Shadowheart...Daggerdark [+]

[Agamon]

If you plan on playing mostly Shadowdark as the base with very little from Daggerheart, I would just play Shadowdark.

Nothing wrong with house ruling stuff from other games for whatever you;re playing, though.

 

[overgeeked]

If you plan on playing mostly Shadowdark as the base with very little from Daggerheart, I would just play Shadowdark.

You seem to have missed the point of the thread.

 

[zakael19]

You seem to have missed the point of the thread.

I think it would be far more interesting to start with a DH base and see what you need to par away or tweak to get a dungeon crawler. Shadowdark is built off d20 after all, and cares about a lot of stuff that DH abstracts away. Keeping that level of abstraction but hitting the vibe of dungeon crawling would be cool. It's possible, Trophy Dark/Gold does it to an even greater degree.

With an emphasis on darkness and dangers therein, Hope & Fear currency are actually excellent thematically. I'm playing around with this a bit around light/dark in the environment I threw together over in the DH thread. I'm reading through the Shadowdark Quickstart to get a feeling for what it brings in to see if I can't put together a kinda swords & sorcery / dungeon crawly Frame thing.

 

[Scribe]

I think it would be far more interesting to start with a DH base and see what you need to par away or tweak to get a dungeon crawler. Shadowdark is built off d20 after all, and cares about a lot of stuff that DH abstracts away. Keeping that level of abstraction but hitting the vibe of dungeon crawling would be cool. It's possible, Trophy Dark/Gold does it to an even greater degree.

With an emphasis on darkness and dangers therein, Hope & Fear currency are actually excellent thematically. I'm playing around with this a bit around light/dark in the environment I threw together over in the DH thread. I'm reading through the Shadowdark Quickstart to get a feeling for what it brings in to see if I can't put together a kinda swords & sorcery / dungeon crawly Frame thing.

Yeah I think some of that abstraction is what I want back and some of the more interpersonal stuff I can do without.

Maybe I just love the 2d12 and hope/fear and how it drives the flow.

Hooking that into the Torch Timer is just inspired.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah I think some of that abstraction is what I want back and some of the more interpersonal stuff I can do without.

Maybe I just love the 2d12 and hope/fear and how it drives the flow.

Hooking that into the Torch Timer is just inspired.

For me it’s about genre. I don’t really like the superhero fantasy of 5E or Daggerheart. If I wanted a superhero fantasy game, I’d play an actual superhero game in a fantasy setting.

I like sword & sorcery. So want the game to reflect that. I’d be fine with abstracting things like gold as Daggerheart does it. Abstracted gold plus Pirate Borg carousing to level up would sing for sword & sorcery. But I think that’s basically how Barbarians of Lemuria does it.

 

[Scribe]

For me it’s about genre. I don’t really like the superhero fantasy of 5E or Daggerheart. If I wanted a superhero fantasy game, I’d play an actual superhero game in a fantasy setting.

I like sword & sorcery. So want the game to reflect that. I’d be fine with abstracting things like gold as Daggerheart does it. Abstracted gold plus Pirate Borg carousing to level up would sing for sword & sorcery. But I think that’s basically how Barbarians of Lemuria does it.

Totally fair. For me Shadowdark just does Sword and Sorcery so well, that I can just build what I want (Barbarian, whatever) and boom, done.

I am looking at this SD/DH/D&D game as that superhero fantasy, but with enough of a grounding to give that mythical zero to hero vibe.

Just the typical fantasy heartbreaker that may appeal to nobody but myself.

 

[Aldarc]

You seem to have missed the point of the thread.

My sense for the point of the thread was mixing Shadowdark and Daggerheart, but what I read was mostly just Shadowdark. So if the point was mixing the two systems, I didn't get much of Daggerheart from what I read in what you would do.

OK, at the high level.

Shadowdark
Reactions, Random Encounters, XP system (Downtime, not just Carousing), Darkness Matters, the concept that you are your class at level 1, Gear slots. Roll to Cast. Background and assumed skills.

Daggerheart
Ancestry and Community design, the Hope/Fear mechanic as it pertains to spotlight, initiative as free-form, 2d12 resolution instead of the d20. Domain abilities as Feats. Stress.

I think, I would even go for the Threshold and Armor/HP model over the bags of HP. But I'm rolling that one around.

D&D
Core Ancestry options, Classes, Attributes, Subclasses at 1st. Adv/Disadvantage. Planar, Epic, Magical tone.

This is a pretty good base, though I would prefer using the DH attributes or even further reduce them down to four. Also I would potentially just remove ancestries entirely, especially if I wanted to preserve a more anthropocentric Sword & Sorcery feel. You could still keep Communities and Experiences.

Like @zakael19, I probably would start with Daggerheart as the base, and strip the game down a bit more. Move away from the superheroic aspects of DH, including some of its domains/abilities but use a loadout card system. Tie Fear/Hope mechanic into exploration procedures, whether dungeon or wilderness. The DH environment subsystem is a must for this.

Create new domains, abilities, and classes that are thematic for the particular Sword & Sorcery vibe that you want. Your loadout cards could even include things like equipment packages/kits, hirelings, mounts/transport, camping gear, etc. in addition to domain abilities.

Create new GM moves for Daggerheart that accentuate what you want out of your game.

Here I would potentially look at Perilous Wilds by Jason Lutes for inspiration. Perilous Wilds is a supplement for Dungeon World that gets praise even in OSR circles. I would also probably look at a game like Torchbearer, which basically combines Burning Wheel with the feel of old school dungeon exploration. But as Torchbearer was the inspiration for Darkest Dungeon computer game, it has to be doing something right.

If I could, I would either change the math of the game so Daggerheart either (1) goes to 12 levels, with 3 levels per 4 tiers, OR (2) have Tier 1 go from levels 1-3 and then just have Tier 4 be level 10.

 

[zakael19]

Ok, because I was one of the people in the DH thread saying "this isn't a great game for classic-style dungeon crawling" over and over, I'm now pretty invested into seeing what we can do with it. Having read the Shadowdark Quickstart core yesterday I'm really impressed with teh simplicity and clarity it brings to the table, especially around the GM and Player guidance.

Some quick thoughts on going from DH towards something melded:

- A Random Encounter falls under the extant moves of "Signal an imminent off-screen threat" or "reveal an unwelcome truth or unexpected danger." In a classic dungeon crawler, time and turns is the threat. In a game that allows the GM to make moves as hard and direct as they wish off player roll levels, you can just announce the "encounter:"

"Yeah cool, success with fear? So you pry away at the door and those stubborn old boards give way - but there's a loud 'crack' that echoes down the hall. Torchlight spills around the corner and you hear muffled voices talking back and forth as forms round the corner. What do you do?"

- Reaction Rolls should be a, well, Reaction Roll. I like putting things in the player's hands and keeping it fiction first as possible. I'm kinda of two minds on where I'd want to go with this. a) would be allowing any Reaction to the telegraphed encounter and playing to find out what that means as a result of the player's actions, b) would be a more traditional one where a player just rolls 2d12. TBH, I've never understood adding the CHA mod here to enemies that you haven't interacted with yet - talk about divorced from events.

- I've been noodling on PBTA/FITD style XP systems for a group. Because DH assumes on-tier encounters, I think levels need to be a group-tied item. But that's easy enough to do.

- I'd be really tempted to go to a FITD style abstract gear system? You have x slots + your Strength score like SD, maybe even give the core "worn items" for "free" and go like 7+str. Then have a list of dungeoneering gear that you can have have what you need from, and then also fill up with high level valuables. With the inherent abstraction of coin, I think we can play with that a little.

- DH already has Spellcast Rolls that function in mostly teh same way as SD ones. In addition, a lot of magic requires either Stress or Hope. I think it works well pretty straight across.

- I think that unlike @Aldarc I might look at Communities to turn into a SD / D&D style Background. I'd leave Ancestries in, and use the guidance from the Homebrew Kit to ask "what do they mean" and adjust from the DH base. I'd also remove mixed ancestry and drop it down to a limited classic set to start I think.

- Personally I'm less interested in the practicality of dungeon crawling (after all, so many games exist to hit the "do we have enough carts/henchmen/etc" to get our stuff back home) and far more into "can we hit the vibe of crawling through the dark seeking something precious/forbidden." More Darkest Dungeon, less OSE.

- Take the concept of Dungeon Sets from Trophy and bridge them into Environments.

 

[Aldarc]

- I think that unlike @Aldarc I might look at Communities to turn into a SD / D&D style Background. I'd leave Ancestries in, and use the guidance from the Homebrew Kit to ask "what do they mean" and adjust from the DH base. I'd also remove mixed ancestry and drop it down to a limited classic set to start I think.

Having Ancestries or not doesn't necessarily break the game. It's really more about the vibe you want out of your game. For me, removing ancestries is more about the expressed Sword & Sorcery vibe, which is mostly anthropocentric with a few exceptions (e.g., Elric and Corum), and I think that those non-human characters could just as easily be represented by Communities. Obviously if you want your S&S to be more D&D-esque (e.g., Primeval Thule), then you may want to add other ancestries. I believe that Kelsey Dionne has been on record as saying that she prefers mostly human-focused games since she likes the S&S genre.

- Personally I'm less interested in the practicality of dungeon crawling (after all, so many games exist to hit the "do we have enough carts/henchmen/etc" to get our stuff back home) and far more into "can we hit the vibe of crawling through the dark seeking something precious/forbidden." More Darkest Dungeon, less OSE.

IMHO, part of my reason for possibly having some of this as cards for your loadout is less about the practicality of dungeon crawling and more about forcing player choices precisely as per Torchbearer or Darkest Dungeon. Are you willing to discard this from your loadout to make room for something else? It also gives the GM something to target with Fear.

 

[zakael19]

IMHO, part of my reason for possibly having some of this as cards for your loadout is less about the practicality of dungeon crawling and more about forcing player choices precisely as per Torchbearer or Darkest Dungeon. Are you willing to discard this from your loadout to make room for something else? It also gives the GM something to target with Fear.

Interesting. Are you thinking of generic Domain cards? Like there’s a “Dungeoneering” domain anybody can pick from? Or like at L2 a fighter can choose “Squire” or something