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 described purely in feet. I’d have to see how it plays before I can make a final judgment.
(+) Spell focus. Casters must roll to focus on a spell at the start of their turns to keep it going. I want to see more of how spellcasters are handled in this game. Are they overly penalized, like in OSE and Dolmenwood? Let’s find out.
Player Section
Introduction
(+) Every character has the same movement speed.
(+) Much like a board game, all the players take turns, moving clockwise around the table. Rounds are tracked this way.
(+) Classic stat arrays. Lingua franca.
(-) Random character generation. This method of character creation is not popular with my group, although I love it. You’re allowed to reroll the array if you don’t get a 14 at least once.
Characters
(+) Character creation is extremely fast.
(+) XP is 10 x level. Simple, low numbers are good.
(+) Class titles. A powerful and simple way to enforce flavor.
(+) Backgrounds. Just a word or two to give you some idea of who you were.
(-) Low starting hit point values.
(+) Ascending armor class.
(+) Optional 0-level funnels, for those who are inclined.
(+) Standard modifier spread, up to a +4 modifier with a stat of 18.
(+) Ancestries (races) are extremely brief but flavorful. They present meaningful and relatively powerful options for players.
(+) Fighter class. Can easily be a ranged or melee fighter.
(-) Priest. Nothing special, though at least they get 2 spells at first level. (Edit after playing: Priest is insanely good. My judgment was way off).
(+) Thief. Always prepared. Versatile. More of a skill monkey than a back-stabbing assassin.
(+) Wizards. Good stuff, but very weak initially.
Alignment
(+) Alignment is actually a thing, and matters for character creation and roleplay.
(-) Deities. Lots of ‘em. Not really my thing.
(-) Languages. Lots of ‘em. Not really my thing.
Gear
(+) Easily randomized starting gear for level zeros.
(+) Slots as the default method of encumbrance.
(+) Crawling kit is an easy purchase for new characters.
(+) Armor has clear benefits and drawbacks.
(+) List of character names.
Advancement
(+) XP-based progression
(+) Gold-for-XP-based progression (kinda)
(+) Fast, random character generation with a handful of dice, if needed.
Magic
(+) Roll to cast seems crazy to me, but I like not tracking spell slots.
(+) Spells can crit.
(-) Clerics must pay penance for critically failing spells.
(-) Wizard mishap tables.
(+) Using scrolls and wands.
(++) The wand rules in particular are extremely clean and require no tracking from the GM.
(x) All spells are organized on a big alphabetical list. I prefer the OSE method, sorted by class and spell tier.
Gameplay
(+) Gameplay methodology and philosophy. Classic OSR stuff.
(+) Modern dice rules. Advantage, Disadvantage, crits, etc. 5E players will have no problem here. Lingua Franca.
(-) Luck tokens. I typically dislike narrative meta-currency, but apparently, this game is quite brutal without them.
(+) Real-time. This is Gary Gygax’s rule for managing time, but Kelsey has taken it to the next level with torches lasting for 1 real hour. Importantly, you can also just track torches the old-fashioned way, with 10 rounds being 1 hour of game time.
(+) Initiative order. The game is always in turn order. This is amazing.
(+) Lack of PC night vision. It wouldn’t be the Shadowdark if you could see in the dark, would it?
(+) When the torchlight goes out, all tasks are at Disadvantage, and the Encounter die becomes Deadly (3 in 6 chance of encounter each round).
(++) Resting. PCs must consume a ration and rest for 8 hours. Interruption forces a DC 12 CON check, or else they gain no benefit. Resting restores all hit points.
(+) Hiding and sneaking rules are clean and clear.
(+) Combat rules. Very minimal but cool and clear.
Overland Travel
(++) Encumbrance is not a factor when determining overland movement speed.
(+) Starvation/Dehydration simply drains CON every day until death at 0. God bless America.
Downtime
(x) Carousing. The random tables are far too small (14 options), and it’s far too easy to dump money into carousing. True downtime rules aren’t provided. Note that all of my complaints are fixed in Cursed Scroll #6: The City of Masks, in which an entirely new system and random tables are introduced. Plus, Kelsey fixed the Bard class.
(-) Wizards and Thieves game. I suppose it’s good if a player wants to gamble and you want to play it out.
Game Master Section
(+) Excellent explanation of a game master’s duties. Bonus points for the pact.
(+) A page describing what to expect from players and how to cater to them.
(+) Core ethos. A clear, concise, and focused explanation of what Shadowdark is built on, in terms of philosophy.
(++) On balance. Advice on being unpredictable and telegraphing danger clearly. I wish I’d read this when I first started playing RPGs.
(+) In general, the advice here is excellent. Kelsey’s GM philosophy is perhaps the most perfect summation of the OSR that I’ve ever read. “A game world without death is one without risk or tension.” Amen, my sweet lesbian sister.
(+) Attack the darkness. Since light is so important, it should be at risk. Yes, yes.
(+) Modes of play. Encourages players to assemble their own list of small house rules. Kelsey is not only recommending using the rules you want, but she’s also teaching you how to do it. Grinder mode appeals to me.
(+) Random encounters. Methodology and practicality.
(+) Reaction checks. Here’s a tiny rule I missed, where players can attempt to influence the creature’s reaction, but they must give up the possibility of surprise to do so. Reactions are 2d6. Randomly encountered creatures have treasure only half the time.
(+) Traps. Great advice on making traps more as obstacles than “gotcha” hit point taxes.
(+) Random trap generator is very fun.
(+) Hazards. Randomly rolled. Carefully placed. Obvious.
(-) The gauntlet. I’ve run a funnel in the past, and it was alright. But you need the right adventure and players to really make things fun.
(-) Awarding XP. I have greatly struggled to like these rules since discovering this game. I don’t think I can make a real judgment until I see them in play. I like how it’s still gold for XP (sort of), but it greatly reduces how much wealth the party accumulates. I wonder if the same result could have been achieved by using gold totals as written, and simply dividing by 10 or even 100 for a small gold AND XP value. As it stands, I’d like to peek into some adventures to see how the designer herself handles this.
(-) Something happens! A strange table that provides ideas for getting the party’s attention. Your mileage may vary.
(-) Rumors. I feel that rumors are best used when they are attached to your world. But this feels almost backward; the rumors can inform the world-building here.
(+) Adventure generator. This provides some fertile soil for DMs to grab onto and build an adventure around. I could see these being extremely useful over the course of a campaign. Or even a 1 or 2-shot
(+) Adventuring site names. Another useful generator. I could name locations all day with this.
(+) NPC generator. While the game already gave us a PC generator earlier, the NPC generator includes other details such as age and wealth status, occupation, and appearance.
(+) Rival crawlers. Easy rules for giving the party some rivals. The party name tables are particularly fun. Signature tactics are different depending on the party’s alignment!
(++) A list of NPC names is entirely separate from the previous list of PC names. Glorious
(+) Shadowdark maps. Here is a very easy method for generating a dungeon by dropping some dice on a piece of paper. Stellar stuff.
(+) Overland hex map generator. I really want to use these and see how it goes. Includes d20 points of interest and 24 settlement names.
(+) Settlement map generator. Good lord, this is so fun.
(+) Tavern generator. Includes tavern names, food, and drinks.
(+) Shop generator. Poor, standard, and wealthy. Shop names and what they’re known for. An interesting customer generator provides some fun: An odd wizard, a loud dwarf, or even rival crawlers can be present.
Encounter Tables
Arctic
Artisan district
Castle district
Cave
Deep tunnels
Desert
Forest
Grasslands
High district
Jungle
Low district
Market
Mountain
Ocean
River and Coast
Ruins
Slums
Swamp
Tavern
Temple district
Tomb
University district
(+) Overall, the entire chapter is a rich resource. Some encounters are more about “something happens” than actual encounters, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. This means that 1d6 of the time, something is going to insert itself into the party’s lives, and not necessarily attack them outright. I’d love to play around with this system and these tables and see how it feels.
Monsters
(+) Monster stat block explanation. Like everything else in this book, it’s clean, clear, concise, and fast.
(+) Monster generator. Here is a possibly very goofy monster generator that can result in a nearly unlimited number of monsters, at a variety of levels. I’ve seen Kelsey generate monsters live on her streams, and she always comes up with unique ideas. This tool alone could be sold for a few bucks on the internet.
(+) Make it weird: Monster mutations. You could really go deep into these mutations and make some crazy things.
(+) Designing monsters. Kelsey has somehow adapted the monster role methodology from 4th edition D&D and applied it to the OSR. Her advice is somewhat “soft,” i.e., non-mechanical. Then again, balanced mathematical perfection is arguably a false idol in these kinds of games anyway.
(+) Monster stats. I’m not going to give a reaction to every single monster in this book. Suffice to say, I think the design and flavor are very strong, and the stat blocks are so compact that you could easily copy them into your notebook.
Treasure
My favorite chapter in every RPG. Here we’re taught how and when to award treasure.
(++) Treasure tables. I absolutely adore treasure tables. I want to roll on these tables as frequently as possible. I’m a fan of entirely random loot generation and letting the players sort things out. What can I say, I’m more of a roguelike player than most DMs.
(+) Mundane items. Includes luxury items and gemstones.
(+) Boons. Here is an interesting and (as far as I can tell) rarely-used idea for rewarding players: Boons. You can give them oaths (basically, favors that powerful NPCs owe you), secrets (such as blackmail and other leverage), and blessings of various kinds. These boons give XP in addition to their core effect. Weird, but cool.
(++) Magic item attributes. Bonuses are between +0 and +3 for magic armor and weapons. +0 and +1 are common. +3 is very rare in this game. Some magic items confer extra benefits or curses. Some have personalities. Along with statistical bonuses, there are side tables that include possible descriptions of the items in question.
Comments
Post a Comment