Shadowdark: tips for a new GM?

[TheHand]

Has anyone here mixed Shadowdark with Into the Cess and Citadel and/or Into the Wyrd and Wild?

Tempted to use the monster part scavenging rules from the latter, but not sure how to "calculate" weight of a monster (the rules are tied into how many increments of 100 lbs. the creature is).

I’m not familiar with those supplements, but they do look interesting!
I’m not sure how you currently determine creature weight for other game systems, but most of the Shadowdark creatures have direct D&D analogs, so if you’ve already got weight classifications for them that might be a start.

 

[wicked cool]

Baezel I’m currently running shadow dark in a combination of barovia and Bg3 shadowlands
My group is experienced and have been watching the torch timer better than me

Kelsey has a faq on discord that I reference a lot

 

[timbannock]

"Stunts"

Say a player wants to grapple, shove, trip an enemy?

How's the best way to handle that sort of thing? Strength check vs. AC? Opposed stat checks?

I just rule everything is an attack: if you succeed, you do the thing. "I disarm them!" Okay if you succeed on your attack, they are disarmed. Simple.

The house rule part is this: on a natural 20, you can deal double damage OR you can deal normal damage AND perform a stunt. So you could deal damage and disarm them, instead of having to do two separate attacks to do that otherwise.

 

[Bae'zel]

I just rule everything is an attack: if you succeed, you do the thing. "I disarm them!" Okay if you succeed on your attack, they are disarmed. Simple.

The house rule part is this: on a natural 20, you can deal double damage OR you can deal normal damage AND perform a stunt. So you could deal damage and disarm them, instead of having to do two separate attacks to do that otherwise.

That’s… elegantly simple. I quite like this.

And would still work with the whole situational advantage/disadvantage thing depending on size or other factors. I may just do this.

 

[timbannock]

Precisely!

It interacts nicely with Talents, too. If you're a "master swordfighter" thanks to a +1 to melee attacks and another +1 with a chosen weapon (Fighter with a Talent and Weapon Mastery), well adding that into the attack roll for disarm makes sense, but not grappling.

 

[PhD20]

I wrote up some tips after running a Shadowdark Gauntlet but I think they'd apply well across the board. Here's the summary (article linked after):

• Use stoppage time for torches
• Random character generation was more fun (given the high chance of dying)
• Luck Tokens add a lot of fun
• Roll in the open
• Make death meaningful
• Embrace the humor

Running Great Gauntlets in Shadowdark RPG

I create content to help you have more fun playing TTRPGs.

phd20.com

 

[Bae'zel]

Session report

I ran several sessions of Shadowdark this past week for the first time.

First game was with my kids (10 year old girl, her first time RPGing and 12 year old boy who'd played lots of D&D 5e). My son was a bit bored as he wanted more abilities and powers as he found in 5e, but he liked the freedom the game gave him due to the rules-light style. My daughter had much more fun as it was easy to understand the rules and she got to do all kinds of stuff as a Thief ("assassin"). I took it a bit easy on them for obvious reasons, but there was plenty of peril regardless.

The next few games were yesterday and the night before with my two friends (two guys, mid 30s and the other mid 40s), both had only played a little bit, MOrk Borg mostly. We played several sessions in a row. The theme was Vikings (heavy use of Cursed Scroll 3).

Some key findings overall:

• I quite like the light rules and rarely had to look anything up; it was smooth and easy.
• Super simple to make up rulings and ad-hoc house rules (nothing felt un-balanced as it does in 5e)
• It is brutal and suited to making new characters very frequently. You can have a long-term campaign if your players are okay with making new ones every once in a while. They died a lot, even when trying to be clever.
• I find character advancement very dull (roll a hit die, no bonuses to bring up HP). I decided to allow a roll on the Talent table every level, not every other. And I let people re-roll 1s and 2s for their HP. Started at max HP at level 1.
• Did not do a gauntlet at level zero. With RPG veterans, I'd do it but not with newbies not these ones, anyway). It didn't "feel" right, knowing these people (ie, my kids and my longtime friends). I'd like to try it with other people some time.
• We used a "Dark Souls" re-birth system; when they died (and they died pretty frequently), they were reborn at the last camp they rested at, but had to roll on a chart inspired by the Dark Souls TTRPG, where most of the effects were negative (eg, you fade and lose -1 to Constitution, or you lose a key memory, or you become more scary looking and get a penalty to Reaction rolls etc...). That softened the blow a bit and people liked it a lot (Dark Souls and Elden Ring are well known to these crowds).

I know that some of that was HERESY ("what, you let them have max HP at level 1?! WHAT you let them resurrect?!?!") but we had so much effing fun and I got to make things really atmospheric and thematic. I made some choices to hack things, which I know will generate eye rolls and "tsk-tsks" but whatever.

Had a great time, will definitely run it again, maybe even RAW with the right crowd.

 

[Bae'zel]

Did some thinking about levelling up.

In my previous post, I said that I found it dull how characters didn't get anything on odd levels. I missed / forgot that most classes DO actually get some ability that's based on their level /2 (rounded down).

So I take it back! I missed that detail and it's a big one.

 

[Bae'zel]

Out of the existing classes (core book and Cursed Scrolls) I think I prefer the ones that get something every level. I get that some are more "front loaded" but it just "feels" more satisfying to me when the players get something tangible each and every level beyond just a hit die roll.

But that's just me. If I ever design new classes, I'd build them based on that flow.

 

[Theory of Games]

Out of the existing classes (core book and Cursed Scrolls) I think I prefer the ones that get something every level. I get that some are more "front loaded" but it just "feels" more satisfying to me when the players get something tangible each and every level beyond just a hit die roll.

But that's just me. If I ever design new classes, I'd build them based on that flow.

That's how the classes get unbalanced. Remember, SD is basically B/X dressed up in a funny 5e costume. If you power-up the classes too much, the players will diff your whole dungeon. One of the best design features of classic D&D is slow advancement. They won't respect your campaign if they don't earn everything they get.

Just my X.P. and keep having fun!