Our library has resumed running TTRPG sessions for the first time since COVID lockdowns. First up: Shadowdark, the $1.37 million Kickstarter from 2023 that has developed a loyal following. 

We had quite the eclectic mix: three teenage boys who knew one another, the parents of one of the boys, and folks in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s: three women, six men (seven including the GM). Out of 10 players who registered, 9 showed up. 

Everyone else chose from a pre-gen, some of which came from the Unnatural Selection third-party supplement (e.g., plague doctor, beastmaster). I had downloaded the Shadowdark RPG Quickstart Set and had spent 15 minutes happily rolling up a character, including using the optional tables for ancestry, class, alignment, and gear. It amused me to roll class rather than choosing from my best stat, so I was a thief despite Constitution being my best stat. I rolled 3 hit points (hp use a d4), so I didn’t expect my PC to live long. While there are random tables for names, I named my character Mouse, after the Grey Mouser.

As the pregens were all level 2, our GM had me level up, getting me up to 5 hit points and allowing me to roll another skill.

Shadowdark calls for you to run the entire table in turn order, in and out of combat. We did an initiative check, then the highest player started, and we went clockwise from there. (By coincidence, I’d house-ruled this for my 5e open table years ago: see my tips for RPG Sessions with 8 or More Players.)

Droomen Knoll

The GM used the “Pipes on Droomen Knoll” adventure starter from the Dolmenwood Campaign Book, which I bought and read afterwards to see where he changed things. You might want to skip to the next section if you’re planning on playing in a Dolmenwood campaign.

My six turns, in two-and-a-half hours:

  • I investigated the nest of a two-headed rooster the other players had just accidentally awoken and then scared away (in the module, it was leashed). I said that I’d heard these birds lay golden eggs, and to my surprise I found a golden egg in the nest, a wonderful “yes” as it has no treasure in the module. (I told my fellow PCs that I hadn’t found anything.)
  • I examined a relief behind a sundial, foolishly touching it and becoming coated in frost (-1 on my next attack).
  • I loudly and slowly spoke Common to the prisoner we discovered, offering to release him if he would show us where to find the chalice we were looking for.
  • I took the ratbone panpipes he’d left behind when the rest of the party followed his lead. After deciding they weren’t worth selling, I gave them to him (quite the risk: the module gives him an attack, “Maddening panpipe music directed at a chosen target, who must Save Versus Spell or attack their allies for 1 Round”). Fortunately, giving him the panpipes calmed him down (he was in a fearful state) and helped subsequent players win him as a more loyal ally.
  • We faced an antler wraith (replacing a group of crookhorns in the module). At the start of combat, the GM had us all re-roll initiative. I rolled a natural 1 and was delighted when the player to my left rolled a natural 20, as it meant he went first and play proceeded clockwise: I’d “earned” going last. When it was my turn to fight, I asked the priest to bless my shortsword so that it would be effective against the undead, then raised my shield and dove at his feet. I hit and did 6 damage on a d6. (The GM was generous, as I don’t think this would have been enough for my weapon to work.)
  • I was the first to explore the treasure chamber, making sure there were no traps.  

Shadowdark System

Shadowdark is a streamlined 5e. It’s tagline, “Old School Gaming, New School Mechanics.”

The core of game play is making d20 difficulty checks against target numbers: easy (9), normal (12), hard (15), and extreme (18). The GM advice is to ask for them in the style “a DC12 strength check” but our GM never revealed the difficulty. 

I found the system to be rather vanilla, being notable to me for its real-time torches (extinguishing after an hour of play), streamlined mechanics, and low hit points and low damage.

I asked Shadowdark fans on the NSR Discord to share what they liked, and Dollface Killah, the moderator for the Shadowdark subreddit, shared this post—

When I read through the free Quick Start rules it was like I’d listed all the things I wanted from different editions of D&D and adjacent OSR games and someone had tailored a bespoke book for me. This is 100% going to just be my edition of D&D regardless of how well it does, but I hope it gets into a lot of other hands too because it’s a banger. Some highlights:

  • Unified resolution. Everything is roll a d20, want a high number.
  • No skill list. To do an action the GM deems needs a roll you just add the relevant stat to a d20, and roll 2d20 picking the highest if you have some relevant background or equipment.
  • Random level-up rewards, each class gets their own chart to roll on.
  • Close, near, far ranges for easier theatre of the mind combat. You could use a grid for this game, but I don’t intend to and all the mechanics written with these range bands makes it easier.
  • No PC darkvision. All my homies hate PC darkvision.
  • Torches last one real-time hour, to put time pressure on decision making without too much oldschool in-game time tracking being necessary.
  • Low hp, fast combat. Feels very oldschool in fights to me.
  • XP from treasure, not kills, but this has also been simplified to make it even easier to track, and to estimate as a GM how fast your adventures will level up your PCs.
  • No Vancian wizards, they roll to cast any spell they know and mishaps can happen if they fail, like a simplified DCC.
  • Slot system for encumbrance.
  • Turn undead is a cleric spell not a class feature, so you can just replace the spell in the spell list instead of banning/homebrewing clerics if you have too much/no undead in your game.
  • Monster morale system.
  • Easily hacked and homebrewed with a very generous 3PP license, there’s already some decent 3PP content for this game. I’m also funding it pretty easy to use my OSR material in this game with minimal conversion.
  • The book looks sick.

Star and Wishes

Stars

  • While we played theater of the mind rather than with miniatures, the GM drew the dungeon for us on a white board.
  • The system worked well for an open table, being mainly DC checks (roll a d20, add/subtract a modifier). Unlike 5e open tables I’ve run, no one ever asked which die to use.
  • The GM did an excellent job managing the number of players and updating the situation so that each subsequent player had something new and useful to contribute; for instance, collaborating on a puzzle that multiple people took stabs at solving or ignoring before one player got it.
  • I appreciated our GM’s house rule around spells (which always worked, but couldn’t be used again on a failure).
  • Two of the other players cracked some great puns, my favorite of which was calling the two-headed rooster a “cockatwice.”
  • It was fun to be a dungeon crawler again, after having not done so in many years.

Wishes

  • Obviously I would have preferred fewer players. At times, it felt more like a boardgame than a roleplaying game.
  • I haven’t played with miniatures since right before COVID lockdowns, but I wouldn’t have minded doing so in this case, not for use of a grid but just for knowing where everyone was relative to one another.
  • Newer players used their character sheets as dashboards with buttons to press, with minimal roleplaying.
  • The GM rolled a lot behind the screen. Having read the GM quick start, I think he was using oracles rather than doing something that Shadowdark called for?
  • I would have liked to have played a Shadowdark adventure, as Kelsey Dionne, creator of Shadowdark, built a reputation for her 5e adventures.

I greatly enjoyed the experience and would play Shadowdark again, though hopefully with just three or four players.