Shadowdark RPG - First Impressions

This week we take a look through the Shadowdark RPG by Kelsey Dionne, a wonderful bit of OSR (Old School Renaissance) game design that absolutely smashed it on Kickstarter not long ago.

The final book, besides looking and feeling great, does an excellent job of taking a 1980s-era B/X D&D chassis and giving it a bit of 5e feel that should help players new to the 'old school' playstyle feel right at home. The presentation is excellent, though if I had one small concern it would be that some sections like the Time and Crawling sections may be initially confusing, if viewed from the perspective of someone not already familiar with that era of gaming. I get the feeling that a new group approaching this without the help of a player or GM already experienced in that area might struggle slightly more due to the game perhaps assuming some degree of familiarity with certain basic OSR concepts (e.g., gold = XP, actual rules for dungeon turns, etc.).

Players used to 5e will find a lot of new challenges here -- B/X-era play had a very different flavour, with most of your XP coming from loot rather than monsters, player death being relatively common, tracking rations/torches being a big deal, encounters being neither automatically hostile nor balanced, and so on. The vibe of the game is more gritty and more scary, as each expedition into the Shadowdark feels (and is) terribly dangerous and yet full of potential riches and rewards. Just mind those rival adventuring parties who may be out there with the same ideas...!

On the whole, this book does an excellent job overall of introducing its players to the OSR feel of properly dangerous adventuring, and it's certainly a game I'll try with my group, which has a fair few 5e players in it. Great work from Kelsey and her team!

For those who want the OSR experience coming from the other direction -- i.e., 5e made into OSR rather than OSR made 5e-ish -- check out Into the Unknown (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/p..., or Five Torches Deep (https://www.fivetorchesdeep.com/).

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