This short article is part of my series, ‘3 Tips in Under 3 Minutes’, where I provide quick, actionable tips you can use in your D&D game that take three minutes or less to read.
The topic for this article is for DMs, and it’s three Shadowdark RPG rules that will make your D&D players think, not just roll dice to solve their problems.
If you’re curious about Shadodark RPG but aren’t sure about switching entirely, here are 3 ways described in 3 minutes or less that you can modify your D&D game to make it have more of Shadowdark’s gritty, dangerous feel.
The intent of these specific tips is to do just that: make your D&D game more challenging, and a wee bit scarier. Finally, there’s a theme underlying all three of these tips, and that’s to make the players use the grey matter between their ears instead of relying on numbers on their character sheet to solve all their problems.
#1. Get rid of character darkvision, regardless of ancestry. The party has to use torches and those torches only work out to 30′ distance, which adds a bit of scariness. And speaking of torches, use the 1-hour rule where the torch goes out after 1-hour of real game time.
Use one of those little hourglasses and put it where everyone can see it to add tension. This adds even more oopmh to the game by making resource management another element to the party’s tactics, strategy, and planning.
#2. Limit the classes available to just the four basics of cleric, fighter, magic user, and rogue. I think this takes the onus away from character complexity and brings the gameplay down to fundamentals. This one is also about saving time during the prep phase of your game, which in 5e can take forever. Essentially, it’s a way to take the rules and mechanics out of your way and increase the focus on the gameplay itself.
#3. Implement spell-casting based on a d20 check. This rule is one of my favorites because it raises the stakes for failure, and makes the successes of spell casters feel more special somehow. Furthermore, it makes the casters feel a bit more involved in combat instead of just hiding behind the barbarian, hoping the monsters don’t notice them.
Well, they’ll do that anyway, but this makes them feel more involved.
The whole group pays attention to the dice rolls, increasing the tension for everyone, instead of just taking their spells for granted.
