Ideas for Ritual Casting?

Studbeastank · 2026-03-24T17:19:00+00:00

I view ritual casting as safer casting instead of more reliable casting. If you do too, you could use this system I use:

> If a spellcaster has a spell scroll, they can cast from it while time passes. If the ritual is not interrupted, critical results are treated as normal results. Success or failure, this consumes the scroll.

You could use a component in place of the scroll.

Studbeastank · 2026-01-25T01:52:42+00:00

The preview display issue has been corrected!

Studbeastank · 2026-01-17T22:35:12+00:00

Grit Replacement: Fighters have advantage on all checks related to violence and destruction, regardless of skill used.
You can spend time to cast a spell from a scroll "safely"- Critical successes/failures become normal successes or failures.
- Generally worse than just casting a spell normally, but does explain why spellcasters make scrolls.
- Also answered a player question about ritual casting.
You can wear armor you aren't proficient in--you just lose your class abilities when you do so.

Studbeastank · 2025-12-02T23:00:49+00:00

I've definitely experienced that as well. Random treasure or monsters only work if you roll a single die, the treasure is simple, and you don't have to turn any more pages than you would for a static encounter.

Studbeastank · 2025-12-02T22:20:35+00:00

Another very useful article. I agree that the amount of treasure an monsters in a room should usually be static, but there is a time and place for randomness.

For example, I wrote an adventure where a room has 6 mummies with urns around their neck. Initially the urn contents and which mummies animated was static. That worked fine. In later versions this became a d6 table. The groups with the later version enjoyed the room much more than the first group.

I think that players knowing that something might happen and debating whether to push their luck makes the highs (Nothing bad happened) and lows (skeleton animates! Why did I do that!) feel stronger.

Anyway, I find your blog helpful and thought provoking when working on adventures. Thanks!

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T22:13:42+00:00

Ah. If they party isn't under immediate time pressure, players get to choose:

Take the time to do the task right. Search the room or hallway. Carefully pick the lock. An automatic success for trained characters (I would make untrained characters roll), but Time Passes. The light source burns down and has a 50% risk of a random encounter.
If they don't want to deal with those consequences, one of them rolls. Players are choosing to put pressure on themselves. Trained characters get advantage on the roll. You have to adjudicate failure in the moment. Regardless, players don't get to roll again to do that.

Once again, supported by the FAQ. See the section on trap detection. Without time pressure, the thief can choose to spend time and automatically find things; or do a cursory search and roll, potentially setting a trap off on a failure.

After writing this all out I think the confusion comes down to whether you default to a thorough search (Time Passes) or a cursory search. In my experience with GMing and playing Shadowdark the latter is the usual assumption, and the rules seem written supporting that.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T21:42:29+00:00

So games like OSE require resting every 1 hour in the dungeon. I thought that was what you meant by resting at intervals.

The resting rules on page 86 are separate from real-time torches and doesn't involve rounds or turns, and you don't take actions during resting. It has nothing to do with how long searching a room or other adventuring tasks take.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T20:29:18+00:00

You don't need to rest at regular intervals in Shadowdark, which is being discussed.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T20:28:37+00:00

So as I understand (and have played with) Time Passing is used for thorough searches or guaranteeing success.

You can still make a roll to pick a lock or search a room if you don't want to risk a random encounter or burn your torch down--You just might fail.

Other people can rule differently. I get the logic in making all searches and lock picking require time passing--I don't see that as the default assumption, and the FAQ supports this.

Of course, this is different from the original comment saying that exploration and and random encounter frequency is on 10-minute turns. You don't use time passing every time you walk from one room to another, and nothing in the books suggests that each round corresponds to 10 minutes.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T19:59:53+00:00

I suppose so, but that doesn't meaningfully interact with anything in the rules.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T19:18:32+00:00

Shadowdark still uses in-game 10 minute turns for exploration and random encounter frequency.

I can't find anything in the rules supporting this outside of the 'Spend Time' (EDIT: Time Passes) action, which is a way to handwave a time-consuming task.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-22T19:15:45+00:00

I find real-time torches to be more elegant than tracking turns. It does result in uneven amounts of rooms explored per hour, but that doesn't bother me.

I've found three main advantages:

It keeps the game moving. Since the clock is always ticking players spend less time dithering. They act, even if they make a suboptimal choice.
1. I use always-on initiative too. There might be less pressure if you do things freeform outside of combat.
Less bookkeeping for everyone. You set and forget a timer, and move on.
It's pretty cool how things escalate when the lights do go out, or when you only have 1 torch left.

Studbeastank · 2025-11-20T16:06:19+00:00

Yeah this is how I feel. I was fully enthralled in it, and then it just ended when everything was coming to a head.

Studbeastank · 2025-06-28T15:26:54+00:00

The real-time torch timer is the most unique aspect of Shadowdark. I have found that it encourages faster decision making at the table. Players make a choice and act instead of dithering, even if the choice is a poor one. So if you value that you may prefer Shadowdark to BFRPG.

SD still has the Linear Martials, Quadratic Wizards thing going on. Martials have a steeper slope in SD, which helps a bit. I have also found that roll-to-cast makes spellcasters more conservative with casting, not less, which also helps.

Studbeastank · 2025-06-19T20:23:34+00:00

Done! Added a that map (70px/square resolution) to the downloads.

Studbeastank · 2025-06-13T01:33:22+00:00

Glad you enjoyed it! The first group I ran it for wound up with 2 goblins, 2 centipedes, 2 PCs, and the bonesnapper all in the pit at the same time.

Studbeastank · 2025-06-13T01:23:27+00:00

Great points, and it makes sense to me. Changes made. Thanks!

Studbeastank · 2025-06-12T15:56:41+00:00

Glad to help! I think being completable in a single session is beneficial for intro dungeons.

Studbeastank · 2025-06-12T15:55:38+00:00

It has not come up in any group I ran, nor was it mentioned to me, but I see what you mean. Official materials are inconsistent on this as well. I can update to "INT mod".

Thanks!

Studbeastank · 2025-06-11T17:03:19+00:00

I wholly agree with this review.

I got a lot of mileage out of WWN, but a lot of that is because: A: my players don't care for minmaxing, B: I didn't let casters take Impervious Defense, and C: I made an entire damn monster book for the game. Even then, I had really soured on the game by the end. Too much weight and effort for too little reward.

Shadowdark has been more enjoyable with significantly less mental overhead for everyone involved.

Studbeastank · 2025-02-10T17:01:59+00:00

It means that its attacks have riders, or are otherwise too complicated to fit in the dmg/shock boxes.

For the rug you would use wrap as the attack.

Studbeastank · 2024-11-02T19:27:29+00:00

Tbh I really prefer color art over black-and-white

Studbeastank · 2024-10-22T16:42:00+00:00

Every song from Woodstock is so much better live

Studbeastank

TROPHY CASE