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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bae'zel" data-source="post: 9582320" data-attributes="member: 7048197">Session reportI 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:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I quite like the light rules and rarely had to look anything up; it was smooth and easy.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Super simple to make up rulings and ad-hoc house rules (nothing felt un-balanced as it does in 5e)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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).</li> </ul>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.</blockquote>

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