Quote from: Cave Bear;1012075Roleplaying game publishers don't really market their products. They just sort of rely on blogging and word of mouth.

I hear its good though. I'd order a copy if I didn't think the customs officials would confiscate it.

QuoteFuck off, Pundit. You haven't even read the game.

Neither have you, apparently.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1014107Neither have you, apparently.

That's true, but at least I'd like to give it a chance.

Was it an anti-5e response?

I thought it was an OSR-ish Warhammer game?

BTW, how does the system work?

Going on this thread alone, I have just two issues with Shadow of the Demon Lord:

1) The propensity of some of it's fans, possibly a minority but certainly a very vocal one, to compare the game in a disparaging light towards Warhammer Fantasy Role-play. As WFRP is very much a formative and well loved game for me, personally, it's a pretty poor tactic to attract fans. I'd also take issue that the games are similar in reference to the second point too.

2) The description of the game involving over-the-top profanities that the game is 'FUCKING METAL!!' and the like. Your play style preferences are up to you and your group but if this is all its selling, it's not for me. And, no, WFRP has its own style, which this ain't.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1014113Was it an anti-5e response?

I thought it was an OSR-ish Warhammer game?

BTW, how does the system work?

It's a refinement of D&D 5E with a heavy metal ethos (like a new-school version of Lamentations of the Flame Princess).
The game uses only the d20 and d6's.
A corruption system features prominently.
Combat uses a fast turn/slow turn mechanic to determine initiative. Each player secretly notes whether their character is taking a fast turn or a slow turn at the beginning of each round. Fast players act before fast monsters, fast monsters act before slow players, and slow players act before slow monsters. Characters taking fast turns only get one action during their turn, while characters taking slow actions get three actions during their turn. It looks pretty simple, and I hear it speeds combat along nicely.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1014080Wasn't this one of those games that were pushed as a kind of anti-5e reaction heartbreaker? If so, that would explain what happened: it failed, 5e succeeded.

That same logic would make your Albion book a real-world rethemer heartbreaker for D&D 1E.

Seriously, what is with this asshole logic in this thread?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1014113Was it an anti-5e response?

I thought it was an OSR-ish Warhammer game?

BTW, how does the system work?

What do you want to know?

Added to Cave Bear, there's two other general things to know: everyone possesses a Profession, there is a result booster/diminisher sub-system implemented.

Professions are used to give boons on rolls and can be used for residual income purposes like I did (i.e. roll #d6 for # of cp/sp/gp at start of lvl). This means your Assassin can have Forger as a background which could give her 1Bo on rolls involving forgery. And if you want to do something fancy in combat, you can take #Ba in order knockdown an opponent, say.

Boons/Banes are additional d6 dice which are used to raise or lower your result of a roll. They're offered in the same types of situations that you'd offer Advantage/Disadvantage in D&D 5E. You roll them alongside your normal d20 roll. Highest result of those dice is used against your roll, they are not stacked. That way, it means the difference between just succeeding or just failing and pushes the low-powered feeling driving the design. Schwalb even mentions in the book that this is what he would have picked 5E to go with had he had directorial power over the game's design. I think it works a lot better and is bit meatier while still being clean.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1014116Going on this thread alone, I have just two issues with Shadow of the Demon Lord:

1) The propensity of some of it's fans, possibly a minority but certainly a very vocal one, to compare the game in a disparaging light towards Warhammer Fantasy Role-play. As WFRP is very much a formative and well loved game for me, personally, it's a pretty poor tactic to attract fans. I'd also take issue that the games are similar in reference to the second point too.

2) The description of the game involving over-the-top profanities that the game is 'FUCKING METAL!!' and the like. Your play style preferences are up to you and your group but if this is all its selling, it's not for me. And, no, WFRP has its own style, which this ain't.

No-one is disparaging WHFRP. The game has serious design issues that hamper what would otherwise be a rock-solid system. They will absolutely, justifiably be pounced on like lions on a wildebeest. Objectively, the best iteration of the system is the one found in Only War. And it's still not good enough -- I had to modify it myself to make criticals and wounds reward the freeform choice thing is was going for with Aptitudes but did not push because the designers were afraid to alienate the hardcore fanbase.

The game is FUCKING METAL. WH40KRP and WHFRP have also been METAL. They're sludge metal. SOTDL is more like alt metal.

Quote from: Cave Bear;1014120It's a refinement of D&D 5E with a heavy metal ethos (like a new-school version of Lamentations of the Flame Princess).
The game uses only the d20 and d6's.
A corruption system features prominently.
Combat uses a fast turn/slow turn mechanic to determine initiative. Each player secretly notes whether their character is taking a fast turn or a slow turn at the beginning of each round. Fast players act before fast monsters, fast monsters act before slow players, and slow players act before slow monsters. Characters taking fast turns only get one action during their turn, while characters taking slow actions get three actions during their turn. It looks pretty simple, and I hear it speeds combat along nicely.

It really does speed combat along. It only slows down when players don't keep up with decision-making or when the GM has not planned ahead and decided what monsters are gonna do what in combat. Ranged characters (non-casters) do tend to dominate with fast turns against unarmored enemies held back by melee characters so I'd let new GM's of the game know that and plan appropriately -- that caught me out.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1014143No-one is disparaging WHFRP. The game has serious design issues that hamper what would otherwise be a rock-solid system. They will absolutely, justifiably be pounced on like lions on a wildebeest. Objectively, the best iteration of the system is the one found in Only War. And it's still not good enough -- I had to modify it myself to make criticals and wounds reward the freeform choice thing is was going for with Aptitudes but did not push because the designers were afraid to alienate the hardcore fanbase.

The game is FUCKING METAL. WH40KRP and WHFRP have also been METAL. They're sludge metal. SOTDL is more like alt metal.

You're taste in games is most definitely not mine, and you're apparent age is roughly half mine, most likely. You have been disparaging WFRP - and you clearly have only limited experience of it considering that you can only reference W40KRP games in your analysis. The different game lines have related systems but are not the same, and the essential premise of each is different also, with different considerations made in design and their respective game histories.

In answer to the OP question, and in relation to your latter comments, the reason why Shadow of the Demon Lord appears to be disappearing up it's own anus is self evident in this thread.

People have been saying "game X is better than D&D because of Y" for decades now. The fact that WFRP is now receiving those gold-standard comparisons probably says more about WFRP than it does about SotDL or its fans.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1014151You're taste in games is most definitely not mine, and you're apparent age is roughly half mine, most likely. You have been disparaging WFRP - and you clearly have only limited experience of it considering that you can only reference W40KRP games in your analysis. The different game lines have related systems but are not the same, and the essential premise of each is different also, with different considerations made in design and their respective game histories.

In answer to the OP question, and in relation to your latter comments, the reason why Shadow of the Demon Lord appears to be disappearing up it's own anus is self evident in this thread.

You just sound like a salty old bastard who hates that fact that his favorite pastime is seen as old-hat to the point of being an anachronism. But that's ok, plenty of older RPGers have had that attitude with me. I just keep it movin' and keep building.

The system is a precursor version to the one used in Dark Heresy. To imply it's a significantly different system is just silly. I started with Only War, played everything but Deathwatch and was lucky enough to be introduced to 2nd Ed WHFRP through a friend's game at uni. Lasted a handful of sessions but everything felt pretty familiar by that point. Same script, different annotations. We all stayed away from the apprentice wizard (who would flashcook fucking everything -- it was funny, half the time he had this knack for getting the food spoiling chaos manifestation), the outlaw and pit guy used to fuck with each other IC/OOC all the time, the guy playing the coachman was quite shy so didn't really do much and I ended up picking between agitator and smuggler (guess which one I ended up picking!). It was fun but the char percentage increases and limited skill selection already bugged me because I'd been spoiled -- at least now I saw where it bloody well came from. Skill advances was pretty much the same, same +5 increases even. Even Craftsmanship was still essentially the same, it was crazy. Although, thankfully, at least DH actually structured the careers properly now so Scum and so on went down one path instead of being shared with others (never got to be a gang lord unfortunately). But you know, iterative.

So yeah, that's my experience of WFRP. Again, it's shitty but workable, very much the same fundamental system and thank the Gods we eventually ended up with Only War. I do really hope that 4th Ed strips the older rulesets' crap away and starts anew. There's potential but some much stuff in there that's a product of its time that it just feels... dated.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1014171You just sound like a salty old bastard who hates that fact that his favorite pastime is seen as old-hat to the point of being an anachronism. But that's ok, plenty of older RPGers have had that attitude with me. I just keep it movin' and keep building.

You just sound like you have limited experience with WFRP, and have come away with some peculiar attitudes about how it plays.

The new edition of WFRP is about to be released in 2018 by Cubicle 7. It is explicitly going to be based on 1st/2nd edition designs - mainly due to public demand. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being one of the most anticipated RPGS in 2018 according to ENWorld (who's poll is due about today or tomorrow), and will likely be one of the biggest sellers of the year too.

Shadow of the.....who?

SotDL looks like something I'd like, at least as a source of ideas for other games (LotFP by way of Renaissance probably)... but somehow I had the idea that it's an intentionally limited game, meant to play out a particular campaign and then... pffft!
I wasn't aware it was based on 5e, that's not much of an inducement for me either.

Quote from: Cave Bear;1014120Combat uses a fast turn/slow turn mechanic to determine initiative. Each player secretly notes whether their character is taking a fast turn or a slow turn at the beginning of each round. Fast players act before fast monsters, fast monsters act before slow players, and slow players act before slow monsters. Characters taking fast turns only get one action during their turn, while characters taking slow actions get three actions during their turn. It looks pretty simple, and I hear it speeds combat along nicely.

That's not quite right. You hit the ordering of turns correctly, but not what can actually be done on a turn.

Fast Turn: Action OR Move PLUS Triggered Action
Slow Turn: Action AND Move PLUS Triggered Action

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1014171So yeah, that's my experience of WFRP. Again, it's shitty but workable, very much the same fundamental system and thank the Gods we eventually ended up with Only War. I do really hope that 4th Ed strips the older rulesets' crap away and starts anew. There's potential but some much stuff in there that's a product of its time that it just feels... dated.

Was there a reason you ended with Only War rather than Dark Heresy 2e, the final FFG game of that family?

Quote from: Simlasa;1014227I wasn't aware it was based on 5e, that's not much of an inducement for me either.

I don't really get that comparison (I'm not familiar with 5E, but my understanding is that 5E is not massively different from other non-4E editions). It's as if every game that uses a d20+mods vs target number is treated by some people as a houseruled version of D&D.

I have no particularly strong inclination to run SotDL myself, although it seems like a decent enough system. But nothing in it struck me as evoking strong similarities to D&D, beyond the fact that it uses hp, and you roll d20 + attack bonus vs a defence value determined by armour and/or agility.

Even if actually was literally built up from the basic framework of 5E, I wouldn't recommend discarding it for that reason, as what's built on top of a few fundamental basics has gone in a very different direction.

When I look at something like Godbound, I see D&D with very cool and interesting modifications. When I look at SotDL I see a game that stands or falls entirely on it's own merits.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1014246That's not quite right. You hit the ordering of turns correctly, but not what can actually be done on a turn.

Fast Turn: Action OR Move PLUS Triggered Action
Slow Turn: Action AND Move PLUS Triggered Action

Ah, cool. I haven't played it yet (only heard about it.)
That there sounds cool enough to port into other games.