Great review. Great read. I was quite disappointed after reading Shadowdark, too. All the hype, all the money ended up in a good but far from perfect or special product. It shows that marketing is the most important aspect of kickstarter nowadays. Even more so than in the passed years.
Incredibly detailed review, thank you for going through the system!
Frankly to me, the game seems closer to a 3/10. I guess stuff like "nice layout" and "great art" and "good DMing advice" are wonderful, but the rules seem absolutely terrible and the game feels, based on your review of it, like it's borderline unplayable.
Also, players can wander around a lvl 1 dungeon and still get amazing loot? What were they thinking! It seems like the incentive is for the high level player to always be the one searching for treasure, which is pretty bizarre.
Good writeup. I'd been drug into a Shadowdark campaign recently and was considering writing a first impressions, but you've better examined it than I have any desire to. My notes on the thing are largely the same, and my take-away is similar to a comment you made: It simultaneously feels like it's trying to be very rules light, and yet has a larger page count for the rules than the games on which it's based.
My only other comment is that the classes themselves seem a bit lopsided in their execution. Lets set aside Talent rolls, which everyone gets relatively equally, and thus don't factor into the discussion. In terms of pure class features, priests and wizards gain a new spell every level, and wizards can learn new spells whenever they encounter scrolls. Contrast this with fighters and thieves. Outside of talents, fighters never really get better at fighting generally, they just choose a single weapon they will advance with. Outside of that weapon, they are no better at fighting than the Priest or a Wizard. Thieves have it both better and worse, in an odd way. The only ascending bonus they get is bonus damage on a backstab, but they never actually get better at landing that attack. They gain advantage on some thief-type tasks, but they never actually get better at them after that. My suspicion is that, on a long enough timeline, the linear fighter/quadratic wizard issue will actually be much worse in this game than other similar titles.
Still, the system seems functional overall and the nitpicks are minor. As with many games in the OSR space, I have a suspicion this is more likely to be looted for parts than to be played RAW. I know that would be my instinct.
From the materials and rules shown here, this would be a 'pass' for me. There appears to be too much vagueness in the rules. As Mr Macris points out, rulings will occur in rule heavy and rule "lite" games as the game is played, generally making "lite" games heavier. My preference is to start heavier and modify or prune in the rules should that become necessary, while rulings will naturally accumulate over time. Rules "lite" typically just means more rulings out of the gate.
The lack of appropriate editing is a significant concern as well. I am not a backer, but with a $1 million+ KS, I hope that $500-$1,000 can be broken off to run an editing pass before printing. This was very much a concern I had with the initial OSE fundraiser, where many proof and update errors were discovered after the print. Delaying print to address those would be a VERY good thing.
Finally, best to the Shadowdark folks on distribution. Bumping from 100 copies to ship up to 10,000 is a significant challenge unless you have a good distro system. With luck they addressed that early when they saw the backing they were receiving.
Great review and excellent detail! I have supported Shadowdark since it was little booklets because I like what the author is bringing to the scene, but I don’t think the ruleset is something I would enjoy running for my players.
Specifically, I didn’t like the advancement system, and I appreciated you diving into the reasons why you didn’t like it as well.
Other things you commented resonated with me as well, particularly the movement system.
I hope you continue producing quality content like this!
Great review. Great read. I was quite disappointed after reading Shadowdark, too. All the hype, all the money ended up in a good but far from perfect or special product. It shows that marketing is the most important aspect of kickstarter nowadays. Even more so than in the passed years.
Incredibly detailed review, thank you for going through the system!
Frankly to me, the game seems closer to a 3/10. I guess stuff like "nice layout" and "great art" and "good DMing advice" are wonderful, but the rules seem absolutely terrible and the game feels, based on your review of it, like it's borderline unplayable.
Also, players can wander around a lvl 1 dungeon and still get amazing loot? What were they thinking! It seems like the incentive is for the high level player to always be the one searching for treasure, which is pretty bizarre.
Good writeup. I'd been drug into a Shadowdark campaign recently and was considering writing a first impressions, but you've better examined it than I have any desire to. My notes on the thing are largely the same, and my take-away is similar to a comment you made: It simultaneously feels like it's trying to be very rules light, and yet has a larger page count for the rules than the games on which it's based.
My only other comment is that the classes themselves seem a bit lopsided in their execution. Lets set aside Talent rolls, which everyone gets relatively equally, and thus don't factor into the discussion. In terms of pure class features, priests and wizards gain a new spell every level, and wizards can learn new spells whenever they encounter scrolls. Contrast this with fighters and thieves. Outside of talents, fighters never really get better at fighting generally, they just choose a single weapon they will advance with. Outside of that weapon, they are no better at fighting than the Priest or a Wizard. Thieves have it both better and worse, in an odd way. The only ascending bonus they get is bonus damage on a backstab, but they never actually get better at landing that attack. They gain advantage on some thief-type tasks, but they never actually get better at them after that. My suspicion is that, on a long enough timeline, the linear fighter/quadratic wizard issue will actually be much worse in this game than other similar titles.
Still, the system seems functional overall and the nitpicks are minor. As with many games in the OSR space, I have a suspicion this is more likely to be looted for parts than to be played RAW. I know that would be my instinct.
Great review with excellent detail!
From the materials and rules shown here, this would be a 'pass' for me. There appears to be too much vagueness in the rules. As Mr Macris points out, rulings will occur in rule heavy and rule "lite" games as the game is played, generally making "lite" games heavier. My preference is to start heavier and modify or prune in the rules should that become necessary, while rulings will naturally accumulate over time. Rules "lite" typically just means more rulings out of the gate.
The lack of appropriate editing is a significant concern as well. I am not a backer, but with a $1 million+ KS, I hope that $500-$1,000 can be broken off to run an editing pass before printing. This was very much a concern I had with the initial OSE fundraiser, where many proof and update errors were discovered after the print. Delaying print to address those would be a VERY good thing.
Finally, best to the Shadowdark folks on distribution. Bumping from 100 copies to ship up to 10,000 is a significant challenge unless you have a good distro system. With luck they addressed that early when they saw the backing they were receiving.
Great review and excellent detail! I have supported Shadowdark since it was little booklets because I like what the author is bringing to the scene, but I don’t think the ruleset is something I would enjoy running for my players.
Specifically, I didn’t like the advancement system, and I appreciated you diving into the reasons why you didn’t like it as well.
Other things you commented resonated with me as well, particularly the movement system.
I hope you continue producing quality content like this!