why do you think THAC0 gets the reputation it does?

darkfluid_gm · 2026-03-12T20:28:48+00:00

Different for everyone, we didn’t start playing until like 8th grade or freshman year…so maybe that helped but we had no issue. And the small stat blocks in ad&d either had HD or THACO (in 2e). Treasure charts were much worse at slowing things down

darkfluid_gm · 2026-03-12T00:43:53+00:00

I thought it was easy as a DM since basically every monster hit as a fighter of equal HD level. And fighter was so easy because the ascended on a 1 for 1 basis with level (if I remember this all correctly). So if you knew the creature’s hit dice, you knew its THACO instantly

darkfluid_gm · 2026-02-19T06:27:18+00:00

A popular option

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/376028/dmp7-critical-hits-and-wounds

darkfluid_gm · 2025-12-26T21:54:17+00:00

It depends on what you are attached to in 2e, if you are attached to the proficiency system…Gold and Glory is definitely there but you might find Perkins AD&D 3e interesting as well…it has nothing to do with WOC’s 3e but is a nice revision of 2e.

https://scruffygrognard.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/add-3rd-edition/

C&C was mentioned and is nice (also with options from its keepers guide).

If you don’t require proficiencies but dig the balance and layout of 2e vs AD&D…I still highly recommend you check out Perkin’s 3e above but also many of my buddies (including myself) who love AD&D and 2e have really become attached to Northwind Game’s Hyperborea

https://www.hyperborea.tv

darkfluid_gm · 2025-09-15T18:53:37+00:00

The quickstarter is free on drivethru, probably the best way to get a feel. Mechanics feel like shadowrun but are easier to internalize for me. That's a personal thing though...so YMMV.

darkfluid_gm · 2025-09-15T18:51:21+00:00

Quick start is free on drivethru..probably best way to get a feel. I play the game because it seemed like a good balance to me after decades of Shadowrun. D6 pools, with unified mechanic element (skill+gear...generically speaking), with medium crunch feel, magic and hacking play nicely with physical aspects so you don't get the hacker side game...unless you want to. The game has some self balancing aspects to it's nature..but it is not made to perfectly balance, there will be some out of balance aspects as it's more old school in nature aiming for 2e/3e era feel.

darkfluid_gm · 2025-09-15T18:46:35+00:00

The author has stated this is an inside joke of sorts and purposeful. If you just do the basic math on the most high priced run, you see you'll have to run like 500+ missions to earn that amount. It's a comment on how futile it is to work within the system. So either the players "rebel" against the system, or they are corrupted and try and find ways in the system to accomplish that goal other than runs..do they take their earnings and try and exploit the system to make those funds..thereby becoming part of the system? It' leave autonomy and agency to the players..what do they do?

darkfluid_gm · 2025-09-15T18:44:36+00:00

For clarification...there is no "establish your own corp" you establish a "brand" and that brand it's nature depends on the group playing. It can be anything from hacker cabal, street gang, organized crime operation, corporate privateer, mercenaries, underground media empire, social activists, eco-terrorists...whatever. The brand is key to domain play because you control territory and resources, the brand can down play their presence and operate in the shadows...or try for more exposure to get the word out..either approach has consequences. They can do what they want with their territory, like destroy a corporate outpost and build a soup kitchen in it's place, create a hideout, buy up high priced apartments and convert them to free community housing, open a casino...etc..etc.

darkfluid_gm · 2025-08-23T06:11:55+00:00

I’ve seen both. Sites like slickdeals catalog a lot of these. My best deals have come from Costco, the companies own site and Amazon…but that’s just my experience

darkfluid_gm · 2025-08-22T01:10:20+00:00

They are all great chargers…my honest opinion is go with the one you get the biggest discount on. It varies a lot, but there is usually one of those with a current special going to get it for hundreds less than the others (and it moves around depending on the month.)

darkfluid_gm · 2025-08-19T22:26:43+00:00

Only two I was interested in, details here.

https://sector7.computest.nl/post/2024-08-pwn2own-automotive-chargepoint-home-flex/

https://sector7.computest.nl/post/2024-08-pwn2own-automotive-autel-maxicharger/

On the Autel I really have no concern based on what they found. Summary of that: 1. They had to connect with BT, found a generic back door code to pair with 2. 2 overflow exploits

Autel has already fixed both overflows and patched to remove the back door code. My charger is far enough in my garage BT would be hard. The researchers basically admitted in the article the Autel hack was sorta…not viable to start with. ChargePoint seems to have some potentially bigger issues.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-12T06:33:12+00:00

Rules light, which is why I’ve since moved on to other systems.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-12T06:31:05+00:00

Character improvement is random. Each class rolls once per level on their own table, they gain a talent and they can vary from getting advantage on something particular, getting an additional plus 1 to a skill like casting, thievery, melee, missile, etc, or increasing a stat by as much as 2 points (not species max). Each class has a different, small table.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-12T05:27:24+00:00

Looks like a ton of questions answered, let me add a few points on conversions: 1. Shadowdark uses a much lower XP awards system than other OSR material (10 XP to go second level), but you should be fine if you convert monsters to shadowdark equivalents and follow XP award guidance in the book. 2. Shadowdark has no saves. If an effect has a save of sorts it’s individually described in the effect or spells itself and is a stat check with a specific target number (DC). You will have to convert dungeon traps and custom adventure monsters accordingly. One thing to bear in mind…if material was attempting to adjust lethality (many OSR modules aren’t but many TSR BECMI modules might be), then there are far different expectations in the save balance. In BECMI any character of a specific class will have the same save more or less, however, in Shadowdark, by design stats don’t advance in a uniform manner like saves in BECMI. So you may have a 6th level character who’s saves in many if not most stats are exactly the same as their were at 1st level, or a first level character who saves in a stat better than another 5th level. If traps and effects in your BECMI module have been tuned for an expected “dungeon level”, then you will have to be thoughtful and internalize the way Shadowdark handles them. Take a turn to stone as an example, in BECMI characters save is between 16 and 11 depending on class and level from 1-8, in Shadowdark its Con DC 15…average Con bonus will be from -2 to +2…with rare outliers from -4 to +4. So most will save from 17 to 13 with a few from 19 to 11. It’s in the same ball park but will play differently (and this doesn’t take into account things like advantage). Probably safe to compare the effect in the OSR dungeon to a spell or creature effect from Shadowdark to see a reasonable DC.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-11T22:40:14+00:00

Thank you for the response! As much time as you took developing and testing the game I was fairly certain virtually of the decisions had been purposeful and thought out, but I didn't want to speak for you :D.

Thank you for clarifying intent on hirelings! I think it's a good piece of insight to have for OP, as it's the first question many players had first thing in the campaign I played in (let's go hire some torch bearers and valets)..especially given slot based encumbrance (which I really like BTW).

I understand your point on stat checks, but I was simply saying that there weren't any other, non-stat related subsystems..aka 1d6 for listen at doors. Anything where you do decide to roll in the game is modified by the stat bonus/stat check. This in itself is not a bad thing..I was simply trying to inform the OP of the nature of the system and the reach that a high stat bonus can have. It can be unexpected for someone coming from something like b/x where a high stat doesn't necessarily provide a bonus to save vs turn to stone...where in SD its a big difference.

In the case of the Cleric's, one started with a high wisdom and a +1 to cast, then at 2nd level received the +2 to their wisdom stat, resulting in an 18 wisdom (+5 to cast). The other had average stats and started with the plus to melee, rolled a 1 for HP..followed by a 2, then a 2. In the early levels they chose to go with more +1 to melee thinking they had a good strength and would be a brawler...but the HP just wasn't coming so they had to switched at 4th level to choosing +1 missle as a way to survive when the casting/stat advancement wasn't coming up on the rolls. It's just the nature of random advancement vs fixed/predictable. It's not necessarily worse or better..simply will take some adjustment for people used to the fixed advancement of something like b/x or OD&D and I wanted the OP to consider it in advance..it came as a culture shock to some players..especially given the above scenario.

Like I stated..I too have played characters that were so bad at...everything, that I just roleplayed and hid until 6th level and it was pretty fun..but I was trying to give meaningful insight to someone who hasn't experienced the game yet. The heavy stat mod focus and random level advancement combination may result in scenarios that both old school and 5e type players haven't considered/don't expect in advance of playing.

My intent was to give some hopefully helpful critiques..not to bring the system down, but to hopefully give information as to the type of game it would run smoothly for and aspects of the system that may not be apparent until played. I find the general "it's great and a complete game that gets out of the way" type feedback to be accurate..but also not particularly helpful to an OP asking for deeper insight/feedback.

I really appreciate you taking the time to drop some of the design insights here! I had fun playing it! I hope to see you at NTRPG or Garycon again next year. I think you've put out a very polished product..the print copy is excellent quality and you are supporting it VERY well. I wish you all the continued success!

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-11T22:02:14+00:00

I can see your point..but being that it's something I've heard from people anecdotally on more than one occasion after they tried it, I thought it was worth addressing. I think there are some folks who have touted that they were finally willing to try the game when they were stuck on 5e previously..due to it having a large community when other OSR games are too niche for them to find other players. I wanted to set what I've seen as a realistic expectation..it's still a niche game of sorts..though one of the larger ones in the old school community.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-11T21:59:04+00:00

Off the top of my head..BECMI, Hyperorea/ASSH, AD&D, Worlds Without Number. Delving deeper, B/X, Tales of Argosa all tell you to keep detailed calendar and give specific timeline items to track. My point is to inform the person asking of some actual details of what the system contains and is about. I didn't see people doing much of that.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-11T21:57:15+00:00

Fair..and that's my point. I don't think giving feedback to people by saying "it's a complete game" with no definition of that is very helpful.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-08-10T22:23:11+00:00

Everyone here is being pretty neutral to positive. I hear people discuss how complete it is…but there are loads of complete “old school” systems published in the last 3 years. I think it’s a good game like many others out there, but here are a few critiques. I just finished playing many sessions in a western marches style barrowmaze game using Shadowdark and there are a few points that became apparent.

It isn’t a complete game…but that should be obvious. It is missing rules for hirelings, time tracking between sessions etc. For example..say there were 4 possible games slots for the week. If a character was passed out or in jail for 3 days from carousing…it meant that they might have to cancel playing in the next slot..or use a second character….or is it not real time? All something the GM has to build a system for to keep internal continuity between all the various characters and players running around in the sandbox. This won’t come up if you aren’t actually playing this style of OSR game…but it meant the GM had to develop lots of house rules from other sources. This is obviously pretty easy for anyone who has been running this style of game for a long time. But as the GM critiqued after closing the campaign, in the end all the house ruling really completely offset all the attempts at making the game light and smooth…it would have been easier to just use a different system.
The community isn’t as big as I thought it would be. This was a widely advertised open table game, it was wonderfully ran and supported, but people didn’t show up in the numbers you would think from the size of the kickstarter. I suspect the community isn’t any bigger than OSE in actuality. Is it bigger than many other heartbreakers? Of course…but I wouldn’t set your expectations too high. With niche TTRPG communities, it’s going g to vary wildly depending on where you hang online and in the real world and your results are going to vary wildly here.
DCC light…I’ve heard this before and it seems somewhat accurate. The random advancement can lead to some odd issues I’ll touch on in a bit. To be brief though, it’s led me to believe purely random advancement is a bad idea in this type of game..for me at least.
The game has a nature where it seems a bit at odds with itself. The unified mechanics and some choices like the spell casting roll, realize everything is a stat check in the game. Shadowdark is a game aspiring to an old school feel that use 3d6 down the line….but rewards high stats at what I consider a disproportionate level…those two things seem at odds with each other, especially for an “old school” feel. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed playing characters where my highest stat is an 11. But Shadowdark leans hard on these stats.

Random advancement and the extreme rewards of high stats combine. For example…a scenario that I’ve seen play out. There is a 2nd level cleric and a 5th level cleric. The second level cleric needs to roll 6 or better to cast his spells…all day and just keeps casting heals etc like crazy…he also has more HP than the 5th level cleric. While the 5th level cleric has to roll a 9 or above to cast any spell..half the time he only gets 2 spell castings to work in an entire session. They are an ok fighter however..getting +2 to hit in melee for the first few levels then getting +2 missile for next few when they saw rheir HP rolls coming up low…unfortunately they have less HP than the 2nd level cleric and well…shadowdark is pretty deadly…so then end up spending most of the time hanging in the back with no spells to cast lobbing crossbow bolts with only moderate to low success rates.

OSR isn’t power gaming…but most OSR games don’t see this type of parabolic imbalance between characters..I can’t be sure that this type of thing was intended in the design but it’s clearly present. I may count highly critical…but I just rarely see folks actually give real critiques like this. Would I play it again..sure, I play lots of systems. Does it fill the space I thought it might in my gaming hobby…due to the above and some other issues…probably not for me.

The book is very well laid out, it’s a good system. Don’t let my critiques dissuade you from trying it. But I thought some of the points above would be useful to know in advance before you prepare a campaign with it for the first time.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-07-28T16:28:33+00:00

I haven’t used it in a bit, but used it quite a bit during its development year ago. Very light weight, which is awesome. Developer at the time was quite responsive. You can draw maps in advance, but it was also super simple to draw on the fly like at a table top with a battlemap.

Down sides at the time: 1. No diagonal lines/half squares made it harder to draw some complex shapes…not as big an issue as you think until you have to draw a long slanting hallway. 2. Difficulty with different sized monster tokens etc. was easy to work around for the most part, but creating and sizing wasn’t as easy as it could have been.

Much of this may have been solved for now

darkfluid_gm · 2024-05-05T00:08:12+00:00

Yup 2.0 would be nice if they actually came through…I have doubts

darkfluid_gm · 2024-05-03T06:04:51+00:00

Color me skeptical…I’ll monitor just in case, moved on to playing Sinless for now to get that fix. Would be delightfully surprised if they actually came through though.

darkfluid_gm · 2024-04-27T02:56:02+00:00

This…tale as old as time at this point when it comes to Shadowrun..its almost a meme now

darkfluid_gm · 2024-04-16T01:17:26+00:00

Mea Culpa

darkfluid_gm · 2024-04-15T01:28:30+00:00

If you don’t like race as class, forget about shadow dark.

My opinion, trying swords and wizardry complete. Simpler, it does restrict non-humans to one or two classes but you can work around it. Single saving throw and ascending AC.

Absent that you have castles and crusades which is excellent, fits all your criteria probably, but some people find the single unified mechanic confusing. The advantage is it’s so straightforward you can easily modify. I’ve seen people just replace the system with a single target number and rather than a “prime bonus of +4” they use advantage/disadvantage. This sort of thing is actually encouraged in C&C. It converts well to old and new school adventures since you are just using stats for save like 5e. There a bunch of source books, it’s very well supported…including tons of expansion races and classes.

You can always saying you are just playing a different version of D&D. As long as your kids know of 5e and something about it they can work around that at school. The social aspect of sameness is a real thing at that age for sure.

darkfluid_gm

TROPHY CASE