Shadow of the Demon Lord - dark fantasy roleplaying done right

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Shadow of the Demon Lord - dark fantasy roleplaying done right

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Serf posted:

Also, Saturday, June 17th I'm gonna be running a one-shot of Shadow of the Demon Lord. I plan to run the Starting adventure "The Witching Wood" for 4-5 players, but if we have more than that I'm down for taking at most 6. I'm looking at running it around 4PM EST, so if you're interested hit me up in PMs or here in the thread. I plan to run a few of the Starting adventures as one-shots like this to hopefully get people into the game. Remember if you don't have the book but you want to try the game out in one of these one-shots, the SRD has just about everything you need!

I have no idea how widely-known this is, but Serf is a cool and good GM, so if you're on the fence, you should try this one-shot. I am attending a wedding at that time, otherwise I would totally apply to join.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 01:49

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 19:14

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

MTV Crib Death posted:

Is this game married to a grid or can it be run ToTM with some adjustments? After breaking the tyranny of the grid I don't know if I can go back.

Show us on the miniature where the grid touched you.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 18:17

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

You could play "without a grid," right? In the sense of "no need to confine people to this 5'x5' square," you could freehand maps and only pull out a ruler if you really need to, while still having all distances represented on a map. Last time I checked, Roll20 does this well enough.

If you decide to go pure TotM (no map, no zones) then I will definitely take my hat out of the ring for the starting adventure.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 19:29

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

marshmallow creep posted:

The fact that you don't have blanket access to every spell ever is one of the things I like about this game. In DnD a wizard basically gets a new supplement and gets to say "this is literally my spellbook" because he has next to no limits on how much he can no and I have never met a DM who actually tracked ingredient costs, research times or anything because of how much of a headache it would be. This game makes picking spells more like picking class features that have significance to your character, instead of simply stuffing your shopping cart with everything Spellco has on offer.

It's an elegant solution that was always lurking there with D&D spell types, but it took Schwalb to build a wall and make Evocation pay for it.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 20:55

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Pastry Mistakes posted:

Jesus christ.

Makes you wonder how that first version even made it out the door.

It's easy!

Step 1: create prices for fantasy game, cut some info from core book
Step 2: create level of currency lower than your previous lowest level
Step 3: include old info in later supplement by accident

Like, the original chart would be very logical to anybody raised on D&D prices, making it even harder to spot in editing and proofreading.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2017 21:19

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

marshmallow creep posted:

It is the best picture for showing why wizards are the worst.

It's a tossup for me with this one.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2017 15:15

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Pastry Mistakes posted:

I love this picture. Is it part of a series?

No, but the artist (Matt Rhodes) has a lot of other great, expressive work.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2017 04:51

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

A thing I like about Boons/Banes over Advantage/Disadvantage is that having more sources of them means something, but not a big something. You can have a million Boons, and it just makes it very, very likely you'll get +6 on the roll.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 13:58

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Jack B Nimble posted:

Thanks for the help, these are all good points. I'll absolutely change Practice to that, although this is going compete with the Rogues power but I'll address that later. And since I haven't run a game yet I wasn't sure how much Corruption would show up, but what you're say makes sense that it might be too infrequent to base a foundation (novice path) rest power over, yeah they'll need something else.

Regarding the healing, you're right, I could go back to making healing a passive effect, but I'll need to see how/if I can strike the desired mood of "this adventure is grim and every day you're all a little worse" without hitting an obvious heal tax. I think a big red flag is every rest I see a round of wound cares from everyone. I mean, really, the only reason I wouldn't is if a player wasn't wounded.

Really, how much health, how much healing, and how much damage can I expect to see any a day anyway?

Health: A level 1 warrior would have, what, maybe 16 or 17 HP (11 or 12 str, +5 Health)? So he can Healing Rate (HR) himself for 4? And he can do that once a day, and we can presume he gets the priest power so he'll HR twice, and then maybe the priest will also give him another 1 - 1.5 HR based on spells. So the warrior, who does the most healing, might heal for most/all (16/18) of his Health in one day (before the rest period), everyone would else in this scenario is stuck with their own personal recovery (which the magician doesn't get until level 2).

Compare all this health and healing to a Fomor that is probably going to hit a Novice character on an average roll, and does 1d6 damage. And the party can fight 25 difficulty 1 monsters at 0 level (starting)?

Thinking through all this, I think I could certainly just leave healing as a passive activity that occurs at rest. But should I then allow players to wound care at all? I mean, if I allow players to heal, won't they almost always heal if hurt? But if they always choose it, is that a "heal tax"? When I think of a tax in a game, I think of something that sounds optional but you're always going to take it because the game doesn't feel complete without it, like you're buying your way out of a difficulty that tends to only effect certain classes, or low level characters. Or it may be something that you have to pay to maintain some aspect of your character that would otherwise fade out as you level.

I could let players heal passively, I could let them spend rest actions to heal, and play with the amounts healed each time until I get what I want.

I'll have to think about that, and also rewriting the class abilities so that they have a solid automatic effect and an additional effect on a dice roll.

A PC can very easily lose half to all of their health in a single fight. Also, Insanity kind of takes care of itself, so I think the Priest's skill is the least useful one.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 14:17

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Jack B Nimble posted:

thanks for all the input, I've looked it over but will have to think about it and reply later.

In the meantime, can anyone tell me more about how insanity normally works? Do you often see multiple pcs go mad on an adventure? Do you see many pcs choose quirks?

Keep in mind that your max for Insanity is your Will score, and that you Go Mad when your Insanity reaches your Will. You only gain 1 Insanity per failure to resist, no matter how horrifying the thing is. Taking a Quirk reduces your Insanity by 1d6+WillMod. Going Mad also reduces your Insanity by 1d6+WillMod. You have a 5% chance of death when you Go Mad and a 5% chance of lowering your Insanity twice and gaining a permanently increased resistance to Insanity; every other form of madness is temporary and features that single Insanity reduction.

I suspect (but do not know from experience) that players not invested in their characters would just Go Mad for the free reduction, and that players that like roleplaying or min-maxing would take Quirks.

So "remove 1 Insanity" could help recover from a single nasty thing. You could also perhaps go "+1 boon to resist gaining Insanity from a specific source" as the priest's sermon steels them for the evils they expect.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 19:47

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Yeah, I think you'll have a lot of people on board at "makes the game a little more like Darkest Dungeon" so really the rest is just making it good mechanically. Also you can name the new abilities stuff like The Abyss Is Made Manifest.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 23:58

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Serf posted:

Darkest Dungeon is on sale today for so I'm downloading it now to see what's up.

I think you will get your $10 worth.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 00:04

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Antilles posted:

Some of the Victims supplements have multiple Talents you can pick between (unfortunately Human's not one of them), but even so... which rank 0 spell would be worth getting 1 cast per rest vs. re-rolling all 1's on every boon rolled?

I'm guessing "the one that fits the character's story better" is the one worth getting. Mechanically, the question I'd have is what to do about that extra casting if the character later does get a tradition and a power rating. Personally, I'd look for ways to retrain/retcon that original decision, as opposed to having that decision nullified or keeping track of one extra level 0 casting.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2017 14:40

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Bullbar posted:

Would SotDL work for a one player/one GM game?

I think it would be especially good if the one player had high Intellect and Will, and could therefore excel in social struggles and use a lot of incantations in problem-solving ways. If the 1p is a fighting-man then I think the game would be short.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 14:08

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Trickery is very, very strong. I really think it helps rogues shine for any task not explicitly in one of the other niches.

Edit: but still only as strong as boons are strong, so not overpowered.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2017 14:34

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Serf posted:

In case anyone is wondering or doesn't care about spoilers: the weapon was a goreblade, a special item for the adventure. It is a shortsword/cutlass type weapon made from human bone and inscribed with evil symbols. It does an extra 1d6 damage and gives 1 boon to all attacks using it, and when you kill people with it, you send their soul straight to Hell for a devil master, and you take 1 Corruption. When you grab it you make a Will roll, and if you fail you get a curse that forces you to take 1d3 Insanity each week, and if you go mad from that insanity you kill yourself immediately and also go straight to Hell. The player managed to not get cursed and used the goreblade really well on some fomors. Lifting the curse or destroying the weapon takes a Rank 4 spell that the GM thinks is appropriate.

The character did not actually escape all side effects of that item, what with sometimes coughing up maggots now.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2017 15:47

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Makaris posted:

It's more that a level 10 guy swings a stick just as good as a level 0 guy unless he classes into stuff. Just seems a bit odd is all. Will need to get people more in the mind set of min maxing.

The game as-written is pretty deadly, so I would get people more in the mindset of "make each character interesting, since no amount of min-maxing can save you."

# ¿ Jun 30, 2017 23:19

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Serf posted:

Getting to other worlds is accomplished by using portals. There are some rules for being in null gravity, and if you can fly you can fly in space. But there are no rules for like spaceships or anything like that. Apparently Rob has plans to include a full space-adventures supplement at some point.

I will laugh if the space adventures take place ~40,000 years after the events of the core book.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 17:16

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 19:14

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

bewilderment posted:

Just quote the Oblivion level-up text at them every time they level and tell them that's the explanation.
One line per level, this goes to 20.

but
that's an awesome idea

# ¿ Sep 1, 2017 14:25

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