My Notes on Shadow of the Demon Lord

I'm using this to capture my impressions and thoughts of the game as I run it. It's not really a review, but rather something adjacent to that. I had previously read Shadow of the Demon Lord (SotDL) and had a positive impression of it. I liked the strong, short level progression and it's tight coupling to adventure arcs. As someone who has had many open ended campaigns sputter out, the prospect of establishing the length of the game arc beforehand, and having the structure of play support it seemed really fantastic.

That said, grimdark has never really been my thing. I loved chargen and advancement in Warhammer FRP, but the actual game and setting never really moved my needle. I also have somewhat different experiences with very weak starting characters. I have never been one for a funnel game, but years of playing and running Rolemaster have made me very comfortable with and appreciative of a game where death looms large, especially for new characters.

So, those were my impressions as I picked up the book to prep for the first session. What follows is what I found along the way.

General Observations

• I like a lot of things about this game, but the sanity rules do not make the list. They're a fine implementation of something that you "have to" (had to) have for a horror game, but at this point they just feel vestigial.

Combat

• If you asked me before I dove into it, I would have described the combat system in SotDL as "gritty", but upon further inspection, I have to withdraw that assertion and replace it with something closer to "horror". Why the distinction? Both involve combat which is lethally harsh. However, in a gritty game, that harshness is even handed - you might drop dead from a stray arrow to the eye, but so might the guy you're fighting. Horror, on the other hand, has no need for fairness. Monsters can tank hits and dish out big damage and characters are obliged to play catchup with that.
• This is, to be clear, not a bad design decision. It's just noteworthy because my expectations were closer to "gritty", which I still have a deep fondness for from Rolemaster.
• The biggest way this comes out in play is that there is less reward for playing it smart (except where smart is defined as avoiding fights, perhaps). In rolemaster, the fact that fights coudl go south quickly and drastically meant that players went out of their way to avoid fair fights whenever possible. You got sneaky and smart, and the mechanics aligned with that. I'm still getting my hands around the nuances of combat, but from what I've seen so far, there are many fewer options to fight smart and dirty within this system. Not to say there aren't tactical options, but rather that none of them tilt things enough to change the experience dramatically.
• I'm going to pay a lot of attention to this, especially as the characters level. It's possible that my initiatial impression is incorrect, and I admit that I kind of hope it is.
• So, 3 fights so far. One against thugs, one was agaisnt rats and one TPK against a far too dangerous opponent. Of those, only the last felt really dynamic - the other two started out fine but quickly turned into "STAND HERE AND HIT GUY" exchanges, which was kind of dull, but the game really penalized any attempt to do anything creative (because accuracy is already so low that taking on voluntary banes was a great way to roll to do nothing). I am really worried about this as we move forward, and I'll be trying to take steps to offset it, but with the options available to characters, I genuinely don't know how much I can do.

Inevitable Comparisons to D&D

• So far, I feel like a lot of SotDL feel slike D&D written in shorthand. The result is a lot shorter than D&D, which is good, but it also feels like it hangs together because it rests on a foundational knowledge of D&D.

Setting

• The setting seems fine, and if anything, it's rather less grimdark and more generic D&D than I woudl have expected.
• It has one disappointment to it, though. The game sets a really fantastic tone with its choice of player ancestries. Dwarves and humans, sure, but the other 4 are goblins, changelings, clockwork and orcs. That spread of ancestries suggests a really interesting, really different sort of setting. Unfortunately, the ancestries only minimally resonate with the setting. There's no sense of goblin neighborhoods or clockwork societies or anything else this very non-standard array of possibilities suggest.

Random Thoughts

• The point at which I realized that NPC knives do 2d6 damage while PC knives do 1d3 is the point at which I realized there was no fairness to be expected in this system.
• The absence of concentration rules produced a number of weird effects. Notably, the mage's spells persisted despite his being knocked unconcious, which seemed pretty potent.