You could have saved yourself some money by just playing the original.

https://classicreload.com/zork-i.html

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on February 07, 2024, 04:51:31 PM

Quote from: Venka on February 07, 2024, 04:26:53 PM

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on February 07, 2024, 04:22:39 PM
Thirty bucks for a .pdf....LOL!

I mean, if people are willing to pay that, great for her.  It doesn't exactly seem abusive to charge that IMO.

OSE Basic Fantasy Rules Tome.pdf is $20.00 still a bit high but if you are a B/X fanboy like me, reasonable. It's free if you buy the print book.

Labyrinth Lord (no art).pdf... Free
With art: $9.99

Basic Fantasy Rpleplaying .pdf...Free.

Osric...free

Dungeon Core Classics...oddly they don't have a .pdf of their big rulebook. But the quickstart is free (with starter adventures) and it has the roll-to-cast-or-blow-up-the-party mechanic that so many people seem to like. Not judging.

Swords and Wizardry Revised...$4.99

Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia .pdf .....$9.99

To me Shadowdark seems like a Wait-and-see.  There isn't anything the game offers that I can't get elsewhere for cheaper. 

Hell I could play the 5e basic rules for free if I felt like being called the scum of the Earth and the root of all evil because of my ethnicity.

Shadowdark Quickstart - Free
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/413713/Shadowdark-RPG-Quickstart-Set

Quote
Glowing fungi, lichens, or fire beetles?  Oops, I just broke the whole game.  Sorry, fans....

Can't take the plants with you or they die in an hour like a torch
Fire beetles are monsters they aren't friendly and will eat your face
Monsters see in the dark, humanoids do not. 

By all means Creative Use of Game Mechanics which can be rolled back into what the purpose of a 'torch' does.

Veins of the Earth does dungeon crawling far better in description that Shadowdark, however Shadowdark has a very tight ruleset that strips away lots of the cruft and makes for a very fun dungeon diving experience. a sesson or 12 and you can start the campaign over again with new PC's.

Where SD fails completely is long term game play for overland and city based adventures.  That requires a DM to make all their own rules for that type of outdoors and urban gameplay.  Playing for YEARS requires multiple sets of PC's as you'll level up quickly with loot as you spend it and go down to get more.

I'll be running two Shadowdark games at VengerConIII this year and rolling out my own set of homebrew rules which expand heavily on the foundation of SD as well as cleaning up lots of the fiddly bits that are not consistent (monsters and spells I'm looking at you) as they vary wildly in standardization.

It's a fun game and we have switched to running SD in our off session

Quote from: Persimmon on February 07, 2024, 06:58:02 PM
Are you weak-willed?  Absolutely.  But that's not my problem.  That's between you and your god or spouse or whomever.

As for the "game," when it was getting all that buzz last year I checked out the preview and some videos and knew it wasn't for me.  At the end of the day, it's really just an amalgamation of house rules.  A lot of 5e (which I despise), some B/X (which I own in both original & OSE versions), and fair amount of DCC (which I own), and a couple other things shoehorned in, with the underwhelming no darkvision and lame "real time" gimmicks thrown in.

But for whatever reasons, some people enjoy it.  Their business, not mine.  So if you like it, enjoy it.

And in the interest of full disclosure, despite holding out initially I pledged late for Greg Gillsepie's Dragonslayer.  Totally don't need it, but I already owned all his megadungeons and will likely grab the next two, so I decided to pull the trigger with the aim of using it to run his "Dwarrowdeep" adventure, which we haven't played yet.  I also really like having a whole system in one book and since I know I'll be passing on the woke revision of Labyrinth Lord, we'll see how "Dragonslayer" plays.

I'd second this. As corny as it is to say, if you like playing it go ahead and enjoy. I mean, I'm not the one sitting at your table playing RPGs with you. Hell I don't even really have an opinion on ShadowDark; heard the name and that's it. I know I'll ragged on for it, but I simply don't have interest in other fantasy RPGs myself just because I play D&D in its many forms and I no desire for another fantasy RPG. I'd rather spend time finding sci-fi, horror, etc.

I love the magic system (skill checks for spells, mishaps where you can forget the spell.)

Quote from: Aglondir on February 08, 2024, 08:38:41 PM
I love the magic system (skill checks for spells, mishaps where you can forget the spell.)

Yeah, you mean the one cribbed from DCC?  We already know that one...

Quote from: Persimmon on February 08, 2024, 09:17:45 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on February 08, 2024, 08:38:41 PM
I love the magic system (skill checks for spells, mishaps where you can forget the spell.)

Yeah, you mean the one cribbed from DCC?  We already know that one...

I didn't know it was from DCC. I thought it was cribbed from Gurps (LOL)!

Casting Spells (Characters p. 235)
Critical Spell Failure Table (Characters, p. 236)

Quote from: Aglondir on February 08, 2024, 09:33:48 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on February 08, 2024, 09:17:45 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on February 08, 2024, 08:38:41 PM
I love the magic system (skill checks for spells, mishaps where you can forget the spell.)

Yeah, you mean the one cribbed from DCC?  We already know that one...

I didn't know it was from DCC. I thought it was cribbed from Gurps (LOL)!

Casting Spells (Characters p. 235)
Critical Spell Failure Table (Characters, p. 236)

In reading the charts in the preview, I definitely thought it was based on DCC, but I've never seen GURPS, so maybe DCC was cribbed from that?

Quote from: Persimmon on February 08, 2024, 09:41:21 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on February 08, 2024, 09:33:48 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on February 08, 2024, 09:17:45 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on February 08, 2024, 08:38:41 PM
I love the magic system (skill checks for spells, mishaps where you can forget the spell.)

Yeah, you mean the one cribbed from DCC?  We already know that one...

I didn't know it was from DCC. I thought it was cribbed from Gurps (LOL)!

Casting Spells (Characters p. 235)
Critical Spell Failure Table (Characters, p. 236)

In reading the charts in the preview, I definitely thought it was based on DCC, but I've never seen GURPS, so maybe DCC was cribbed from that?

Maybe it's a case of "great minds think alike!"

The biggest flaw is the lack of classes.

I know there are some zines that add more classes like witch, witch knights of St I've, and the Sea Raider (Viking). 

Are there any more  classes, like Paladin or such?

Nearly all the praise I've seen for Shadowdark seems to boil down to "it's a good game. And a girl made it! Isn't that great? Isn't she a special girl!"

If I was a designer I'd feel highly demeaned by the OSR clique who I thought were shilling my game due to my talent. Can't the shills just admit they shilled an okay but highly derivitive OSR game because they were infatuated with it's designer instead of the game itself?

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 08, 2024, 11:05:35 PM
Nearly all the praise I've seen for Shadowdark seems to boil down to "it's a good game. And a girl made it! Isn't that great? Isn't she a special girl!"

If I was a designer I'd feel highly demeaned by the OSR clique who I thought were shilling my game due to my talent. Can't the shills just admit they shilled an okay but highly derivitive OSR game because they were infatuated with it's designer instead of the game itself?

I have no particular feelings about the designer myself, but that does seem to be part of it.  The same game designed by some balding white guy living in his mom's basement would likely get far less traction.  Then again, probably hundreds of said guys have done just that, since it's basically a bunch of house rules.  But marketing matters.

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 08, 2024, 11:05:35 PM
Nearly all the praise I've seen for Shadowdark seems to boil down to "it's a good game. And a girl made it! Isn't that great? Isn't she a special girl!"

If I was a designer I'd feel highly demeaned by the OSR clique who I thought were shilling my game due to my talent. Can't the shills just admit they shilled an okay but highly derivitive OSR game because they were infatuated with it's designer instead of the game itself?

The female designer had gotten exposure on multiple product booster channels, over the last couple of years.  Just hanging out and talking about rpgs.  Then she pitched Shadowdark, after she already had some cool points and name recognition built up.  She did her networking, before she pitched Shadowdark.  She had the right friends on speed dial.

Quote from: Jam The MF on February 09, 2024, 12:49:26 AM

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 08, 2024, 11:05:35 PM
Nearly all the praise I've seen for Shadowdark seems to boil down to "it's a good game. And a girl made it! Isn't that great? Isn't she a special girl!"

If I was a designer I'd feel highly demeaned by the OSR clique who I thought were shilling my game due to my talent. Can't the shills just admit they shilled an okay but highly derivitive OSR game because they were infatuated with it's designer instead of the game itself?

The female designer had gotten exposure on multiple product booster channels, over the last couple of years.  Just hanging out and talking about rpgs.  Then she pitched Shadowdark, after she already had some cool points and name recognition built up.  She did her networking, before she pitched Shadowdark.  She had the right friends on speed dial.

Her wife/partner is an actual marketing professional and seems to have done a great job there. The game seems to be an above average OSR semi-retro-clone (I have paid money for much less), and my vague impression is the author seems likable and able to market to both mildly Woke and mildly anti-Woke*. I think being female does help her. It's not 'fair' that it made so much more money than other above average semi-retro-clones, but not surprising.

*To the Woke she's an LGBTQI+, to the anti-Woke she's a Judges Guild afficionado & OSR enthusiast.

The author being lesbian is a talking point if it mattered, but I have the full game....and it doesn't matter here.  Its not some sort of disguised propaganda.  I didn't even want to bring it up because I know this forum is not kind to that sort of thing.  In this instance, I wouldn't worry about activism.  This game doesn't even have a short blurb in the beginning about any sort of "satanic panic" disclaimer, or violence, or drug use, ect.  Palladium Books still put a disclaimer for Violence and Supernatural elements.

No, on the hidden activism angle, ShadowDark is NOT a problem.

As for marketing, that was well done.  But, who thinks marketing a game correctly is a problem? 

As OSE has also demonstrated, marketing & presentation are huge.  Simply reorganizing old content and jazzing it up with an appealing aesthetic can move serious product, which is part of the deal here as well, though again I'm less impressed with the design and organization of Shadowdark than most.