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Robert J Schwalb's Shadow of the Demon Lord kickstarter is running. Looks like a good deal. Along with the rulebook there will be lots of PDF adventures from various RPG writers based on reaching stretch goals including Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Bruce Cordell, Steve Winter, Monte Cook, Rich Baker, Miranda Horner, David Noonan, Chris Pramas, Chris Sims, Stan!, and Skip Williams
The description: Shadow of the Demon Lord is a roleplaying game of dark fantasy—a genre that weaves elements of horror into a fantasy world. In the game, you create and play characters struggling to survive in a land sliding toward oblivion, a place infested by demons, roaming mobs of undead, strange magic, unhinged cultists, and all in the ruins of the last great empire of mankind. If you love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the Ravenloft and Midnight settings, Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series, Glen Cook’s Black Company books, or heavy metal music, then this is the game is for you.
More details on the game mechanics.
Anybody had a chance to play this yet?
You can try it out yourself by picking it up here!
It's okay. I wasn't blown away by the game, but the mechanics are decent, characters aren't too hard to manage. The rule book isn't amazing, it could have done a much better job at organization. A few rules are important and hidden away in random places.
I didn't find the rules themselves that dark or gritty. You have to do more than just add Insanity and Corruption (which are basically just different kinds of Hit Points).
Once you learn the rules, the game plays very quickly and is fairly smooth.
It's okay. I wasn't blown away by the game, but the mechanics are decent, characters aren't too hard to manage. The rule book isn't amazing, it could have done a much better job at organization. A few rules are important and hidden away in random places.
I didn't find the rules themselves that dark or gritty. You have to do more than just add Insanity and Corruption (which are basically just different kinds of Hit Points).
Once you learn the rules, the game plays very quickly and is fairly smooth.
Rules by themselves of any game aren't going to be dark and gritty; that's what the setting is for, and the default setting of Shadow of the Demon Lord is dark and gritty. The adventures that are out for it (on DTRPG) can be pretty intense, at least in my opinion. Then there's Tales of the Demon Lord, the campaign that has the players trying to stop the end of the world.
Personally, I love the game and setting. However, I will admit it does have some flaws. The wording in some places was confusing at first, and a few rules aren't grouped where they should be.
I enjoy the character creation. It can be pretty fun. With my group, I oversaw the creation, reading out the items for corresponding rolls for my players. They enjoyed the randomness and it helped them think up backgrounds on the fly for all the random stuff coming at them, trying to fit it all together. Once or twice we did a reroll when something just didn't mesh well. The overall theme of the setting is pretty grim, but there's quite a few funny Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the rules, references to things ranging from things like Princess Bride to things like the Dresden Files and Discworld. The recently released Terrible Beauty sourcebook includes rules for shapechangers and among the possible forms is 'Rat of unusual size.'
I've had the opportunity to run the game twice. Some of my players had trouble grasping some things, like how the Retreat action is useful. I couldn't understand how they couldn't grasp the usefulness of being able to move away from an opponent (albeit at half speed) without triggering a free attack. They finally got it, so hopefully the next time I run things will be smoother.
Rules by themselves of any game aren't going to be dark and gritty; that's what the setting is for, and the default setting of Shadow of the Demon Lord is dark and gritty. The adventures that are out for it (on DTRPG) can be pretty intense, at least in my opinion. Then there's Tales of the Demon Lord, the campaign that has the players trying to stop the end of the world.
I've played games where rules back up the setting immensely. Including dark, gritty and horror. It's a fallacy to think that rules and setting can't support each other, because they can.
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I've played games where rules back up the setting immensely. Including dark, gritty and horror. It's a fallacy to think that rules and setting can't support each other, because they can.
Hi Irontruth,
I agree with you that a rule-system can enforce a 'gritty' setting (very lethal combat, low magic, etc), but I have yet to find a rule-system that encouraged "dark" or "horror" (the latter always feeling like a tack-on point-system of corruption/darkness/insanity).Can you supply a few examples?
I have read-through the Shadow of the Demon Lord rules (but not played it). The rules are very tight; very much in league with D&D 5e. The class/career path system feels like the next generation of Warhammer rpg.
I agree with previous posters that the world/setting doesn't feel too tightly intertwined with the rule-set (this can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are looking for). For example, the rule system could easily be used for Pathfinder's Inner Sea world, or D&D's Forgotten Realms.
Dread and tremulus would be my two primary examples. Nights Black Agents would come in third.
The fundamental problem with most games is that they inherently go against the concepts that make horror... horror. Not knowing what's coming next is the key. The problem is that games have rules and rules tell you what happens based on certain triggers. Ex: If I see a sasquatch, it costs me 1d6 Sanity. I've got 12 Sanity, so lets go sasquatch hunting, we'll be fine.
I haven't played tremulus, so I can't speak to it specifically (horror isn't really my favorite genre), but I've heard good things and that it does horror decently. One aspect is that the story isn't determined ahead of time, so no one, including the GM, knows what's around the corner.
Dread is extremely rules light and is very good at horror. The basic concept is that you have a jenga tower, every time a player does something with any risk, they make a pull. If the tower falls, whoever's turn it was, they die. You know someone is going to die and you might be able to see it coming soon, but it's unknown which action will cause it to happen.
Night's Black Agents I put in because the game does a good job of having hidden knowledge. It's about vampires, but you never know what kind of vampires. They could be space aliens, a mind controlling parasite or even Anne Rice style vampires.
Dread and tremulus are not related to your standard game though. A Dread character sheet will just be a couple of questions about your past and who you are, with a couple more about the current situation. No stats.
Another game that's surprisingly dark (not horror though) is Mythender. It's a game about killing gods. At first glance, it seems more like a magical/mythical super hero's game. You play powerful characters who can do huge things and fight opponents who are similar. But it's full of moments where someone will reveal the awful things they'll do to innocent bystanders, as they search for more power to defeat their enemies. Characters have to decide if they're willing to risk defeat and death in order to uphold the principles they claim to defend.