Quote from: jhkim on September 14, 2024, 02:07:55 AMThe question is how much I care. I haven't seen the 2024 PHB, and thus I have no opinion on the art yet. I may well hate it.

Well here you go.  Some of the art from the PHB 2024:









Just terrible and totally WOKE BS "art".

Quote from: Eirikrautha on September 02, 2024, 06:12:15 PM

Quote from: Skullking on September 02, 2024, 06:10:11 AMRegarding to the marketing, Kelsey is married, and her wife (yes she does get a free pass from some for being a lesbian) works in marketing which goes a long way into explaining why the campaign was so successful, a point I think missed by most.

I don't think it's missed at all.  I think this is part of the instinctive reaction a lot of people have against Shadowdark.  When many of the Youtube reviews (by folks who either know or have worked with Kelsey) sound like infomercials, many viewers will have a learned reaction based on the way that modern marketing works.  Think about the way you generally respond to TV infomercials.  I've seen several products on TV that someone I know has bought; a few of them are very good products, but the majority are very flawed at the best.  When you get that same vibe from the marketing for an RPG, people can be forgiven for having a natural reaction of skepticism.  Especially when so much of the marketing is telling you how much you need this game, and how innovative it is... sounds just like something I'd hear on a TV infomercial.  Watch the Baron DeRopp video linked earlier in the thread.  It gushes over the illustrations, the organization, the brevity of the spell descriptions and the rules.  Is that really a selling point?  It slices, it dices, it makes Julian fries!  I actually think, as much as the marketing helped make the game successful with 5e converts and relative newbies to RPGs, it hurt with some segments of the hobby that have seen these marketing pitches before.

None of this has anything to do with how good the game actually is.  I know some people like it a lot.  My group is a bit more of an optimizer group, and Shadowdark's lack of character options turned them off quickly (I'm a bit more of a rules-lite person myself).  I don't begrudge anyone else's fun.  But I do begrudge other people telling me how I am allowed to react to marketing...

Exactly. The insane marketing hype is irritating. When you bring it up people assume you're just jealous, or you're just too cynical, or you're a right winger engaging in tribalism, etc.

Speaking of which I haven't actually seen all the alleged haters that are everywhere. Most of the videos and posts about the situation are just parroting each other. Red Room said they don't like it, Venger made some vague reference to it, and Pundit made a video about how he isn't Red Room or Venger. Sprinkle in some nobody twitter posters for taste, and apparently you have yourself an omnipresent frothing mad hate mob that requires response videos lecturing the audience about the dangers of gatekeeping or something.

I also want to talk about an example of where Shadowdark falls short and its brevity and unoriginality is a problem (at least in the quickstart rules, I haven't bought the whole thing, but I think it is the same).
It has the same issue as a lot of these rules light games do (EZD6 being another example). In many cases you're essentially paying for an index card that says "Make it up yourself" for the game master and "Play mother may I with the game master" for the players.
As one of the core combat rules, Shadowdark basically handwaves all rules for conditions away and says "use advantage/disadvantage and common sense." Okay fine, but I'm not paying you 30 dollars for "common sense," common sense which is likely only developed from already playing existing rpgs like 5e, where you got advantage/disadvantage from in the first place.

Another example is spell descriptions, which a lot of reviewers hyped up because they're so much shorter than other games (still comparable to many existing OSR games). They are. It's nice. But that comes at a cost.
Take the Alter Self spell. "You magically change your physical form, gaining one feature that modifies your existing anatomy. For example, you can grow functional gills on your neck or bear claws on your fingers."

Okay, why would I get bear claws or any other natural weapon? Would that do more damage than just using the weapon I have? If it's for climbing, how fast can I climb with it? Again, this essentially relies on the GM knowing how Alter Self already works in another game. I don't like the 5e version and I think it's weak, but it at least tells me the benefits, and it doesn't get nearly enough credit for already heavily condensing the 3rd edition version.

This won't bother a lot of people going to SD from 5e or the OSR because everyone will rely on what they already know, or handwave it away with "rulings not rules." But is that really a credit to SD?

I like OSR design, I like a lot of the 5e design, and I like SD's presentation. Not for everyone though obviously. My player who tried to get us to switch to Pathfinder 2e and thinks 5e is too simple is not a fan.

I did find myself adding quite a lot of house rules, especially around movement. Mostly because we play on a grid and like detailed tactical movement.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 30, 2024, 01:53:20 AMI find myself forced to defend Shadowdark after Venger left the hobby with a bang. Also, new videos by WotC reveal the absolute state of the business, its staff, & the VTT!

I still don't know what's so special about Shadowdark. Looks like it has a lot of fans. I'll have to watch some of those YouTube reviews to wrap my head around the game.

Quote from: Spobo on September 28, 2024, 06:52:32 PMThis won't bother a lot of people going to SD from 5e or the OSR because everyone will rely on what they already know, or handwave it away with "rulings not rules." But is that really a credit to SD?

No. (I have the full game.)

SD relies on assumed knowledge of how D&D works. It gets away with this because it is a niche game poaching off of players/GM's that want to try something different from 5e, but not completely walk off of the D&D fantasy reservation.

Objectively speaking it is Bad game design. In SD's case it really doesn't matter though because they rely on D&D's network effect to attract people to their game.

Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2024, 02:30:13 AMI like OSR design, I like a lot of the 5e design, and I like SD's presentation. Not for everyone though obviously. My player who tried to get us to switch to Pathfinder 2e and thinks 5e is too simple is not a fan.

I personally think that there is a sweet middle ground for design between 5e (which is deceptively fiddly), and something as lite as SD.

But for some reason people seem to want to go to one extreme of another SD rules lite or PF2e complexity... when they move away from 5e.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 28, 2024, 07:33:46 PMI personally think that there is a sweet middle ground for design between 5e (which is deceptively fiddly), and something as lite as SD.

I agree, but I'm curious which games you'd cite as examples. I'd really like a good middle-weight classic fantasy RPG I could settle on for running D&D settings. I've looked at several games and not found something that filled the niche for me.

Quote from: GhostNinja on September 17, 2024, 01:16:01 PM

I notice that all of the players made self-inserts because of course they did.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 28, 2024, 07:33:46 PM

Quote from: Spobo on September 28, 2024, 06:52:32 PMThis won't bother a lot of people going to SD from 5e or the OSR because everyone will rely on what they already know, or handwave it away with "rulings not rules." But is that really a credit to SD?

No. (I have the full game.)

SD relies on assumed knowledge of how D&D works. It gets away with this because it is a niche game poaching off of players/GM's that want to try something different from 5e, but not completely walk off of the D&D fantasy reservation.

Objectively speaking it is Bad game design. In SD's case it really doesn't matter though because they rely on D&D's network effect to attract people to their game.

That's normal for all of the OSR. Its one of the benefits of the OSR, you don't have to give a tutorial of how to play, because the people getting into the OSR have almost certainly played D&D before.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 28, 2024, 07:33:46 PMI personally think that there is a sweet middle ground for design between 5e (which is deceptively fiddly), and something as lite as SD.

I like Dragonbane as a game intermediate between SD & 5e. But Dragnbane is still heavy enough for me to get burnout running it. I feel like I could run Shadowdark forever.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 29, 2024, 11:03:38 AMThat's normal for all of the OSR. Its one of the benefits of the OSR, you don't have to give a tutorial of how to play, because the people getting into the OSR have almost certainly played D&D before.

I feel the criticism may have more merit with Shadowdark in particular, because it is coming from 5e, not the general OSR, and naturally we tend to default to the 5e approach where SD is silent. I'm not sure how SD looks to someone with no 5e experience. Is it even really playable? 

Well, my DM asked if we wanted to do a couple of sessions of Shadowdark to try it out.  We did a gauntlet last session, and it was OK.  I've got some thoughts, but I'm going to hold off until we play a few normal sessions.

I enjoyed it when I played a few sessions. It does assume rpg knowledge, for example, there are some status effects that players can get that are not covered in the book. That doesn't hold things back for me though. I'm fine with coming up with that stuff on my own and I have no problem borrowing from something else. I look at it more as a hack than something that needs to stand on its own with everything spelled out.

Quote from: yosemitemikeI notice that all of the players made self-inserts because of course they did.

Yeah.  I also noticed that.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 29, 2024, 05:19:23 AM

Quote from: GhostNinja on September 17, 2024, 01:16:01 PM

I notice that all of the players made self-inserts because of course they did.

Except... not really.
Dark skinned black haired guy playing pale skinned, pale haired guy
Dark skinned black haired gal playing darker skinned, longer haired gal.
Lightly dark skinned brown haired guy playing pale skinned, maybe brown haired guy.
White skinned brown haired guy with glasses playing white skinned, pale haired guy without glasses.

Of those only one would even remotely rate as a "self insert" unless the term has, like every other, been stretched to now mean everything on earth.

Quote from: Omega on December 29, 2024, 10:57:27 PMExcept... not really.

Except yes obviously.  Are we looking at the same picture?  The first one has longer hair but is otherwise the same.  The second one has longer hair and no glasses.  The third is just the same guy in different clothes.  The fourth one is the same guy with hair dye and no glasses.  The other one is obviously the DM.  A couple of them are slightly idealized which is common in self-inserts.