r/shadowdark • u/JJShurte • 2d ago
Alt Old School Rules?
Does anyone here play with some alt rules? I’m thinking stuff like only healing 1hp after a full nights rest, or stress/insanity mechanics.
If so, what do you use?
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u/_kind_of_old_ 2d ago
I roll morale as 2d6 vs. a number between 3 and 11, very much as I did when I was playing D&D BECMI in the early 90s.
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u/Xaielao 2d ago edited 2d ago
My house rules.
I use the underclock system for random encounters. I find it's great for adding tension, so I let my players know whenever I'm rolling on the clock, but not the result or current clock. (Players always freak out when the GM is rolling a bunch of dice, and Shadowdark/OSR excels at that lol). The underclock starts at 20 and you roll and subtract a d6 every time the players linger in an area or make noise, like searching a room, reading a journal, breaking open a door, etc... with the exception of combat. During rest, 1-3 rolls are made depending on the danger level. If the underclock lands on 0-3, the encounter is foreshadowed. If it falls below 0, the encounter occurs and the clock resets to 20.
Like Rizzybear, I don't do full stat restoration on a long rest unless it's in a safe place, with safe being somewhat relative. I do however let players heal to full, assuming the rest wasn't interrupted. Leveling up also requires a safe place and a full rest. Also usually some kind of little RP'd montage about training or what have you.
I'm not a fan of advantage/disadvantage, the former is all to common, and the later almost never comes up. Instead if something grants advantage, it grants a +3 bonus instead. And of course vice versa for disadvantage. With luck tokens, I let players reroll a check instead of using advantage, but not Nat1s. I also let players impose a -3 penalty on enemies with a luck token as well.
Lighting a torch, lantern or magic light in total darkness requires a DC 12 check made with a -3 penalty (essentially disadvantage). This is such a common house rule the game's creator basically said it's RAI.
I'm pretty liberal with luck, each PC starts a session with 1 and usually gains another, maybe more over the course of a three hour session. Luck can be used to reroll a check (but never a Nat1), force an enemy to reroll a check, or to regain the use of a failed spell or exploit die (I use a version of DCC's Mighty Deeds for pure martials) unless it was lost to a Nat1. Player's can trade their luck tokens. Only one luck token can be used in any instance. So no spending every luck token at the table on an impossible check until you succeed.
I have a little homebrew of my own called Dark Luck. The first time a player spends a luck token in a session, I get a dark luck token. I can use them to allow an enemy to make a free attack when it isn't their turn, reroll a failed check, cause a monster to interrupt a PC's turn, and a few other things. I only allow one token (and player luck token) to be used at any time, so no rolling over and over until your out lol. I tend to use dark luck quite sparingly, but it's great for big boss encounters and it helps my players realize that their PCs are never truly safe. ;)
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u/DD_playerandDM 2d ago
I allow readied non-magical attacks.
Grinder Mode only restores 1 hit die of HP after a full night's rest. I think restoring only 1 HP at all would certainly not be my cup of tea.
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u/rizzlybear 2d ago
My two big rules are:
Luck tokens can't be used in response to a failed roll. They have to be declared prior to the roll and grant advantage or disadvantage on said roll.
Rest that heals HP or stat damage must be done in a safe place like an inn or a home, where the player has access to a soft, comfortable bed, a hearty meal, and a warm hearth. Resting in the wilderness staves off the consequences of not resting, but they do not provide any healing.
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u/Much_Session9339 2d ago
I’ve been considering changing the luck rules because with luck, basically no one would ever have a spell mishap, it’s too easy to save your luck tokens for those moments. This would take care of that, though I’m also considering just going with no luck tokens to reroll nat 1s
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u/JJShurte 2d ago
I like your idea of how Luck Tokens are used - it stops them being am emergency back up plan B, and makes them a more active insurance policy for success/failure.
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u/rizzlybear 2d ago
Yep, it’s the 5e “inspiration” rule. Fun side note, 5.5e drops that system in favor of the Shadowdark luck token system, calling it Heroic Inspiration.
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u/No_Future6959 2d ago
bro is just sayin shit.
do you have any REAL opinions?
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u/Zac_Kariah 2d ago
I’m really aiming for a sanity mechanic that really works, past just being “Wis save or you start babbling”
I haven’t worked out the right idea yet though, if others have suggestions, I’d love to hear them though.
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u/LieutenantFreedom 2d ago
Cursed Scroll 5 has a sort of sanity mechanic for its region, while there Cha damage does not heal on rest and you start doing weird stuff when your Cha is low enough
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u/Xaielao 2d ago
Yea The Chittering is an interesting idea for sure. I ran part of Morzomotha as a lead-in to an OSR adventure called The Shrike. One of my players rolled a 6 for his Charisma. It fell to 5 pretty fast, and he started showing symptoms, and began to dream about the Pillar (the enormous crystal hourglass) and where to find it.
I'd homebrewed the hourglass to be a kind of bloodsport run by a Glabrezu. He enticed Nuln (and any with the Chittering) in their dreams to come and participate. Teams of Nuln would fight one another in the crystalline maze and the winning team would earn themselves some treasure from his horde. He'd then devour the remains and the games would start over again once enough Nuln were drawn there.
Sadly that player (wisely) ignored his dreams and the party avoided that area of the dungeon lol.
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u/Dollface_Killah (" `з´ )_,/"(>_<'!) 2d ago
The best sanity mechanics are things that build up over the course of multiple adventures as a sort of permanent toll on the character. When we wanted sanity mechanics in our AD&D back when, my group adapted them from either Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Call of Cthulhu. If you wanted something more directly adapted to Shadowdark you could have mental effects take up gear slots, and there is also madness rules in the new Western Reaches stuff I haven't read yet.
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u/Zac_Kariah 2d ago
Haha I find the idea of ‘mental baggage’ a really funny idea that has potential.
The more I think about this, the more interesting it becomes actually!
- “Hmm, son killed by orc warband, that feels like a three slot trauma.”
- “You saw a glimpse of Cthulhu, add one baggage and make a wis save whenever you sleep or he builds up another slot of trauma”
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u/Dollface_Killah (" `з´ )_,/"(>_<'!) 2d ago
Three is way too many for a single trauma, but yeah that's the idea. They take up slots and slowly accumulate over the course of the campaign. You can do it with physical trauma and mutations, too.
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u/Zac_Kariah 2d ago
I think it could potentially work with multi-slot strsses if we add a mechanic to alleviate them, like Darkest Dungeon. Carousing, facing your fears or acts of heroism perhaps alleviating stress bit by bit and maybe stress not having to be a glorified death state when maxed.
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u/asa1128 2d ago
Saw a blog post (don't remember who so can't give credit unfortunately) where someone mentioned having a separate "mental inventory". So things like weapon/armor proficiencies, spells, NPC connections, etc. Then things like stress and madness can begin filling those slots as well. Now my players can struggle with a physical inventory so I don't know if it's too much or not but I think it's a really cool concept.
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u/rizzlybear 2d ago
Look at other systems with strong sanity mechanics. Mothership and Call of Cthulhu come to mind. I believe in both cases, it's a separate meta currency.
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u/Dollface_Killah (" `з´ )_,/"(>_<'!) 2d ago
I wouldn't call it a metacurrency. You don't spend it per se. It's more like it builds up and accumulates debuffs, and downtime can deal with it.
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u/JJShurte 2d ago
I've been looking at something like how HP is tied with Con and Class. So Sanity would be SP and tied with Wisdom and Class, in that it would go up each level depening on your class.
Dunno.... I'm in the same boat, just fiddling with ideas.
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u/bionicjoey 1d ago
Maybe crib the stress mechanics from Mothership? But change the condition for gaining stress because every dice roll fail is probably too often for SD
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u/Sagebrush_Sky 1d ago
I think the Dolmenwood rules for camping are a nice way of adding to overland hex crawl procedures. Depending on the weather and the gear you have as well as whether or not you make a fire, a CON check of increasing difficulty is required to get a good night's sleep. On a failed check you suffer a -1 to attack and damage rolls as an effect of exhaustion, which can be cumulative with other things that cause exhaustion.
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u/grumblyoldman 2d ago
I use house rules, but generally going the other way. I let players arrange their stats to taste when rolling a new character instead of going down the line, and max HP at 1st level.
I also have house rules around awarding Luck, since if I leave it at "whenever someone does something cool" I never think about doing it in the moment. So, a player gets Luck when they roll (and keep) a nat 1, or when they Rest in a proper bed (not out in the wilds.) And when they do something cool, if I remember.