Shadowdark has flaws.
But it's the closest thing I want from a fantasy d20 game.
>Rules are simple so it has high player buy-in since there's less for them to study. Not even just 5e refugees- I feel confident in bringing this to my nongamer family too.
>More lethality than 5e, less than OSR.
>Efficient hex & travel rules. Not robust enough to be autistic, but enough to actually interest me in running my first hex crawl.
>GM tool section that does a little more than "figure it out yourself".
>Good & simple treasure & loot system & tools.
>A robust yet simple gold-as-XP solution with carousing as an XP gain. Great flavor and motivates further dungeon delving.
>Rolling for feats eliminates "builds" from veteran players.
>Spellcasting system is fricking excellent.
>No fricking dumb dice you'd have to buy. (Sorry DCC players I'm not purchasing a d fricking 9.)
Before I commit my group to a longterm Shadowdark campaign, is there truly another system that does what it does, just like what it does, but better? Every OSR game I've studied either has too much simulationist detail, or too little Dungeon World detail. It's more or less a superior version of Five Torches Deep that isn't afraid to get further away from 5e.
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What kind of beholder is that? A zombified one?
No suggestion of undeath in its stat block. Easily could be though. Yeah dunno who did the art for that one but its goat. The cover for the physical book I think.
I like the lore blurb too:
>A floating mass of rubbery skin crusted with barnacles. Its ten eyestalks writhe like snakes, and a deep, circular scar mars its central body, blinding what was once a large eye above a lipless maw. The Ten-Eyed Oracle stalks the Shadowdark, burbling mad prophesies and somehow moving freely between the lightless fathoms of the earth. The keepers of the deep lore suspect The Ten-Eyed Oracle was once a benevolent ally of mankind, but an unknown calamity drove it to insanity and reckless hatred
I like the idea of a beholder at one time being a significant ally towards mankind before then getting corrupted. Suggests that the shadowdark is a corrupting presence and not just "the factory that monster mooglies come from".
>suggestion of undeath
Good name for a band.
DARKBAD does everything Shadowdark does but better.
>rules are simpler than Shadowdark
>higher lethality than shadowdark
>more efficient travel rules than shadowdark
>GM tools are minimalist yet boundless and unrestrained
>Diagetic character progression instead of bloated, clunky leveling
>rolling for class and race prevents builds of any kind
>spellcasting system is frick shit damn
>no books you have to buy because its free and its development cost was about 5 days of shitposting instead of 1 million actual fricking dollars
Why does your Type III have nipples? They lay eggs.
So do pangolins and they have nipples...I'm pretty sure...
They don't lay eggs.
Is pangolins laying eggs a meme I'm not aware of?
Oh this is fun. It's like outsider art but in TTRPG form.
The only thing funnier than the page making fun of Mork Borg (here's a fullpage art to tell you that a SWORD DEALS d6 DAMAGE) is the fact that if the author took their schizo pills instead of trying to find the pronoun boogeymen in their walls- they might have bothered to notice that there is actually not a single mention of pronouns nor safety tools in the entirety of Shadowdark.
>he doesn't know that Darkbad predates Shadowdark
wew lad
It was referenced in the post like it was. If I was up to date on OSR politics I wouldn't be here asking help from the wizard council. As a leftie I agree that the safety tools shit is getting out of hand (Which is why it was nice to not see it in this system).
Sorry CHUD but avoiding 3rd person pronouns where possible is the new industry standard. If you want to keep crying about how language is evolving go to /misc/ or something.
Take a deep breath and read again. I was making fun of how people get triggered over that. Not bothered by it myself.
Pronoun improvements can just be written without dedicating pages to them, and safety tools should be removed not because they're gay but because they need to be supplementary content written by professionals and not just tacked on for performative action points. I DM for people who fall under needing some of that shit so when it's done bad it's embarrassing (Critical Role).
>safety tools
>they need to be supplementary content written by professionals
>so you are safe while playing a tabletop game
>in your kitchen table with your friends
I mean sure ttrpgs are probably one of the most extreme hobbies out there. There are dozen of thousands of people each year that suffer serious physiological and physical harm due to neglecting the safety tools and guidelines provided by the professionals. Because you need professionals with years of study and experience to keep you safe while engaging in such a dangerous hobby. If we could see that earlier countless of lives could be saved that were recklessly lost in the previous bigoted eras, the dark years before 2015. Be smart. The next time you you sit on a table to roll dice and engage in parlance with your friend, remember to follow your safety guidelines to heart. For your safety and that of your group.
This is such obvious political whining.
It has absolutely zero relation to anyone's personal game unless they have a need to use them and yet people constantly complain about them on here. Whilst telling everyone that they don't need them or use them.
ffs you're whining about them in a fricking game recommendation thread about a game that doesn't even have them in the rulebook
Everyone has the need for professionally curated safety tools. How else can you ensure your tables maximum safety? If you GM you host and game and a good host ensures the safety of their guests. The more dangerous the activity the greater the need for expertly designed safety guidelines and tools. I don't know about you but I want everyone one my table to feel and be safe. Too many good people where lost due to negligence, ignorance and bigotry in tables all around the world. Honor them. Play safe.
I can tell by your homosexual writing style that I have enough upper body strength to break you like a twig.
Post your 3 homie.
>basedboy hates something
>"I like how"/"I love this"/"this is fun"
As an OSR fan, I don't think it brings anything to the table. It's just a repackaging of 15yo houserules, and more BroSR stuff that people will pretend this came up with because they don't like the BroSR guy's politics
If it were written by a your average 40yo fat nerd, nobody would care. But because it's written by a woman that's not obese, RPG Twitter and YouTube are pretending that's in anything more than yet another interchangeable O5R hack. You really think Dungeoncraft would give this the time of day if the face of Shadowdark wasn't an American 7?
Like most Shadowdark complaints this delves into internet politics I don't care about. Wow its making waves in the 40 y/o male ttrpg channels with sub 200k subs. I really care.
I stumbled into Shadowdark while browsing various systems in the OSR trove after not being happy with DCC nor Old-School Essentials. That's the first I heard of it. Didn't even know the author was a foid until I read it front to back.
If there's somewhere you can point me to these 15 year old houserules I keep hearing about; please do. I am all ears.
>point me to these 15 year old houserules
https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/
does shadowdork do anything new at all? just looks like 5e lite to me. twitter game.
Black person I asked for a definitive book/pdf/ruleset by name. Not a fricking community. If I wanted to pick & choose sparse ideas from old tomes & ancient forum posts & write my own system setting document- I'd play GURPS.
Shadowdark accomplishes what this post doesn't. It concisely picks & chooses some probably obvious ideas into a single book that I can throw at the head of a player who just got off shift and doesn't want to frick around with google docs & forum links.
I'm not trying to shill out for the system. I have criticisms. Hence the OP.
B/X you moron.
Half the shit above is long standing TSR or OSR rules, like loot for XP. There have been dozens of iterations on hex crawling rules. I'd have to do some homework, but reading it, it seemed plagiarized from some 2012 blogpost. Real time torches is BrOSR.
Feats are probably original. Even with the plagiarized bits, the sum total is yet another OSR shitbrew among the hundreds clogging up DTRPG.
That the book is pretty, and it's written by a woman is the only things it has going for it.
>written by a woman
>going for it.
You underestimate middle aged nerd simps.
>is there truly another system that does what it does, just like what it does, but better
Not really from what I've seen and I've been going through a bunch of osr/nusr books to pinch stuff from recently.
Most other books give you about half of the content and then expect you to get all of the gm stuff like loot and non-dungeon procedures from old modules.
why sperg out if you can't even provide op with an alternative?
I play BFRPG with a subset of houserules that I like
>You really think Dungeoncraft would give this the time of day if the face of Shadowdark wasn't an American 7?
Counterpoint, Professor features DM Scotty's American 2 lardface way too often.
>moron op doesn't know about OSE.
>moron op doesn't know about Black Hack.
>Actually endorses the lack of GM tools, probably because it gives him an excuse to be extra moronic.
I mean at least it's not Five Torches Deep.
ACKS is probably what he's looking for if he doesn't want to curate weird houserules.
ACKS is good, Worlds Without Numbers too but OSE is king in formatting and accessibility.
I don't know how I missed WWN. Honestly, I prefer Crawford's formatting and layout to the others.
>OSE
Black Hack is cool, thanks. Again this is like a really cool idea that has me asking where's the rest of it. I usually don't like roll-under but I like how it's done here.
Probably not a campaign game but I'd keep Black Hack in my pocket for an extremely sudden oneshot for beginners.
>lack of gm tools
How many fricking gm tips and tricks do we need in these books, just play the game already.
It's not a complete product without a GMs Guide. Sorry but I am not going to:
A: Run your game using assumption from other games.
B: Learn how to run your game from israelitetube.
And frick the assumption that people that are interested in these games already know how to run dnd so they can run this !dnd. Because they don't.
Pretty sure it has a conversion to ascending AC in the book. Not sure though. Also its THAC0.
It's been awhile since any books have a gm section that isn't just a setting guide with maybe some improv tips and broad advice. Something that actually teaches you how to run the loop the game expects you play would actually be pretty nice. I have no idea if this game does it, but shit gming sections are a real problem in this hobby rn.
>OSE
THACO. No thanks. Maybe for me, not for my group.
There are surely better OSR systems than Shadowdark. That being said, I’ve been running a campaign using it for a couple months now with success.
The number of adventures for shadowdark is slim, so expect conversion, although converting takes little effort(just use an equivalent shadowdark monster). Currently playing Castle Xyntillan for my group and it functions really well-although I’m sure another OSR system could play it better
Couple things to keep in mind:
-always on initiative doesn’t seem to play well at my table. I’ve had to lift how I roll for random encounters from other systems
-the torch timer is a bit simple, but it works for my group.
-shadowdark PCs are stronger than B/X-equivalent PCs.
-change all gold pieces to silver OR divide the gold found by 10.
>Change gold pieces to silver
I'm assuming you mean this from a sensible narrative + pocket balance situation, doing this to both rewards *and* things you'd purchase, and not just rewards alone.
You probably don't want to tread the discord so let me take a shit and hook you up with a much cooler monster builder someone made using much more stringent maths. I've already been converting the monsters up and down the LV scale as needed to suit the adventures.
>what else is like it?
Huffing your farts while playing Basic D&D.