Mojeek a web search not from the big few

 Might be good, need to research it:

https://www.mojeek.com/

Shadowdark - anti-mage concerns

The Question: Is offensive Magic too weak in Shadowdark (SD)?

 I need to do a full analysis (mathematical), but my initial worries are coming back. What follows is just the beginnings of an analysis, so take things with a grain of salt for now. 

My Basic Tenets on why magic spells should hit hard (harder than a melee martial type guy's avg attacks):

1. Limited spells per day. As a mage/magic-user/blaster, you have a limited number per day. You have to guess when preparing (SD fixes the guessing at least, thanks for that, but high chance for spells to fizzle). 
• Compare to a melee guy who might swing 10 times per fight and hit 5+ of those 10 times. 
• A Mage-caster type in the char level range of 3-5 during an average fight might cast 1 big spell, and if it misses, he might try another big or medium spell. If it hits, that could be his main contribution. In between those things he might be doing some very minimal ranged damage, at least in non-5e combat where there are no free high dmg Cantrips. 
2. Chance to fail. Often times in D&D or SD the chance for spells to fail is significant, so even more limits on "doing your thing" and doing it well. So when you do get off the full "hit" of your spell, it needs to be large and impactful. If you are doing average damage per round and not anything more, and with no option to do much more, then why pick a magic using class with all the costs and potential fizzles and failures? 
3. Tactical and coolness variation. If everybody just an avg. of 10 HP of dmg each round, it would sure be a boring game. 
4. Mages die easily/ glass cannons. Mages need to concentrate on defensive movement in order to deliver hard hitting offense. If they get out of position, it hurts them more than most (all other?) classes. 
5. The "Controller" thing that gets thrown around in 5e analysis. True, a mage sometimes is using his spells to break up the enemy and control the battlefield. Sleep/Web/Wall of Force (where is wall of fire, I missed it?) seem to be the ones in SD that at least sort of do that job. Wizards in SD aren't casting those every single battle, but they are critical spells. 

• Consider the flip side to what a magic caster is
• High HP, armor and shield options, 
• infinite attack chances with a melee or ranged weapon, 
• variety through gear. 
• Every roll of 20 is a crit (SD giving crit rolls to magic users is something). 
• Missing has no direct penalty (you don't run out of swords at least, might run out of missile weapons like arrows) other than to delay killing of a foe. 
• I'll give a funny example, which explains things clearly and annoyingly:
• I had a magic user type character in a Shadowdark game, was doing almost no dmg with my magic missile (which BTW, I had to use a luck token on to not lose the spell after the first failed attempt... first spell even in Shadowdark was a failure, how appropriate. You figure if it is a 25% chance to fail your first advantage spell roll, 25% of people playing SD have experienced this annoying failure. Or without advantage, a 45% chance to fail your level 1 spell at level 1 char... 45% failure is a lot. No wonder it's so common to give folks a luck token to start off.)
• 1 dmg (plus luck token wasted). 2 dmg. 1 dmg. Those were 3 rounds of trying to kill a monster with magic missile. 
• Switched to an Obsidian Dagger, thrown, hit for 6 damage. Killed a monster. Yeah, that's about right. It seems better to use the luck token on an Obsidian Dagger throw than a Magic Missile in SD, if you need to kill a monster ASAP at low level. 

Assuming monster hitpoints are about half (verify/compare) of what 5e is, and approx. the same HP as B/X... are the offensive magic spells good enough? 

FIREBALL in SD - OK at first then weak 

• Fireball in 5e is 8d6 without upcast. 
• Fireball in SD is 4d6, cannot upcast(?).  Might be similar to 5e. But probably roughly half the power of B/X at higher levels. 
• Fireball in B/X is 5d6 at level 5 (perhaps comparable to level 3 char in SD), and 20d6 at level 20 char (comparable to level 10 in SD). 

MAGIC MISSILE in SD - conclusion, maybe total junk?

• SD's MM does 1d4. At all levels. No +1, no nothing. 
• 5e at 3d4+3 at base level casting. So much better at level 1, decent/avg later. 
• B/X is 1d6+1 and increasing...  5th level char, I think it'd be 3d6+3. Seems kinda strong from level 3 and up. 

Arguments that SD's Dmg is lower across the board

• Spell Crits vs. Spell Backfires - So the argument might be that you can spell crit in SD. But the counter argument is that you can die from your own spell on a roll of 1 in SD. 
• Do melee characters do less dmg? 
• We see a range of melee weapons, mostly the same as D&D 5e including a SD Greatsword doing 1d12 (SD Greataxe does 1d10 I think instead of 5e's 1d12 , that feels more like anti-lawsuit differences). 
• And IF the SD AC is more like 5e where you hit much more frequently than B/X or 1e D&D, then I would say melee is very very roughly 75% of where it is in dmg output in 5e
• because SD doesn't use the STRength Modifier doing extra damage. 

Anti-Magic Sentiment is a common theme with the OSR new school old school folks

• SD has Spell backfires (like the DCC spell backfire detriment but without the spellburn to nuke things and without the cool magic tables that do crazy powerful things if you roll high and/or spellburn and/or luck... soo SD has probably almost all of the bad, almost none of the good.)
• There are way more martial or mostly martial character classes in SD. 
• SD has right now 8-9 or so Martial Classes (including Ranger + Knight of St. Ydris AKA a palandin, and the Warlock which is 90% melee). 
1. Fighter - 1d8 HP per level
2. Knight of St. Ydris  - 1d6 HP per level
3. Warlock - 1d6 HP per level
4. Ranger - 1d8 HP per level
5. Desert Rider (the Camel dude) - 1d8 HP per level
6. Pit fighter - 1d8 HP per level
7. Sea Wolf - 1d8 HP per level
8. Basilisk warrior - 1d8 HP per level
9. Thief/Ras-Godai maybe - 1d6 HP per level
• SD had 3 semi-offensive magic-caster classes so far, only one is mostly offensive... the Wizard. 
1. Wizard
1. Has 12 spells per spell level
2. witch 
1. Has 10 spells per spell level. 
3. seer -  - 1d6 HP per level - - leather armor (so much more support roles, much more like the Cleric)
1. Has only 4 spells per spell level
• The Necromancer class is coming, so maybe that will be another offensive caster. 
• SD Specialist/Mixed/Support Classes
• Thief
• Cleric
• Bard
• Ras-Godai (assassin with some powers, looks like a Ninja)

• Compare to D&D 5e's (this is hard b/c subclasses can change a lot)
• Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk(?), Rogue, Paladin, (Thief/Assassin?)
• Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock (true caster)
• 
  

Atari style games online

 https://www.coolmathgames.com/0-missile-command?utm_content=CTA_You_Will_Also_Like#immersiveModal

Works well on phones

Sword & Sorcery authors, old and new

New time 15:00, Whetstone discord, free digital sword & sorcery stories  

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HbhY79jipUU&t=940s&pp=0gcJCZEKAYcqIYzv

And this part. Mostly covers Howard and Conan https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tlfZsAPODTE

Modern new stuff- recommends “the eye of Sounnu” by Schuyler Hernstrom… little like Vance and Howard. DMR Books sell it . 

Gamebooks list, and The Sun Gulpers

 Sun Gulpers a Shadowdark solo or double (GM plus player) gamebook, by the guy that has made 100 adventures. 

Plus many more below

https://www.randroll.com/solo-rpg-pdfs/

Thundarr new comic is excellent

 How to buy now?

https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/5767778/thundarr-the-barbarian-1

See art via https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zorKVcDd678&t=183s

And art https://www.flickeringmyth.com/comic-book-preview-thundarr-the-barbarian-1/

Buy digital version https://www.veve.me/comics/issue/115978d3-6aa8-473a-b599-8adfa29a1e4b

Maybe buy reql version?!?? Here https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/5767778/thundarr-the-barbarian-1

Dnd type writer guy, did a 5 Conan thing (and Sun Gulpers)

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qBSH3WzhIFo&t=1373s

Hyborian Adventures  (for Shadowdark).

Time 22:00ish. 

Btw, this fellownhas like 100 adventures out there. 

He also did the Shadowdinder Complete Bestiary 

Words - copse

 Copse sounds like “cops”, not “copes”. 

Ill Be damned. 

Thundarr quotes vs. ThRANdarr

 Thundarr quotes, or close enough. 

ThRANdarr in place of Thundarr.

Notice how he is pretty much always yelling things or sounding like a choppier version of a superhero 1970s TV style. 

>> And quotes to use:

> And what say you, ~Wizard?~

>> Demon dogs!

The sounds of battle!

> There! The xxxxx!

> This is the ~Wizard’s~ work!

> I can’t …hold it … for long!

• Not while Thrandarr holds his steel sword!
• Lords of LIGHT!
• What?! A woman!!
• This way!
• You have but tasted Thrandarr’s fury! Soon (someone) [you] will feast on it!
• NoOOooo!
• You will die, Creature! I swear it on my life! 

OSE new stuff and a module... has some weird modern vibes I'm not digging

OSE. It is NOT B/X, well at least as I'm seeing it used by one guy. 

Another guy purposely disallows all the BS, and it actually feels like B/X, so I like that vibe a lot more. 

Not much digging the additional evil critters as player classes. 

Not much digging the new funky classes. I mean... I don't hate every one of them per say, but... I think I'd rather traditional + give magic items if you need the bump. 

Not enjoying the goofy vibes of one of the modules. I mean, parts of it are good... but it's getting too goofy for my liking. 

Playthrough of =Flooded Crypt of the Necromancer= (Spoilers) Shadowdark

Lawful Cherry One-Shots (via StartPlaying.Games website). (((Lawful Cherry is awesome, I highly recommend doing it again with him as DM))). 

Foundry Virtual Tabletop - A Self-Hosted & Modern Role-playing Platform
Did the free One Shot from the big free book of oneshots. SHOTS IN THE DARK.

***We had Four level-1 characters (above avg stats) and 7, count them, 7 luck tokens to start. My fighter went down 3 times, and we used 6 out of 7 luck tokens (rerolled to keep spells, not die one time, etc.). This was a difficult module without all the extras.***
 Was a ton of fun, but without the extras it would have been a massacre. 

=Flooded Crypt of the Necromancer=

Statue. Footprints. Entrance. A little loot early on. Weird murals all over. Angumar took an emerald (later another), dwarves can't resist. 

Spores in rotten chair in like the 2nd room, lol. Max dmg roll on the dice. 

Lotsa skeletons.

One funny skeleton, I said "intelligence, what say you skeleton?" and she jibberjabbered a ton. Then Timmy decided to nuke her, she started screaming, woke up other undead skellies. 

Wight was tough, drained a CON from Angumar. Thank god for Turn Undead.

"Victory!!" yelled my Fighter, Throndr.

Bandits and/or ppl from poor village. 

I used gem as lure under door, watched with MIRROR under door, cast sleep through crack when they got close (just she was affected). 

The lady had a bearing of a "noble" or something who had fallen. She tried to trikc us, bookshelf to the Ghost. Then she ran. 

Ghost was scary. 

Leveled up at end. Took on the ghost (scary, possession) and the Troll (wand of undead to sacrifice 4(ow! bad roll) CON to get a one time Wraith. It nuked the troll, muahaha! Lotsa loot and all that. 

RESULTS: the 6 HP fighter went down 3 times... I mean he went down immediately from spores in rotten chair in like the 2nd room, lol. Max dmg roll on the dice. 

Sidenote: Technical tricks with Foundry VTT 

• Drag select more than one (Box Select) will let you move two characters at once. Careful though, b/c you HAVE to Box Select a single guy to get back to just doing a single guy movement. 
• Something bugged out and my dice on the screen disappeared midway through, and I never got them back. It seemed to happen when I did an F11 fullscreen... not sure though. Using Chrome. Related to this "dice not showing between players" from year 2021 thing here??? 
• Or maybe this other "Dice is Nice" module issue here on reddit??

Lawful Cherry, my quick review notes on our DM/GM who we just met today:

• Perfect amount of fun/funny mixed in. He went with our flow for sure. 
• Generous but didn't hold punches, all those public rolls you know. My guy went down 3 times I think, yep. 
• Can do a few voices, nice stuff. 
• Foundry looked good. 
• Music and sound effects worked very well. I loved the opening vault door sound... very impactful. 

https://torchlighttimer.com/ We r ShadowDarking

 We r gonna play  I like this torch timer website, looks cool. 

https://torchlighttimer.com/

Great Fighting Fantasy book

 Sounds like the near perfect one  not super hard, but good all around  

I love the art

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HwJJ1-3msbI&pp=2AbVCtIHCQmRCgGHKiGM7w%3D%3D

And commentor UchronianKing is right on place names:

Axmoor

Duddington

Crowford

D&D inspriring Very British vibe on those names.