The large American gaming convention (Gencon) just wrapped, including the annual Ennie Awards. The game Shadowdark cleaned up a bunch of awards - best product of the year, best game, best rules, and best layout and design. They ran a million dollar kickstarter last year, and now this thing has become a movement. They achieved that critical escape velocity that let them leave the fantasy heartbreaker planet and reach the stars.
I haven't played it yet. When our current LOTFP campaign wraps, I think we'll do a one-shot to see what all the hype is about - there's a free adventure in the free start rules called "Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur" that gives off a Cretan vibe and would fit the bill as an intro adventure. Shadowdark looks like a rules light or minimalist OSR type game, with a heavy focus on exploration, dungeon crawling, resource management (torches and encumbrance), and XP for treasure, with a few modern design features (like advantage or luck points) while restoring some of the danger and mortality that 5E has eschewed. The art and aesthetic gives off a Russ Nicholson Fiend Folio vibe - black, white, and a little grotty.
I don't know much about the fandom (yet), but it looks like they have a burgeoning 3rd party marketplace for the game, a reddit sub, Discord, and Facebook presence, and a positive helpful community. I'm familiar with the author's earlier work (Kelsey Dionne) as I had picked up some of her 5E adventures well before the OGL-apocalypse, back when she was dabbling in 5E adventures with an Edgar Allan Poe influence. I like how Shadowdark has completely broken from the OGL and is using a creative commons license to enable the 3rd party community.
Shadowdark feels like a bridge between the 5E and the OSR. It's carrying forward some of the things we loved about 1st edition or BX, the dungeon-crawling and exploration, the class-based characters, the focus on resource management and treasure, and ported them into a game easily recognizable to 5E players. Even a cursory peek into some of Kelsey Dionne's interviews reveals someone deeply familiar with the roots of the hobby and wanting to perpetuate old school, exploration based play. She said her first roleplaying experience was with The City State of the Invincible Overlord; how many readers of the blog today even remember 19070's Judges Guild, the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, or The City State of the Invincible Overlord? Those names take me back. Anyway it's really heartening to see younger designers bringing forward exploration-based OSR stylings and then mopping the floor at Gencon. (The memes have been rich).
I'm looking forward to checking out the game, a little of change of pace in between our edgelord LOTFP games. Maybe Shadowdark will even stick. If you've played it, let me know what you thought about it - thanks! I'll post more once we get some time behind the wheel.
I'm really enjoying Shadowdark. It's fun to play, it's easy and simple, it's kind of grim, and it bogs down in ambiguity rather than in hyper-specificity, which makes more room for GM caveat and rule 0-ing. Our GM is really good at rulings so it's not a huge deal. The best way I can describe it is this: Shadowdark provides the play experience I thought I was going to have with D&D in the '80's.
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