A read-through of The Arcane Library’s Shadowdark system.
One of 2023’s most highly-hyped Kickstarter releases (13,249 backers, $1,365,923 raised), Kelsey Dionne’s Shadowdark markets itself as a bridge between D&D 5th edition players and the OSR. This is not so much a critical review as a read-through and some thoughts and observations on how effective the book is at doing so, and as an OSR system in general.
This is… a very Large book. From the table of contents this appears to be largely useable material rather than author diatribe, which is a good sign.
The first thing I notice - as it is in the frontpages/inner cover - is the equipment list and how weapons are described and interacted with. Range bands of Close/Near/Far/etc in lieu of specified ranges is a little more to my preference but not always easily compatible with the kind of material Shadowdark promises to be compatible with (ie. early TSR modules and contemporary S&W/LL modules). Ditto with slot-based inventory over encumbrance, though I am favourable towards any dungeoncrawler that emphasises encumbrance - after all, resource management is the entire point.
Shadowdark uses target number-based dice checks instead of ability score checks/percentiles (or just not doing either of those things). It also uses monster WIS instead of a separate morale score, which is… fine, more to the 5e side of things. Likewise, a death timer instead of just being dead at zero hit points is very much more catered to 5e players. I wouldn’t have included it, but its not like a player is beholden to a book for its rules.
I’m interested by this passage:
In this game, a torch only holds back the pressing darkness for one hour of real-world time. There isn’t a moment to waste when the flames are burning low…
If time-keeping (particularly wrt light resources) are tied into real-world time, that’s sort of a New thing. I don’t think I like it? I’m not certain.
The basic rules are presented in about two pages, which I always appreciate. Again - a player is not beholden to a book for its rules, and whatever QOL-improvements and personal preferences Shadowdark has over other OSRs (or even 5e) are going to vary widely from table to table. Much like Uno or Monopoly, people tend to play dungeongames with whatever house ruling or QOL improvement they either came up with through play or were taught by a friend/relative/etc. It’s like how everybody insists a natural 20 is a critical success on non-combat action (for most editions of D&D it is not).
“Ancestry” in lieu of race is something I see more and more games do, and it’s Fine, but I wish (and hope maybe Shadowdark does) that when the book says “ancestry” they actually mean cultural and heritage impact on characters and not just a Ctrl + F find-and-replace for “race” because that’s been decided as the progressive thing to do. If a book’s definition of ancestry is exactly the same bioessentialist tropes as race, it doesn’t actually matter what it’s being called!
I’m always in favor of more books including rules for zero-level characters and play.
I am a BIG fan of 3d6 in order with no re-arranging and no re-rolls (or only re-rolls if none of your stats are above 14). Especially for a book targetted towards 5e players interested in OSR play. That’s bold! 5e players typically have a very different relationship with characters than OSR players tend to, and the relative fragility/lethality is dismissed as disposability when in fact I would argue the relatively lower power levels/character abilities and increased lethality makes their undertakings and victories more impactful, not less.
One thing I’ve never fully understood is combining numerical increases (+X/-X) with Advantage/Disadvantage. Is not the intent of Adv/Dis to elide math for quicker play? It seems dissonant to have both. Yes, I am aware 5e uses both. I also find that dissonant.
The ancestral traits are, as I’ve feared, more to do with innate and physical traits, and not culture or heritage or upbringing. Just use “race.” You still just mean “race.”
The Talent system is an obvious acknowledgement that 5e players want stuff on their sheets. That’s largely fine. I’m mostly only interested in that sort of thing if they’re unique stuff - like psionic abilities or something - but again, it’s fine. “It’s Fine,” as an aside, is my attitude towards Shadowdark so far. I don’t actually mean that as disparagingly as it sounds; it’s not really a thing that’s for me, specifically - I have all the OSR systems I could ever want in LabLord and my own '74 retroclone. If it pulls some 5e players away from 5e, or some Mork Borg players away from something that is even more style and even less substance, that’s also Fine.
I am philosophically opposed to Thief as a class in adventure games. EVERY character is a thief. Boooooooooooo.
No word on magical research from the class pages for either cleric or magic-user (I know it calls it a wizard, like a coward, but magic-user is just a much better phrase. Ditto with cleric).
The background section is… Alright, as far as flavor goes. It’s similar to the funnel character professions in DCC; a career fallback and/or something you can leverage for knowledge/ability.
The alignment sytsem is classic D&D, which is to say, it uses Law & Chaos but really just means Good and Evil. Which is… Fine. Again, this is all Fine.
The alignment/pantheon bit is woefully underutilized, IMO. I’m firmly of the belief if you are going to include a patron deity you should extrapolate on that, and not merely as a flavored expletive for your character to say under duress. Might as well just whisper “CROM…” like the rest of us. Or, go fully into it and do what DCC does with patrons. Going halfway serves nobody.
I do appreciate bringing back level-based titles; more OSR games should do this. I’m not a 6th-level Fighting-Man, I’m a Myrmidon. Much cooler. Shadowdark uses an alignment-based title system, which adds another vector to it. I’m not opposed to it!
Languages has a bit of an odd one to me in that some of the speakers are lumped together through the weirdness of what is obviously supposed to be a racial language. Merfolk, sahuagin and sirens all speak the same language? That seems odd. I feel like it’s much easier and more sensical to, if we’re basing languages on race- sorry, “ancestry,” that those ancestries should have their own language and not necessarily share it with everybody that has some kind of beast for a head.
A big page of suggested character names is never amiss. One of the things I picked up on at BreakoutCon is that people have a hard time with character names, especially on the spot, and having a bag of them to choose from to create a character is helpful in ways you wouldn’t immediately think about.
I’m lukewarm on spell casting checks - I’ve included it, I haven’t included it, I’m undecided. Including a fun series of magic-user mishap tables for failed spell casting checks: good! Having the same effect for clerics be “donate to your local temple”: bad! Do better!
Needing to roll to control spells from scrolls: boring! Bad!
This version of Turn Undead I am not a fan of. I’m sorry, but the Holmes Basic (1977) Turn Undead table is the superior Turn Undead method and this, while “quicker” I suppose by virtue of making it a skill check, is just not as good.
Don’t simply scour your character sheet for ideas and options! Your crawling career depends on your ability to “think outside the sheet.”
A refreshing note for something laser-focused on 5e players! Though this should really be at the front of the book, not hidden away in the “gameplay” section. Does anybody read these, aside from me?
I’m kidding. I already know people don’t read TTRPG books.
Luck Tokens are… Fine. It seems strange to me, if only because the “luck” portion is already handled by the die roll, and I’m frankly just never in favor of the handing out of metacurrency for non-diegetic table action. “Bonus” XP and re-rolls and etc for “good” roleplay or ideas… no. The reward of a good idea is coming up with the idea and seeing it play out! The reward of good roleplay is to roleplay good! Separate yourselves from the need for incentivization.
Now reading the “time passes in the game world at the same pace it’s passing in the real world” section and I’m still undecided whether or not I like this or I hate it. I very much enjoy using real-time as a motivator for quick reactions (“you have five seconds to react to this, GO!”) but with time passing/eliding due to the natural requirements for discussion and etc, tying it into resource management seems both too forgiving and too unforgiving. Particularly when on the very next section the book outlines the circumstances where you can/should elide using real-world time. This seems like one of those things that sounds very cool in passing but doesn’t really work very well in execution. Just use rounds/turns!
Also not a fan of the initiative order. It’s weird to have everybody roll initiative and then just go clockwise from the top roll! You’ve already established the initiative order by having everybody roll!
I understand the idea of “keep everyone in turn order at all times to keep play moving” but… this is more or less how maintaining play through blocks of 10-minute dungeon turns works? You just don’t always need to do it in an order. Or do it in an order, but do it in the order of initiative rolled!
Recovering all hit points and stat damage/conditions on a rest is, IMO, WAYYYY too forgiving. Again, I know, 5e players, but come on. If the point of Shadowdark is to introduce 5e players to OSR-type play, you have to actually provide that - not just blackletter font and OSR aesthetics.
Likewise, tying encounters per hour to the real-world time-keeping system seems bananas. “Deadly” environments roll for encounter checks every real-time hour? Far too forgiving. I realize how much of a grog I sound right now, believe me.
Yeah, I just can’t really get past this real time timekeeping thing. I know 5e people - in fairness, TRAD games people - seem to have an odd sense of how long a session “should” be, and with APs and such you routinely see 4+ hour sessions being a thing. I’ve got a kid and a wife I want to spend time with, and also like… a full-time job of writing, publishing, editing, layout, distribution, fulfillment… I do not have 4+ hours to play games. I tap out at the 90-minute mark. One, a tight 90 is just a way better length of time for both attention spans and actually getting things done instead of talking about it. Two, you can do other things before AND after game time. And three: in a 90-minute session of Shadowdark, I’m just… never worrying about my light source?
Hiding and sneaking rules are part of why I am philosophically opposed to the thief class. You can all sneak, pick locks, pockets, find traps, etc. You’re all thieves.
The overland/wilderness navigation rules are all Fine. Six mile hexes, good, real-time encounter checks, weird, real-time light sources, weird, food and water, good, getting lost, good.
I like that they’ve included carousing as a way to gain XP. Again, something more OSR systems should use, especially if you’re using gold/silver for XP. I am a strong proponent of silver for XP, which Shadowdark does not appear to use (it should), but a carousing table is good.
There are rules for a neat little dice minigame called Wizards and Thieves. I kind of like it as a worldbuilding exercise, but I can’t see myself ever actually using it? If you want to simulate playing a tavern dice game, I guarantee you’ll have more fun going outside and shooting craps in the alley.
It isn’t that I’m opposed to examples of play, I just have yet to read one that actually sounds like people playing.
GM sections are my personal bugbear. As far as I’m concerned the only good one is in Dogs in the Vinyard and I have yet to be convinced otherwise.
This is good:
The Only Rule is that you make the rules.
What’s written in this book is a guide, not a constraint, and none of it takes precedence over your judgment.
If something doesn’t work at your table, change it or throw it out and don’t look back
This is not:
You hold ultimate power.
Yet you only want one thing: to see your players triumph.
So you craft malevolent villains worth defeating. You sculpt marvelous treasures worth stealing. You fill the world with rot, darkness, and death so it can be driven back by sword, spell, and flame.
Again, personal bugbear, but - the role of the GM is not, in fact, to create the world but rather to adjudicate it. Some of the world begs creation - the framework, the skeleton, some simple nuts-and-bolts. But the GM-as-storyteller with the players rapt at attention mindset of games is, frankly, not great! And I wish we’d all move away from it.
Shadowdark’s GM section, like the rest of Shadowdark so far, is Fine. This is Good:
If there were a rule for every situation, we would be living inside the rulebook instead of the game world.
As the GM, you have infinite power with only a handful of rules. Stat checks and the standard DCs can resolve any action. You need nothing more.
Rather than pore through the book, adjudicate using what you already know. Make a ruling, roll the dice, and keep going
The whole section doesn’t actually need more than this. This is good! Quit while you’re (kind of) ahead.
The Light Mishaps table - a series of mishaps and fumbles light sources can have - is actually Good? Both thematically (the book is called SHADOWDARK) and diegetically. I take it back, include the rulings over rules bit AND this bit.
The “modes of play” section will be, I’m sure, useful to somebody. My first reaction was “I don’t need this” but I remind myself again, this book really isn’t written for me? And having a list of suggestive rules changes is actually not a bad idea.
Reaction rolls. Reaction rolls! The book has reaction rolls. Again, should be further up, especially since they’re a player-facing roll using CHA and not a GM roll, but I’m just happy to see reaction rolls. Likewise, including encounter distance in the encounter check: happy to see! Put it somewhere other than the GM section.
More things I’m in favor of: lists of suggested traps and tricks. IMO the whole purpose of a GM section isn’t a “how to” manual, it’s things to use - dungeon dressing, etc. This is Good.
I’m a little… well, disappointed isn’t the word. But taking the DCC funnel system and calling it a “gauntlet” rubs me the wrong way? Not that DCC invented funnels or zero-level character creation or play, that dates back at least to '86. But come on. “The Gauntlet?” Just call it a funnel! That’s a thing that already exists and people will recognize!
I take it back - Shadowdark DOES in fact use gold for XP? It uses sort of a weird method of value to do so, but I’m not going to begrudge it too much.
As an aside, I think gold for XP is so important because dungeon crawlers are about resource management, and resource management is about resource extraction, and resource extraction is about power. Tying diegetic power (I promise I’ll stop saying “diegetic”) to accumulated wealth is important to correctly identify the influence of capital on the ability to extract resources, typically through violence, which is the application of that power. Adventurers in dungeon crawlers are not heroes - they are people caught up in the accumulation of power through violence. That is not to say they are necessarily bad - the impoverished are nearly always the footsoldiers of resource extraction through violence, both directly inflicting the violence and suffering from it. An adventuer’s relative poverty level doesn’t justify the application of violence to acquire capital and thus empower themselves - but it does represent the complicated moral calculus required to survive under capitalism. It also highlights how after a certain point, the player characters do not strictly need to continue to amass wealth and thus power through violence - they simply choose to.
There’s a good amount of generators/Things to do in the rest of the GM section - rumors, adventures, NPCs, rivals, plus a giant section of random encounter suggestions. I highly approve of all of these.
Every good OSR book needs a good monster system. I’m immediately a fan of this one just based on the monster random traits/mutations bit, I eat that stuff up.
The monster listings themselves seem… Fine. Nothing jumps out at me for being particularly difficult or dangerous, to be honest? One of the charms* for me of old-school monsters and bestiaries is that things can and will kill you and the special abilities are very unforgiving. Shadowdark’s monsters seem designed for 5e-approaches to combat, which is “hit it with big numbers until treasure pops out.” The bestiary plays all the Hits from classic D&D stuff but. Yeah, not really doing it for me.
The treasure section is, on the other hand, Fine. In places it might actually be Good. There’s lots of sample/inspirational mundane items and miscellanea. I appreciate Boons as XP serving much the same purpose as silver. I also don’t mind the mix and match/randomized effects/inspirations? It always reminds me of the prefix/suffix systems of like, Diablo, which I am admittedly a sucker for. A +1 axe is fine, but a King’s Sword of Haste is legendary.
I’m A Fan of this benefit/curse idea for things. I don’t necessarily think it has to be so formalized, but I like the thought of it.
The character sheet is Fine. There’s no space for notes.
Overall? It’s Fine. In several places, it is actually Good. It doesn’t really do anything any other OSR book does - and when it does, it does it badly - but nobody is or necessarily should be looking for innovation for the sake of innovation, IMO. I think it’s more 5e lite than what I’d thematically call OSR, but again - that really depends on how you define OSR. Myself I am more and more going back to “will it give me a headache if I try to run Keep with it”.
Can you run Keep with Shadowdark? Yeah, definitely.
Would I? No, probably not.
That being said - once more, Shadowdark is not written with me in mind. I can appreciate that. Maybe some 5e players will find this very illuminating (pun totally intended)!