Here's my take on Shadowdark. Kelsey is just a person, like MANY others, who was taught how to play D&D the old school way and just wasn't getting that from the WotC editions of D&D. So she developed her own version of an old school focused RPG that utilized some modern D&D mechanics, some old school mechanics, and some of the more innovative mechanics in various indie RPGs today. She playtested it for around 3 years and it seemed to work really well. By this time she had gotten into publishing adventures for 5e, had made a name for herself as a good adventure designer and writer, and so then naturally thought to turn her custom RPG into a published product. She obviously wasn't expecting a whole lot of excitement over it with a relatively low $10k goal and maximum Stretch Goal of $150k. I'm sure the success her Kickstarter has had has shocked her as it has anyone. I believe it's so successful because of these various reasons. It's published by a well respected 5e adventure writer. It is the first fully complete RPG relased after the OGL issue under creative commons. It's focused on old school dungeon delving resource management style gameplay which is hard to accomplish with 5e. It incorporates modern D&D mechanics which the majority of D&D players prefer now. It's simple and easy to get into. Kind of a breath of fresh air in that respect. And finally, the initial hype really spread like wildfire across social media which allowed it to reach so many more people than it would have normally. All this adds up to a sort of perfect storm for success.
Just FYI, the use of Ancestry was a change from the original rules written under the OGL where it was Race. When Kelsey switched to the SRD she changed Race to Ancestry. Other changes include; Concentration to Focus, HD to LV, Cleric to Priest. As for a torch essentially lasting 10 rounds, I believe it's not referring to time in combat. There essentially are two kinds of rounds. Crawling rounds and combat rounds. The "crawling rounds" is while exploring, moving through the dungeon and such.
i consider myself an old dude. Grew up on 2nd Edition D&D. I've been on the OSR train since Castles and Crusades launched. When I read Shadowdark it just makes sense. I can explain it quickly. The rules are (so far as I've seen) are tight and intuitive. Everything is derivative of OD&D. There are few exceptions like World of Darkness and Traveller, but most things boil down to roll a die, add your skill, beat a number... I don't understand the consternation regarding this game. The only thing I can think is it just sour grapes. It reminds me of Mork Borg, if I could read the font and classes weren't so weird i didn't want to play them.
I like random tables for character funnel games, and I do love the character funnel as a gm. Players seem to love having to build on something even if some dont like the idea until they actually do it.
My theory is that people are hungry for something that is simple. You can open up the box, throw a few dice, decisions are made for you, if you don't like the result, roll again or ask the GM if you can choose instead. Within 30 minutes you have a character with 1 hit point & you laugh about it. The company's timing could not have. been better with all of the OGL bullshit that Hasbro started. Perhaps it's just a perfect storm.
I read it at first and I got a similar impression, nothing new. But after checking other OSRs this is actually the one I prefer above them all, and the nothing new can be a feature and not a bug if you have a particular campaign in mind that would benefit from simplification.
I don't know about the "safe" part, but for what it is, and I think you explained it like a 5eBasic, I think is quite good: it's an approximation of modern rules to the old school feel of gaming, not the other way around. As for it's success, I think is was a great marketing of a nice product (with good art, good writing and good aesthetics, and also... marketing the fact that Kelsey is not a pedantic asshole xD as some people like that... I guess xD). I still prefer my BX clones, OSE and LotFP, but I have used SD to play one shots with 5e crowds, and it went quite well.
I do not think there is any wonder why Shadow Dark succeeded; the designer had a lot of 5e fans from her dm's guild writing. She was married to someone who works for a major marketing firm. I remember when this was in kickstarter I got targeted adds darn near everywhere I went. Literally 3 TH-cam channels I follow released positive reviews on the same day because a lot of youtubers promote themselves to promote future products, despite two having competing products. It is refreshing to have someone give this game an honest review; it is unspectacular in all regards. That having been said, it is a lot of people's first experiance with the osr, so much like x author being a rip off of y author; this boils down to the 5e crowd being less literate for games in general to think this is a brilliant masterpiece of copy paste.
Sure, it's a remix, and with her background coming from 5e, several aspects are apparent in the quickstart. I don't like the Real-Time guidelines, and my open tables play like "normal" games. The brunt of the OSR feel comes from the low power in the game. As far as those timers go, most of it revolves around when you rest. Sure, I use a few 1hour sand glass timers for the torch, but they never last too long. I don't go 1:1 for game/real-time passing. The spell casting has a good twist with a roll to cast and learn. Heck, if the cleric flubs the spell, they must pay penance before casting it again. Other than that, the spell casting is cast until you screw the pooch, so, a nice change. The art in the book is far better, and from several artists, so it does change. I understand that her background is in journalism, and from what I've seen, she keeps the terseness of prose throughout the text. I feel like it's a "this is my remix for basic play," which is fine. God knows there are plenty of those on the market. Like any rules set, there's stuff I like and stuff I'll modify. The author herself on the discord channel holds a more or less stance of " here's a ground floor, now fucking run with it." attitude.
I don't think this game is really aimed at folk that already play more than one system. The author has already been putting out a load of 5e stuff, so they will have fans and followers due to that, which might explain the big Kickstarter situation. Also, like all RPG bubbles the author is known within the 5e adjacent and 5e community, but probably not known in others. That's a big community, so even a small % of them is a big number compared to small indy authors looking for support. And after the recent OGL shenanigans a fair few 5e players seem to be looking at alternatives, this may be the safe option for them: known author, non WotC, familiar enough system. As to a lot of the stuff being repackaged from other sources etc, it may not look like new stuff to us but to the 5e exile it may seem like amazing brand new stuff.On a plus side, the game seems ready to print at time of starting the Kickstarter, so no one will be waiting a million years for it to be fulfilled (LotFP Ref guide, cough, cough). Edit: there was a Kickstarter advert for Shadowdark at the start of this video when I watched it. Perfect! 🤣
I find it disingenuous that folks that call Shadowdark nothing more than house rules who are into LOTFP (which I like) do not have the same critique of that rule set that is also based on “house rules”.
Because it does a few new things, which Shadowdark doesn't. Shadowdark is like assembling the Megazord out of the individual Zords. Lamentations is like making your own Megazord out of Lego.
So i think there is a few things here.. -The OGL mishap happened, many people were upset with WOTC and wanted something similar , but not DND 5e. -Pathfinder had a huge revolution of new players and sales after OGL. =Pathfinder is complex (to me at least) and messy, but 5e is not so complex but has so much inflated bloat involved in their rules. -Shadowdark offers a marriage between 5e and OSR, bringing the simplicity of OSR, rules light and dungeon master autonomy. -Shadowdark is also deadly, its not an epic heroic quest like 5e and Pathfinder where players are powerful and can kill everything, here the world is deadly, like other osr games. I'm surprised to hear your rhetoric for this video. You sound like you just got out of an argument and that person was being a jerk. I'm not involved in any of the OSR politics so hearing you come from a place of contempt is a weird place for me. I saw shawdowdark as an alternative and dangerous simplified version of pathfinder and 5e. The community is super chill and cool, (but i'm also not in the circles you're in which do not sound so pleasant). Best of luck to you, bummer to hear that you have such a negative perception.
The hope is that all the commentary around her being strongly business-minded rings true and that she not only finds massive success against WotC but that she helps usher in the 1000 year New Jerusalem of a mainstream OSR brand that can ultimately help publish other products. Without a publishing house that isn’t a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster, OSR publishing will be relegated to the shadow dimension of shoddy print on demand limitations forever. D&D (and the broader sphere of table top role playing) will always be an analog, pencil and paper, tangible medium and If this style of play is going to exist in say 2123, we need someone saavy with capital
@@PostmortemVideo I agree. I've done some comparisons of original (OOP) books I have and then got a POD copy way more recently. Obviously there can be differences between POD companies, but I have been very surprised at the quality--a couple times, other than a slight color variation on the cover (talking softcover here) I really couldn't tell the difference except by the obvious age/wear of the original compared to the POD version.
Never bought any 3rd/4th/5th edition products, but bought this...and this, for me, is what sold it. The game is nothing new in terms of content aside from a few homebrew rules, but what it has is a concise breakdown of rules that make the game an easy to read an understand system. Something that will make it easy to teach my young son how to play, or any of his friends. Anyone can play notes on an instrument, but it takes a skilled musician to write a good song ...this is the same thing. Same old mechanics, but explained and written in a way that makes it something different. I think there is good reason to say that all these TH-cam channels pushing the KS gave it a sense of FOMO and I also think there is an unwarranted cult of personality springing up around the author, but I don't think it takes away from the product itself...but it is way too early to pass judgement on a book that is not out in tbe wild yet.
It's funny how some TH-camrs say Shadowdark say it's OSR and others say it isn't OSR but 5E basic with some twists to it. There isn't much new to Shadowdark in many aspects. It is in my opinion a collection of what a lot of people see as extractions of the rules that work well and have popularity in gameplay. There is a lot of familiar from various systems brought together to make something people seem t have favor for. Over $1M dollars will give it a solid foothold in the TTRPG world. I can see Shadowdark sticking around for awhile as people turn away from WotC and.look to something familiar. Arcane Library jas had this in the works for 4 years. She got lucky with the OGL mess and the window of opportunity it opened. Being in the right place at the right time has made a lot of people in the world a lot of money. You have to be lucky to catch lighting in a bottle. Looks like someone rolled a natural 20.
Not heard of this at all. But been busy with all sorts of ideas. Good luck with anyone making money out of gaming. Who cares about the how's or why's.? Good luck to anyone having a crack at designing. Life is unfair. "Success" in a financial is a strange turn of phrase. Especially when financially speaking, it's immaterial to the joy and pleasure, to be had in tinkering with ideas. Get more out of gaming with writing and creating, than playing. Especially when the majority of folks in my local area are busy with Warhammer, D&D 5E and the Modiphius. 2D20 or the M.Y Z Engine.. Not going to stop building or creating. Keep on rocking on.. So I need 300 pages of rules ... Nope. Got tons of my own stuff to use, polish and eventually sell. Loads of free stuff in places Various SRD's, Using diffent mechanics. Blending options togethet. Am designed purely because. Love doing it. Giving baclk.
You seem not to have read this.....or the DM's pdf. No one can see in the dark, no one ! Except the monsters. The light going out is a big thing. You dont get XP for killing monsters you are just there for the loot. Level 1 wizards can learn and cast tier 3 spells ( like fireball ) from scrolls. Spells need a roll to cast , and you can keep casting til you fail. You go carousing and spend your loot after the adventure ....and can gain more XP. This is all new to me.
@@PostmortemVideo been playing this for a year now...and thought i would add this. I am running a new Greek Mythos campaign using SD, for 7 players (average age 55 ) at my local wargames club. We are all wargamers who like to dabble in RPGs. What got us back into D&D ...free rules, that were simple to download and play. This might be the " something " you missed. Enjoying your content. Subscribed.
No question it is the OSR hotness right now I'm enjoying the consternation you spoke of no question there are a lot of OSR people are like why is this hitting right now I have some thoughts on it thanks for covering this
It feels like it's cashing in on the abuse that has been hurled at the OSR over the years, mostly unfairly. Feels like it's sucking the life and enthusiasm out of the indie scene. Not necessarily through any fault of the creator.
Feel like the OSR is tainted in the public eye beyond any real redemption. Which personally is fine by me as OSR has maybe gotten to its twilight years.
I wrote a game that is quite different. You looked at it, gave me some good advice on presentation, but you didn't review it. I guess you aren't reviewing this either.
This is really just a case of the NEW Shiney- and old school youtubers wanting to champion something against the WotC beast so they applaud a very well produced 330 page / nice black and white old school art game that is harmlessly adequate game- the creator Kelsey Dionne comes across as nice and IS a student of Old School rpg's too and thats a plus. BUT THE BIG thing here is the TIMING- She had the game ready to go and then the OGL wotc ass dump happened- switched to a creative commons i think then released the game, Hell even i'm tempted to back it as a vote against wotc
I was considering backing this.... then changed my mind as I already own print copies of all the games its trying to be. I like the art but that's about it.
paid reviews like Questing Beast, maybe sleeping with Dungeon Craft, and other ways of getting positive reviews using womens wyles. on a more serious note, a female, not an old white guy author is why it is getting money. just like everything else, the person with bewbs gets more money than the one without.
Timing. Putting a bit of money into the kickstarter probably felt like kicking WotC in the nuts. It'll be interesting to see if in a year it shows up on any what are you playing polls. I suspect it'll be in the generic OSR section but who knows.
Don't think the artwork is what is really selling the Shadowdark game? Think again. Here's a direct sampling of some of the comments from Kickstarter itself: "Amazing art. Rad artwork. I particularly love the artwork. Love the artwork! Any chance of t-shirts in the future?. The artists in this book rock! Artwork is great. I am so in love with the DM screen art. I like this art. I absolutely love the cover art. The art definitely builds your world of Shadowdark, the more art you can have the better. Love the artists you chose. Love the art. Art is dope. I absolutely love the art, your artists are killing it. Neat art. INCREDIBLE art. The ART! You’ve captured what I love about the old stuff, yet in new ways. It’s be outstanding to be able to purchase some prints. My wife and I love the artwork. Some of the best screen art I've seen. The art for your project is amazing! Art for this game is so distinct. The art is just *Killer*. Art is some of the best I've seen in the industry. Awesome art."
I’ve been calling it ShadowMeh Not bad, not exciting, overhyped but whatever The persons comment from the FLGS is annoying as all heck but lets be honest, do you want such petty minded players in your game?
I was waiting for your opinion about this. I'm a backer but still not enthusiastic about this game. It hasn't anything that makes me say "WOW!" but it has all the rules I liked in many other systems in one single book. P.S. if you can give a look to The Black Sword Hack chaotic edition
I've been reading my copy of the black sword hack, and it reads very well. I like that they got rid of HP bloat.The only thing that's concerning is the lack of character options. I don't know if there's enough there for multiple campaigns.
Sounds like it's just like Five Torches Deep, another far less padded 5e clone. Channeling other thoughts, it's clearly aimed at the 5E normies who have heard of grittier games, but are otherwise totally clueless. As for discourse and so-called conspiracy; normies are very materialistic, usually have very disposable income, and will consume product if internet people are interested. And in fairness, bland pop friendly media sells well. It's why Nickelback was big, which generated meme-levels of hate.
I've been done with 5e for a while, and when this suddenly started getting praise left and right, I was immediately suspicious. Admittedly I've not checked out the quick start, but it seems basically like someone's homebrew for 5e in their own campaign world where they turned off the lights in dungeons. Meh.
You say, "like someone's homebrew for 5e in their own campaign world" which also describes a pile of OSR products (if you change out 5e for BX/BECMI/AD&D etc)...and I keep buying them. As to turning the lights off, I'd still end up using Veins Of The Earth for the underdark.
@@AngryPict I'm just more critical of 5e and its related products in general. I was done with it after two short campaigns back when it first launched, yet the group kept going back to it the last few years. Dark times. Tried running a campaign myself, got through a heavily customized LMoP game, then just lost all interest to touch it at all as a DM. Lately I've been buying up various OSR products pretty much exclusively, so yeah, I get what you're saying there.
@@UrbanVerse69 I got some overtime money and blew it on the 5e core books a week before the OGL fuckery happened. My timing was impecable. Still haven't played it. Plenty other games. 5e not at the top of my "to play" list.
Here's my take on Shadowdark. Kelsey is just a person, like MANY others, who was taught how to play D&D the old school way and just wasn't getting that from the WotC editions of D&D. So she developed her own version of an old school focused RPG that utilized some modern D&D mechanics, some old school mechanics, and some of the more innovative mechanics in various indie RPGs today. She playtested it for around 3 years and it seemed to work really well. By this time she had gotten into publishing adventures for 5e, had made a name for herself as a good adventure designer and writer, and so then naturally thought to turn her custom RPG into a published product. She obviously wasn't expecting a whole lot of excitement over it with a relatively low $10k goal and maximum Stretch Goal of $150k. I'm sure the success her Kickstarter has had has shocked her as it has anyone.
I believe it's so successful because of these various reasons. It's published by a well respected 5e adventure writer. It is the first fully complete RPG relased after the OGL issue under creative commons. It's focused on old school dungeon delving resource management style gameplay which is hard to accomplish with 5e. It incorporates modern D&D mechanics which the majority of D&D players prefer now. It's simple and easy to get into. Kind of a breath of fresh air in that respect. And finally, the initial hype really spread like wildfire across social media which allowed it to reach so many more people than it would have normally. All this adds up to a sort of perfect storm for success.
Just FYI, the use of Ancestry was a change from the original rules written under the OGL where it was Race. When Kelsey switched to the SRD she changed Race to Ancestry. Other changes include; Concentration to Focus, HD to LV, Cleric to Priest.
As for a torch essentially lasting 10 rounds, I believe it's not referring to time in combat. There essentially are two kinds of rounds. Crawling rounds and combat rounds. The "crawling rounds" is while exploring, moving through the dungeon and such.
Sounds reminiscent of the One Ring
Journey Rules
i consider myself an old dude. Grew up on 2nd Edition D&D. I've been on the OSR train since Castles and Crusades launched. When I read Shadowdark it just makes sense. I can explain it quickly. The rules are (so far as I've seen) are tight and intuitive. Everything is derivative of OD&D. There are few exceptions like World of Darkness and Traveller, but most things boil down to roll a die, add your skill, beat a number... I don't understand the consternation regarding this game. The only thing I can think is it just sour grapes. It reminds me of Mork Borg, if I could read the font and classes weren't so weird i didn't want to play them.
I like random tables for character funnel games, and I do love the character funnel as a gm. Players seem to love having to build on something even if some dont like the idea until they actually do it.
My theory is that people are hungry for something that is simple. You can open up the box, throw a few dice, decisions are made for you, if you don't like the result, roll again or ask the GM if you can choose instead.
Within 30 minutes you have a character with 1 hit point & you laugh about it.
The company's timing could not have. been better with all of the OGL bullshit that Hasbro started.
Perhaps it's just a perfect storm.
I read it at first and I got a similar impression, nothing new. But after checking other OSRs this is actually the one I prefer above them all, and the nothing new can be a feature and not a bug if you have a particular campaign in mind that would benefit from simplification.
I don't know about the "safe" part, but for what it is, and I think you explained it like a 5eBasic, I think is quite good: it's an approximation of modern rules to the old school feel of gaming, not the other way around.
As for it's success, I think is was a great marketing of a nice product (with good art, good writing and good aesthetics, and also... marketing the fact that Kelsey is not a pedantic asshole xD as some people like that... I guess xD).
I still prefer my BX clones, OSE and LotFP, but I have used SD to play one shots with 5e crowds, and it went quite well.
I do not think there is any wonder why Shadow Dark succeeded; the designer had a lot of 5e fans from her dm's guild writing. She was married to someone who works for a major marketing firm. I remember when this was in kickstarter I got targeted adds darn near everywhere I went. Literally 3 TH-cam channels I follow released positive reviews on the same day because a lot of youtubers promote themselves to promote future products, despite two having competing products.
It is refreshing to have someone give this game an honest review; it is unspectacular in all regards. That having been said, it is a lot of people's first experiance with the osr, so much like x author being a rip off of y author; this boils down to the 5e crowd being less literate for games in general to think this is a brilliant masterpiece of copy paste.
Sure, it's a remix, and with her background coming from 5e, several aspects are apparent in the quickstart. I don't like the Real-Time guidelines, and my open tables play like "normal" games. The brunt of the OSR feel comes from the low power in the game. As far as those timers go, most of it revolves around when you rest. Sure, I use a few 1hour sand glass timers for the torch, but they never last too long. I don't go 1:1 for game/real-time passing. The spell casting has a good twist with a roll to cast and learn. Heck, if the cleric flubs the spell, they must pay penance before casting it again. Other than that, the spell casting is cast until you screw the pooch, so, a nice change. The art in the book is far better, and from several artists, so it does change.
I understand that her background is in journalism, and from what I've seen, she keeps the terseness of prose throughout the text. I feel like it's a "this is my remix for basic play," which is fine. God knows there are plenty of those on the market. Like any rules set, there's stuff I like and stuff I'll modify. The author herself on the discord channel holds a more or less stance of " here's a ground floor, now fucking run with it." attitude.
I don't think this game is really aimed at folk that already play more than one system.
The author has already been putting out a load of 5e stuff, so they will have fans and followers due to that, which might explain the big Kickstarter situation. Also, like all RPG bubbles the author is known within the 5e adjacent and 5e community, but probably not known in others. That's a big community, so even a small % of them is a big number compared to small indy authors looking for support.
And after the recent OGL shenanigans a fair few 5e players seem to be looking at alternatives, this may be the safe option for them: known author, non WotC, familiar enough system.
As to a lot of the stuff being repackaged from other sources etc, it may not look like new stuff to us but to the 5e exile it may seem like amazing brand new stuff.On a plus side, the game seems ready to print at time of starting the Kickstarter, so no one will be waiting a million years for it to be fulfilled (LotFP Ref guide, cough, cough).
Edit: there was a Kickstarter advert for Shadowdark at the start of this video when I watched it. Perfect! 🤣
I find it disingenuous that folks that call Shadowdark nothing more than house rules who are into LOTFP (which I like) do not have the same critique of that rule set that is also based on “house rules”.
Because it does a few new things, which Shadowdark doesn't. Shadowdark is like assembling the Megazord out of the individual Zords. Lamentations is like making your own Megazord out of Lego.
So i think there is a few things here..
-The OGL mishap happened, many people were upset with WOTC and wanted something similar , but not DND 5e.
-Pathfinder had a huge revolution of new players and sales after OGL.
=Pathfinder is complex (to me at least) and messy, but 5e is not so complex but has so much inflated bloat involved in their rules.
-Shadowdark offers a marriage between 5e and OSR, bringing the simplicity of OSR, rules light and dungeon master autonomy.
-Shadowdark is also deadly, its not an epic heroic quest like 5e and Pathfinder where players are powerful and can kill everything, here the world is deadly, like other osr games.
I'm surprised to hear your rhetoric for this video. You sound like you just got out of an argument and that person was being a jerk. I'm not involved in any of the OSR politics so hearing you come from a place of contempt is a weird place for me. I saw shawdowdark as an alternative and dangerous simplified version of pathfinder and 5e. The community is super chill and cool, (but i'm also not in the circles you're in which do not sound so pleasant). Best of luck to you, bummer to hear that you have such a negative perception.
It's just so fucking unfair that great, innovative stuff goes unnoticed and uncelebrated, and this gets traction.
The hope is that all the commentary around her being strongly business-minded rings true and that she not only finds massive success against WotC but that she helps usher in the 1000 year New Jerusalem of a mainstream OSR brand that can ultimately help publish other products. Without a publishing house that isn’t a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster, OSR publishing will be relegated to the shadow dimension of shoddy print on demand limitations forever. D&D (and the broader sphere of table top role playing) will always be an analog, pencil and paper, tangible medium and If this style of play is going to exist in say 2123, we need someone saavy with capital
eh, PoD isn't that shoddy these days. Hope to have an announcement on this soon.
@@PostmortemVideo I agree. I've done some comparisons of original (OOP) books I have and then got a POD copy way more recently. Obviously there can be differences between POD companies, but I have been very surprised at the quality--a couple times, other than a slight color variation on the cover (talking softcover here) I really couldn't tell the difference except by the obvious age/wear of the original compared to the POD version.
Never bought any 3rd/4th/5th edition products, but bought this...and this, for me, is what sold it. The game is nothing new in terms of content aside from a few homebrew rules, but what it has is a concise breakdown of rules that make the game an easy to read an understand system. Something that will make it easy to teach my young son how to play, or any of his friends. Anyone can play notes on an instrument, but it takes a skilled musician to write a good song ...this is the same thing. Same old mechanics, but explained and written in a way that makes it something different.
I think there is good reason to say that all these TH-cam channels pushing the KS gave it a sense of FOMO and I also think there is an unwarranted cult of personality springing up around the author, but I don't think it takes away from the product itself...but it is way too early to pass judgement on a book that is not out in tbe wild yet.
It's funny how some TH-camrs say Shadowdark say it's OSR and others say it isn't OSR but 5E basic with some twists to it.
There isn't much new to Shadowdark in many aspects. It is in my opinion a collection of what a lot of people see as extractions of the rules that work well and have popularity in gameplay. There is a lot of familiar from various systems brought together to make something people seem t have favor for. Over $1M dollars will give it a solid foothold in the TTRPG world. I can see Shadowdark sticking around for awhile as people turn away from WotC and.look to something familiar. Arcane Library jas had this in the works for 4 years. She got lucky with the OGL mess and the window of opportunity it opened. Being in the right place at the right time has made a lot of people in the world a lot of money. You have to be lucky to catch lighting in a bottle. Looks like someone rolled a natural 20.
Not heard of this at all. But been busy with all sorts of ideas.
Good luck with anyone making money out of gaming.
Who cares about the how's or why's.?
Good luck to anyone having a crack at designing.
Life is unfair.
"Success" in a financial is a strange turn of phrase.
Especially when financially speaking, it's immaterial to the joy and pleasure, to be had in tinkering with ideas.
Get more out of gaming with writing and creating, than playing.
Especially when the majority of folks in my local area are busy with
Warhammer, D&D 5E and the Modiphius. 2D20 or the M.Y Z Engine..
Not going to stop building or creating.
Keep on rocking on..
So I need 300 pages of rules ... Nope.
Got tons of my own stuff to use, polish and eventually sell.
Loads of free stuff in places
Various SRD's,
Using diffent mechanics. Blending options togethet.
Am designed purely because. Love doing it.
Giving baclk.
i wish you
could learn to
w
r
i
t
e
without it being an
e e cummings
poem
;)
The timed mechanics are a strange design choice. When i run games, players looking at the time is something i try to avoid, not encourage...
You seem not to have read this.....or the DM's pdf.
No one can see in the dark, no one ! Except the monsters.
The light going out is a big thing.
You dont get XP for killing monsters you are just there for the loot.
Level 1 wizards can learn and cast tier 3 spells ( like fireball ) from scrolls.
Spells need a roll to cast , and you can keep casting til you fail.
You go carousing and spend your loot after the adventure ....and can gain more XP.
This is all new to me.
And yet...
@@PostmortemVideo been playing this for a year now...and thought i would add this. I am running a new Greek Mythos campaign using SD, for 7 players (average age 55 ) at my local wargames club. We are all wargamers who like to dabble in RPGs. What got us back into D&D ...free rules, that were simple to download and play.
This might be the " something " you missed.
Enjoying your content. Subscribed.
No question it is the OSR hotness right now I'm enjoying the consternation you spoke of no question there are a lot of OSR people are like why is this hitting right now I have some thoughts on it thanks for covering this
It feels like it's cashing in on the abuse that has been hurled at the OSR over the years, mostly unfairly. Feels like it's sucking the life and enthusiasm out of the indie scene. Not necessarily through any fault of the creator.
Feel like the OSR is tainted in the public eye beyond any real redemption. Which personally is fine by me as OSR has maybe gotten to its twilight years.
For no reason though. It's all ginned up.
Thanks for the video, I was wondering what all the hype was about.
You and me both!
I wrote a game that is quite different. You looked at it, gave me some good advice on presentation, but you didn't review it. I guess you aren't reviewing this either.
This is really just a case of the NEW Shiney- and old school youtubers wanting to champion something against the WotC beast so they applaud a very well produced 330 page / nice black and white old school art game that is harmlessly adequate game- the creator Kelsey Dionne comes across as nice and IS a student of Old School rpg's too and thats a plus. BUT THE BIG thing here is the TIMING- She had the game ready to go and then the OGL wotc ass dump happened- switched to a creative commons i think then released the game, Hell even i'm tempted to back it as a vote against wotc
I was considering backing this.... then changed my mind as I already own print copies of all the games its trying to be. I like the art but that's about it.
I'm finally tuning in, and agree with you. It's... fine, as a rule-set, but mystifying why it's running so hot. Cha'alt!
paid reviews like Questing Beast, maybe sleeping with Dungeon Craft, and other ways of getting positive reviews using womens wyles.
on a more serious note, a female, not an old white guy author is why it is getting money. just like everything else, the person with bewbs gets more money than the one without.
Timing. Putting a bit of money into the kickstarter probably felt like kicking WotC in the nuts. It'll be interesting to see if in a year it shows up on any what are you playing polls. I suspect it'll be in the generic OSR section but who knows.
@@ruprecht8520 Right alongside Old-School Essentials or Crimson Dragon Slayer D20.
Don't think the artwork is what is really selling the Shadowdark game? Think again. Here's a direct sampling of some of the comments from Kickstarter itself: "Amazing art. Rad artwork. I particularly love the artwork. Love the artwork! Any chance of t-shirts in the future?. The artists in this book rock! Artwork is great. I am so in love with the DM screen art. I like this art. I absolutely love the cover art. The art definitely builds your world of Shadowdark, the more art you can have the better. Love the artists you chose. Love the art. Art is dope. I absolutely love the art, your artists are killing it. Neat art. INCREDIBLE art. The ART! You’ve captured what I love about the old stuff, yet in new ways. It’s be outstanding to be able to purchase some prints. My wife and I love the artwork. Some of the best screen art I've seen. The art for your project is amazing! Art for this game is so distinct. The art is just *Killer*. Art is some of the best I've seen in the industry. Awesome art."
So you’re saying KS backers like the art?
@@liberalhyena9760 Nope, they don't like it... they love it! I think it's cool too. Great artwork can help sell a lot of books.
I’ve been calling it ShadowMeh
Not bad, not exciting, overhyped but whatever
The persons comment from the FLGS is annoying as all heck but lets be honest, do you want such petty minded players in your game?
I was waiting for your opinion about this. I'm a backer but still not enthusiastic about this game. It hasn't anything that makes me say "WOW!" but it has all the rules I liked in many other systems in one single book.
P.S. if you can give a look to The Black Sword Hack chaotic edition
I've been reading my copy of the black sword hack, and it reads very well. I like that they got rid of HP bloat.The only thing that's concerning is the lack of character options. I don't know if there's enough there for multiple campaigns.
Sounds like it's just like Five Torches Deep, another far less padded 5e clone. Channeling other thoughts, it's clearly aimed at the 5E normies who have heard of grittier games, but are otherwise totally clueless. As for discourse and so-called conspiracy; normies are very materialistic, usually have very disposable income, and will consume product if internet people are interested. And in fairness, bland pop friendly media sells well. It's why Nickelback was big, which generated meme-levels of hate.
I've been done with 5e for a while, and when this suddenly started getting praise left and right, I was immediately suspicious. Admittedly I've not checked out the quick start, but it seems basically like someone's homebrew for 5e in their own campaign world where they turned off the lights in dungeons. Meh.
You say, "like someone's homebrew for 5e in their own campaign world" which also describes a pile of OSR products (if you change out 5e for BX/BECMI/AD&D etc)...and I keep buying them.
As to turning the lights off, I'd still end up using Veins Of The Earth for the underdark.
@@AngryPict I'm just more critical of 5e and its related products in general. I was done with it after two short campaigns back when it first launched, yet the group kept going back to it the last few years. Dark times. Tried running a campaign myself, got through a heavily customized LMoP game, then just lost all interest to touch it at all as a DM.
Lately I've been buying up various OSR products pretty much exclusively, so yeah, I get what you're saying there.
@@UrbanVerse69 I got some overtime money and blew it on the 5e core books a week before the OGL fuckery happened. My timing was impecable. Still haven't played it.
Plenty other games. 5e not at the top of my "to play" list.
Im starting to hate meta currency.
Grazie.