Zero Prep Session With Shadowdark RPG

Running a long session using core tables ONLY

Art from Shadowdark Cursed Zine Scroll #2

The title sorta says it all.

I have long term players I always DM for who were ready to give Shadowdark a go.

We usually play either ADND2e, White Box, or a majorly hacked Mörk Borg.

I was a little burnt on long prep sessions and wanted to use the terrific tables in Shadowdark “as is” to come to the table with no prep at all and play a satisfying and entertaining long session of 5-6 hours.

The TLDR version is - myself and three experienced players had a total blast during a 5 hour session and it was a nice change for me to run a game with no pressure of preparation.

Things ran smoothly and the tables were a breeze to use.

The longer version:

Before I started gameplay, I decided on a few fast and loose rulings of my own.

Because this was going to largely be exploration based, I increased the chances of POIs and encounters…significantly.

I didn’t want to have a bunch of “ok you go through this area uneventfully/nothing happens,” moments, and with rolled reactions for everything (and many of the encounters being non-combat oriented to begin with), I didn’t think it would make things overly lethal.

Torch timers were sped up to 20 minutes to turn up the heat on the players, and with only three at the table I knew a longer timer wouldn’t create much excitement for them.

Our damage dice always explode at this table, and we used the alternate rules for slower healing as well, as my players enjoy that sweet, sweet grit.

For hex travel, I made the rules simple.

(As you can see above I didn’t try to worry about making maps cool or pretty- just fast and usable)

3 hexes a day by road, 2 on normal open terrain, 1 in difficult. Mounted, all are doubled, except difficult.

Importantly, the players were all aware of how we’d be playing and were excited about the idea.

All agreed to do a long session and continue as a campaign if we had fun.

We started out rolling characters up (including me as I generally run a DM PC in smaller player groups to help avoid TPK) - and wound up with a wizard, Malchor, a thief, Rogar, a fighter, Denton, and my DMPC a fighter named Bram with 16 STR (!) and 5 INT (!¡!)

Thief and wizard had 2hp, other fighter got 4, Bram got 7 and so was obviously the designated “tank” of the crew.

Play began by answering the players first “out of game” question - why is everything random, how do these PCs not know where everything is already?

I used the admittedly a bit tired but still fun trope of them being on a prison ship bound for some hellish colony somewhere that was driven off course before crashing on unknown shores.

All PCs started out with a few pieces of random junk from the 0 level tables that washed up ashore with us, but Denton the fighter got a short bow and that made us more confident about our chances in the wilds.

At least- until we began rolling terrain type and we realized we were on a coast up against a stretch of desert.

The search for water became a little frantic when we started taking CON damage after a day of exploring without any. (I think this is in the actual rules somewhere, but it was just a fast decision at the table.)

Some smart play and fortunate encounter rolls led to discovery of an oasis, where a few merchants and their servants invited us to refresh ourselves after some convincing roleplay combined with high reaction rolls!

I broke up the monotony of watching a DM make endless checks by involving the PCs in the process.

They knew we were doing this style and were very excited about it, and I had them do most of the rolling while I simply guided the story as it emerged and unfolded.

As in: get an encounter roll of a group of merchants at an oasis.

Me: “You feel relief as foliage rises from the desert scrub and dunes, and sandy hills open up to reveal a spring fed clear pool of water, around which several camels and horses are tethered with packs on them.

An elderly man draped in fine white silks, with piercing green eyes and white beard against dark skin smiles widely at you and beckons you to sit in his tent out of the fierce sun.”

This kept them occupied and flipping through charts and rolling. We had a good time and them seeing what they rolled had no negative effect as we were all enjoying being surprised by what happened next.

PCs learned some local customs and news, and accepted work from the small caravan’s leader to get him safely to Arak, a trading hub settlement only a day or so from their present location - the road is fraught with bandits and worse.

(At this point I knew I would be incorporating some stuff from Cursed Scroll Zine 2, which has a desert theme. I was having to come up with peoples and settlements names on the fly, but will make a nice list of Sword and Sorcery desert sounding names before next session.)

Up ahead, the wary PCs were able to get the drop on a raiding party of gnolls who were hiding out in the rocks along the road.

Some solid sneaking spy work from the thief, who then brought the wizard up the rocks by rope to hit em with that nasty spellcraft…in this case a sleep spell dropped from hiding.

Safely through the ambush point, the caravan arrived in Arak where a lot of intrigue and roleplaying followed as they met lots of people, got involved in local power plays, and found out that the main export of the settlement is refined Black Lotus, guarded for the merchant elite by an organization of trained killers called the Ras-Godai. (A class from the zine mentioned above.)

At this stage I announced to players that there would be “unlockable content” in this game, and that if they wound up in confrontation with the Ras-Godai, they would ultimately be able to play them as characters down the line, and that I’d continue letting them know when knew things, new rules, and the like became “unlocked” by their actions.

This also got them excited, and I think re-stoked on the whole “exploration of an unknown world” angle.

Ultimately, the PCs decide to work for a very powerful merchant against his rival, but their new friend/employer first asks for a display of prowess in the fighting pits.

The group sends DMPC Bram into a pit fight to establish some trust, who handily slaughtered his opponent during a fancy party at the pleasure palace of the wealthy elites.

This was the only combat encounter in the game so far, and no one was checked out, bored, or looking at phones which I always take as a sign of a good game.

During this time the thief did a lot of sneaking around and stealing of private documents etc.

The wizard was having a great time bluffing as a foreign noble here in a kind of economic ambassadorship position in order to gain clout with the merchants, while Denton, the other fighter with high INT and CHA was kind of acting as the general face of the party.

Story continued to emerge, and the players head north along the road for the coastal village of Kelim.

They have discovered by this point that the Ras-Godai have betrayed their merchant masters and are stealing and shipping the black lotus themselves, using their own routes to amass wealth that will lead to an ultimate coup against the current power structure.

They have created a criminal network call Al-Vir, and are using fishing vessels from Kelim to establish their trade routes.

The PCs have decided to head to Kelim to disrupt Al-Vir efforts there, before heading back south to build diplomatic bridges with the local nomadic warlord to stop the gnoll attacks which are making life hard for the other merchants in Arak.

On the road to Kelim, a huge group of berserkers (2d20 netted a something like 34 of them!!!) from the mountains are praying and drinking at a shrine…but it’s the PCs lucky day as they roll a max reaction check of 2 natural 6’s.

The berserkers are forbidden from killing on this holy day and PCs end up invited to drink and eat with them instead, and have a good time enjoying their over the top company, before being advised to depart before the holy day ends at sundown and they are killed.

Finally nearing Kelim, a massive sandstorm drives them off the road to take shelter in an ancient temple.

Players immediately begin moaning about “revenants” but instead of feeling railroaded…they’ve rolled both the place of interest and the sandstorm and think it’s cool as hell, calling the film Stargate to mind and a brief tangent occurs as we discuss why James Spader is a such a superior actor for a few minutes.

Quickly, using the Shadowdark map generator, a pile of d10s became the structure and obstacles in the temple.

I speed through this part sketching rapid notes while players answer the call of nature of take a smoke break, and in under 5 minutes I’ve got a dungeon.

I’m not saying it was a groundbreaking one. I’m not saying they’ll remember their time there forever. I’m not saying it was perfectly Jaquaysed or followed all the modern rules of proper dungeon design…but!

It had traps.

It had treasure.

It had a cool monster and a quick mechanic I thought I’d steal from Indiana Jones (stealing treasure that triggers a trap when it’s taken over the threshold).

It had a major hazard to avoid and a couple different ways to get around it.

It had an NPC hiding from the monster to interact with.

All in all - what makes a dungeon successful is your players having fun, and damn the rules!

The PCs spark a torch, the timer goes on, and they begin crawlin’.

Avoiding a deadfall trap due to some clever looking around by the thief after he spots some smashed bones on the floor, the PCs fight a giant mutated gnoll/troll thing (I did some random rolling on monster creation and decided to go with what made sense for the area) that was using it as a lair.

They kill it pretty handily. Only poor Bram out in front takes some damage.

They meet an NPC, a dirtbag smuggler who got stuck in here to get out of the sandstorm and got a little lost, they direct him out (around the trap) and he thanks them profusely.

Proceeding deeper, they spot a locked door on the other side of a large room

in the temple - on the way to it, the wizard gets caught in a quicksand section, and drops the torch!

A moment of panic as a second of three is lit, but now they’re in “let’s get the hell in and out” mode.

They fail to get into the “good” treasure area with some shit rolls, but went on to loot the dead body of the former high priest which included a scarab necklace, circlet and scroll.

They were sure he would come to life but he didn’t…they decide they’ve pushed their luck enough and only have 6 mins left with their torch and high tail it out without exploring any more of the temple, figuring they’ll come back later.

The sketchy NPC they met just inside has stolen their packhorse and all the water, they discover to their chagrin. (I knew we shoulda just killed that sweaty guy!)

As soon as they get out, the scarab grows and mutates, becomes a giant spellcasting beetle, and attacks the party.

Bram goes down heroically defending his friends in the struggle, dropping to 0 Hp, while the thief gives both looted circlet and scroll to the wizard as the remaining fighter distracts the monster, and it’s total chaos and things are crazy and everyone is like oh shit we are all gonna die…and the wizard makes some nice rolls to control the scarab.

I quickly decide it will be an activate-able magic item with 2 charges left, a sort of low powered construct that can cast magic missile but it’s batteries are about to die forever.

Everyone tries to stabilize Bram, who has one round left on his death counter. All fail their rolls. Miserably. RIP.

They leave Bram’s corpse to the sand and head back out into the desert night to reach Kelim.

This is where we ended our session.

I was awarding XP during play, using a combination of group style awards like “accomplish an objective” or “explore a new area,” and individual ones like “use a class ability in an awesome way,” or “save someone’s ass with cool playing,” and things like that.

I was pretty liberal because I knew I wouldn’t be using treasure as XP.

This was a personal choice for my own table both to drive the game more toward roleplaying and exploration than just treasure hoarding), and that carousing might not be much of an option in the first sessions downtime.

Also because everyone at my table hates gold for XP and we’ve never done it, even in our early child of summer days playing the very oldest of the old school games.

It was a long session, and a LOT was accomplished with very little dickering or tangential table talk (minus the Spader/Stargate, but that was essential).

By the end of the session they’d leveled, which I felt was justified based on how much damn work they’d put in and how well they played the game. Besides, those 2hp guys were terrified the whole game of running into a particularly fearsome house cat or ill tempered rabbit.

It was a blast.

I will do zero prep for next session, and use play notes from this one and more randomization to see what happens.

I don’t know if I’ll ever prep a game again!

I’m only half kidding.

I will of course use prepped dungeons in the future if they’re places the PCs have heard of and want to go, but the tables are fine for random ruins and tombs and the like.

I’ll give some thought to what the factions are doing and so on, but mostly. I’ll just keep on rollin!

Feel free to hit me up with any specific questions about the session if you have any and I will DEFINITELY be doing some badass tables of my own to add to the fantastic ones included in the core book.

Bravo to the creator.

The book is terrific.

Keep your blades sharp.

-Castle Grief