GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Ash Cheshire, Jozy Zim, Jeeyon Shim, April Walsh, Demian Kendall
System: Shadowdark
As mentioned in my last Shadowdark game, I am pretty enamored with the system. The torch timers, the fragile characters, the focus on looking into the game rather than to your character sheet for answers, the roll to cast system, and the very simplified and flattened ruleset really speaks to me. I also want to try running Knave, Into the Odd, Whitehack, and Blackhack, but this is where I’m going to start.
In order to feel good about a dungeon crawling game, I had to start by challenging some of the normal assumptions around the crawl itself. Andy Munich has been running D&D 4E for ages and he shared with me a fantastic pitch, which I stole and adapted for my own use. The characters are prisoners who have escaped a prison camp and are now delving into dungeons to evade their captors and to find weapons to fight back against them. I like the idea a lot!
Pitch
This is what I sent my prospective players:
I’m going to start running several OSR (old school renaissance) games that focus on dungeon crawling, finding creative solutions, and forging bonds with your company of adventurers. The games will take place in the same world, but we’ll rotate systems and characters between adventures. If you’re interested, I’d love to have you at the table! Here’s all the info:
Logistics
- Location: Sean’s house
- Players: Hopefully you! Looking for 4 players per session, but I can run for 3-5.
- Date and Time: Primarily weekdays at 6PM and some weekends. I’ll post the dates and folks can fill in their names to grab a slot. Once a game has three people in it, the time will be confirmed and I’ll send out calendar invites. I’ll add dates as we go. You’re welcome to sign up for as many games as you’d like.
- Communication: I’ve started a Discord Server [link]. It’s optional to join, but I think it will be a nice way to keep in touch between games and for the players to share information about what they found.
Game stuff
- Game style: Open table (whoever shows up for the game plays!)
- Game system: Trying multiple systems starting with Shadowdark. Whatever game we’re playing will be taught at the table. I’m looking for the game system that captures the pillars of play the best, so after we play, I’d love your thoughts on the game as well!
Pillars of play
- Exploration and wonder. Let’s explore and learn about the world together. Since many of the games have rules for procedurally generating locations, I’ll be learning too!
- Violence is dangerous. All of the game systems have very fragile characters, often who can be felled by a single blow. Even if you survive, killing has major ramifications.
- A callous world. There are no guarantees you’ll be ready for challenges you face and the world is uncaring. Finding creative solutions will be the key to survival!
- Passionate people. NPCs will be driven by personal motivations for good and ill. Players are encouraged and rewarded for investing in the world and in each other.
Setting and Situation: Amaranth Isle
The Goblin despots of Horth have long been at war with the Five Nations of Man. Both sides are cruel, xenophobic, and desperate for any advantage to win the war and gain supremacy. Recently, Horth warriors besieged and captured the port city Grax on the jungle island of Amaranth. They are now stripping the land of natural resources and subjecting the local lizard folk to serve in the war. They have brought along captives to do menial labor.
You’ll play fugitives who have escaped the Horth prison camp in Grax. Gameplay will focus on exploring dungeons to evade captors and find weapons to use against them, and forging bonds with your fellow fugitives and the local lizard folk. Your companions and your cunning are all that you have keeping you out of chains.
Preparation
I did a lot of prep for this game. Or at least a lot of prep by my standards. That included:
- Nine pre-gen characters (three from each faction)
- Prison cards with a list of crimes (for Horth), ways prisoners of war were captured (for the Five Nations) and reasons you were conscripted (for the Amaranth). On the backs of these were also rules for Death’s Second Chances. A few means for fragile characters to stay alive.
- Table tents for each character with room for beliefs. I had a few typos, but we decided that Wizazard is canon now. More Zs = more magic!
- Belief labels to peel off and put on your character tent. Beliefs like Violence is a last resort, Nothing is free, Laws protect people, and Laws are a threat.
- Battlemap (for me to draw on) and large dot paper for our cartographer to transfer map info to.
- Campaign log for me (Field Notes using a modified version of the guidelines Kelsey gave here)
- Timekeeper journal (Field Notes)
- Note taker journal
- Skull prop with mini skulls to represent luck tokens
- Egg timer (our torch timer)
- Starting gear. A list of gear that was grabbed on your way escaping the prison!
- My dinky raft prop (which I used in Errant) and was happy to use as the escape
- Tokens for each character. Digitally made with https://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/, printed on label paper, punched with 1″ hole punch and then put on washers.
- 1″ magnets to show who has light (stick to the bottom of the the token). I used Bullseye Office Round Assorted Color Fridge Magnets, but I think they are way to strong. They kept sticking to other tokens,
- A print out of the adventure with lots of changes made (renamed the old gods so we didn’t have real world names in the game and changed the bandits to be goblins as the Horth have control of the island now)
- A print out of all the monster stats that appear in the adventure. I copied them into a 4-page word doc and then printed them booklet style so they would fit on one sheet and tuck into the adventure.
Here’s how it all looked before and during play:
Fundamentals
I also prepared a bit to share with everyone once the game started. This was done in person so the text isn’t verbatim, but here’s all the topics I covered:
- Thanks for playing games with me. This is my first time running Shadowdark so I’m bound to make mistakes, we all are. That’s okay, we’ll learn as we go.
- I want us all to agree to treat each other with love and respect for the next few hours [wait for agreement]. Great, because we all care about each other, if anything comes up that makes the game unfun for any of us, just let us know (using any method you like) and we’ll take it out. Don’t like spiders? The giant spider is now a giant slug. A topic hitting to close to home? We’ll dial it back or change the what happened. You matter more than the game.
- Open Table. We’ll have different players playing different characters from session to session. Let’s end each game at “base” and be flexible playing characters from the roster.
- Player Driven. Sessions will end with multiple options and players will pick which direction we go between sessions. In the first few games we’ll be exploring the dungeon I have provided, but from there, exploration will be up to you.
- Player Roles. In addition to playing characters, players will also have on of the following roles:
- Cartographer: Draws dungeon maps (to any level of detail you desire) and updates the overland map with findings.
- Notetaker: Records events of the adventure and notes new possible avenues for future forays.
- Timekeeper: Keeps track of rounds and notes when spells and effects expire.
- Caller: Conveys the actions to the GM when the group is acting in unison (during standard crawling and combat rounds each player will announce their own actions).
- Setting. Horth and the Five Nations have been at war for ages. At different times they have both captured and colonized portions of Amaranth. You are prisoners who have escaped from the Horth prison camp and though your faction background might put you at odds, right now you’re all you’ve got. The gods are also at war, which means that some rules aren’t being followed as well as they normally are and the god of death is giving second chances.
- Shadowdark specific stuff
- Realtime torch timer – darkness is alive and wants to consume your light. Lighting new torches doesn’t extend the time, you keep the existing time or douse the old ones and start anew.
- Always on initiative. We roll Imitative and keep going in rounds. All durations are tracked in rounds regardless if they are crawling or combat.
- Character creation
- Pick characters
- Pick “crimes” and select details
- Pick a belief or create your own
- Roll for starting gear and coin. It’s not much.
Notekeeper’s log
Thanks to Demian for being our notekeeper. Here’s his log:
- Raft pursued by hobgoblin jailors
- Goblins (Treez is the leader)
- Sraxl was taught to hate the Five Nations because they see lizardfolk as monsters.
- King Skorguld. The caves were built as a tomb for hm.
- Scared/manipulated goblins with shadowdance, passing off as ghost of Skor
- Choker!
- Yig’d dead, baby
- Sraxl “kills” ghost and wins support of goblins
- Room: centuries old, grey slippery stone, ornate craftwork.
- runes carved into the walls
- Hall of Deeds. Speak of Skorald’s triumphs.
- Pile of crap in the corner -> covering the door (barricaded by goblins)
- Hallway -> River
- Room: 30′ ceiling. See a hulking figure in the shadows = giant statue of Nord warrior
- Statue is broken by some horrible force
- Statue of king (crown is seen): more runes. Some scratched over with a new message “a greedy miser who left nothing to his sons.”
- Buzzing and flapping down the hall…smell a coppery aroma…
- Glint of sliver short sword with red clow!
- Excavated with floating disk.
- Back to the cave…smell of guano…slippery ground
- Weapon swap!
END OF SESSION
Dungeon Map
Thank to Ash for drawing the incredible map as we went along. Not only the map, but all the notes as well!
Timekeeper
Thank you Jozy for keeping track of the rounds. We’ll start next session on round nine!
Campaign Log
Here’s my notes (very few because I was focused on the game)
- Sraxl – Five nations see Lizardfolk as monsters
- Yid – backstabbed by Tirolas, fed to choker
- Sraxl and Malchor trick the goblins into believing the have foght off the ghost of King Skorgald.
- Much looting of the bandit horde. Some overheard, some not.
- Rosk doesn’t fight because he doesn’t want to start a chain of violence and he doesn’t want to give away his labor by fighting for someone else.
- Hall of Deeds. Gendry had to resist reading them all. Damaged (-3 HP) trying to take apart the barricade.
- They all swam, jumped, or were aided across the river with Gentry’s rope.
- Felled statue. Found graffit, rusty 20′ chain, and silvered short sword with a ruby (1XP)
- Moment of Tirolas and Gendry confiding. They both felt betrayed by the Five Nations.
- Choker went after goblins (roll to find out what happened between sessions)
Thoughts on the game
Notes I took for myself. Some areas for improvement, some just ideas.
- REMEMBER TO GET EVERYONE BACK TO THE ENTRANCE! That was one of my early rules and I didn’t follow it. I’m going to retcon the session a bit to say that the remaining time of the torch is used up to get everyone back to the entrance by the campfire to rest and recover.
- For inventory purposes, torches should be removed from inventory when the are lit (they item gets transferred to the token on the battle map).
- I need a second battlemap for when the party extends off the first.
- Explore goblin union. What does Treez want out of it? Does it make sense for autonomous bandits? Are bandits part of a larger system that pushes down on them and they could organize to push back?
- Chokers speak primordial!
- Roll morale checks and combat between goblins and choker!
