It’s time for me to do a readthrough of Shadowdark. I can’t believe I haven’t done one yet. Instead of doing a page-by-page readthrough of the book, I’m going to use a modified version of my normal format that captures Loved It (+), Hated It (x), and Middling (-). However, I’m going to keep these in chronological order as presented in the book. I have not run or played Shadowdark, but I wonder if 2026 is finally my year… (Editor: It was.) Key (++) Love it (+) Like it (-) Meh (x) Dislike it Front Inside Cover (+) Four difficulty classes: DC 9 through 18, ranging from easy to extreme difficulty. I find that setting DCs causes me just enough cognitive friction that I’m pleased to see the DCs standardized like this. (+) Morale. Extremely clean and fast, and rolled as a skill check rather than a 2d6 table. (+) Dying comes with a random death timer. Characters with higher CON are more likely to survive. (-) Abstract ranges. Close, Near, and Far. I would rather have these desc...
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