Why You Should Back Shadowdark

[@CScott-wh5yk]

Subbed. Shadowdark reviews have helped me find so many good channels.

[@Living4Crits]

Fair warning that this is probably one of our more coherent videos! :) A lot of them were just me and my daughter ranting about gaming stuff! But every once and a while something fun pops up. Now that we have an every Friday Shadowdark game going with my youngest though might mean more SD videos!

[@ShannonFerguson]

I love the simplicity of the spells and the monsters. It's easy to keep those crunchy bits in your head.

[@megasquidd]

I'm glad to see you on youtube again. Shadowdark is an strange lesson in business. You have a quality product + good marketing + a likable creator (Kelsey crosses the ages with her young, respectful view of old school games), but it isn't always enough to make something successful. You also need to have good timing and good luck. That is what happened here. She had this game ready to just when WotC crapped the bed with their OSR debacle. I have a hard time getting people into DCC sometimes, because it is a lot. I love it, but Shadowdark is going to fit that niche of being beginner friendly, but dangerous and dark.

[@Living4Crits]

Yeah that DCC corebook can be really intimidating, especially with all the charts and tables. While you don't have to have them all memorized, you do need to know how they all tie together. And you're right, this is perfect timing for this to drop around the time of the OGL mess!

[@paulbigbee]

I was immediately captivated by the subtle but massively impactful design choices that Kelsey made in creating Shadowdark. First, resource constraints define the fantasy and second, hewing to a more rules-light system consciously leaves things *out* so that we (the table) can bring new stuff *in* - creativity > crunch for me.

[@Living4Crits]

And there is SO much room for fan made and GM made stuff. House rules are so simple to do. Honestly my list of 6 could’ve been a list of 20 :)

[@paulbigbee]

@@Living4Crits Enthusiastically agree. Shadowdark has given my ten years of 5E material a new lease on life. Brilliant.

[@tidfisk]

Great video! Thanks for covering this one. Super excited about Shadowdark!

[@Living4Crits]

Thank you Ryan! Same here, especially since we're getting it in just a few weeks in PDF

[@TimBaker]

It's so good to see you back on KZbin! I've been buying Kelsey Dionne's 5e adventures for years, and I'm super glad she's having such success with Shadowdark. 🎉🎉

[@Living4Crits]

Thanks Tim! Good to be back!

[@hazelmayn2465]

Finally an old-school dungeon crawler game that one can easily get their normie friends and coworkers to try! It will be huge.

[@dougdoug2006]

Paul Wolfe turned me onto it a few months ago. I’ve been running the QuickStart for my RPG club. I think it’s got DCC DNA and that appeals to us.

[@Living4Crits]

It feels like it’s gonna have that same DIY spirit that exists in the DCC’verse too.

[@dougdoug2006]

@@Living4Crits yeah, it’s extremely simple to make your own classes and races. It’s a nice base system that can easily be modded to taste.

[@ToddPutnam]

Great review. My campaign switched to Shadowdark too after just one session. and I couldn't agree more about the older systems like OSE. Just didn't do it for me either, but SD is just the right touch.

[@SeanFranchise]

I've been enamored with the design and clarity of the OSE books since I first saw them, but was turned off by some of the mechanics carried forward from B/X D&D that seem a bit esoteric when viewed through the modern lens. ShadowDark really nailed the format and feel, but refreshed the mechanics to exactly the kind of blend I've been looking for.

[@ryanwest4968]

Glad you posted this, I was on the fence about picking this up but I think with this explanation I'm sold.

[@Living4Crits]

Woot! Make sure to get the free PDFs.

[@ShannonFerguson]

I agree with your points about thieves and wizards. Why does my thief keep falling off of walls or failing to open a lock? Why are wizards reduced to throwing daggers instead of spells? Were all wizards circus performers before studying magic? Do they have bandoliers of daggers like Blade?

[@Living4Crits]

I mean... Blade WAS pretty cool :)

[@ShannonFerguson]

Yes, Dwarf Wizards! Goblin Priests!

[@obi-rob7261]

Glad to know you all are doing well!

[@Living4Crits]

We live!!!

[@Living4Crits]

Update: Just finished our 3rd session of this, playing in Kazad-Mor. Really great module! So now, 3 games in, still really enjoying it :) [Note, this is just fandom. No one sent me any copies of this, I'm not compensated by anyone, and this isn't even a monetized channel. I just really like the game

[@mikeharrison6039]

I missed you Judge James

[@Living4Crits]

I kinda missed being here too :)

[@DeusMachina71]

Good for beginners but much too simplistic and a victim of its own efficiency. I was excited about this after reading the quickstart and have since read through the last pre release beta as well and having had time to digest it I realized the following things.. it's plays out far too much like a beer and pretzels rpg for me, most of the book is empty calories, if I reduced the core necessary rules to regular sized pages instead of digest sized using huge font it's literally a few pages long and after reading it twice I'd never need to open that book to run the game it's literally that simple. It's not unique and doesn't add anything new we haven't see before in other OSR B/X and adjacent games over the past 10 years to one extent or another.. Talents? FTD, Simplified Saves, Acsending AC, Advantage/Disadvantage, Spellchecks, Equipment capacity slots.. I've seen all this before in different configurations so nothing new.. it's well written, organized and streamlined but it's too simplistic for me. Determine Advantage/Disadvantage, total ability and class talent modifiers, roll over opponents AC, roll damage.. repeat ad nauseum, gain xp, level, every other level gain a roll on the class talent table gain one of four boring choices like +2 to an ability, +1 to hit or spellchecks, +1 to a class ability like backstab, the 5th is choose one of the other dull 4 choices.. thats the game loop,, there's just not much really there except the massive push by KZbin influencers and I'm a bit over the hard sell I've heard all month on every influencers channel, I went from interested, to excited, to meh, to it's getting a bit annoying now lol, it's overkill, it's in my social media feed everyday now as well, it turned me way off. I'd much rather play DCC, OSE, LotFP, S&W and most other OSR games, it's a pass from me. That aside it's a fine game for kids and beginners but it doesn't have enough meat on that skeleton to really make a meal. I'd wish her luck but she doesn't need it, the marketing campaign she pulled is far better than a wish ha, and on a positive note every dollar her way is a dollar WotC won't see so anything to move people off WotC D&D works for me.

[@ratatatuff]

That's a great summary. I'm kinda frustrated too. The WotC debacle opened the door for new games but it feels like every second KZbinr is making his own game now. And to me they all kinda seem to be the same basic OSR clone, just with different aesthetics and minor tweaks. Shadowdark is the most hyped of them and, like you said, it doesn't really offer much except for huge fonts. There's more meat in Basic Fantasy and that one's free. d6 is also free and imho it's superior to any flavour of DnD. And there are so many other good and established games out there. It's funny, the last time I've encountered such a hype was when Positive Grid sent out their Spark amps to each and every KZbinr and influencer around the globe. I was interested in the beginning because I was looking for a practice amp and it had glowing reviews and a cheap price point. But it became too much, that amp was literally everywhere and I simply didn't order one because it was so annoying. And as soon as I got to hear the amp in reality I was glad I didn't. It was all just hype for a mediocre product. Maybe I'm too quick drawing that parallel but the hype for Shadowdark is very reminiscent of that.

[@DeusMachina71]

@@ratatatuff Well I'm not taking a dump in that review, I think the game is fine particularly for beginner's or casuals that want a super simple beer and pretzels game, it does that very well. It just doesn't do anything new. I don't think this would last on my table more than one quick campaign becuase the options are just very generic and there's really not a lot of them, the whole game suffers from its efficiency, it's not simply terse it's extremely thin, the hype machine on this is way out of control, she's paying several key OSR influencers for their review spots and she's additionally friends with them, this type of buddy in group promotion while common in business, is I think not good for the health of the OSR scene because they are talking it up way, way too much and creates skepticism in me going forward. I'm very disappointed in the coverage, not a single critical review, not a single one of these "reviewers" had anything remotely close to a real review, they all sounded like late night infomercials

[@steelmongoose4956]

Good commentary, and it seems pretty close to what I’m seeing. I like some of the rule choices, but it doesn’t seem all that innovative. It seems like a nice presentation, though. I’m also with you about NotC and AssBro. I’ll throw Kelsey money for nothing before I buy something from WotC.

[@grumpyoldgrognard9561]

I followed the hype to Shadowdark last month and was singularly unimpressed. This is not "old school gaming with a modern ruleset." It's new school gaming. Period. It's a standard, 5E style superhero power fantasy with a thin patina of an old school aesthetic. The art is wonderful. Other than that? Meh.

[@bamboozledgreatcrowd8982]

What system do you play.

[@dougdoug2006]

Eh, I greatly dislike 5e and my experience with playing (not reading) Shadowdark has been the opposite of superhero gaming. HP is lower across the board. So is damage output. The one minor problem I have is that it’s harder to die if the cleric is able to roll well with healing spells. But that’s up to a die roll.

[@bamboozledgreatcrowd8982]

I agree that 5e has become a superhero game. It looks like OneD&D will be worse. Shadowdark will be a refreshing change.

[@brucehutchinson7139]

Username checks out.

[@grumpyoldgrognard9561]

​@Bamboozled Great Crowd! I play a lot of systems. I ran 5E for 2 years. C&C is my FRPG of choice. Right now, I have a 2E game on StartPlaying and I'm my tally friend group plays CoC on weds nights.

[@williamlittlefield4749]

Just don't see what all the excitement is about ... it's another 5E meets OSR Fantasy Heartbreaker. Nothing groundbreaking or particularly unique - all these ideas have been out there for years. Pretty much the same as OSE or The Black Hack with a few choice house rules. The fact that it's a 300+ digest-sized tome is a big turn off for me as well ... I would have gone with a boxed set with a 8.5"x11" sized rules booklet with a separate book for all the random tables I'll never use (have enough of those to last a lifetime already and frankly sick of seeing them being used to pad out rulebooks) and an adventure with some dice thrown in. Will still likely drop $29 on the PDF just to support the creator, but I don't see anything in there that I haven't already seen and/or adapted to my B/X games ... but hey, if you love then keep on spreading the gospel. It's obviously going to be a huge success. I just think we've jumped the shark as far as truly innovative game systems are concerned.

[@steelmongoose4956]

It seems more about finding an interesting combination of rules now than coming up with new ones. I suppose that’s to be expected, though, 50 years into the hobby. Maybe there’s some magic here, but it seems pretty close to other games, many of which are a free download. I’ll keep my eye on it, but it doesn’t seem particularly revolutionary to me (although it does seem like a good entry game).

[@ratatatuff]

There are already dozens of OSR games out there. Some are even free. I haven't seen anything that would make Shadowdark stand out. Save your money.

[@DeusMachina71]

I absolutely agree.. it's not a bad game by any means but the hard sell given by every KZbinr who got a free copy or were paid to do the promotion (some were paid to do the spot) turned me off and I've read it and digested it, it's a beer and pretzels rpg that if you read the rules once or twice you can run piss drunk and never open the book again except to look up a random chart.. it's not simply terse it's really pretty empty and those 300 pages? All the core rules could fit on standard sized paper and be on 3 pages the rest is random charts, a few pages of spells again written in huge fonts, a bestiary that's the same as you pretty much get in every OSR game. Nothing stands out except the marketing to me.. I'm passing hard now on it

[@ratatatuff]

@@andynonimuss6298 Well, I would discard your argument. The RPGPundit is a moron and a racist pos. I don't care what that guy is saying.