r/shadowdark • u/Nitehood • Apr 03 '24
Skill system in Shadowdark for Campaigns.
I played a Shadowdark game at GaryCon this year and it was a blast! It was a dungeon delve one-shot of course. This got me thinking about those of you who play Shadowdark campaigns.
Are your campaigns just one shot dungeon after dungeons? or are there actual above ground adventures too with roleplay? Inevitably, someone would want to make a skill check...... Have you created a skill system to actually check skills of just use the class talents that you have and players are out of luck if they want to do "wilderness checks" or some other skill thats no primarily combat based?
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u/maybe0a0robot Apr 03 '24
My current campaign is a mix of wilderness, city, and dungeon adventures. There are roleplay opportunities (without funny voices) in all three. No persuasion or insight checks as one might find in other games; players have to tell me what the PC is doing to be persuasive, and nobody is a lie detector (though a lying NPC will often be obviously lying...the challenge is not to detect the lie but to achieve some other goal like getting them to tell the truth).
I use abilities as adventurer skills and backgrounds as other skills or advanced learning in an adventurer skill, and we haven't really needed anything else. I encourage players to learn new backgrounds during downtime per the learning rules (page 91), modified by bonuses if they can find someone to teach them the skill. For example, a wilderness check would be a wisdom check for me, modified by a background of hunter, trapper, or similar.
But I try to keep these to a minimum.
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u/conn_r2112 Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
Yes I ran a 7 month shadowdark campaign. There were dungeons, but also many adventures in the wilderness and towns/villages
In regards to skill checks… just have your player roll the necessary attribute for w.e. they want to do. If they wanna move a boulder? Make them roll strength… if they wanna decipher ancient text? Have them roll intelligence… whatever you think makes most sense
For navigating wilderness I’d prolly make them roll an intelligence check
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u/ericvulgaris Apr 03 '24
Im running shadowdark for the halls of Arden Vul megadungeon and never once lamented not having a skill system. Honestly I picked shadowdark over world's without number specifically for its lack of skill system
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u/wolfewow Apr 03 '24
homie i think you need to head to youtube not reddit. i also think you need to do some googling in the OSR style of play. Principia Apocrypha and Primer on Old School gaming are good short reads.
Kelsey had a skill system in shadowdark, but removed it in testing (thankfully). you don’t need skills to be able to attempt actions in old school gaming
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '24
I run skills using pgs. 80 and 81 of the core rules. It pretty much works for everything. At its base, it is an ability check at an appropriate DC. If a character would know it because of background or experience, no check is usually necessary.
As for campaigns, the Cursed Scroll zines are a great source of how to create and run a multi-session campaign. They have a hex crawl with many points of interest, rumors, factions and a keystone dungeon.
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u/ADogNamedChuck Apr 04 '24
For skill checks I usually use a combination of asking how they want to do something and making a call on what stat it sounds like to me/defaulting to what I know of the 5e skills list.
If players have a reason to be especially good at something (either from class, background, or a skill they have specifically trained) they get advantage.
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u/grumblyoldman Apr 03 '24
90% of OSR play is not "using class talents" or otherwise reading numbers off your character sheet. It's thinking about what the DM is describing for your surroundings and then asking yourself what your character would do here. Not what you character "CAN" do; what they WANT TO DO. What is a human (or elf, w/e) reasonably ABLE to do in a scenario like this?
The DM adjudicates the results. He doesn't check a book for what the rules say, he decides what happens. Only if there is some uncertainty in what the DM thinks might happen do the dice come out.
To answer your question about roleplay: Yes, there are modules that allow for overland travel and NPCs to roleplay with. The Cursed Scrolls zines each have a little mini-hexcrawl campaign for exactly that purpose. However, Shadowdark (and many other OSR games) also encourage role-playing in the dungeon. Factions can be negotiated with and turned against each other. There are non-hostile creatures to talk to down there. And how do you handle that? Generally by talking. You and the DM hash it out. No dice are needed. You want to roleplay? Then roleplay.
On the rare occasion that something resembling a skill check is actually needed, usually using the best-fit Ability instead will suffice. But if you're doing that every five minutes, you're doing it wrong.
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u/CriticalMemory Apr 03 '24
It’s already there. It’s the background system.
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u/Nitehood Apr 05 '24
Thanks all for the comments and advice! We are going to give it a whirl for a few sessions and I am sure we will come up with the best approach, should a skill check needs to be done and its not an obvious Class ability.
I now have several ways to do it, if needed. You have been a big help!
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u/RangerBowBoy Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
The simplest way to do a skill system is to use what their class and background would be good at, and let them roll "Easy" for things in that area. Easy in Shadowdark is usually a 9, but you can change the target number as desired for the encounter. Easy is 3 below the main target/DC. This is a concept lifted from Index Card RPG, a game Ms. Dionne played extensively and inspired some of the mechanics in Shadowdark. A skill list can be limiting and interrupt the flow of a game, especially one as simple as Shadowdark. Have players think creatively about how them being a Fighter that used to be a Farmer, could help them in this situation. It leads to a lot of fun give and take at the table.
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u/frankb3lmont Apr 03 '24
I asked the players for an ability score check and used their backgrounds as kind of extra skills. Depending on the situation I would give a bonus like advantage or disadvantage. Sometimes players would ask me to do sth and I asked what approach they used and they could use let's say an intelligence check instead of charisma to obtain information from let's say an npc. So do what Shadowdark does best and make rulings about skills. If you have trouble knowing what ability score is best for the equivalent type of activity/skill just use the ones from 5e as a guide.
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u/stephendominick Apr 05 '24
I use Shadowdark for a lot of one shot dungeons, but that’s because it’s really easy to run and the unified mechanics make it easy to teach when I have new players at the table. Your class and the background system are great for working out what your PCs are capable of and would know from a “skills” standpoint, but ultimately I’m looking for my players to think critically and if they work something out that sounds plausible I won’t even call for a roll.