Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Shadowdark: Alternative to Advantage & Disadvantage


We are about to start our second Shadowdark campaign and the players weren't satisfied with the RAW version of Advantage and Disadvantage. They asked about converting it to a straight +5 or -5 but I'm not sure that I feel that fits Shadowdark so we will be testing out +1d6 or -1d6.  I'm not trying to model +5/-5 with the 1d6 mechanic I am instead trying to have the new mechanic guarantee a bonus or penalty and remain in the same range as the original rule. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. Thoughts?

3 comments:

Jay Neale III said...

If it's in the same range, why the need to change it?

Jonathan Linneman said...

That seems pretty reasonable to me. Even with bounded accuracy, aren't 5e's ranges a bit wider than Shadowdark's? (Now that I think about it, I actually don't know if that's the case...)

I may have the same question as Jay above, though...is it just about not liking the idea of rolling two of the same dice and using just the high/low? Because that actually took a little time to grow on me, as well, and I probably really only came around on it once it became established as a pretty standard rule of RPGs, universally understood and widely applied. (It was probably around the appearance of The Black Hack that I finally took to it.)

Cross Planes said...

My players don't "see" the bonus or penalty in the RAW. Its weird, its a vibe mostly. They want something more "concrete" and prefer the d6. Personally, I don't think its necessary but it was their only criticism of SD after playing our 1st campaign. I don't think I'd have made they change if they hadn't asked.

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