ShadowDark RPG: Steal These 8 Rules 

Came to confirm your journalistic integrity - couldn’t find Arcane Library’s comment - reviewed your SoloDark video and realized it was a tweet - I don’t tread in that wretched hive, so I’ll take your word for it - but WOW a lot of people are just unloading all their hate on you in the comments - good on you for staying… I’ll call it positive 👍🏿

I like these Shadowdark rules and plan to use them next time I DM for my next D&D adventure/campaign.

Shadowdark is a ton of fun to run, and always-on initiative makes getting everyone involved so easy.

Great video! I'm migrating all my DnD 5E games to ShadowDark, that is how good it is for us! plus it is very easy to DM Mouhahahahahaha

d6 decider is awesome. It definitely has become a mainstay in my games.

I've always handled alignment as more of a consequence of character actions. If a good aligned character does one evil thing, they're not suddenly going to change but I'll let that player know if actions like that continue without remorse, they'll begin to shift to neutral and eventually evil over time. We recently had this issue come up when two players decided to become vampires, and I warned them that the curse animating them would tempt them to commit evil actions. One player embraced this, while the other resolved to fight back against this temptation at all costs.

Solid! Keep the OSR and Shadowdark content coming!!!

1st time visitor...great video and presentation. Subscribed.

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

Funny that you recommend taking the class level titles from ShadowDark, as it was something that they took from the TSR D&D editions.

New to the channel: what a nice surprise! ✅Liked and subscribed 😊

My players LOVE the luck tokens/coins. Yes, it's almost the same as inspiration but even after 5+ years my players hardly cared about inspiration. I explained luck tokens (i actually cut out cardboard tokens) and handed them out for cool role play, heroism or players understanding what's going on and helping the group forward. I think the real tokens and awarding them for OSR play style choices really helped my group pick up the gameplay.

yeah I didn't take that much from Shadow Dark, I do like the inventory management system but I tweeked it, anything the player has equipped does NOT count toward being encumbered. "so how much weight does this mask add to my character?" Anmswer: "I doesn't matter if they wear it weight is 0, if they store it it takes up 1 bobble slot, 5 bobbles take up 1 bulk, party gets 1 bulk +strength modifer" Also 100 gold is one bobble of weight, so finding that dragon's gold pile of 10,000 gold won't be moveable entirely.

Alignment should always be changeable and based entirely on the character's actions. This goes all the way back to the original Paladin in Greyhawk (supplement 1) when they could lose their exalted status if they stopped being Lawful or Good (which implies alignments were always intended to change from the characters actions). People can declare their starting alignments, but what they do should affect their position on the alignment "map." Some DMs will actually physically plot their players movement over this map as they do notable stuff.

First, I want to say Shadowdark is a really good game! Well done! It's a great design of many different 5ed + OSR + indie pieces in a very cohesive, playable game. Lot of passion I think went into that game. Shadowdark borrowed lots of interesting mechanics/rules -- which is great -- but let's give credit to where they came from: 1) Always on initiative - Matt Colville - RU-vid series "Running the Game". Although, I think not really that innovative -- how about let's let everyone have a turn! Never had a problem with this it's called having a good role-playing group and making sure everyone has fun. 🙂 2) Track time / Light / and Timers - Some OSR Games have been more resource tracking intensive. But first game that I've seen that really took this into the grimdark region is Luke and Thor's Torchbearer RPG. Not familiar but I think Index Card RPG which came later (and I think Kelsey knows the author of Index Card). 3) Gear slots -- So many TTRPGs have done this before. The first is Toon (1984) and Dragon Warrior (1985). It's also, of course, done all the time in computer RPGs. 4) Death timer - The Dark Eye 5th Ed. (2016). But think it's been done before (not that familiar with TDE 4ed), but so many death mechanics rules (all kinds of little variants) - a topic that is all over the place. 5) Law/Chaos/Neutral for alignment -- I'd probably have to go look it up to makes sure but OD&D (1974). I believe Gary Gygax didn't make D&D into a 9-alignment system until 1st Edition AD&D. 6) D6 Decider - This is really IMO just a derivative (simplification) on random effect tables. Not even sure if I even call this a rule. Arduin (1977), and on and on for random effect tables. 7) Titles by Alignment - Titles by level started in 1Ed AD&D, which I always thought was pretty cool. Titles by alignment might be new! :-) I'll have to go look in my collection of OSR RPGs and see if this derivative has been done before. 8) Magic Item tables - 1Ed AD&D (had magic item tables) and David Hargrave's Arduin (1977) might have done it first. Random item tables were super common back in the late 70s and 80s. So good news is feel free to borrow -- because the reality is it is VERY hard to come up with anything that is truly new.

I'm with you on the last point. I love seeing/stealing other people's lists and tables, but I've found it's usually better, if I'm running my own campaign, to make up tables that fit into my world. If you need a quick bit of inspiration, someone else's tables are fine. But if you're weaving your great epic, they should be customized, because no matter how cool they may be, they're not based on your ideas, so they don't necessarily fit your game. But ymmv.

i'm just gonna run Shadowdark

Any encumbrance/resource management rules are where PC's cheat the most. Fudged dice rolls is a far distant second in comparison. The GM can enforce the rules and players will just find a more "relaxed" table to play at. I've been playing TTRPG's since AD&D in 1980. Most players hate having to keep track of inventory to that level of detail.

I hear accounts on the Internet all the time of DMs that use the rule “that goes against your alignment so you can’t do it,” and it blows my mind. As a DM, I don’t pay attention to my PCs alignments at all and neither do they. Good vs evil is such a broken concept. Kind, caring people are capable of committing malice and villains can have redeeming qualities-or just some qualities you wouldn’t expect. If a player spends time on their character’s personality traits, ideals, bonds, flaws, and backstory, the alignment develops organically and is easier for them to maintain-though I do kinda like the idea of still using a lawful-chaotic scale!

A lot of these mechanics come from older games, they are all solid for use in any game.

One point I disagree with how I have seen the always on initiative played out is that if the party is moving up and a player moves out of the light source they are in the dark. In real time the party was moving together, not individually, they would all have been in the light source. I think it would be up to the game master to reflect this.

Death Timer and Gear Slots don't seem all that bad as a casual adjustment to a table. In fact, I very much prefer Death Timer over the three up/down. As for Gear Slots, it seems like 10 items is not alot, but when you get down to it, why are you wading into battle with your backpack? Taking only the essentials makes sense, and it makes Backpacks and storage devices way more useful. This does get thrown out the window if you don't address the issues with both additionally though. Death Timer is solid; how does it affect the revolving death door problem? Gear Slots are good; how do magical storage options affect it and how are the Storage options affected? Conceptually interesting, but they need a little more... Fleshing out, so to speak. Instead of just straight stealing/adding them. I use a similar concept for decisions if I can't make one, but it's just a D20, not a D6. If I need to make a "yes but", or a "no but", "yes and", or "no and", decisions, I find a D20 gives you more wiggle room for a similar effect. Sometimes I use a D12 in it's place. A D6 is good for triple decisions, a D12 for Quad, D20 for Penta. D4's, D8's and D10's just do not roll, so much as flop. Of course, all of those can be used for either or's as well.

Is their an actual in game economy? Is gold actually worth something and do magic items fit into the in game economy?

yeah, worrying about encumbrance and gear slots whatever you call it is not for me but i have always liked timers

Why not just play Shadowdark?

Nothing in shadowdark is original, which is not a statement saying shadowdark isn't good or should be ignored. Just pointing something out.

5e caps you at 3 attunement slots but sooo many magic items don’t require attunement that it rarely matters.

D&D players would rather steal 435 rules from other system instead of just playing other system.

Everyone bleeds out at the same rate from the same severity of cut. How tough you are doesn't factor into it. A tougher person might be able to avoid going into shock, but a nicked artery is still going to bleed out in about a minute or two no matter who you are.

just PLAY Shadowdark, don't steal rules and stay in the same systems! Expand your horizons!

Or instead of "stealing" the rules, just play the superior game.

Why not steal them. Shadow dark stole them as well or distilled down a complex system to a simple one. ICRPG is a big one. I backed the game as I liked what she put together.

Rounds are 1 min in D&D not 6 sec