Plenty Of Time To Die: A Shadowdark Review

This classic dungeon crawl experience raised over a million on Kickstarter

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Blockbuster Kickstarters tend to be examples of the old adage of “An overnight success years in the making”. The recent Shadowdark one that raked in over a million USD is a perfect example. While The Arcane Library wasn’t as well known as some third party 5e creators, it was doing excellent work in the 5e space and racking up a fan base that reacted well to Shadowdark. It also likely hit at just the right time as D&D fans were looking for a new flavor of dungeon crawl. Creator Kelsey Dionne was kind enough to give me an advance copy of the full PDF and discussed the game at Gary Con where she was running full table demos for enthusiastic backers. How does the game recapture that dangerous feeling of classic dungeon crawls while still keeping popular elements of 5e? Let’s play to find out.

Shadowdark throws things back to a classic dungeon crawl experience with quick character creation, deadly encounters that players must weigh between fighting, avoiding or outright fleeing. Dionne has said that she wants to deliver those old school elements but not be stuck with legacy mechanics. Take the best stuff from those older sourcers but also elements from more modern designs. There are also a few things in the game that make it unique. The most well known one is the use of a real life timer. Torches last one hour in the dungeon and things get much more difficult in the dark. Time and light also seem like resources that can endanger characters beyond the claws of monsters and the spikes of traps. Staying out of the dark becomes something the DM can use to complicate encounters. Monsters go after whoever holds the light source first. Players have to find a place to stash the torch during a treacherous climb. That timer also puts pressure on the players to act rather than planning to plan.

Character creation wears its ancient influences on its bracers. Six traits, 3d6 for each all the way down with four classes to choose from. All of these classes fit on one or two pages for ease of reference and simplicity of choice. That randomness extends to a handful of charts where players can roll for a completely random character. The breeziness of the process makes it easy to ditch a set of rolls for a new character or not get too broken up should that character become a grue snack early on in the game. Randomness continues as characters grow with level ups coming off of a chart that contains the usual mix of class talents, ability improvements and such. Rolling a 12 means the player chooses, otherwise progression is left a little to chance. XP is handled by collecting treasure, allowing for players to grow without having to throw down in combat. As someone who prefers to design characters, this isn’t my usual cup of tea, but I’ve also come to enjoy playing characters as they lie too. Gaining a +1 to longsword attacks tells an emergent story based on what happened in the dungeon. It brings to mind those moments where a fighter pulls out their trusty weapon and says “We’ve been through a few things, haven’t we?” that fits this kind of story better.

There are also modern bits of design in Shadowdark. The most obvious lift is advantage and disadvantage but there are others that stand out from the general classic D&D base. Ancestry is another, both in using the modern terminology and being a broad feat-style bonus rather than a predetermined number of bonuses and penalties. These characters also are given smaller, wider bonuses as they level rather than cranking up the math to higher levels. Armor Class goes up, ability scores turn into d20 modifiers and casters only lose spells on a failed casting roll. Though the fights are brutal, death saves of a sort exist. Characters have 1d4 plus their CON modifier to either roll a 20 on their turn or get healed/stabilized. Enough of these elements exist that make this an excellent game for older D&D players to show new 5e fans how things were done in the “old days” without worrying about explaining THAC0 or why the wizards must carry around a dagger.

A few elements blend the old school and the modern together. Players gain XP for gaining treasure but they also gain it for spending treasure on raucous nights at the pub. The more players spend, the more XP they gain. There are charts of course, that offer other consequences of those blurry nights of carousing. Consequences that can tie in to later adventures. When that mysterious tattoo the wizard picked up during their last trip to town starts glowing in the dungeon, it’s a good way to weave a longer story into the game.

And if the rules included aren’t enough, Shadowdark provides options. Even something central like the torch timer has options as something the players can watch on the clock or something the DM tracks behind the screen. GMs can turn the dial towards hardcore with choices like death at zero hit points or making stabilization harder or they can lower the difficulty through more use of luck tokens or giving out XP for dead monsters. Though the four basic classes offer a lot of options more official ones, like the Pit Fighter and the Hell Knight, have been seen in upcoming Cursed Scroll supplements. Kickstarer backers also chose the ranger and the bard to be developed as stretch goals. The lightness of the classes means making one that feels like an old favorite very easy for homebrew and third party options.

Beyond official expansions, rules edits or third party community choices, Shadowdark captured one of 5e’s most underrated strengths: adaptability. With a minimum of prep time, I feel like I could run everything from King’s Festival to The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho tonight for a mix of players who’ve never played and ones that have been around since the 80s. Shadowdark cuts most of the fat of other versions of D&D, leaving a lean, mean dungeon crawling machine.

You don't have to take my word for it. This Shadowdark Quickstart contains everything you need to try out the game.
 

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Rob Wieland

Rob Wieland

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
Is that a thing? I haven't noticed.
There was a whole thing about vorpal swords a few months ago that hinged on no one on either side having ever randomly rolled up a magic item before.

More generally, there are people who really want to be gatekeepers who tell posters to play a different game than Shadowdark every time they suggest a house rule. (All rules are someone's house rules, people.)
 

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Bill Zebub

“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
More generally, there are people who really want to be gatekeepers who tell posters to play a different game than Shadowdark every time they suggest a house rule. (All rules are someone's house rules, people.)

That is definitely true.

And sometimes it can be well-intentioned advice.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
The weekend of Carnage* is almost upon us.

I finalized all of my prep for my 3 "Triarch Crowns" sessions. I decided i would vary the weights of the crown acquisition and its return. in the Crown of Wrath (session1) the heist to retrieve the crown should be short and sweet and the descent into the tomb of Queen Mav will take up the bulk of the session. In the Crown of Night, figuring out a way to get it off the head of the mad Balthazar the Blighted in the sanitarium when it has given life to his fears and nightmares is most of the adventure, with its return more of a epilogue. The Crown of Thorns should be about half and half, since it is locked away in a secure vault AND must be brought to the center of a wild rose labyrinth.

*Carnage on the Mountain, Killington VT, Oct 27-29.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
Success! I will go into more detail later, since I am just back home from the con and quite exhausted, but in short:

Each of the three sessions was full, and I even made an exception and allowed a 7th player in the third session because she really wanted to see how it all turned out after being in the first two (but did not manage to get a seat for the third originally). A PC donned the Crown of Wrath and it could have turned out Very Badly (tm) except for quick thinking by the witch who sent the foolish wearer to hell in their cauldron until they could get to a safer location. I incorporated a increasing stress mechanic for the Crown of Night adventure (which was very horror heavy) that seemed to work pretty well and I will refine it for more general use. Finally, the adventurers chose to eliminate the Cult of the Triarch (who was hiring them) rather than give Rose her Crown back and allow her to use it to cover the city in a thorny revenge.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
The Stress Rules:

I used these over the weekend and want to talk about them to see if I can refine them into something more broadly useful.

In context: the PCs were trying to retrieve the Crown of Night from the head of Balthazar the Blighted. The fool had put it on, trying to command its power, but instead it turned him into a tortured soul that meandered his mansion, spawning creatures from his nightmares into the real world.

The rules: While in Balthazar's mansion, any time a PC started their turn in the dark, they gained a point of stress (note: I gave the shadows creatures that haunted the mansion the ability to blow out a torch in place of an attack). In addition, specific "fear sequences" resulted in Stress upon failed saving throws. For example, the first time the PCs encountered such a sequence was in the storm sewer beneath the mansion's grounds. A PC carrying a torch swung his back and forth while looking for a secret door. Every player made a save and those that failed watched as the shadows -- which should have been moving because of the shifting torch -- did not move and merely leered at them from the walls. They all got a Stress point.

Stress had the following effects: you took a blanket penalty equal to your stress points to attacks, saves, spellcasting and other d20 checks when confronting the shadows, ghouls and other creatures of the Crown that haunted the mansion. In addition, when the party finally confronted Balthazar, he had a special attack (usable against 2 separate PCs per round) which caused 1d6 psychic damage per stress point to that PC, no save.

To give a sense of what those penalties and damage looked like, by the time the party (six 3rd level characters) reached Balthazar, everyone had at least 1 and at most 4 stress points. I did not intentionally cap the number but I probably would going forward, probably at 5.

Thoughts?
 

ART!

Deluxe Unhuman
All of Arcane Library's products are a delight to my ADD brain, organizing things simply and clearly, with bullet-points and one-page or two-page spreads per topic. SD follows the same approach, and this is one of its strong-suits for me. I find the way a lot of adventures and rulebooks are written to be almost un-useable, requiring extensive highlighting, notes, reorganizing, etc. before I can move forward. Not so with Arcane Library's stuff. I would have backed the Kickstarter just because of that, but the features everyone else has mentioned will probably make it one of my go-to systems.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
All of Arcane Library's products are a delight to my ADD brain, organizing things simply and clearly, with bullet-points and one-page or two-page spreads per topic. SD follows the same approach, and this is one of its strong-suits for me. I find the way a lot of adventures and rulebooks are written to be almost un-useable, requiring extensive highlighting, notes, reorganizing, etc. before I can move forward. Not so with Arcane Library's stuff. I would have backed the Kickstarter just because of that, but the features everyone else has mentioned will probably make it one of my go-to systems.
I am a "rough outline and improv the rest" GM and Shadowdark is perfect for that.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
Necroing to ask: So who has been running Shadowdark long term? How does it play over the length of a full campaign? What changes would/did you make?
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
Necroing to ask: So who has been running Shadowdark long term? How does it play over the length of a full campaign? What changes would/did you make?
@SlyFlourish is 30+ sessions into his campaign, according to his podcast (he talks about his Shadowdark game most Fridays).

He can answer this more fully, but he's mentioned having to figure out how to have motivations carry over between player characters, most of whom have died and been replaced over the course of the game, because otherwise, you're going to potentially have a bunch of new characters in the bottom of a dungeon with no obvious reason as to why they want to be there.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
@SlyFlourish is 30+ sessions into his campaign, according to his podcast (he talks about his Shadowdark game most Fridays).

He can answer this more fully, but he's mentioned having to figure out how to have motivations carry over between player characters, most of whom have died and been replaced over the course of the game, because otherwise, you're going to potentially have a bunch of new characters in the bottom of a dungeon with no obvious reason as to why they want to be there.
I'm looking forward to his usual campaign after action report video for that one.
 

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