SoloDark Interlude 1: Rules Updates
Discussing a few rules updates and general thoughts about the game so far.
I’ve been playing this adventure for a while now, honestly longer than I thought. I was sure the characters would be dead by now but boy are they lucky in battle. That must be why they are so luckless everywhere else. With more than a few hours of play, I’ve found a few rules that I either don’t feel are robust enough for solo play or are just missing. I wanted to list them as an explanation and possible inspiration. We’ll start with the big one.
NPC Reaction / Attitudes
One of the things I’ve been a little disappointed with is the lack of NPC reaction or attitude tables. Let me be clear though, I don’t think this is ShadowDark’s fault. The Encounter Reaction Table is great and if this was a standard game I could easily handle NPC reactions using normal role-play, maybe some CHA checks if things were tense, and just general GM decision-making. But since I’m playing solo I want there to be some randomness in how an NPC initial interaction might go, rather than just deciding or using a Yes/No oracle. I wanted to land someone a bit different than the Encounter Reaction Table, but less complex than the Mentzer multi-tier reaction table.
My goal in making my own little rule set here was to do a few things. First, I don't think that 50% of the dice results (0-6) should be Hostile for an NPC. It’s incredibly unlikely that the market vendor is going to attack Strika no matter how terrible he is at social situations (and good lord does he suck at it, only that guy can figure out how to get banned from a tavern known for its rowdiness). Second, I wanted some kind of system for changing the NPC's attitude over time. I know I could adjust it based on the story (and I might at times) but one of my favorite things about solo play is the randomness that leads to unexpected results.
With all that in mind, this is what I landed on:
When engaging with an NPC for the first time whose attitude to the party cannot easily be established roll 2d6 and consult the following chart. Apply other bonuses if reasonable, and also consider a minimum result if it makes sense. An example here might be that a friendly vendor in town shouldn’t just start at Enemy or Hostile, while a cultist they could have a temporary alliance with shouldn’t start at Friendly.
Once an initial attitude is established, when a character works to increase their relationship with an NPC they can roll against the DC to Improve to try and increase the NPC attitude by one step.
Surprise
Trying to decide if the Luckless or their enemies were surprised was giving me some problems. On one hand, the group is constantly carrying around a torch. On the other, they would be trying to be stealthy most of the time. I really didn’t want to be rolling Dex checks all the time so I stole the stealth rules from b/x.
If neither side is explicitly lying in ambush I’ll roll a d6 for each side. On a 1 or 2 that side is surprised. This is also super easy to adjust if one side or the other is doing anything that warrants a 3:6 chance.
Spotting Traps
I really love that in Shadowdark you find the things you’re looking for. In a normal game that makes sense. The GM might drop some hints and it’s up to the players to describe looking in the right spots. This just does not work in solo play since I know there is a trap already. I didn’t want to just rely on the Oracle to roll non-stop (did they spot the trap) questions, so again I stole from b/x.
The group has a 1:6 chance to spot a trap if it exists, the chance changes to 3:6 if they are moving slowly/searching (though this burns more time/light), and thieves have advantage on the check.
Torches in Combat
Attack the Light! Let there be Darkness! These are fundament tenets of a Shadowdark game. The rules specifically say not to let a torch become something that is “set it and forget it” but that’s exactly what was happening. I’m not as worried about this out of combat, but in the frenzy of combat, I feel like the torchlight should be in danger.
There is a 1:6 chance a torch goes out at the end of each round of combat unless the bearer specifically protects it. This would normally mean not taking an action to do something abrupt (attack, cast a spell, etc) but as I continue to play I may find other ways to do this.
How Is This Group Still Alive?
I’ve been a bit surprised that the group has survived this long, especially without a priest/healer. I haven’t done anything to make them stronger than a normally created character and Shadowdark is known for its deadliness. As I spent some time thinking about this I believe it comes down to 2 main points that I thought I’d discuss.
Quibel and Luck - When playing Solo Dark the group effectively shares a pool of luck, as a character can freely give another character their luck point. The pool can hold as many luck points as there are characters, you gain a luck point when you roll a natural 20, and a luck point can be used to re-roll any single d20. This already means that the characters can re-roll 4 times a day, but Quibel makes this even more effective. As a Seer she has an ability called Omen she can use 4 times a day and if she makes a DC 9 WIS check she gains a luck token. That’s a reasonably easy roll for her and essentially means the group gets 6-8 re-rolls a day. I know this improves their odds of success and any combat and skill rolls they make and helps them offensively.
Shields and Sundering - In cursed scroll 3 the sundering trait gets introduced for staves and round shields. This lets you sacrifice the item to avoid a single attack that would normally hit you. I really liked this trait but didn’t want to worry about the difference between a shield and staff versus a round shield and stave. It just seemed more annoying than anything so I just gave the trait to normal shields and staffs. This has been huge for the group defensively, there are probably about 3 different times that sundering a shield instead of taking a blow was the difference between life and death. To keep things fair I do let enemies do this as well.
I think these two items have been a significant factor in why the group hasn’t had a death so far. I don’t know that the adventure will continue to be death free but at least we have some understanding of why the Luckless aren’t all dead at this point.
I know this post was a bit different than the rest but it seemed like a good time to take a break and talk through how things are going, and some of the rules I was using. Initially, this was going to get added to the end of a normal post but those are already long enough and this just kept growing so I decided to make it a separate post.
Next week we’ll pick up with the group back at the Shadowed Keep, they’ve got treasure on their mind and really want to get past that demon door.
Really love these kinds of troubleshooting posts. The “improving mood” over time with RP+mechanics is terrific. Great stuff.
I like the mechanic for increasing NPC disposition! Can it also decrease if, say a PC attempts to improve relations but rolls a 1?