Quote from: GhostNinja on March 20, 2023, 02:40:39 PM
Yep.  I don't buy games I am not going to use anymore and sell games that don't get played.  Why would I buy ShadowDark when I have OSR and other games that do what it does?

There's a lot of cruft in BX that doesn't sell well to players that didn't grow up on 1e/2e. Percentage thief skills, clerics not having spells til level 2(never mind the power jump at 6), tracking coin encumbrance, THAC0(which is often already modded out), the arcane saving throws, race as class, magic user being a one spell wonder at level 1, etc.

Shadowdark is going to be more appealing to that crowd and as a GM, let's me tap more easily into that player base. I personally find Chris Perkin's(not of WoTC) AD&D 3e variant a superior 5e-ish AD&D system, but it can't be printed(too much copyright material in it) and doesn't have much of a community around it.

Quote from: S'mon on March 16, 2023, 08:32:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 16, 2023, 06:45:05 AM
Well, I explain my position on this regarding the Shadowdark author's personal history: she hung out with actual Old School gamers, which is great, but most of them are not big into the 2nd or 3rd wave OSR.

Sure, no disagreement. I know you regard the more innovative 2nd & 3rd wave OSR material as superior to the retro-clone and near-clone stuff. Shadowdark seems to be in the near-clone area, a bit more variance/innovation in mechanics than a typical near-clone, but still based off B/X rules and intended for traditional dungeon delving fantasy in a slightly darker than normal milieu.

No, it's very much a second-wave product. I mean, it literally has almost all the same innovations Lion & Dragon had. Extremely similar, given that the author claims to never have even seen L&D.

Again, both have:
No resurrection
No infravision
Ascending AC
Spell checks instead of Vancian magic
random background tables
random levelling benefit tables
Similar encumbrance rules

The only variation from B/X I've heard of in Shadowdark that isn't in Lion & Dragon is real-time torches. As for stuff in Lion & Dragon that isn't in Shadowdark, obviously ignoring the medieval-authentic stuff, the only ones that I can think of that I haven't heard of in Shadowdark would be Parrying rules and Critical Hit tables.

Quote from: migo on March 16, 2023, 10:19:57 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 16, 2023, 06:45:05 AM

Quote from: S'mon on March 15, 2023, 10:20:12 AM
I found it amusing Pundit said Garycon didn't count as OSR since it was all crusty grognards - too OS for OSR! That seems to be the milieu she came up in.

Well, I explain my position on this regarding the Shadowdark author's personal history: she hung out with actual Old School gamers, which is great, but most of them are not big into the 2nd or 3rd wave OSR.

What is that? The only thing I've heard waves applied to is feminism.

What distinguishes 1st wave, 2nd wave and 3rd wave OSR?

1st wave OSR: Clones. Direct copies of TSR books, plus adventures/dungeons for it.

2nd wave OSR: started with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Rules innovations: an old school frame with innovative alterations to the rules to fit a concept.

3rd wave OSR: Rules innovations, where the rules are crafted to fit a specific setting. Ie. Arrows of Indra

Quote from: jhkim on March 16, 2023, 03:56:08 PM

Quote

Quote from: S'mon on March 15, 2023, 10:20:12 AM
I found it amusing Pundit said Garycon didn't count as OSR since it was all crusty grognards - too OS for OSR! That seems to be the milieu she came up in.

Well, I explain my position on this regarding the Shadowdark author's personal history: she hung out with actual Old School gamers, which is great, but most of them are not big into the 2nd or 3rd wave OSR.

Pundit - are you saying that 1st wave OSR doesn't count as OSR?

I'm saying that if someone played D&D as a kid with Gary Gygax in the early 90s, then played D&D 2e for the next 30 years in a basement with local friends, and then published an "old school game" based on those experiences, that wouldn't be a product of the OSR, though it would probably still fit the definition of a game qualified to be in the OSR.

The point is if Arcane Library actually hung out with real old school TSR people from lake geneva, and went to garycon a few times, but didn't necessarily ever really run into the areas where the OSR as a design school interacts (G+ in the old days, theRPGsite, MeWe, OSR facebook, the old OSR discord before it was taken over by the Maoists, the new OSR Based Discords, Twitter, and the Youtube OSR vlogosphere) it's not surprising that she doesn't understand our internal culture and how we operate, and thus interpreted my pointing out the connections between L&D and her game as an "attack", and felt she had to disavow and attack rather than engage and promote because the online design areas she has been a part of (5e, mainly) would have taught her that as a survival instinct, even though its the worst thing she could have done.

She also keeps having no problem with taking credit for the innovations in Shadowdark as if SHE was the first person to invent them. She never claims it, but she's happy to let youtube video shills and simps keep talking about how her "exciting NEW rule changes" are so incredible and innovative and will change the gaming world, without ever pointing out that there's an entire movement dating back to 2009 that has been creating games and that literally NOTHING in her game is new and of her exclusive invention.

So it sure looks like she's trying to ERASE the OSR while she tries to sell the best OSR ideas (and it's obvious they are all the best ideas because they're all the ones I used in L&D) to idiot 5e players who have no knowledge of the OSR's existence.

Quote from: GhostNinja on March 16, 2023, 03:56:41 PM
The question regarding ShadowDark is this:

What does ShadowDark give me that I can't do with OSE or any other OSR product?

So far, it doesn't impress me much.

Well, if the question was "what does shadowdark give me that I can't already do in Lion & Dragon?" the answer is apparently "real time torches. that's it."

Quote from: GhostNinja on March 20, 2023, 02:40:39 PM

Quote from: migo on March 19, 2023, 04:40:13 PM
That's what makes it so incredibly difficult to convince people to try a new system. I'm sure almost everyone here has experienced buying a new game, being really excited about it, pitching it to your gaming group and not having any takers.

Yep.  I don't buy games I am not going to use anymore and sell games that don't get played.  Why would I buy ShadowDark when I have OSR and other games that do what it does?

So what does it take to get you to buy a game these days?  Assuming you have even a small to moderate sized game library, what can a new game possibly offer you that you can't already do with the ones you currently own?

I'm not trying to call you out for being wrong or anything.  I'm genuinely curious about the sentiment here as it's a bit alien to me.

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 05:31:17 AM

Quote from: crkrueger on March 20, 2023, 05:18:41 AM

Here's how Pundit breaks it down.

"1st wave: publishing "clones" of old rule-sets and old-school style adventure modules.

2nd wave: publishing new rule-sets within OSR boundaries (stuff like LotFP and DCC).

3rd wave: publishing setting-based books with OSR-rulesets or rule-mods (stuff like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon-Suin, Dark Albion, etc)."

So the first two (three if you want to count HackMaster 4e) OSR games are actually 2nd wave?

What two are you thinking of?

Quote from: S'mon on March 20, 2023, 06:10:49 AM

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 05:31:17 AM

Quote from: crkrueger on March 20, 2023, 05:18:41 AM

Here's how Pundit breaks it down.

"1st wave: publishing "clones" of old rule-sets and old-school style adventure modules.

2nd wave: publishing new rule-sets within OSR boundaries (stuff like LotFP and DCC).

3rd wave: publishing setting-based books with OSR-rulesets or rule-mods (stuff like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon-Suin, Dark Albion, etc)."

So the first two (three if you want to count HackMaster 4e) OSR games are actually 2nd wave?

I think first-wave includes near-clones like Castles & Crusades and Basic Fantasy RPG, as well as true clones like OSRIC, within a "D&D Dungeon Fantasy" corral. If so then Shadowdark arguably fits in there rather than with LotFP and DCC.

I think that Shadowdark pretty clearly would fall firmly in 2nd Wave. It's definitely not a clone or a near-clone, you can't claim to be a clone without vancian spellcasting for example.  But as it has no inherent setting that the rules are crafted around, it's not 3rd wave.

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 12:32:22 PM

Quote from: S'mon on March 20, 2023, 06:10:49 AM

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 05:31:17 AM

Quote from: crkrueger on March 20, 2023, 05:18:41 AM

Here's how Pundit breaks it down.

"1st wave: publishing "clones" of old rule-sets and old-school style adventure modules.

2nd wave: publishing new rule-sets within OSR boundaries (stuff like LotFP and DCC).

3rd wave: publishing setting-based books with OSR-rulesets or rule-mods (stuff like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon-Suin, Dark Albion, etc)."

So the first two (three if you want to count HackMaster 4e) OSR games are actually 2nd wave?

I think first-wave includes near-clones like Castles & Crusades and Basic Fantasy RPG, as well as true clones like OSRIC, within a "D&D Dungeon Fantasy" corral. If so then Shadowdark arguably fits in there rather than with LotFP and DCC.

LotFP is hardly that different though. You have the Thief tuned up to be the Expert class, and you have stuff like only the Fighter advances in attack bonus. For the most part it's pretty standard. The difference is the theme, but that's kind of like saying Ravenloft is a different system from Birthright. There are some mechanical differences, but they're more alike than different.

LotFP seems tame TODAY, after 15 years of ongoing OSR creativity.
But at a time when your OSR choices were "book that is a direct copy of AD&D 1e", "book that is a direct copy of B/X", "book that is a direct copy of B/X but with ascending AC" and "Other book that is direct copy of B/X", LotFP was RADICAL:

-no one gains attack bonuses except the fighter
-removal of a large number of standard vancian spells to create a grittier tone
-no resurrection
-thief skill rules changed


In 2023 an OSR game that made such mild changes would be uninteresting, but back then it was a real example of how change in design could be achieved to create a different form of old-school experience that was still definably old-school D&D but done better for a certain style or genre.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on March 20, 2023, 02:39:07 PM
If this thing is a coal mine then where is the Canary?

First canary is swapping race for ancestry. By itself it's not a big deal, but it's probably not going to be the only thing.
Second canary is the female half-orc cleric. That's buying into a particular zeitgeist, the one that imagines orcs are black people and therefore (half-)orcs need to be presented as holy and good.
Third canary is the art. Ugly women is a red flag. Now that could be written off as the primary woman being a half-orc and it is actually appropriate, but it's still noteworthy.

Each by itself isn't really much of anything. All together it's also not a sign that she's an SJW. But they are things that could justify waiting a bit to see if any more red flags start cropping up.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 20, 2023, 03:29:46 PM

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 05:31:17 AM

Quote from: crkrueger on March 20, 2023, 05:18:41 AM

Here's how Pundit breaks it down.

"1st wave: publishing "clones" of old rule-sets and old-school style adventure modules.

2nd wave: publishing new rule-sets within OSR boundaries (stuff like LotFP and DCC).

3rd wave: publishing setting-based books with OSR-rulesets or rule-mods (stuff like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon-Suin, Dark Albion, etc)."

So the first two (three if you want to count HackMaster 4e) OSR games are actually 2nd wave?

What two are you thinking of?

Castles & Crusades and Basic Fantasy.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 20, 2023, 03:36:54 PM

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 12:32:22 PM

Quote from: S'mon on March 20, 2023, 06:10:49 AM

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 05:31:17 AM

Quote from: crkrueger on March 20, 2023, 05:18:41 AM

Here's how Pundit breaks it down.

"1st wave: publishing "clones" of old rule-sets and old-school style adventure modules.

2nd wave: publishing new rule-sets within OSR boundaries (stuff like LotFP and DCC).

3rd wave: publishing setting-based books with OSR-rulesets or rule-mods (stuff like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon-Suin, Dark Albion, etc)."

So the first two (three if you want to count HackMaster 4e) OSR games are actually 2nd wave?

I think first-wave includes near-clones like Castles & Crusades and Basic Fantasy RPG, as well as true clones like OSRIC, within a "D&D Dungeon Fantasy" corral. If so then Shadowdark arguably fits in there rather than with LotFP and DCC.

LotFP is hardly that different though. You have the Thief tuned up to be the Expert class, and you have stuff like only the Fighter advances in attack bonus. For the most part it's pretty standard. The difference is the theme, but that's kind of like saying Ravenloft is a different system from Birthright. There are some mechanical differences, but they're more alike than different.

LotFP seems tame TODAY, after 15 years of ongoing OSR creativity.
But at a time when your OSR choices were "book that is a direct copy of AD&D 1e", "book that is a direct copy of B/X", "book that is a direct copy of B/X but with ascending AC" and "Other book that is direct copy of B/X", LotFP was RADICAL:

-no one gains attack bonuses except the fighter
-removal of a large number of standard vancian spells to create a grittier tone
-no resurrection
-thief skill rules changed


In 2023 an OSR game that made such mild changes would be uninteresting, but back then it was a real example of how change in design could be achieved to create a different form of old-school experience that was still definably old-school D&D but done better for a certain style or genre.

People keep forgetting about Castles & Crusades. The changes C&C made to all versions of D&D that had been published up until that point are greater than what came into LotFP. Changing thief skills wasn't that radical of a step given AD&D 2e had already been released. Only Fighters gaining attack bonuses I'll admit was a more significant paradigm shift than anything in C&C, but that's really the one major change.

Quote from: GhostNinja on March 20, 2023, 02:40:39 PM

Quote from: migo on March 19, 2023, 04:40:13 PM
That's what makes it so incredibly difficult to convince people to try a new system. I'm sure almost everyone here has experienced buying a new game, being really excited about it, pitching it to your gaming group and not having any takers.

Yep.  I don't buy games I am not going to use anymore and sell games that don't get played.  Why would I buy ShadowDark when I have OSR and other games that do what it does?

After several years of bouncing between systems, this has become my mantra as well.  We've played a bunch of different systems and more or less identified the ones that work for us.  So much so that I've got some KS stuff coming that I will likely just sell brand new as we've decided to move on from that system.  Plus, the stuff is 7 months late and counting.  I also skimmed the Shadowdark preview and it was an easy pass for me.

Quote from: rgalex on March 20, 2023, 03:27:02 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on March 20, 2023, 02:40:39 PM

Quote from: migo on March 19, 2023, 04:40:13 PM
That's what makes it so incredibly difficult to convince people to try a new system. I'm sure almost everyone here has experienced buying a new game, being really excited about it, pitching it to your gaming group and not having any takers.

Yep.  I don't buy games I am not going to use anymore and sell games that don't get played.  Why would I buy ShadowDark when I have OSR and other games that do what it does?

So what does it take to get you to buy a game these days?  Assuming you have even a small to moderate sized game library, what can a new game possibly offer you that you can't already do with the ones you currently own?

I'm not trying to call you out for being wrong or anything.  I'm genuinely curious about the sentiment here as it's a bit alien to me.

I'm similar to Ghost Ninja on this.  I'm just not seeing enough there to get me interested.  I don't buy things that I'm not going to play, and I probably don't buy things that I'm unlikely to play. When I had time, I didn't have the money.  Now I have the money, but I don't have the time.

If someone in one of my groups got all excited about the game, bought it, wanted to run it, then I'd play.  Heck, that would probably be enough to get a copy.  Absent that, I'm focused on my own system first, and then a few other games that I already own, want to play, and haven't been able to get around to yet because of that time thing.  And with what's been released thus far, I don't see anything particularly attractive about this from my perspective.

I'm sure that having several adventures ready, and a buzz, and a slightly different mix of aesthetics and rules (for some people), and so forth is attractive to others.  Me, the darker theme doesn't appeal, I'm moving even further from B/X away from 5E, not in between, and I don't need any network effect to get players.  I'm not going to a Con or trying to get a bunch of people interested in any old game.  I've already got more interest in my own thing right now than I can handle. 

It's a bit alien to me that more people don't understand that, though I've certainly seen the opposite of it as the dominant thought in gaming for decades.

Finally, I'd say it this way:  As gamers, ultimately we don't owe any particular game author anything. This isn't a community.  It isn't even a club.  If they produce stuff we like, we buy it.  If a favorite author sometimes produces something that doesn't fit well, we might still buy it out of loyalty or encouragement to keep writing (presumably later stuff that we will enjoy).  If we like it enough, we play it.

 I don't care that the author is a woman. But I do care that her being a woman who is also friends with many of the people advertising and hyping this product is suspect. People are absolutely propping her up because "it's nice to see a woman game designer.". Not because her product is actually anything impressive. I just don't see what has justified the massive media blitz where this is described as oh so innovative and new. This is a lie. Outright and transparent. And I really think we need to focus on the murky nature of her contacts with various You Tubers who are advertising her. I understand they are all her friends which should be all the more reason to distrust what those people are saying. Even with the best of intentions they are going to have a bias towards their friends. That's human nature. Would those same You Tubers talk as positively about a similar product from Pundit, Venger, or other OSR guys? History shows the opposite actually. They either outright ignore it or give it a half assed review to appear unbiased when they are anything but.

Okay I just had a thought, so I'm editing this with additional stuff.

Pundit often talks about how the OSR is decentralized. And how that's a good thing. I agree with this. Now I'm going to give a hypothetical. This might not happen. But when a bunch of OSR affiliated or at least OSR covering You Tube channels are all agreeing to push one mediocre product that sets a bad precedent. 5E people are used to being told what to buy. And this game is designed to bring 5E people over to the OSR. When you have a bunch of you tubers who's opinions people rely on deciding what to cover and ignoring others knowing that influences purchasing decisions on a big level, well you might start to see the OSR becoming more of a club than a community. The "acceptable" products are pushed and talked about. Acceptable being whatever is written by whoever is in the club.

Of course the OSR will technically remain decentralized. But will that matter when the only products that make any real money are the ones that are pushed by a small group of people who decide what to push? You can always say "Well me and my group will just keep buying what we like." but will authors remain publishing real OSR content knowing they will only have a very small piece of the pie compared to the club? Of course you can say "Maybe they don't care about the money and just want to put stuff out there for people to enjoy." Which would be fine if we weren't in a financial crisis. But maybe OSR authors have enough disposable income to just dedicate the time needed to design books and games as a "side hustle." I don't, I don't know anybody who can justify that compared to just giving up and finding gainful employment to put food on the table due to others monopolizing the market. Just something to think about. Maybe everything will be fine. And Lion & Dragon will outsell Shadowdark.

Greetings!

I don't believe there is anything mysterious or "murky" about how Kelsey has become so successful with Shadowdark. Kelsey is talented, nice, non-political, and good at making friends.

Many of the OSR designers and writers, entirely fail at one or more of those key traits.

Shadowdark seems like an excellent game, and is anything but "mediocre" by any objective analysis. Kelsey has taken the best 5E elements, and many strong elements from 6 or 12 different OSR games, and organized it all into a simple, and elegant system. Then, she has presented the book with excellent layout, spacing, and design, and with outstanding artwork. Her Shadowdark book clearly shows a great love for 5E and the OSR especially.

I'm not surprised she is wildly successful. She will make millions of dollars, and be fabulously *rich*. That possibility, even as I write it with intentional hyperbole--undoubtedly makes some people grind their teeth in seething envy and enflamed jealousy. Again, though, cycle back to the key traits of her being talented, nice, non-political, and good at making friends. Lots of fucktards in the OSR and gaming in general absolutely fail at one or more of these key traits.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: migo on March 20, 2023, 03:59:50 PM

Quote from: THE_Leopold on March 20, 2023, 02:39:07 PM
If this thing is a coal mine then where is the Canary?

1. First canary is swapping race for ancestry. By itself it's not a big deal, but it's probably not going to be the only thing.
2. Second canary is the female half-orc cleric. That's buying into a particular zeitgeist, the one that imagines orcs are black people and therefore (half-)orcs need to be presented as holy and good.
3. Third canary is the art. Ugly women is a red flag. Now that could be written off as the primary woman being a half-orc and it is actually appropriate, but it's still noteworthy.

Each by itself isn't really much of anything. All together it's also not a sign that she's an SJW. But they are things that could justify waiting a bit to see if any more red flags start cropping up.

1. If that's important to you, you can cross Ancestry out and use race. nothing is stopping you from changing that.
2. This is one photo. I've uploaded 2 others that clearly show the female form and not the warped view of whatever insanity you are espousing. The males in the game range the gambit from heroic to elderly and most clearly caucasion.  Page 15 of the GM guide and Page 41 of the Players Guide.
3. Point is moot as the woman with curves in her chain mail is clearly not unattractive.

You are trying to assosciate proto-SJW tropes when none is present.