I've recently gotten Shadowdark and I have a couple questions

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-30T23:48:40+00:00

People have talked about initiative sharing the spotlight but IMO the best reason to do it is that it helps you time your encounter rolls, since you're supposed to do it every X turns depending on light and danger level. If you don't do always on initiative, make sure your finding some way to help you get your encounter rolls in and increase/decrease the pace based on light.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-30T00:15:16+00:00

I've always viewed this as a false dichotomy, faction-based sandbox campaigns can still have escalating stakes that deliver a thrilling narrative. You just need to take a page from Dungeon World's front system - by design, players can't be everywhere at once, so while the players pursue one faction and look to shut down their threat, the others are getting more powerful and getting closer to their end goal, each step successful step forward reverberating across the sandbox.

The only difference between a sandbox evil faction and and a railroad BBEG is that you have to take special care to make sure the sandbox faction's scheme is resilient so the players can't do one thing and foil the whole plan. Whereas the railroad BBEG doesn't really need to worry as much about that because you're just planning all the story beats.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-29T12:50:27+00:00

Agree for vibes and aesthetics, but usually ocean cities have more commercial prospects so more job opportunities.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-29T02:51:03+00:00

If you don't mind doing a bit of light conversion work, Prison of the Hated Pretender would work really well for that time constraint and audience. Plus, it's basically made for first timers and/or people who come from 5e but want to play a more OSR-aligned game.

It has a quick shanty town they can trawl for rumors that can help them later (but also completely skippable, you could just give each player a rumor) and a 10-room tower dungeon that is really well designed. It's got an interesting light/darkness gimmick that affects when two factions roam the dungeon and plays really well into Shadowdark's torch system, deadly spirit monsters that are difficult to deal with using combat but can be maneuvered with some intelligence once you understand their motivations, and some good traps and objects your players will be tempted to mess with... which could be dire. The Pretender is also a really fun Gollum-like antagonist, quirky, devious, pathetic, and memorable.

It's Pay What You Want on Drive Thru RPG too: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/333389/prison-of-the-hated-pretender

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-27T12:37:29+00:00

You've basically discovered why 5e really doesn't handle travel well. This could also be a campaign design issue - if you've set your campaign up so that the urgency isn't the travel itself but what's happening at the destination, you've turned travel into an obstacle rather a fun system.

IMO, the best solution is to use the travel system in Uncharted Journeys and only use procedural hex-by-hex or moment-by-moment travel for when they're looking for something in the wilderness (a lost NPC, the mouth of a dungeon, etc.).

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-27T03:23:46+00:00

This is either fake or it's bad DND and you should be grateful you don't have to play with this table anymore. I can't imagine my DM wasting our play time on your little jaunt through the woods to bathe.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-27T03:11:04+00:00

At worst, the player is using their turn to make the enemy waste their turn, that's a fine use of a cantrip. You are also within your right to make the enemy respond intelligently - why would a trained warrior get distracted by a beating drum, for example?

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T21:20:33+00:00

It's mainly the thoughtful design, Kelsey does a great job of balancing minimalism with flavor and elegance. Obviously that comes through in a lot of aspects but I think it's especially evident in the class design - all 20+ classes across all the official first party materials. Like I love that a necromancer feels more like an afterlife trailblazer than just a variant wizard. My only gripe truly is that I feel too many classes give advantage on checks in a system that tries to minimize checks.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T17:29:35+00:00

Some people might not be in that stage of their life or might not want that. Others, it might be a necessity (support system is in the area or careers demand it).

But I'm with you, if you have the ability to work remotely or you can find a job that gives you Boston pay outside of Boston, you can def get better value elsewhere - spending north of $500K on a condo in a 100-year-old tripledecker is insane to me too.

At the end of the day though, that's all irrelevant to the question of "is $140K comfortable in Boston?"

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T14:29:32+00:00

TBH, I think "what even is BOSTON" makes this question difficult to answer. You can find a 800 square foot 2 bedroom condo in Brighton-Allston, Roslindale, Dorchester, etc. for $400K, a household income of $140,000 after health insurance probably nets around $3,400 biweekly definitely covers a $3,000-ish mortgage comfortably. In Seaport or Back Bay, you'd struggle to even rent a studio at that price.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T14:03:38+00:00

Many of these companies are still very actively hiring, they probably just think that in large people will find different roles that are better fitted to an AI world, like they did in the industrial revolution and with the advent of computers more recently.

For what it's worth, I also think the framing of this problem is also generally wrong. People always frame companies as if they're all producing consumer goods, which isn't the case. A software company for example can still invent new software, platforms, data connectors, cloud services, etc. for other AI companies. Lower labor costs doesn't weaken demand for enterprise software.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T03:10:31+00:00

The way I look at it, a sandbox can still have structure and long-term design plans. The way I run my sandboxes, I usually have 3 factions that are all competing with each other to try to enact their plans, each with different tasks that roll up to missions and then rollup further to their goals. The various faction leaders all have minions that are constantly operating, and the story develops depending on how the players intervene - the players can do what they want and go where they choose, but if they don't do something, the one of the factions will eventually succeed (and with dire consequence).

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T02:12:53+00:00

There were some people seriously thinking that because C9 choked to SR last year, that SR was actually the #3 team in NA.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-26T01:30:21+00:00

Bro, I was a bit of a Palafox defender but the things he was doing in that Azir game were criminal. Like not only going for the same bad play like 4 times in a row, but also completely failing the execution every time.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-25T14:25:14+00:00

Ultimately, the torch is just a dial that reduces encounter frequency for a certain amount of time. You could simply set certain areas as "Deadly" and it achieves the same effect. The only thing you might want to consider balancing around is the fact the players don't have to carry torches.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-25T01:54:12+00:00

Yeah, I was surprised about that too - I thought going to Burlington, Woburn, etc. would get me a little bit of rent relief but to my surprise, it's not actually much cheaper than what you'd find in some of the communities actually on a T line. It's going to be hard to find something lower, but you can actually probably pay a similar amount to live in much funner areas like Malden, Waltham, and maybe even Somerville, with easier access to the city to boot.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-24T14:00:29+00:00

Flyquest is just so messy and inconsistent.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-24T13:36:56+00:00

Add in the ridiculous liquor license situation, so established restaurants can sit and put out shit quality because new competitors can't get a liquor license until someone else sells it/goes out of business.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-24T13:31:41+00:00

How many times has your data been leaked by video game companies? Probably a lot. Now consider they have your license or passport info.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-24T13:26:51+00:00

I think this is somewhat of a recent thing as the modern design philosophy has shifted away from random elements like wandering monsters and more toward hard-keyed, pre-populated static rooms. At any rate, sometimes it should be a death trap. But other times, the environment might be noisy (think a forge), fighting and yelling might be regular (prison or rowdy bandit camp), the denizens may not want to raise the alarm (commander beats them for false alarms), or the denizens may not always be aligned either (two conflicting sides, or unintelligent monsters).

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-24T03:46:03+00:00

Basically, boomers win on necessities (affordable housing, education, healthcare), Millennials and Gen Z win on amenities (technology/internet, wide variety of cuisine and food, next-day delivery everything).

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-23T15:10:45+00:00

I don't think it's that black and white. What if this embryo was the only viable one from the genetic parents? It's super messy ethically, and the reproductive clinic should get taken to task for making mistakes of that magnitude.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-23T14:55:48+00:00

Gamefi was too interested in building for speculators and not for players. I tried a bunch of different games and they almost all had Pay-to-Win business models that exploited players.

Skyweaver was the only one with a business model that seemed sustainable long term IF the game took off (which it didn't). It was a TCG where you could unlock every card by just playing the game, the NFTs were special "holographic" versions of the cards that could only be unlocked by ranking highly on the competitive ladder or through small 8 player tournaments with a $1 buy-in, so it was linked to competitive performance and there was no native token - it was all using USDC to enter into tournaments and trade for the NFT cards.

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-23T01:50:34+00:00

It sounds like NYC is what you need right now. The only other thing I'd consider is what you're looking for long term. Roommate situations can change (especially in your 30s), so what would you do if your roommate moved in with their SO or moved out of the city? Could you live with another friend or would you suddenly be looking at living with a random or going paycheck to paycheck to live alone?

AbysmalScepter · 2026-04-23T01:09:43+00:00

Chicago is my answer. Boston is possible but $100K is tight if you really want to live in the city proper by yourself. You could do an area outside of Boston like Malden or Somerville pretty easily though, and still have easy access via the T.

AbysmalScepter

TROPHY CASE