, with advantage if you can convince your DM that you'd have special insight into the check because of your background. So for a soldier, that could mean persuading other soldiers or identifying heraldry or knowing the history of a famous battle.

 

[Enrahim2]

Games like forbidden lands, mork borg and DCC spark my imagination, butbfor some reason this one doesn't spark joy for me.

One contrast I find between those you mention and shadowdark is that shadowdark seem very light on setting and grit in comparison. To me however, this is one of the big selling ponts. I can easily see myself running classic more "clean" fantasy D&D modules using this. Not so with the ones you mention. I can also easily see myself running DCC adventures using this as well, and appart from the magic mishaps being a bit less dangerous, I think the experience would feel very similar to using DCC.

As such the sterility is a feature to me, allowing it to be more easily used for settings of any flavor. But yes, it definitely become less imagination-sparking as a side effect.

 

[ART!]

One contrast I find between those you mention and shadowdark is that shadowdark seem very light on setting and grit in comparison. To me however, this is one of the big selling ponts. I can easily see myself running classic more "clean" fantasy D&D modules using this. Not so with the ones you mention. I can also easily see myself running DCC adventures using this as well, and appart from the magic mishaps being a bit less dangerous, I think the experience would feel very similar to using DCC.

As such the sterility is a feature to me, allowing it to be more easily used for settings of any flavor. But yes, it definitely become less imagination-sparking as a side effect.

This is kind of where I'm coming from, too. I'm frustrated with 5E as a GM, so I'm looking at all the 5E-ish things out there, with an eye on how easy the rule books (especially monster statblocks and magic) are to use.

 

[Aldarc]

Apart from a few issues, Shadowdark looks pretty fun and easy to run as a GM; however, from my perspective as a potential player, Shadowdark doesn't really do anything for me. It unfortunately feels kind of hollow to me. As @CubicsRube says, it doesn't really spark any joy while reading through the quick start and previews.

 

[schneeland]

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.
...
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.

Sorry! Didn't really get to reply here earlier.

Just to clarify: I'm very much open to understand OSR as a philosophical approach to rules design rather than based on 1:1 compatibility with older D&D versions (at least, as long as we stay in the general D&D design space) and usually cite the Ben Milton quote from Principia Apocrypha when asked about my understanding of OSR.

Spoiler: Full Quote

"The more of the following a campaign has, the more old school it is: high lethality, an open world, a lack of pre-written plot, an emphasis
on creative problem solving, an exploration-centered reward system (usually XP for treasure), a disregard for "encounter balance", and the
use of random tables to generate world elements that surprise both players and referees. Also, a strong do-it-yourself attitude and a
willingness to share your work and use the creativity of others in your game."

However, there is a few elements in Shadowdark's design that IMO make it more of a 5e-OSR-hybrid than something I would file under OSR:

• Attributes follow the newer 3e/5e-style progression of modifiers, making attributes more important than in typical OSR games
• Characters gain multiple talents (one every two levels), shifting focus away from player skill and more towards character skill
• There's a unified task resolution mechanism (D20 + modifier) instead of multiple mechanisms tailored towards different subsystems of the game
• It incorporates a meta currency in the form of luck tokens that allows die re-rolls (similar to Savage Worlds' bennies)

None of that is inherently bad and it's perfectly valid to choose this design. It's just not something I would expect to see in an OSR game (even in the broad sense).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"The more of the following a campaign has, the more old school it is: high lethality, an open world, a lack of pre-written plot, an emphasis
on creative problem solving, an exploration-centered reward system (usually XP for treasure), a disregard for "encounter balance", and the
use of random tables to generate world elements that surprise both players and referees. Also, a strong do-it-yourself attitude and a
willingness to share your work and use the creativity of others in your game."

However, there is a few elements in Shadowdark's design that IMO make it more of a 5e-OSR-hybrid than something I would file under OSR:

• Attributes follow the newer 3e/5e-style progression of modifiers, making attributes more important than in typical OSR games
• Characters gain multiple talents (one every two levels), shifting focus away from player skill and more towards character skill
• There's a unified task resolution mechanism (D20 + modifier) instead of multiple mechanisms tailored towards different subsystems of the game
• It incorporates a meta currency in the form of luck tokens that allows die re-rolls (similar to Savage Worlds' bennies)

None of that is inherently bad and it's perfectly valid to choose this design. It's just not something I would expect to see in an OSR game (even in the broad sense).

You're conflating retroclones with OSR, even though you start off with a definition that in no way impacts any of your bullet points. (Also, there are unified resolution systems in old school games. Traveller had/has one. RuneQuest had/has one. I seem to recall hearing that Tunnels & Trolls has one.)

She's not saying it's a retroclone. You are judging the game by a standard that she's not asking be applied to it.

Shadowdark is also terrible for dicing vegetables. But no one said it was trying to do that job.

No one is required to like this game -- I don't like most games. But it can both be not for you while succeeding at what it set out to do, which it definitely appears to have, having gone through both quickstart books multiple times now (so about 134 pages of content, forming a game at least as complete as some of the earliest versions of BD&D).