Why NOT Shadowdark

Not a "Dear JB" letter per se, but Ilya asked the following on a different post a couple days ago:

Hi JB, I’ve been enjoying reading your thoughts on old editions of D&D, and as someone fairly new to the older editions, I really value your perspective.

I’ve been looking into Shadowdark. Due to my lack of experiences, the systems feel very similar. Both have light rules, use dungeon turn structure and overland travel rules. The big shift seems to be that Shadowdark streamlines things by combining saves, attacks, and skills into a single d20 roll 

I was wondering if you might have a moment to share why you would not recommend Shadowdark?

Shadowdark, from what I can gather is the latest, greatest hotness in the OSR...not quite OSE in level of popularity but it seems to be quite well-liked by the more serious minded of "rules lite" aficionados. 

However, while I've already given an overview of why I (JB) spurn "rules light" games, Ilya is asking for a specific recommendation (or non-recommendation) on a specific game system. Far be it from me to hesitate when it comes sharing an opinion! So here it is: the brass tacks, the full skinny, the real McCoy:

BUT FIRST. Let's pause for a moment.

It should be understood by everyone reading this post (yes, here's where the meandering starts) that folks are free to play any game they choose. You can play Monopoly. You can play chess. You can play Axis & Allies. Lot of games out there...a LOT of games. It's the holiday season, and I always try to pick up a new game or two for my household (much to the chagrin of my wife). 

There are a LOT of games, and a lot of different ways to occupy our time. Pickleball, for example...that's fun. And it gives you a little light exercise. Ilya you can play pickleball just as readily as you can play Shadowdark.

But maybe your knees are worse than mine, or maybe you don't have a pickleball court near you, or the ones you have always seem to be occupied (pickleball is pretty popular out in my neck of the woods)...even in December with an "atmospheric river" bringing floods to the region. Or maybe you just don't like playing pickleball in the rain. I don't.

So you want to play an indoor game...and you want to play an RPG. Because you're an imaginative sort of person. Okay. Lots of RPGs on the market...a TON of RPGs on the market. I own scores of them myself (I honestly have never tried to come up with an exact count...). Apologies to all the GURPS and HERO and D20 fans on the internet, but I'm not a big believer in universal systems; I find they tend to make for dull gaming. Instead, I prefer RPGs that are focused around their own individual themes, with rules tailored to their objectives of game play. Yeah, I'm an old fuddy-duddy that way.

SO...why would I not recommend Shadowdark? Why would I recommend Shadowdark? 

What's Shadowdark about? Well, let's see...(*ahem*):

WHAT IS SHADOWDARK?

Shadowdark RPG is a fantasy adventure game where you and your companions delve into buried ruins, lost cities, spider-infested forests, and even fearsome dragon lairs in search of gold and glory.

The Shadowdark is any place where danger and darkness hold sway. It clutches ancient secrets and dusty treasures in its rotting claws, daring fortune seekers to tempt their fates.

With your adventuring companions at your side, you confront the Shadowdark's sinister traps, formidable magics, and ruthless monsters.

If you survive, you'll bring back untold riches plucked from the jaws of death itself. And before long, you'll hear the Shadowdark's call once again!

(from the Shadowdark Player Quickstart Guide, page 7)

Huh. That sounds an awful lot like this game called Dungeons & Dragons.

So, there's this game called Dungeons & Dragons...great game, love it. You and your friends make characters and go into "dungeons" (a euphemism for subterranean adventure locales) and face danger and monsters and traps and magical threats, searching for treasures that you can bring back to the surface world. It's a lot of fun, even if you only play it in its most BASIC fashion...which is what "dungeon delving" is.

It's also HELLA easy to learn. You can pick up the Moldvay Basic book for under $5 on DriveThruRPG, and it gives you all the procedural info you need to run the game in its Basic form...and when you're ready to get out of the dungeon and explore the perilous wilderness you can pick up the Cook/Marsh Expert set (also under $5, but in print form for $13.99) and continue the adventures all the way up to level 14. Heck, if you like that simple system, you could even pick up something like my B/X Companion book to continue adventuring beyond those levels...although my book, sadly, is not as cheap ($12.99 for the PDF...but it IS a 'platinum bestseller' and people seem to dig it).

Each of these books (yes, even mine) clock in at 64 pages apiece, and they are an easy read...the Moldvay book especially has some lovely examples that can teach even a kid as young as 10 how to play the game (I was able to figure it out at age 9, but I was a sharp young lad). This Shadowdark RPG? The Quickstart Players Guide alone is 66 pages...so's the Quickstart Masters Guide.  I don't have a copy of the Shadowdark RPG "core rulebook," but my Google machine tells me it's 330 pages long.

Okay. 330 pages to learn how to play Basic D&D? Hm.

Of course, these days I don't play B/X, I play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), which has a lot of similarities in theme and objectives to Basic Dungeons & Dragons, but provides you with a more robust system for longer, more extended game play. It's a little heftier than B/X...about 350 pages in the PHB and DMG combined, plus the various "monster guides"...but it can provide you with decades of entertaining game play. 

See, here's the thing Ilya: it's not that I recommend you pass on Shadowdark; what I'm actually recommending is that you play AD&D. That's pretty much what I'm recommending to EVERYONE these days...unless you don't yet know the basics (in which case, I always recommend reading Moldvay's Basic instructions to set you on the path). Maybe Shadowdark is a great system...I couldn't tell you, having never played it. What I CAN tell you, is that AD&D is a great system, one that I've been playing for 40+ years.

If what you want is:

• a role-playing game
• of fantasy adventure
• searching for treasure in the dark
• fighting monsters, avoiding traps, etc.
• while taking on the persona of a fantasy hero
• played cooperatively with your friends

Then you probably are looking for a game like Dungeons & Dragons. And fortunately for you, that game already exists. And if you want to take the game to the "next level," then you should probably pick up a copy of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and start learning its system. 

Uh-oh...I can hear my readers yelling at me from across the ethers: "But JB! Old D&D...especially AD&D...is so clunky! Even if I was willing to parse Gygax's ruminations, or organize the dishevelment that is 1E, its systems are all wonky and weird. Look at how easy these "new" games are with their streamlined mechanics! That makes it EASIER to play...and we want easier!"

Sure. I get it. I mean, here's a "unified mechanic" for you: give every monster a kill number and when you encounter it, you roll 2d6 to try to exceed that number...if you do, the fight's over, you win! Otherwise you roll on a random table (you folks just LOVE your random tables, don't you) to determine what kind of injury/loss you sustained before escaping with your life. Hey, there may even be ONE result on the loss table that results in DEATH...but it's a low probability (maybe if you roll 'snake eyes' or something).

[this game system already exists, just by the way...it's called Dungeon!, the board game]

Even EASIER would be to just have you roll a die (die type decided by class and level) against the Dungeon Master (rolling a die type determined by how dangerous the monster is). Easy-peasy, as they say. Why bother with all that back-and-forth initiative junk? 

I mean, why not just flip a coin every time a character tries to do something with a chance of failure? Doesn't get much easier than that, does it?  "Can I free climb the fortress wall?" Sure...so long as the quarter comes up 'heads!'

D&D (and AD&D) both came out a long time ago. And almost immediately, there were people who said "these game mechanics stink...I can write a better system than THIS." Thus you have all the many imitators: Tunnels & Trolls. Arduin. RuneQuest. Talislanta. All the various "fantasy heartbreakers" that have been published over the years...so, so many. Shadowdark is yet another such fantasy heartbreaker; the only difference is that with the branding and marketing of the "OSR" machine (which is nothing but a marketing brand at this point), it's been able to make some money.  It's still the same game. Just with a better publicist and a dumbed-down system.

"Dumbed-down, JB? You just said you've never played it! What you call simple, I call elegant!" Okay, let's take a look under the hood:

Mm.

Okay, I've read through both Quickstarter guides. If you were to take out the padding, the illustrations, and the random tables (most of which I'd also call "padding"), you could probably write the entirety of the rules as a one-page micro-game (I say this having penned many such games in the past). It's a really, really simple system...and one that relies mostly on subjective referee fiat, which I hate.

"Fiat? But there are hard target numbers!" Sure...challenges might be "easy" or "hard" or "normal" or "extreme." But those are all determined by the GM (possibly after discussion with the player). That's garbage...you're not playing a game at that point, you're playing the GM. When I play D&D (which is what Shadowdark is, regardless of its name), I like having a hard target for finding a secret door, or picking a lock, or lifting a portcullis...I don't want to have to rely on the arbitrary whim of the DM.

And shall we talk about the advancement system? Again, it's all subjective DM fiat. An "unexciting" treasure is worth 0 XP...but "unexciting" to whom? The player? The DM? All the players in consensus? Same goes for the "clever thinking award." Being a jerk with a low opinion of "cleverness" amongst players, I'd probably NEVER award this XP.

Not that it matters...the whole system is boring. And advantage/disadvantage is one of the laziest, worst mechanics ever invented (I've changed my mind on this over the years). The fact that they do their whole thing about "Total Darkness"...and then make it nothing more than disadvantage(!) is outrageous. If I'm fighting an invisible opponent, do I simply have "disadvantage?" Because, let me tell you, in total darkness EVERYONE is effectively invisible. Just crap.

Look, here are the things to understand:

1. Life is not simple. Life is complicated and messy. Depending on where you are and what you are doing, it operates under different rules. If you're stranded in the middle of a wilderness, you act differently from how you do at your 9 to 5 office job, or how you do in Vegas hanging with your buddies. There's no "one streamlined system" for life...I think everyone can understand that. Games model particular aspects of life (the parts to which the game pertains, or imagines), and if it models MULTIPLE aspects of life, it may well need multiple systems...this helps give the game verisimilitude which, I would argue, is IMPORTANT in a role-playing game where the players are trying to put themselves in the shoes/mindset of their characters.
2. Because life is life and games are games, our mechanics and rules are, at best, imperfect in their modeling...and that's okay! And it's okay to boil something down to (for example) a single die roll that combines many different abstract concepts into one: the D&D combat roll is an example of such a mechanic, as is the D&D initiative roll, the D&D saving throw, etc. That's fine.
3. It is also quite all right to take these mechanics and make them simple, especially when introducing these concepts. When we teach little kids to play baseball, we start them off hitting the ball off a tee, rather than pitching to them. When we start little kids in soccer, they use smaller fields, with fewer players, and don't worry about teaching them "off-sides" rules. This is normal.  Basic (B/X) D&D...which is as much a basis for Shadowdark as 5th Edition...is a similar example when it comes to teaching role-playing games to beginners.
4. Having said THAT, there comes a time when you're ready to move from tee-ball to actual pitching. Simplified systems only satisfy for so long. At least, that's been MY experience over the last few decades. There's a reason I prefer chess to checkers. There's a reason my days of playing CandyLand are far behind me. And there's a reason I'm done playing B/X, even though I like and appreciate the system for what it is: an introductory rule set to the greatest game ever published.

Shadowdark is just another version of B/X with a couple 5Eisms hammered on (and a few bits and pieces from other games...I see some DCC in the magic system). Don't be wowed by the random tables. The magic item list is pathetic...I was doing that kind of thing in my 2014 game Five Ancient Kingdoms, but I provided over 100 different items on MY random tables, not just a D20 roll. Random tables don't wow me...they are insulting to the intelligence of the reader. Better that you teach a man to fish, rather than give him a D20 roll to see what kind of sea life ends up on the skillet.

Hell. This starter set has 52 monsters. It has 36 spells. It has 19 magic items. That's in 132 pages of text. The Moldvay Basic book, in 64 pages, provides 100 monsters, 38 spells, and 54 magic items. If you want to include the Expert set (another 64 pages), you can increase those totals to nearly 200 monsters, over 100 spells, and over 100 magic items NOT including magic weapons, swords, or armor. That's just a lot more bang for your buck.

And the B/X edition of D&D cannot hold a candle to the sheer numbers and varieties of these items found in the AD&D books. As I said, AD&D gives you material for YEARS of play.

SO...Ilya. You asked why I would not recommend Shadowdark, and the answer is simple: there's already a game on the market that gives you everything Shadowdark purports to do, except that it does it BETTER, and gives you MORE, and has been successfully played by folks for DECADES. Given that, why would you...why would anyone, really...want to waste their time with something of lesser value? Just because you dig on the artwork? Um...

[please note: I said lesser "value" not "cost." The core AD&D books cost slightly more...you can buy PDFs of the PHB, DMG, and MM for a total of $29.97, but a PDF of the Shadowdark RPG is only $29.00. For me, though, AD&D is well-worth the extra buck...]

Anyway...that's about all I have to say on the subject of Shadowdark. Time to call it a night.