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Author Topic: Shadowdark?  (Read 808 times)

Offline NickNascati

  • Scatterbrained Genius
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Shadowdark?
« on: 30 March 2025, 09:36:22 PM »
What do folks think of Shadowdark?  Seems like a very well designed game.

Offline Ozreth

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Re: Shadowdark?
« Reply #1 on: 31 March 2025, 12:48:22 AM »
The Role-Playing Game? I am not a fan of the OSR movement (too much revisionism and narrow dogma on how the game should be played) and am not a fan of the 5e-ness. I would rather play the original TSR editions of the game or Castles & Crusades or Basic Fantasy. There are too many high production value releases of what is mostly the same game on the market. But yes it does seem well enough designed and is an attractive package. I?d simply rather break out any of my old D&D rulebooks.

I am, however, glad for anything that takes attention and money away from WotC, so there?s that.

But unless there is a miniatures game of the same name I?m not sure the discussion makes sense here. There?s actually a recent and multi page discussion over on Dragonsfoot which may interest you: https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=93060

Edit: why are all apostrophes turning into question marks?
« Last Edit: 31 March 2025, 12:58:24 AM by Ozreth »

Offline Elbows

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Re: Shadowdark?
« Reply #2 on: 31 March 2025, 04:54:57 AM »
Forum's been doing that for a bit lately.

I have Shadowdark, but never opened it.  I just wanted to support the Kickstarter.  I like the OSR movement personally, but don't like the 5E nature of Shadowdark, so I'm unlikely to give it a go.  I'm sticking to Dungeon World which is superb.

I know there was an expansion or KS coming soon for more content - is that what includes the solo stuff?  But in short, yeah it's just a version of D&D.
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Offline joe5mc

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Re: Shadowdark?
« Reply #3 on: 01 April 2025, 08:46:48 PM »
I think it's a pretty terrific re-implementation of Basic D&D, but only if you are looking to play it the way it has been designed - that is its about exploration/horror/survival, with high lethality. Combat is often the last resort. Thus, I don't think it translates into a true miniatures game that well, but works well as a miniatures heavy RPG.

Well written, beautifully if simply laid out, nicely produced.

Offline Elbows

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Re: Shadowdark?
« Reply #4 on: 01 April 2025, 09:22:50 PM »
Yep, I got a real 'Barrowmaze' style feel from it.  An actual dangerous dungeon crawl vs. high-fantasy mighty split-species world-killing superheroes (i.e. modern D&D).

Offline Khusru2

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Re: Shadowdark?
« Reply #5 on: 03 April 2025, 07:39:21 PM »
Saw this on YT Geek Gamers. She gave a good account of it.