Shadowdark has been the "new hotness" in the OSR scene for a few years now. I dig the b/w art and the vibe they have going but have not gotten to try it.Have you? If so how did it go?
>>97940952It's mediocre at best. Almost everyone who insists its great hasn't played it, but they watched some youtuber say it was great, so they got around telling everyone how great they think it is. And those youtubers mostly just talked about the torch mechanic, which is actually retarded when you stop to think about it. Some of them even tried to spin the game as solo friendly and it's just a 50/50 yes/no coinflip and practically nothing else because the designer doesn't know shit about solo play... but, again, youtubers said it was great, so everyone repeats how they heard that its great.
>>97940952It's D&D with a stopwatch.
>>97940952It's my primary fantasy ruleset. It's fine. The torch mechanic is gimmicky. Lesbian creator but she doesn't jam it down your throat like Hasbro.
>>97940952It doesn't really have anything for veterans tk the hobby, but it's a good first game for newbies.
>>97940952Beholders are not OGL, how did they managed to do that? How do they call it?
>>97940952Yes. It's okay. >>97941093>about the torch mechanic, which is actually retarded when you stop to think about it.Which even the creator acknowledges. There's a section that acknowledges, sometimes you don't want 1:1 time.
>>97944337It's not a beholder, that is a legally distinct 10 eyed Oracle
>>97940952It's literally just someone's mash up of things they liked from a few other fantasy games presented to try and appeal to people into old school D&D. The dumb torch mechanic is the only new original idea (to my understanding, that could be lifted too for all I know) and it's not even fun or useful for anything.Buddy in my regular group has gotten super into it and the rest of us hate watching him become Shadowdark-pilled. I ignored it initially because the kickstarter pitch didn't convince me why I'd need this game over just using OSE or something like Dungeon Crawl Classics. He ran a one shot to impress the game upon us and while it was sufficiently bland, I also couldn't stop laughing about how lame it was compared to the hype that's been built up around it. There is nothing it offers that you could not already get from another game that probably also had other cool elements to explore as well.I'd rather just play vanilla 5e and I hate even admitting that. It's basically just an influencer grift for the tabletop rpg space.
>>97945376>this game over just using OSE or something like Dungeon Crawl Classics.it really is a mystery to me why some anons who have obviously never played the games [and probably never even read the rulebooks] hold such a strong opinion on themwhat causes the seething?is it because SD is the most successful indie game out there?is it because it was written by a woman?or is it because she has a better understanding of both gamedesign and old-school play than most other indie ttrpg authors?
>>97940952i'm enjoying it. honestly it was my first exposure to OSR-style play and it was a breath of fresh air from years of playing 5e, pathfinder, and draw steel with my regular group.it's easy to get into since the mechanics are familiar but the vibe is different. it's opened me up to the wide world of OSR-type games so i'm exploring a bunch of other systems now because of it. but "comfy" is what shadowdark summed up in one word is to me.>>97946534>is it because SD is the most successful indie game out there?its popularity seems to have exploded since its release and there's a ton of homebrew popping up everywhere. i love it because i get to explore it all, but i imagine some are already shadowdark content fatigued.>is it because it was written by a woman?probably some of this too>or is it because she has a better understanding of both gamedesign and old-school play than most other indie ttrpg authors?truthfully i don't know enough about these types of games to comment about design, but shadowdark seems to capture the OSR vibe pretty well despite the more modern 5e mechanics. it's just easily accessible and the visual design is pretty evocative.
>>97946801This anon's ignorance is a pretty good example of why its irritating to people who actually know anything. But you're way too late for Shadowdark or any grimclusive stuff to be very good bait, everyone's burnt out on it. Shadowdark, Mork Borg and Trench Crusade have been the same shark jump over and over again.
It's becoming clear who has played the game and sho hates it because it is super popular with dozens of products
>>979470452/10 apply yourself
>>97947034has shadowdark ever been popular on /tg/? or has it been lumped in with mork borg and similar "nu-sr" games and largely ignored/villified?and i'm not baiting, i'm honestly curious because i was only exposed to shadowdark and osr-style games a couple months ago and now they're my latest autistic obsession.
>>97947034>its irritating to people who actually know anything.LMAO>hur-dur I'll let you know I was achoooaly top 70% of my [special ed] class in middle-school and I'm a certified hardcore tryhard because I play dress-up toy soldiers in a more inconvenient and less popular way than you do!!nagger nobody cares you use an attack matrix or whatever instead of AC and ABwe are talking tabletop games of play-pretend not some medal of honor stolen valor or fake phdsget some real life achievements to build your identity around if you still can and stop so patheticlet people enjoy things
>>97946534>is it because SD is the most successful indie game out there?It's not, but saying shit like that is part of the problem. The level of success doesn't match the quality or supposed innovation the game is claimed to have. It's like a 4/10 "babby's first rules lite dungeon crawl" game, but retards pretended like it revolutionized the entire hobby by doing nothing in particular that they can explain, beyond the torch thing, which isn't even remotely clever or interesting.
>>97947275It was so hated that when it first started to become popular /tg/ created a parody system called DarkBad that mocked it relentlessly and then everyone forgot about it because it's mostly boring and doesn't really do anything special.
>>97940952https://youtu.be/cwP-D19A5q4?si=tL1WVMg7Lcds_ltI
>>97947381Fuck off Virt. No cares about your faggy youtube culture warrior shtick
>>97947300>>97947320that sounds fair. i keep mixing up the original release with the most recent KS so it's been out for awhile. the mechanics are obvious in hindsight, it's just "dumbed down" 5e.regardless, i still enjoy it. i think it coincided with my growing interest in solo games and shadowdark is one that's also easily soloable on top of easy to prep for group play. also i've always enjoyed modding in video games and shadowdark is very friendly to homebrew for someone new to these kinds of games.
>>97947275>has shadowdark ever been popular on /tg/?The most praise I've seen for the game was from people who refused to talk about the game, but instead insisted that everyone was just a bitter hater because the female author was so good at marketing. Also because they hated women.>>97947434I am thoroughly unimpressed with Shadowdark's solo rules, and the people I've seen promoting them, including the creator who wrote said rules and even demonstrated them, don't seem to know how solo play actually works on what people do with it. Which just kinda adds to my dislike for the game. The creator herself just outright lying to people on camera, feigning knowledge and interest in an aspect of the hobby she couldn't be bothered to research at all.
