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.