https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadowdarkrpg/western-reaches



Pretty much as the title says and up to $700k USD at the time of this posting.. I am curious to hear what folks who are more into the OSR scene think about this newest addition to the Shadowdark line.   And, yes, that includes the folks here who seem to have a torch stuck up their butts with regard to the product's initial success.     As for me, I didn't back the original as I'm not particularly OSR inclined personally but I enjoyed following the project's development (at least once the OGL debacle tuned me into it) and like some of the ideas that went into it... just not enough to actually buy it though myself. 

I'll probably back for the Cursed Scroll zines and pass on the hardback setting books. I homebrew my world, so the full setting is pricey. But the zines have the additional classes which look cool, and drop in micro-settings and adventures that are compatible with most d20 OSR-style games.

Backed it immediately.  This combines, updates, and adds more features that were part of the cursed scroll zines into these books that are gorgeous leatherbound beauties.

The quality of the presentation and what we are getting was worth it at the highest tier.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on March 11, 2025, 01:58:45 PMBacked it immediately.  This combines, updates, and adds more features that were part of the cursed scroll zines into these books that are gorgeous leatherbound beauties.

The quality of the presentation and what we are getting was worth it at the highest tier.

Totally agree! but sadly I just paid a plumber $675, and that is impacting my decision. I'll get the scrolls pdfs now and hopefully can pick up everything in physical version somewhere down the road.

Dislike shadowdark and so zero interest on anything for it here. I still don't understand how it's as popular as it is. It seems like nothing special yet has a huge cult following like it's the second coming. And for what? A standard OSR type game with advantage/disadvantage and a videogame torch mechanic? It seems about as mid as you can get and yet people fawn over it and act like that Kelsey chick is the second coming of Gygax.

Quote from: Nobleshield on March 11, 2025, 03:00:04 PMI still don't understand how it's as popular as it is.

I am a fan, so take this with a grain of salt.  My response to your question is that Kelsey is personally engaging and likable, networks well, and created an RPG which she enjoys playing and loves to share her excitement with others. Oh, and she stays out of all the other RPG edition drama while leaning hard into the OSR space.  That shit is contagious.  I know that P&G used to have a marketing principle of "reasons to believe" in branding.  Kelsey hits this one out of the park IMO

I dislike Shadowdark.  I consider it dubious and it's not my thing, but it has many supporters and clearly speaks to a decently sized audience, a smashing success by any tabletop RPG standard in any year on any calendar.
Because I'm not going to play or run it, and because I don't like random level bonuses (sorry Pundit!) and don't like roll-to-cast mechanics (especially not the ones in her core rulebook), I just doubt I'll get any value out of it, so I probably won't even look at the new stuff.

Anyway though, if you like this stuff, good for you, I'm sure it will be jam packed with more of the stuff you like.

Quotepeople fawn over it and act like that Kelsey chick is the second coming of Gygax

So over on the shithole that is reddit, there are several either socialist or openly antifa people who jump all over any TTRPG related content to do politics.  The subforums they hang out with are stuffed full of rainbow banners, they gravedance any of the old guard when they die (check the EGG threads if you like)... and some of those people are big posters and supporters of Shadowdark.  Shadowdark also changed race to something else right before launch, just as wizards did it.  And Kelsey makes either no comments on politics or almost no comments on politics.
So these are reasons to assume that she has some skin in the cultural war game, and simply hasn't chosen to open her mouth on the topic, much as Taylor Swift held back until 2020.  Many here will look at this and say "well, she could actually go full activist and she hasn't", which is fair.  But I think she's waiting for the right time and motivation to pull the mask off.
Hey, I could be wrong.  That's just me.  That's why I don't really trust her.

But hey, why do some people think she's the second coming of Gygax?  Well, she did something a lot of the writers in this industry can't fucking do- she wrote high level D&D 5e modules that work pretty well (high level D&D 5e is not exactly easy to design for, because it's not exactly well put together).  That's extremely rare, and as far as I can tell she did that when WotC's alleged all-stars really couldn't.  She has a really good grasp of a lot of things, and while that skill isn't super rare, it's definitely uncommon amongst the e-celebrity D&D crew.  She's legitimately good at hard stuff.

So she's gonna have fans just based on that, which is what you would expect.

Congratulations to Kelsey!

I think this one is gonna leave the original kickstarter in the dust. Enough peeps are sick of WotC garbage.

8 hours in, she's over $1M raised with 1/2 the backers of the original KS.  This is a wild success.

QuoteAnd Kelsey makes either no comments on politics or almost no comments on politics.
So these are reasons to assume that she has some skin in the cultural war game, and simply hasn't chosen to open her mouth on the topic, much as Taylor Swift held back until 2020.

Arcane library bans all topics around politics, if you post there and start spouting off on politics you are gone.  Kelsey has spoken with RPG folks on both sides of the spectrum from left leaning to ultra conservative, she's friendly, cordial, and keeps the topic focused on gaming and the enjoyment TTRPG brings.   In this vein she is the same as Troll Lord Games who does the same thing "We are here for games, not politics"

She's going to make bank and she knows , being a journalist before, that politics is divisive and removes customers from the proverbial pool. As Michael Jordan once said "Republican's buy shoes too." and that's the name of the game: Sell as many books as possible to as wide an audience as possible and stay the fuck out of the pig pen culture wars.

It looks decent but pretty much standard OSR stuff. Unfortunately I think that it might do the thing that irritated me with the original game, in that some of the people coming from 5e might think Shadowdark invented hexcrawls.

I did appreciate that the West Marches stuff gives some attribution for once. "West Marches is a gameplay style popularized by Ben Robbins in his blog, Ars Ludi."

Kelsey Dionne (small business owner) managed to make a good ruleset with good production values and market it well while staying out of the culture war and not crapping on her customers. The market responded in kind by buying it and enjoying it. Shadowdark deserves its success, whether it's your personal taste or not.

Quote from: Nobleshield on March 11, 2025, 03:00:04 PMDislike shadowdark and so zero interest on anything for it here. I still don't understand how it's as popular as it is. It seems like nothing special yet has a huge cult following like it's the second coming. And for what? A standard OSR type game with advantage/disadvantage and a videogame torch mechanic? It seems about as mid as you can get and yet people fawn over it and act like that Kelsey chick is the second coming of Gygax.

So, my regular group picked it up several months back.  I've both played in it and run it, so I have some opinions, both positive and negative.  I think I'll put them in a new thread or something soon.

In partial answer to you, I'll just say this.  I find it very interesting that there are several names that I pretty much only see on Shadowdark threads recently.  I would say that marketing is the greatest strength of the game, be it organic or manufactured...

Quote from: THE_Leopold on March 11, 2025, 01:58:45 PMBacked it immediately.  This combines, updates, and adds more features that were part of the cursed scroll zines into these books that are gorgeous leatherbound beauties.

The quality of the presentation and what we are getting was worth it at the highest tier.

Greetings!

That's right, brother! I backed this project instantly, at the Premium Level as well. This looks absolutely awesome! I can hardly wait! So much goodness!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Nobleshield on March 11, 2025, 03:00:04 PMDislike shadowdark and so zero interest on anything for it here. I still don't understand how it's as popular as it is. It seems like nothing special yet has a huge cult following like it's the second coming. And for what? A standard OSR type game with advantage/disadvantage and a videogame torch mechanic? It seems about as mid as you can get and yet people fawn over it and act like that Kelsey chick is the second coming of Gygax.

I actually dont like Shadowdark personally. Though imo what i can tell that makes it popular is she had a built in audience with 5e players, and got a lot of buzz on youtube as well which helped build her audience further. I also think the art helps a lot. As an anecdote a lot of people ive seen bounce off OSE cause of its art liked Shadowdark. It helps that the game has a lot of third party content and stuff.

TBH im glad its become popular cause it seems to have stolen some of Mork Borgs thunder and the Shadowdark fans have been a lot easier to get along with than the Mork Borg people lol.

I've not played Shadowdark but I really like the art, the graphic design (especially compared to the unreadable Mork Borg style) and the simplicity of the system.