The Age of Distillation

We are entering the Age of Distillation.

The “big iron” systems of the last two decades- multi-book, thousand-page engines like Pathfinder 1E and the various iterations of D&D are no longer the only way to deliver their own fantasies. A growing body of design work is taking those dense rule sets and re-expressing them as lean, fast, highly accessible games. The goal is the same: keep the fantasy, dump the friction.

Just as the iPhone was initially mocked for stripping away the complexity of earlier smartphones, these distilled games deliberately remove the mechanical overhead that once felt necessary. Shadowdark took the core appeal of modern D&D-style play and condensed it into a tight, elegant, torch-lit framework. Shadowfinder does the same for the 3.5E/Pathfinder 1E tradition: it is a Shadowdark-adjacent reimplementation that preserves the class fantasy, the option density, and the sense of a complete campaign toolkit while running on a far lighter chassis.

Old-School Essentials performed a similar act of clarification for B/X.

OSE took the complete rules of the 1981 Basic and Expert sets and re-presented them in a ruthlessly clear, modular, and quickly referenceable format. Strictly speaking, it is more of a definitive rules reference than a mechanical redesign. The underlying procedures stayed very close to the original. What changed was the presentation: ambiguous wording was resolved, scattered rules were gathered, and the entire system became instantly legible.

The practical result, however, was the same as distillation. Players and referees could find any rule in seconds instead of flipping between books, interpreting unclear language, or simply missing procedures that had been poorly organized in the originals. A game that had been written as a teaching text for a new hobby was transformed into a fast, reliable reference that removed most of the friction of actually using it at the table.

Shadowfinder takes the next step. Where OSE primarily clarified and organized an existing ruleset, Shadowfinder actively rewrites the 3.5E/Pathfinder 1E tradition into an entirely different chassis, Shadowdark’s lean, lethal, real-time framework, while deliberately preserving the fantasy, option density, and campaign-scale toolkit that made the original appealing.

Distillation is not replacing the big systems. It is not coming for OSR, D&D 5.5E, or either edition of Pathfinder.

What it offers is a parallel path for players and GMs who no longer have the time, focus, or bandwidth that denser games demand. In an attention-scarce world, many people still want the fantasy those systems deliver; they simply cannot (or will not) invest the cognitive and temporal overhead the original rules require. Distilled games give them a way to stay at the table.

You will hear people say they “moved from D&D to Shadowdark.” Some of them prefer the leaner rules on pure design grounds. Many others made the shift because they no longer have the sustained attention that 5E (or Pathfinder) asks for. Keeping those players inside the hobby through a distilled experience is better than watching them drift toward video games or other entertainments.

This is additive, not zero-sum. The existence of Shadowdark and Shadowfinder does not diminish anyone’s preferred ruleset. It simply widens the door so more people can keep playing.

One of the clearest “missing the mark” moments in the current industry is that neither Wizards of the Coast nor Paizo appears to recognize this movement.

Both companies still treat their dense, multi-book systems as the primary (and essentially only) way to experience their respective fantasy brands. They have no serious product answer for the growing audience that wants the D&D or Pathfinder feeling but no longer has the time, focus, or bandwidth those systems demand.

Just as TikTok distilled the time and attention required to consume video, a significant portion of the tabletop audience is looking for a distilled version of the big fantasy RPGs. The major publishers have so far offered none. Instead, they continue chasing live-service and subscription models for their digital platforms. This approach increasingly resembles the same failed live-service strategies currently damaging many AAA video game publishers.

While third-party designers are busy creating lean, playable expressions of the very fantasies WotC and Paizo own, the companies themselves remain focused on heavier systems and ongoing monetization layers. The gap is real, and the distilled games are filling it.

Yet the absence of an official response does not mean the demand is going unanswered.

Shadowfinder currently stands as one of the clearest and most successful examples of what distillation can achieve. It takes the broad fantasy, character options, and campaign-scale ambition of Pathfinder 1E and re-expresses them inside Shadowdark’s fast, lethal, and highly usable framework. The result is not a stripped-down novelty. It is a complete game that can support the kind of sprawling, multi-region campaigns many Pathfinder fans originally fell in love with, without the mechanical weight that made those campaigns increasingly difficult to sustain.

For players who still want the class fantasy of the magus, the alchemist, the gunslinger, the specialized wizard, or the unusual ancestry, Shadowfinder delivers those options in a form that actually reaches the table. The same is true of the wider toolkit: meaningful gear and materials, alchemy, travel and mounts, downtime systems, richer character advancement, and a bestiary drawn from the full span of the Pathfinder 1E monster books. Where core Shadowdark intentionally focuses on the dungeon crawl, Shadowfinder expands the same engine into something that can carry a full campaign without feeling incomplete.

In doing so, it elevates the Shadowdark experience for a specific and underserved audience. Pathfinder 1E fans who bounced off the denser rules of later editions (or simply no longer have the bandwidth for them) are given a way to reclaim the open, slightly savage, high-option fantasy they enjoyed, now running on a system that respects their time and attention. The fantasy remains. The friction is largely gone.

This is distillation working as it should: not as a lesser substitute, but as a parallel avenue that keeps more people playing the kind of games they actually want.

When some OSR and 5E fans dismiss Shadowdark as “nothing new,” they are missing the actual point.

A growing number of modern OSR systems have themselves become mechanically deep, especially once high-level play enters the picture. In practice, they can demand as much rules mastery and table time as contemporary D&D. The people turning to distillation are often not looking for novelty for its own sake. They are looking for a way back into the fantasy after real life stripped them of the time and attention the heavier systems require.

I have been that player. Games I once loved now sit in crates in the garage, unused and unloved, because I no longer have the bandwidth to support a multi-shelf library of books and the cognitive load that comes with them. The disappointment is real. The promise of those systems eventually collides with the limits of available time and focus.

A distilled version of the same fantasy changes the equation. It lets me return to the world I cared about without the same drain on my days. The campaign can exist again. The characters can exist again. The sense of possibility returns, but it no longer requires the same costly monopoly on attention.

Whether the density of the “big iron” games is intentional or simply the result of decades of accretion, the practical effect is the same for many of us: the system becomes too expensive in time to sustain. Distillation offers a way to keep the dream without accepting that cost.

The Age of Distillation is not a rejection of the games that came before. It is a recognition that the fantasy itself is more important than the particular weight of the rules that once delivered it. For those of us who still want to live in those worlds but can no longer carry the full library, these leaner expressions are not lesser. They are what allow the dream to continue.

Different Games Entirely

Shadowdark delivers the dungeon-crawling game that D&D 5.5E promises. It feels like the classic TSR Dungeon! board game brought to the table: map, tokens, light radii, a torch timer counting down in real time. Every turn matters. Movement is concrete. Inventory is tight. And sooner or later you find yourself calculating whether you can squeeze one more room out of the light before the darkness closes in and the monsters come looking.

Classic OSR hits differently for me. Shadowdark turns the dungeon crawl into something closer to a mechanical board game; every inventory slot matters, deciding to drop a piece of gear so you can haul out a bag of coins is an agonizing choice, the torch is burning down in real time, resources are dwindling, and death is always one bad roll away. Most classic OSR play, even when it tracks time carefully, keeps that time on a record sheet. Movement and exploration can be heavily abstracted. The tension is real, but it lives more in the referee’s description and the campaign’s long arc than in a live timer and a physical map. Shadowdark feels far more like a board game than most OSR games do, and it benefits from rules that are tightly defined yet still flexible.

I see a lot of Shadowdark tables on YouTube being played with the same rules-intensity I associate with 5E: players carefully dissecting each turn, managing every action, treating the game almost competitively. A “professional Shadowdark” style seems to be emerging; tightly ruled, closely refereed, and closer in spirit to Battletech or Warhammer 40K than to loose theater-of-the-mind play. Shadowdark can absolutely be run light and freeform, but many of the players coming from 5E are bringing their high-precision habits with them, and the game’s clear procedures and constant resource pressure reward that approach.

This tighter, more exacting style is part of what has made Shadowdark so visible—and part of why some in the OSR treat it as competition.

Those who treat Shadowdark as a threat to the OSR are missing the forest for the trees. In terms of attention and shelf space, sure. In terms of what the games are becoming? They are not the same. The OSR is not changing; it remains the classic, referee-driven, campaign-oriented style many of us love.

Shadowdark, meanwhile, is being shaped by something else: the professional, high-precision habits of 5E play and the tightly ruled tension of games like Battletech and Warhammer 40K. There will always be tables running Shadowdark in a looser, more OSR-like mode. But the style that is rising, and that helps explain the game’s popularity, is a more exacting, convention-ready, almost competitive form of co-op dungeon crawling.

That is not the OSR evolving. It is a different game culture forming around a different set of priorities.

The Setting of the Dark Sun

I played Dark Sun when the setting first came out. I was the DM, running the brutality and oppressive heat of the slave pens, the players' dread of their characters being sent into the arena and not knowing if they would come out alive, and the stark hopelessness of the entire world. Very little metal existed, so the savage world fought with bone, wood, and stone. Bashing a monster's head in with a rock was a valid tactic and saved your weapons from wear and tear. The armor sucked and was whatever you found.

This was a mix of Mad Max, Gladiator, and Robert E. Howard's "savage fantasy" tropes turned up to eleven. The arenas were filled with savage monsters, and worst of all, other gladiators trying to kill you for the favor of the crowd and the dragon king's elites. If you managed to escape, where would you go? You would be hunted as an escaped slave, and fleeing into the desert to die was a terrible death.

Wizards announced Dark Sun for 5E with a mature content label, claiming it recaptures the original setting. What I saw was not Dark Sun. This felt like 5E's fantasy superheroes engaging in unhinged splatterpunk slasher violence. The original Dark Sun was a mature setting in theme and story, showing how the pursuit of power could devastate the world, not gratuitous over-the-top violence and nudity.

Shadowsun for Shadowdark is the spiritual successor to Dark Sun. We have the same savage setting with all the Dark Sun hallmarks, but laid on top of the brutal old-school experience of Shadowdark. Shadowsun does the pulp-adventure feeling of Dark Sun far better, in an easier rules chassis to grasp, without the power-gaming and superheroic power levels of D&D 5E. I don't need tables telling me someone ripped someone else's spine out; the fear and hopelessness are real in Shadowsun. The characters are not semi-godlike beings of power who can never die; they live close to the jagged edge of a sharpened bone blade that could shatter at any moment.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chubbyfunster/shadowsun-campaign-setting

Shadowsun’s revised edition is scheduled for a mid-September Kickstarter. The books (both Player and GM) will be finished on launch day. The original edition is already one of DriveThruRPG’s long-running bestsellers, and the new version expands the setting into a more dynamic campaign world that changes with each playthrough.

This is a version of the game that does not need violence, nudity, or gore to communicate the brutality of the setting. It stays closer to the original foundation of Dark Sun: the slave pens, the arena, the empty desert, and the long chance of one day walking back through the gates. For anyone who watched the Gen Con trailer and felt it missed the point, the Revised Shadowsun is worth a look.

Shadowdark vs. OSE

Shadowdark is an amazing game, and I love the table dynamics and timer-based play. This is one of the best dungeon-style board games, instantly playable and quick to jump in and get started. I love this game, though I feel the third-party books got a bit bloated, and many of the early releases water down the game or add too many options. I desperately need to clean out my library. I have too many books for this game; when it should be a light game, I now have a shelf of okay books.

What keeps me coming back to OSE? Well, for one, there is no torch timer. In a real-world span of 5 minutes, I can say two torches (hours) of time burn down as the players excavate a collapsed tomb. You can do that in Shadowdark, but the game is more comfortable with the live timer and the tension that it brings to the table.

I have far more control over time in OSE, and the time tracking and management are not real-time. It is just a checklist, and it proceeds rapidly. In OSE, you can cover far more ground since the game is not played in a "tactical, on-map" mode all the time. Part of Shadowdark's appeal is that tightness and small-map appeal, where you are not exploring a 100-room megadungeon, and the scenarios are tight and tactical.

Shadowdark is more of a board game, and I love it for that.

OSE is more of a traditional pen-and-paper RPG, with a dungeon turn, mapping, a caller, and marching order, and I love it for that.

Another area where I prefer OSE is in mapping. Shadowdark is more "played on the actual map," where in OSE, the players do the mapping. There is zero chance of getting lost on an official map displayed on a VTT, and the player's map will never be wrong, lost, burned by a fireball, eaten by green slime, or unable to be read in the pitch dark. Players can make mistakes mapping, and this is the classic gameplay loop taken from real-life cave explorers and their accounts in the 1960s and 70s.

In early computer games, you had to "map a map" by hand next to the computer. You got graph paper, and you mapped out what the computer described to you. Your mapping skills and ability to take notes were factors in your success.

Shadowdark is more like the old Dungeon board game in many ways, and is today's version of that classic. This is one of the best table-based, tense, teamwork-required, and timed games ever written. But OSE brings a different type of fun to the table. OSE does campaign play, near-infinite options, the old-school gameplay loop, and the best resource management in gaming.

When you consider the resources you manage in OSE, it is not just the number of torches, but also time, spells, health, rations, equipment, and the chance of getting completely lost. The classic reaction roll and morale rules are baked into the OSE dungeon turn, meaning not every encounter will be a fight. This rule is in Shadowdark for random encounters. Did you encounter orcs? Are they friendly? Would you trade with them if you needed rations or torches? Do you attack or backstab them? In OSE, you need to make that choice. In most 5E games, the choice is made for you.

And OSE carries forward BX's wilderness exploration rules, where it is also possible to get lost and find yourself fighting to figure out where you are, how you will survive, and how to get back home alive. OSE also has dominion play, so it has a complete beginning, middle, and endgame.

Shadowdark is still a favorite; this is a tight, focused, "experience game" that extends 5E into tabletop dungeon play. Like Nimble 5e, it is a second-generation 5E game that drills down on a specific experience with a laser-like focus. It does fast, jump-in, time-limited table-top games better than most other games out there, even 5E. Where in D&D you are struggling to finish one combat in four hours, you have finished six fights and an entire dungeon in Shadowdark in half the time.

D&D has a massive time-to-play problem. It is killing the game for many and cutting it off at the knees at the high level for most players. Most do not want to play past the 7th level. D&D is failing us, and the D&D-like games are not doing much better. All of them have the same problems. Some are presented better, others have neat mechanics, others balance for math, but they all fall short past the 8th level.

Shadowdark is the best-in-class for timed, tight, focused, pressure-cooker, and forced teamwork play. You either learn how to be efficient and work as a group, or you run out of torches and everyone dies. Nothing puts a random group of people at a convention together and forces them to work as a team like this game. It is a genius idea, best with others, and a time-limited run. The perfect convention game has been written.

OSE is a second-to-none campaign experience, and it beats 5E in character sheet complexity, the dungeon turn gameplay loop, and mid and high-level play. Where 5E has you running dungeons to level 20, OSE has you running dungeons, exploring the wilderness, and running domains all the way to level 14. For me, the ease of running multiple characters makes this a snap to solo-play. For me, OSE offers simple play, a classic gameplay loop, and varied play-styles that all work together.

They are not the same game. One cannot entirely do the other's job.

You play Shadowdark, you are on the clock, uncovering a known map, watching your torch, and trying to complete objectives before time runs out. You are moving extra carefully, working together as a group, and not wasting time. All while trying to survive.

You play OSE, and you are in the classic gameplay loop, mapping, using time and resources wisely, surviving, and trying to explore the unknown, however big that unknown may be. OSE can go massive in scope and scale, even to the wilderness and world level. And OSE goes micro, down to the next ten feet of hallway and that ten-foot pole.

They are different games, both best-in-class, and they beat D&D in those respective areas.

Add Nimble to the mix, and you have little reason to have D&D at all.

Nimble, Shadowdark, and That's It...

Digest-sized 5E really is the way to go.

I love my Shadowdark books, and Nimble 5E is joining that collection as my "heroic fantasy" version of the game. The books do not eat up shelves of space, nor do they require subscriptions and double purchases to function properly and be playable. They do not take up a huge part of my life and sit on a shelf. They are small things, packed with potential, like all games should be.

The books are small, filled with fun, and every page is filled with imagination and inspiration. As much as I love Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E, they are huge games that require digital tools. With these books, I can have 5E, be free of subscriptions, and they play either grimdark or high fantasy, and I have it all in a very small space.

I am done with embarrassing myself with huge shelves full of books I never use, and games that exist in my house solely as bloatware. Honestly, the last "shelf games" I will ever support are GURPS, Castles & Crusades, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. The latter shines particularly well thanks to its special editions, size, and over-the-top attitude. GURPS is a blue-collar game; every book I own works hard. C&C is perfect in every way.

But for my "5E games?"

Give me the small, digest-sized, compact, and fun games I can throw in a suitcase and travel with. I am done with these massive, bloated, wordy 5E implementations, full of confusing action types and 30-minute player turns, character sheets that are dozens of pages long, and just want a game that is small and that works.

I am done with "big book" 5E.

That era is over.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 8

Why not Shadowdark? Why use Old School Essentials instead of Shadowdark to replace 5E?

I love Shadowdark, it is an S-Tier game for me. There is no better Dungeon-style board game that simulates a dungeon crawl session, in a group, with a timer, than this. This is amazing when played live, with a group, and this is where the game's strength lies. It took the best parts of 5E, and tossed out all the over-designed hubris and a decade of garbage rules tossed into the game. It pays respect to the original game and creators. It captures the feeling of old-school gaming, specifically the fear of the unknown.

Another game that captures the feeling of old-school gaming is Dungeon Crawl Classics, and that is the number-three fantasy game in the world right now by the GenCon standard. And that growth happened organically, and again, with 5E players migrating to that game as a beloved classic. I expect a glut to happen here shortly. 

Shadowdark is getting seriously bloated in the market and on crowdfunding, and this is due to the sheer mass of 5E players migrating to this game as the floodgates open and people flee D&D for greener pastures. The license is open and free. Creators can build here without worry. That is a good thing and a bad thing. I am overloaded with Shadowdark books now. Books repeat each other's classes, and some go far too deep into class design that it looks like a full D&D level of complexity and design flex.

But I do not want the Shadowdark model.

• Torch timers.
• The narrow power range. 
• Random Progression.
• Rolling with advantage or disadvantage.
• The way-too-high 5E ability score modifiers. 
• Spell checks and repeated casting.
• Playing-piece focused play. Ideal for cons and tabletop play.
• Flat character power. 
• Dungeon gaming.
• Closed characters where progression must be rolled for. 

And I do want the B/X model.

• Predictable class progression.
• High-level (10-14) play.  
• Gold-based XP.
• Flat modifiers. 
• Classic, lower ability score modifiers.
• Vancian magic.
• Character and world focused play. Ideal for campaign play.
• Higher character power. 
• Dungeon, exploration, and dominion play with hirelings and followers.
• Open progression where character sheets are added on to. 

Old School Essentials is not as "gamey" as Shadowdark, and it feels more like a classic role-playing game wit ha wider, more world-based focus. Having dominion building and followers is key for B/X, and the high-level game is where the game takes a dramatic turn and the stakes are raised. This is the "second game" that Shadowdark misses since it focuses so much on tabletop dungeon crawling on a map.

Even OSE Classic Fantasy has a dominion game! Every class has rules to attract followers, and the game has four pages of construction and dominion rules. There comes a point where you start to change the world, and OSE gets this. If you want this explored even deeper, play ACKS II. The essential questions "why are we doing all this" is answered in OSE, where in Shadowdark, it is left open. This lack of focus on dominion play is a holdover from 5E, where they give you a bastion for free and make it invincible.

In OSE, you need to clear hexes, hire people, pay for construction, and attract settlers. All this comes from the pile of gold you amassed when crawling around in dungeons. There is an endgame built into OSE where it is lacking in Shadowdark, and this is due to the game's history and focus.

OSE has a much larger focus than Shadowdark. The game also has all the classic pieces that make it feel more natural to me. The modifiers are not wildly overpowered. The progression of the character sheet is more open and not so dependent on the rules or dice rolls telling you what you should have.

If you are more into longer-term campaign play and not so tightly focused on the character's powers, then you will be happier in Old School Essentials than you will be in Shadowdark. The games are very close in initial scope and feeling, but are vastly different in terms of scale and impact. OSE will scale to a hex-based campaign world far better than SD, since this is what it was built to do.

If all you want is that dungeon-based 5E goal-based play with an old-school vibe, then you will be happy with Shadowdark. While everyone is jumping on the SD bandwagon, the game is not designed to be a solution for every 5E and fantasy-gaming problem, and frankly, there are games like OSE that focus on a wider scope that will be a better place for some players.

OSE was designed to play the small and big games very well.

This is why I chose it over the obvious. 

What If D&D 6E is Shadowdark-eqsue?

This is a hilarious thought.

What if D&D 6E starts as a "stripped down" simplified set of rules and tries to compete with Shadowdark? Of course, the "expert rules" will come later, after they hook you in, and you will be paying for character creation tools and digital add-on books after the community heaps praise on them for "seeing the light," and we all get walled-gardened later.

The problem is, I can see this happening.

This is what I would do if I were in charge of Wizards.

Split D&D 6E into a basic book and an expert book, and release the basic book first. Of course, the 5E players would complain to high heaven, but D&D would be "back in the OSR" and "back to basics" with "everything everyone loves."

Play like it is 1980!

You can finally give up all those "not D&D" OSR games. Ugh. Finally. Insert sarcasm tag here.

Later on, the expanded "6E expert rules" will, of course, have subclass options, extra powers, spells, and all the "expert combat" rules you will need the VTT and character creation software for. The 5E players who love complexity will be happy then. The expert rules are an online-only option. The expert monsters would require combat trackers and online-only tools. The expert spells have effects and targeting options made much easier by the VTT. Expert campaigns have support requirements of bastions and dominions.

The only weak part of the plan is that people may never upgrade and remain satisfied with the Basic rules. But this is Wall Street, and they can motivate purchases and upsells all the time, especially if you get "three free months" of expert rule access if you buy basic. Some monsters would be expert only. You know how it goes, and what they would hold back to get you to enter your credit card information.

Even if this did happen, if D&D 6E were a rule-for-rule copy, I would never leave Shadowdark. The third-party support is here. The licensing is excellent. The creator is awesome and listens to the community. The game is built on a promise, and it holds to it as a core principle. The books made for this system are excellent. The art holds up. Respect is paid to the creators and traditions of this hobby.

And I trust The Arcane Library.

After the OGL, I can't say that about Wizards.

Deathbringer & Shadowdark

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rollforcombat/expand-your-shadowdark-games-with-three-new-secret-tomes

I love this video, which contains some NSFW language and addresses some of the community's reactions to Professor Dungeon Master's Deathbringer game, created using the Shadowdark rules, and the project is developed in partnership with Roll for Combat.

Watch it all the way through, like and subscribe. This video is a banger and one of the best of the summer.

Shadowdark is cool, Roll for Combat is excellent, and Professor Dungeon Master is a legend who is living the dream.

"The haters are gonna hate, man."

Shadowdark is a success and the biggest threat to 5E and D&D ever to come up from the community. Shadowdark crowdfunding projects are clearing ten thousand for their first efforts, and they are the new hotness. Shadowdark is the off-ramp for D&D 5E, and that is a massive number of players leaving that game for the OSR. And Shadowdark is in the OSR.

The Roll for Combat partnership is part of the new RFC Kickstarter books for Shadowdark, with the three new tomes expanding the game. The RFC Kickstarter will seed the Deathbringer Kickstarter next year, and include early notifications and beta access. The latest RFC books are both Shadowdark and Deathbringer compatible, making this a win-win situation as everyone works together to build a publisher ecosystem.

This is a new publisher ecosystem and support model developing around Shadowdark, with bigger players stepping in. The next domino to fall will be the larger publishers working for Shadowdark, such as Kobold Press and others. Shadowdark is to 5E what Old School Essentials was to the OSR. It is a rebuild, a simplification, a refocusing, and a rebranding of the core experience.

"And this move, this move makes sure that Deathbringer won't vanish. And that matters. That matters to every player who's tired of fifth edition fluff."

Ah, yes, everyone is starting to see that D&D and the Open 5E clones are overly written, overly detailed fluff. You have to read three paragraphs of filler text to understand how cleave works. The writers are clearly being paid by the word over there. And the other half of the page is filler art. This video is filled with raw, unfiltered, and quotable quotes, and I love it.

It feels like someone slapping you in the face, handing you a cup of strong coffee, shaking your hand, and saying, "Good morning!" to you with a big smile.

Why don't some like this? "It is not for my game!" Deathbringer trying to do its own thing in this climate would have been a disaster, and the game would have been fighting for a slice of an ever-shrinking pie. We are clearly in a market contraction following the demise of D&D, and it is time for people to work together and for small players to support one another, rather than competing.

Shadowdark is the best way that 5E survives the death of D&D.

Deathbringer is a standalone variant of Shadowdark that brings awesomeness and old-school sensibilities back to the game. 5E is becoming a new game publishing ecosystem outside of Wizards and the other big players.

The Roll For Combat expansions work with anything Shadowdark, so it is a win-win-win situation. I originally was not that interested in the RFC Shadowdark books, but now I am all in. I have seen what is happening here, and it is a very good thing. A new "Rebel Alliance" is forming around Shadowdark, made of OSR players, disaffected D&D players, and many others.

This is the best chance 5E survives this generation of gaming, and also a spear through the heart of a future walled-garden "back to basics" copycat 6E, which is coming sooner rather than later.

If you love Shadowdark, jump on the RFC Kickstarter and follow Deathbringer.

If you want to save 5E, focus on Shadowdark and ignore everything else.

Staying Power

I have heard a few reports that some Shadowdark players lose interest after a few sessions. Now, this is not the case for everyone, and many have experienced months- or even years-long struggles with this issue. However, for some player types, I can see why that may happen. Those used to the options and character builds of 5E may find that characters in Shadowdark a bit flat, and with random progression, a few boring rolls could make them lose that connection to their character.

I could run an extended campaign with Shadowdark, no problem. There are ways to keep characters compelling and make them feel like they are advancing. Non-advancement rewards, retainers, favors, magic items, special skills and abilities, unique items, magic weapons, and other things can be given to characters rather than rolls on the level-up chart. The game is also highly mod-friendly, allowing you to add a new advancement system in other areas to keep characters feeling like they are advancing and maintaining player choice.

Granted, there is more in a Shadowdark and OSR game, such as Old School Essentials, in terms of character power and progression. In OSE, you are not getting a random power roll every two levels, and your progression curve is a lot flatter. There are strict non-human level limits, along with a maximum level of 14 for all classes. OSE does not have the problem of people losing interest, or at least I have not heard of it happening much.

OSE has far more "stuff" in it regarding treasures, monsters, retainers, and other non-character powers. Retainers are character power, along with pets like war dogs and other animals. Old-school games let you trade gold for power, and forming an expedition is always better than going it alone. Shadowdark's "on the map" style of play, with every turn a combat turn, will discourage retainer use and a softer theater of the mind style of play in OSE.

Because Shadowdark is more 5E adjacent, the players come from a 5E background and have those experiences and expectations. OSR players have a longer-term perspective on campaigns and character advancement. Getting bored feels like 5E expectations creeping into the game.

I wonder if Daggerheart will retain its staying power, especially into higher levels. Like Shadowdark and a lot of the newer games, advancement stops at level ten. This is also true in Dungeon Crawl Classics, but a level ten DCC character is far more potent than OSE, Shadowdark, and even Daggerheart. Time will tell if Daggerheart will be compelling for more extended campaign play, but from what I saw, this game is retaining players and keeping them interested with the build variety, which is better than 5E.

Also, we have yet to see more official expansions and word of the next book for this game. It is early, but I hope they come out of the gates strong and build a great follow-up game.

Time will tell.

DCC vs. Shadowdark

I like Shadowdark. It is the ultimate "pick up and play" version of 5E. I can be online, in a chat room, in an MMO chat window, at a convention, and invite someone to play a fantasy game with me, and be playing in 5 minutes. They can only casually know 5E, and I can hand them a character sheet and go.

No D&D Beyond is needed. No hours-long character creation. No starter set.

Shadowdark replaced 5E entirely for me. I don't need all those books and all that complexity. I can mod Shadowdark to be more pulp-action and heroic. I can keep it a deadly, horror-adjacent game as it is. I can create new classes and a new game from the core set.

And I don't need all these "big book" 5E Kickstarter games. Shadowdark can be sci-fi, modern horror, game-world specific, cowboy, historical fantasy, or anything else you want to mod the game into. All you need is a class that fits your genre, some gear, and monsters, and you can start playing anything.

If I want a quick "Star Trek" game, I can hack up some command, engineering, sciences, medical, and security classes, and we can play using the Shadowdark rules. Or I can use the Shadowdark classes and re-flavor them.

For me, Shadowdark is my 5E game.

Tales of Argosa sits on the shelf, waiting, saying, "I can do you one better..."

I will get to that game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics is pure randomness and fun. This is a heavily modded 3.5E, blended with the best of the OSR, and the game embraces flavor and randomness rather than exponential power gain. At the heart of this game is a thematic risk-versus-reward concept, and the game does not care to protect a player's ego.

DCC borrows and hacks, mods and twists, changes expectations, and does a lot with a little. The book is enormous, but the system is as easy as Shadowdark. I initially dismissed this game as "being too much" compared to OSE and other systems, but I love the game's attitude and style.

I love DCC; this is my home system, and I mostly play solo. For solo play, it has a high degree of unpredictability and randomness, which always keeps it interesting.

The dice are amazing. Every d4 is rounded and easy to pick up. There is no advantage or disadvantage; you just go up or down a die size, up for bonuses, down for penalties. You apply this mechanic to any die in the game. If your d10 polearm needs to be bumped up two levels of "damage advantage" because the dragon flew into it on an ambush, it goes up to a d14. Is your longsword worn and unsharp? Lower the d8 to a d7.

But why play DCC over Shadowdark?

Shadowdark has a very tight focus, almost like a board game. You play turn-to-turn, never leaving initiative order. There aren't "exploration turns," but you can play it that way. It is best in that turn-to-turn style, almost like a "dungeon creep" playstyle. The rules are minimalist, and the game is very "live or die" in its terms of the definition of success. Shadowdark is home to dungeons, caves, and caverns under the world's surface.

Shadowdark is also "instant play" with others. This is a killer feature—the simplicity that D&D does not have, nor has it had since the 1980s. Wizards' D&D have been these overcomplicated character-builder games for which you need computer programs to design characters. The company does not "get it" and is notorious for overdesign, broken high-level play, and bloat.

I can play Shadowdark with anyone at any time. I point them to the free starter set and a character from that, and we can play over a chat window. It is easy to a level that D&D will never have.

DCC is a love letter to the times when none of us knew what to expect. Playing it makes me feel like a kid again, seeing a beholder and saying, "Whaaaa...?" These days, the beholders and mind flayers are the overused, tired, worn-out shoes of corporate IP. It is time to retire them and put them in the Monster Hall of Fame.

DCC is expansive in scope and feeling. It is more about the sweeping saga of a band of heroes, live or die. The game embraces and celebrates change. It has a high risk-to-reward system built into almost every game aspect. DCC is home on the tops of floating mushroom isles, exploring the tear ducts of a long-dead titan, in an ancient starship lodged in a glacier flow, and in the strange and marvelous places of dreams and nightmares.

I like DCC for its craziness and over-the-top feeling. The dice, random charts, emphasis on unique monsters and adventures, and the imagination poured into all the books and adventures keep me coming back. You look at the adventure covers, saying, "What is this?" and "That looks cool" simultaneously.

Shadowdark is tight, well-put-together, mod-able, and a beautiful game that shows respect for everyone who plays it. It pays tribute to the old school while embracing enough of the new. Shadowdark can be taught and played instantly with others. At this point, Shadowdark is D&D, and the king has been replaced.

I like them both.

DCC does the big and crazy well.

Shadowdark does the small and terrifying well.

If I had to have one? It would be DCC.

Shadowdark: Western Reaches, Breaks a Million

Congratulations to the Shadowdark team for breaking a million dollars on their Kickstarter on their first day for the Western Reaches expansion! They hit the mark in 12 hours, which is fantastic, and this is what happens when you put quality, respect, a love of the game, and community first.

There is a lot of bad news, especially around D&D, but this is a ray of hope coming through the dark clouds for the hobby.

This helps the OSR and lifts all boats, just like D&D does. Shadowdark draws far more D&D players from that game than it does OSR people from theirs, and the size of this market can be deceiving. This is a massive influx of OSR players from 5E, and they will branch out and try other games. Every OSR game will see a bump from this, and Shadowdark will keep many disaffected D&D players in the hobby.

Congratulations!

Shadowdark: Western Reaches Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadowdarkrpg/western-reaches

The Shadowdark: Western Reaches Kickstarter went live today, and wow, there are a lot of premium-quality, lovely things in this campaign. They are collecting the expanded rules in the Cursed Scroll Zines to add as official parts of the game and creating their own campaign setting for everything.

This feels like "Advanced Shadowdark" without the complex rules and just "more stuff."

If you go "all in," it is a bit pricy, but considering the quality of the components and everything you get, it is an ideal gift for the true Shadowdark fan.

I hope this setting takes on a life of its own and becomes a springboard for novels, adventures, and other stories, much like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk. Shadowdark will be my "5E game" and the inheritor of my dreams and ideas in the 5E space.

Too dark and deadly? Mod it to be more heroic. The game embraces change, ownership of your game, and unique play style. Want more character power for super-heroic games? Mod it. Are there any pulp play options? In the book. The game can still be deadly while embracing a more pulp-adventure style.

I hope for a big campaign for this one since games that respect the old-school, while inviting in the world's 5E players, are suitable for everyone playing together and provide a sorely needed bright spot in place of D&D 2024's falling flat with many.

I hope this prints and delivers quickly! I also hope there are no issues with tariffs, which have been a sore spot in fulfillment for many projects these days, and no extra added costs.

Shadowdark is worthy. This game pulls in far more 5E players than old-school gamers, just due to the size of the 5E market, and introduces many to our old-school world. It is a gateway game, and making this your primary system is very comfortable. I can teach and play with anyone in 5 minutes and work almost anywhere, from VTTs to chat rooms.

Shadowdark is 5E to me.

We also have the DCC Dungeon Denizens II Kickstarter next week, so this will be a good week for old-school 5E and 3.5E crowdfunding here in 2025.

Old School Essentials in 2025

When I was on the Labyrinth Lord bandwagon, Old School Essentials was the hot newcomer, replacing everything as the hobby's old-school standard bearer.

I even have my original books!

These days, it feels like Shadowdark took all of OSE's steam. Any significant outflow from D&D will create its own market due to the size of the D&D market and the smaller sizes of every other game. Shadowdark, with a few percent of D&D players moving over, will steamroll any other OSR game.

OSE is still out there; it is just that Shadowdark came in with a small percentage of 5E players and blew out everyone's numbers. OSE players are sticking with OSE, but there is a flood of Shadowdark players in the OSR market.

Shadowdark is in the top spot, and there is a good reason for this. With very little explanation, you can play this with any 5E player; everyone knows what is happening and how to play. I have seen this happen. I will play this with others with zero-prep, and they can join in without a book, needing to read rules or taking time to understand differences and significant sections of books.

Some with OSE Kickstarters say things are slow. Things will slow down this far into the game version, and attention will be elsewhere. Shadowdark may have taken some of OSE's steam, but I see Shadowdark more as a 5E alternative than an OSE alternative.

Still, Shadowdark has a hefty amount of "play design" baked into the system, like the torch timers and other aspects of the rules that focus the experience. The game was designed to be played one way and exceedingly well with the "fun baked in." The game is closer to a board game than a roleplaying game, and that is its charm.

OSE is more of a rules reference to a B/X style of game. The "design" was done long ago, and the source game matters. If you enjoy the play of B/X, you will enjoy OSE.

Shadowdark is 5E to me. The only other game in the "5E Lite" space is Tales of Argosa. This is another game to watch in 2025, and it is amazingly crafted and full of charts. The entire book is a campaign generation system, and it borrows many great ideas from other games, along with coming up with a few great new ideas of its own.

As players move away from 2024 D&D, Tales of the Valiant will immediately surge into relevance again because a large player base is moving over.

I suspect ToV will have a significant upswing this year as an alternative to the controversial and divisive 2024 D&D. I have ToV in my garage, with the rest of 5E. I am not in the mood for the system or needing computerized character sheets that don't support all the options I want.

Still, ToV is a worthy, supported system, and if you want to leave Wizards, it is worth your time.

I miss OSE. This is still the standard bearer in the world of B/X, though many equally great games compete for that spot. OSE tends to be "dry" in some places because it is first a reference guide. The fighter class is very dry unless a few optional rules are used; even then, other games give us fighter classes that can do a lot more and have bonuses above and beyond what B/X allows.

The OSRIC fighter gets multiple attacks against lower hit-die monsters, high-level multi-attacks, weapon specialization, and even double specialization. Where B/X does fighters plain and a bit flat, OSRIC has a Gygaxian design baked in from years of play experience and feedback.

B/X can be overly simplified at times, where it becomes either too easy or too deadly. A more detailed system like GURPS or Adventures Dark and Deep will give me the detail and granularity I want to model a situation with more realism. Sure, you are facing 8 goblins with short bows with your AC 4 and 6 hit-point fighter character in plate mail. They have a 17+ to hit, right? In ADAD, short bows are -4 to hit against plate mail. This is the difference between a character's death and not having one.

Even 5E's advantage/disadvantage rule is far too simple and a "hammer for every problem" to simulate this situation and possibly make for a very cool, character-defining, memorable moment in the game.

Swords & Wizardry is a good example. With the expansion books, S&W can completely replace 5E for many groups while delivering a solid AD&D-like experience. S&W replaces Castles and Crusades for me, despite how much I love C&C. The fighters in S&W are also fun, with them getting the damage and hit bonuses from STR, and the other classes do not.

OSE is currently drowning in a sea of fantastic options. I don't see it being "replaced" as the "gold standard" version of B/X. The game still has many of the best "race as class" options in gaming. The books are compact, dense, highly-referenceable, and easy-to-use gems of gaming goodness. OSE is also highly deadly and harsh, with multiple PC deaths per session in low-level games.

OSE also beats Shadowdark in many areas. The game is more expansive and covers more ground regarding overland encounters, hirelings, strongholds, and the classic B/X experience. You have a lot more race, class, and spell options. You are not dealing with torch timers or darkness rules.

You lack healing at low levels, especially with clerics not having a first-level spell. Also, characters die at zero hit points; there are no rules for unconscious characters. Again, OSE was written as a reference guide for B/X-style gaming, so it tends to be harsher, and even OSRIC and ADAD are a lot softer on player death, allowing bleeding out to -10 hit points. Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord are as harsh as OSE, with death at zero.

Shadowdark is also very "board game-like," with the initiative roll and movement happening in real-time and never entering a narrative mode if played by the rules. OSE is the better choice if you want a looser theater-of-the-mind play style.

It feels strange to say this, but if you want a less lethal game, especially versus OSE, LL, or S&W, play OSRIC or any other AD&D variant (like ADAD).

OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord have healing at low levels (clerics get a level one spell at level one). OSRIC /ADAD gives bonus spells for high wisdom for clerics. A WIS 14 and higher will give a cleric three first-level spells, which could be all healing spells. Clerics in AD&D games are potent allies and beat the armored greaves off of their OSE, LL, and S&W counterparts. Magic Users do not get the bonus spells since they will reap the benefits they earned if they survive to a high level.

I swear, the cleric bonus spells of the first edition are there for a reason, and every version of D&D past 2nd and every version of B/X just don't understand why. The first edition rules gave clerics those extra slots for healing boosts, which in turn increases party longevity, which in turn increases fun at the table.

OSE is still a solid choice for a more straightforward game with a quick reference. You could always mod in the -10 hp rule from OSRIC and have the best of both worlds.

Would I play OSE instead of Shadowdark? Yes, OSE has more options, especially if I am playing solo. Online? No, since I can find far more 5E players willing to try Shadowdark and interested in the game. OSRIC gets so many things right that it is tough to consider games from the B/X genealogy when I have a first-edition game and a wealth of expansions to play.

I hate comparing OSE to OSRIC, but that game "the game is based on" matters. If you enjoy B/X more, OSE is your game. First edition games have rules, complexity, and depth.

Gygax made critical changes and needed rule fixes for the first edition (for fun, depth, and balance) that B/X games ignore. As a "base for other games," B/X works well since designers will put their own spin on the rules. As a stand-alone game, the as-written B/X rules need house ruling or an extra layer of interpretation.

Also of note is the fantastic Adventures Dark and Deep, which takes the first edition in a new and unique direction. I am devouring and enjoying this new version quite a bit, and it builds on my love of OSRIC and the first edition. ADAD is becoming one of the games I am most excited about this year.

OSE still is on my most-played shelves, will never be put in the garage, and remains a fixture of my inspirations today. OSRIC remains more my "flavor" of a d20-based game, but it doesn't take anything away from the streamlined simplicity of OSE. Shadowdark remains more of a 5E-based board game and a 5E replacement for me, while OSE remains superior for exploration and campaign play.

The RPG as Social Glue

Shadowdark captures the original D&D aesthetic just like how the original Traveller Book captured the 2d6 science fiction spark of imagination. Do these self-contained tomes have every option, provide the most detailed combat systems, or give your billions of combinations of options?

No.

Doing any of those things would ruin what these games are, and the possibilities they offer.

Forget today's encyclopedic games which are shelf fodder for the collector's market, and not games which can be easily played with others. The best game is one small rulebook and infinite possibilities. Very few games capture this. Even the new Traveller has dipped into the collector's market a bit too deeply, and that game is a hard sell for me to anyone interested in science fiction.

With D&D, you are talking nearly $200 in books to get started, a subscription service, reading hundreds of pages of rules and options, learning a VTT, and becoming familiar with action types, turns, and all sorts of special conditions, spells, powers, and abilities. The D&D Starter Set is probably the best edition of the game, and you should ignore the rest. Very few people play past the levels given in the Starter Set, and the game at high levels is horribly broken.

Just selling someone on "hey, play this with me!" is an impossible task unless they are already deeply invested in the D&D market. Most average people, when I go up to them and offer to play a RPG with them?

Forget it. D&D is too big to even suggest. Too big of a cost, time investment, purchase, reading requirement, and commitment for any average person to make. I bring D&D up to people outside the gaming market, and I get blank stares and a feeling I should "go play with people who already know the game." D&D as "social glue" only works on those already sold on the game.

Shadowdark is different. I can start up a Shadowdark game with those outside the D&D sphere, they say "what is this" and they see how easy it is, and they are instantly interested and know "I can have fun playing this!" Me, as someone who runs the game, has a "social value" to others as a "person who plays a fun game."

And I can get anyone playing the "full version" of Shadowdark with just the Starter Set, and me owning a book. The character sheets are so simple, and what you need to read and learn can be easily passed on in one minute of showing someone how things work. The game plays like the classic Hero Quest or Dungeon boardgames, where it is just "move your piece and do something" every turn.

Shadowdark is this generation's "Basic D&D." This is the game Wizards should be selling for the hobby, and D&D has turned into a grognard-like mess of rules, options, special actions, bloated options, and an almost "Advanced Squad Leader" feeling to the entire heavy and book-heavy framework.

I can't sell people on D&D anymore.

The 2014 books were an easier sell, honestly.

These days? It is a non-starter with thousands of backward-compatible options confusing the market, and the game depending on online character creation tools. I have to sell people on a game, time commitment, huge purchase, website, subscription service, microtransactions, and a huge buy-in to get started. There is even a social commitment (orcs, drow, half-races) you need to make to align yourself with the designer's vision of the game that feels like it overreaches into your imagination.

Shadowdark is my "social glue" for fantasy these days. I can play it with someone in a heartbeat, introduce it in a minute, show them a zero-cost point of entry, and get them in game with me without them needing to buy a book or sign up for a subscription service. Sorry, Wizards, I am not selling D&D Beyond to other people to play games with me. I am not doing your sales pitches anymore.

Shadowdark works because everything is kept dirt simple.

And once people play, they are hooked, and can join in the fun for free.

I tried putting Shadowdark in storage many times and walking away from the game. To me, it was too simple and did not fill my grognard need of rules, realism, and options. I loved the respect it paid to the classic hobby, and the art and how the game is designed pays a lot of respect to the old ways. I loved the presentation, but felt the game was too simple to hold my interest.

To be honest, I feel Dragonbane fits in this equation somewhere, as the power-fantasy game many play alongside Shadowdark. Where in Shadowdark you need to play carefully, Dragonbane feels like the "charge in, slashing swords and casting spells" style of fantasy many prefer (minus the D&D commitment and bulk).

But every time I gave Shadowdark a chance with others, outside the hobby, I made new friends who were interested. I know, after a while, someone will try to sell them on D&D, but they will likely end up disappointed and leaving the hobby because for them, D&D is too big to play. D&D is the wrong game for them. They will get in, make the purchases, and feel ripped off because they don't have the time in their lives to get involved with a hobby that demands a majority of your time and attention.

Shadowdark?

I can pick this game up and put it down like a boxed set of Monopoly. For others, that is the same level of understanding and commitment they need to invest. Want to play Shadowdark? Yes! Cool! And there we are, zero time and prep needed, hand out a few simple character sheets, and we are playing a game together.

The "social glue" of Shadowdark works, and it works well.