I really like that Shadow cuts out godhood and just makes characters heroic. I hope that the current backlash against WOTC means games like this get a little more sunshine!
The 10 levels are intentional. It’s based on statistics from TSR and WotC saying that players do not often reach higher levels before the campaign ends. So this way you get the full experience and power in shorter time.
also... you just simply can play ALL D&D / Pathfinder modules. You just don't rush the level ups and tbh most battles and encounters are just "ok do this so the players are leveld up"
So true. If I made a TTRPG or worked at a company that did, I would send a copy for free to Dave. Dave's videos have inspired me to buy many books for my collection.
I adore SotDL. Easy to teach to DnD players, it has even simpler rules, but provides much much... much more options. The setting can be a hit and miss, but it's not an integral part of the rule system. Btw, in SotDL Health means your maximum HP. When you are hit, you do not lose Health but rather gain damage, which incapacitates your character if it becomes equal your Health. Decreasing Health is a rare mechanic, that's why it's so lethal.
The way levelling up works in Shadow of the Demon Lord is so much more satisfying than any rpg I have ever played. The amount of choices and just how exciting it is to level is just awesome. Love this game!
I think that larger channels need to follow your lead and make these kinds of videos. I think this concept will give many GMs a way out of One D&D. In reality it is gamer developers vs corporate developers battle right now.
I ran SotDL last year and we had lots of fun with it, creating a few new fan, one who went on and bought everything. In our short campaign we had one PC death but we all agreed that he kind of deserved it. lol What is remarkable about the game is the huge variety of combinations of different path, making sure your character will be truly unique. You want a magician gunslinger? Done. Awesome game. Highly recommended.
I am loving the simplicity of SotDL from the bottom of my heart. Almost everything feels fun in this game and the possibilites for players are nearly endless. I've always run thematically lighter campaigns and it worked totally fine! Playtest for Weird Wizard is currently in it's last iteration before Kickstarter launches. Schwalb's guess for the launch is the first week of March. I'm hoping that it will reach a much wider audience and bring success to Schwalb as he is a profound RPG writer and designer who deserves it.
I like SotDL and I don't want to defend d&d crunch but the attribute system modifier table is very simple. Take the score minus 10 and divide that number by 2. Round down. (X-10)/2
My TTRP group has just started a SotDL game, and it is so much fun. I love the Banes and Boons system, and how simple it is and the way you build your character
Shadow of the Demon Lord is everything I wanted DND to be. It is my go-to system for Fantasy game. I especially want to praise amazing creature design - there are no monsters that are simple hp bags, and each and every one has some sort of interesting ability that has influence on the outcome of combat encounters.
Agree completely with Farrew. Shadow of The Demon Lord has a great toolkit to make our own monsters too. One of my favorite parts of Shadow of the Demon Lord.
I’m playing shadow of the demon lord now, solo, and it’s a lot easier to play the system solo compared to DND in my opinion as well. (whoever is interested in solo)
I've been thinking about a solo SotDL. Do you have any tips or hints specific to the game to play solo? Maybe quirks of the system or tweaks that you had to do. Would be of great help.
@@new1093 with this game in particular, there wasn’t much tweaking needed because the rules were quite simple, but I would suggest acquiring a game, master emulator, and tables or various categories you could roll on to create random events.
I have only played two Sodtl one shots and they were both incredibly fun to run through. The system is intuitive and it helps i have a couple friends that are dark souls fans. As a system it gives a lot of flexibility to do many crazy things and homebrew and also expand on the rules. There are awesome outside of character creation tools you can use (which is my favourite thing) like true naming and devil contracts. Overall one can really love this game if they put the time to learn it.
Excellent video... and I'm happy to have this conclusion because I adopted shadow as my CORE game/system when many go to the DnD side... This game attracted me a lot because of the simplicity in understanding the system, the world,... the horror with "a pinch" of steampunk mixed with dark fantasy attracted me a lot. I really like to explain to newbies that SotDL is like a mixture of "DnD and Call of Cthulhu". xD And as the analysis of the video focused only on presenting the main Book of Shadow, it did not show the numerous additional ideas of the other books, such as new paths, ancestries, spells (these have a book called "Ocullt philosophy" with a number of spells that would be the envy of many high fantasy systems,... if I remember there are more than 700 spells not counting those in the main book and the other spells and traditions that appear in other supplement books, I believe that if you put them all together, they would exceed 1000 spells) Anyway... I loved the video because in addition to being very informative for me, it will certainly open the eyes of many players who are looking for something that resembles DnD but is different from it. Congratulations!
Great review. As someone working on her own dark horror fantasy trpg this is very interesting. I have very different design sensibilities and my world building is more grounded in low fantasy.
Thank you so much for this breakdown! This sounds like everything I want to jump into, streamlined "classes" that can be simple if you just pick "priest, cleric, etc" over and over or customized completely in an intended way preventing you from missing out or double diping into same abilities thay just dont combine with each other (looking at any 5e martial and multiatack). Having straight "lvls" instead of more "buy effects" character creation, to make progression fairly even among player groups, while allowing a ton of variety. The grim setting is something I am sure my dm would love and I myself wouldnt mind working it a bit down for more fantasy play when I dm but with shadow of the wizard coming it seems like it'll be a none-issue at all soon enough.
Dave! Your video, narration, and atmosphere quality is developing so fiercely that its hard to hold pace with it! What you are making with and for our hobby is truly remarkable! I wish you all the best for your very very hard work, and I hope this channel will get the attention it deserves.
SotDL is great D&D Alternative. I often sell it as "Dark Souls TT RPG" as the world of Rhul is as dark as those of Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Once, I proposed a boss rush to my players. I anticipated a complete onslaugh. Well, happened, but in the player's side! In fact, SotDl does what D&D 5 does but better : more options, banes & boons are more precise and still as easy to use as advantage & disadvantage, tiers of powers are clear as cristal water. It is a better Warhammer Fantasy and a better D&D 1 one game and 1 book, plus it has many add-ons!
I really appreciate your coverage of this game. 👍🏻 I've always enjoyed Schwalb's work, particularly some of his adventures. A little, occasional horror is more than enough for me, so I've continually pushed SotDL to the backburner. I've long wanted to peruse it, but always end up waiting. I enjoy D&D, including 5E, but sometimes I want to play something a bit less mechanics-focused. I have some games I like for this style, but none yet feel just right for fantasy. Maybe SotDL will be the one, mechanically speaking. Now, I need to finish this video. 😉
Having now finished the video, I absolutely will check out Shadow. I may wait for his "Weird Wizard" release, since it might put to use lessons learned in "Demon Lord". I'll always be able to dip into the SotDL books and bring over any mechanics I may wish. Again, thanks a lot for this review, and all the others. Your channel is a treasure.
My group switched to SotDL after about 9 months of DnD (which was my first TTRPG). Really quite a good system that fit my expectation of what DnD is way better than DnD 5e.
Started reading SotDL, but it was on PDF, and never made it into my brain. I did like the doppelganger as a PC species, and I liked that they turned to dirt and garbage when killed. Very thematic. I think the list of games that does what D&D does, but better is only getting longer, and in the information age, I think it's only a matter of time I suspect it's only a matter of time before the monolith of the RPG market completely fractures into specific games to cater to specific taste.
This video might just have made SotDL my new game to run. I was gonna play Forbidden Lands, but this game seems to hit all the bases that I want to see in a TTRPG.
I hope Wierd Wizard have by default the section rule game options. I prefer the alternative casting point system vs the casting mechanic described in the manual
I disagree with a notion that making a game aimed at a niche audience is a mistake. The biggest issue with 5e is that it's a grey goo without an identity beyond surface level as it tries to appeal to the biggest possible audience
You can play anything in the setting. Every country has it’s own theme going on. Pirate, knights and chivalry, primitive, steam punk etc. And limit the traditions available and your good to go.
@@MrXacus Not the point. You are correct in that anything could be played in the setting. The concern is the reaction of the public. We all know that DND was not a Satan-pushing sacrilege fest. But that didn't stop the general public from freaking out about it. If we want high participation in the hobby, we need options that don't include a "scatological setting," as referenced above.
Shadow of the Demon Lord was awesome. I am in awe that it and so many of its supplements were all written by one dude. I never ran a campaign of it from 1 to 10, but even gong to level 5 was very fun. Every level mattered, the combat was fast and loose and bloody, and the theme did not bother me and my players too much (I didn't lean in on some of the darkest parts of the setting or magic or insanity though). I would back Shadow of the Weird Wizard in a heartbeat, day one.
The reason DC for everything is 10 is because the GM is told to add boons or banes to different things. If you are climbing a cliff face that might be a DC 10. If it's raining you can add 1 bane. If there are already established footholds or ropes you can add 1 boon. If your profession or background would have involved traversing terrain like this you can add 1 boon and so on Because Banes and Boons can be anything from a 5% to a 30% modifier each has a chance to be impactful. They also stack making it a higher likelyhood to succeed without it stacking flatly where you get a +30 to a roll, but rather just a much more consistent chance of getting a good roll. This way the DC can just be a 10 which is already a challenge for Novice character who likely have a 60% chance at it if they focused that attribute where as expert and master level character are much more likely to do it and able to cancel out banes that would make a very hard challange possible. That's how i see it
Finally this system is starting to get attention! My table has switched to this system over a year ago ± and we haven't looked back We've finally seen a campaign reach its proper end and have recently started a new one
@Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews There was little of that, actually, since the GM isn't a fan of such things, but there was one moment that broke the table... A quick recap was that my character died 100 years prior to the story, and came back to life 2 years before the start, with 0 recollection of his final moments or resurrection (I left that in the hands of the GM) During one bossfight, the GM drops revelation me: my character was actually a clone of the person he thought he was, a puppet brought to life with falsified memories in an attempt to unravel the secrets of life. The following identity crisis was... interesting to play out
I wonder if there are any rules for adapting 5e adventures to Shadow actually, I think something like Rime of the Frostmaiden would play a lot better in Demon Lord ruleset than the one it was actually published for.
Both games in this video are great. Got a copy of grand Odyssey sitting on my desk and have spoken about it a bunch and shadows is also a wonderful game that gets overlooked way too much.
Slight error in the video: reaching 0 HP doesn't automatically mean death for PCs. This is the case for things like taking damage equal to your health from one source or if the character has insane corruption. However, normally PCs get fate checks which are a whole thing. Basically, if you roll a 1 on a 1d6, you start dying, but roll a 6 on that same check you heal 1 damage and are back to normal. Don't get either of those results 3 times, you're knocked out for a bit. If you're dying, you roll that 1d6 until you get a 1 or 6, you can guess what happens with both.
So I watched this video because I got this book a while ago and flicked through it before kinda forgetting about it. Watching your video defs made me quite excited to try and run a game and I am sure I can find some people interested. I do have to question how great having "100s of options and spells' are though. You mentioned it as one of the main reasons why it beat 5e in certain places. The problem is as I was reading the book a lot of the spells are basically copy pasted with very littler variance. Now I will say I haven't read the book super in depth but this is just something I noticed and it still bothers me even if its not that common. Several spell traditions have some sort of magic attack at rank 1 that does around 2d6 or 3d6 damage and that is it. Or an AOE that does around 6d6 damage and little else. The utility spells seem to be where the variety is but as I said they can be a bit repetitive. There are defs some cool spells in here but compared to 5e I think it is more interesting to have a smaller number of spells that all do different things rather than 100s of different ways to do damage. I found this sort of extends to the classes as well. Some have really cool abilities but others defs feel really lacking. Some classes are better than others but yeah having a million options is good but eventually your going to start wearing out your ways to make variety. Overall I can't say if i agree with this video because I haven't played SotDL. But I am very keen to try it out and hopefully can play it as a player in the future.
I've heard plenty of good things about this system and some things that I personally wanted in an trpg. This video confirmed what I've heard and doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on them. I'll definetly get into this, but getting my trpg hesitant friends to this system from the more established IP seems like a challange...
I suspect if WotC rolls the new "OGL" back that many people will stick with D&D and gobble up the glorified subscription service that is One D&D. But I refuse to play anything after 5e. I am collecting rulebooks and plan on pulling my main groups away from WotC. Currently I recommend the Fallout Tabletop from Modiphius, Atomic Highway (PDF is free on DriveThruRPG), Traveller, and Savage Worlds. I'm currently looking into Cyberpunk Red and Shadowrun 6e as well.
The more generic fantasy version of SotDL, Shadow of the Weird Wizard is coming out soon. The playtest docks are available on the SotDL Discord. At a glance I am very, very excited to try the system out!
Thanks for shedding some light on this game! I've heard it mentioned a thousand times before but never checked it out, I really love the sound of the character advancement system! The aesthetic is probably a tad too edgy for me though so I might wait and see how Weird Wizard turns out.
I've been running SotDL games for years at this point and let me tell you I am happy I trusted my instincts with picking it up. I know people find the default setting a little grim, but It works for my group and enables their sense of humor and love for being threatened by horrifying creatures, both. This game kept me away from horrors of 5e design and allowed me to enjoy all the mutated filthy horrors I loved from my whfrp 2nd ed. days.
Regarding your comment on whether he should've made this game horror or milktoast fantasy, the choice for a small developer is making a less popular version of something someone makes, or making something not many others make.
There actually are 100% full blown speampunk styled airships in the setting. I don't think I'd have ever given D&D the one-up in terms of setting, mainly because I just wouldn't have included all the other options D&D supposedly has beyond Forgotten Realms. Most of them aren't supported, the ones which have had new books are also poorly done.
As far as rules design I do feel you can compare indie to big corporate made games. Well written rules aren't made by throwing money at the problem but by people with innovative ideas.
I agree. But you then also need to market that to expect to sell copies. Chaosium's recent success has been due in part because of superb quality, and in part due to really aggressive awesome marketing. They leveraged Becca Scott, Critical Roll, and other nerdy gaming personalities who are also cool/beautiful people.
I'm planning on converting the most recent 5e adventure to SDL for my weekly games. I just can't support what WoTC is doing but want to enjoy the book I recently got (before the leak). I love SDL and consistently just ignore the horror element in favor of the excellent mechanics. So far, that's worked out fine. My fondest memory is when my brother played a clockwork who eventually died to revel it was a marine from our world kept in stasis protection for unknown reasons. This marine proceeded to use his limited ammunition Glock 19 to mag dump my final demon boss!
@@DaveThaumavore only thing i'm a bit worried about is the low HP mixed with how slow it is to recover. i'm guessing that balances out with the damage output though. i can't imagine only having 20 HP max and being able to deal like 30 damage in one attack.
SotDL probably got noticed early on because of the theme. If it were generic fantasy, it probably wouldn't get as much notoriety. On its attribute modifiers, I don't know if att - 10 is good game design per se (I don't know how that works in play), but it sure is easy to memorize. In D&D for some reason they decided to average the modifiers twice. Once on the ability score generation roll (3d6 = bell curve) and then again on a table... Perhaps they wanted to keep the mods low in either direction, positive or negative, so you wouldn't have a "+8" or a "-6" mod, and thus combat rounds would be more random, less deterministic. The class system in SotDL also seems like a simplification of the career system in WFRP, which sounds great.
To answer your attribute question 10 is your “0” modifier every point on your attributes matter. An eleven score on say strength with give you a +1 modifier and +1 to your HP. All four attributes are connected to a secondary attribute. So no bloated numbers and all attributes matter.
You don't get as wide a range of statistic values. For example, having a STR of 13 is a +3 modifier. So every single point in a stat makes a bigger difference. So you typically won't see character stats over 14. Likewise, having something at 9 is a -1.
SotDL was a swing and a miss for my group. I have nothing but respect for Robert Schwalb, but my group was turned off by the lethality of the game. I like the rules overall, but I got the feeling that it was more balanced for larger groups of players, like 6 or more, than the 3 person group I played with at the time. I’m not just making that up, I spoke with at least one of the playtesters and he confirmed that the game was usually played in large groups. I think that might be the best way to enjoy this game. I also don’t know why Robert didn’t take the ability score simplification one step further and just make the number your bonus. Why force us to subtract 10? If you’re supposed to have a +2 why not just have a 2 instead of a 12? In general, I think this is a wonderful alternate history version of 5E that has a more fun version of Character Creation. The deadlines is just so steep. I made a few mistakes putting my party up against enemies they had no chance of escaping without losing at least one party member. I would definitely like to try running this again some day, and am excited to see what weird wizard had in store.
I haven't played this, but I love it for how much Schule streamlined and improved on some of the most common sticking points. Very poignant considering the current atmosphere around D&D. Would you consider giving your two cents when things are a bit more fleshed out with OGL and One D&D?
The problem with SoDL is not the horror theme, it’s actually not leaning into it enough, which reveals how it was chosen as a way to position the game in the fantasy RPG market. Fortunately, the next version will be the fantasy heartbreaker this was meant to be.
Read through the book and I enjoyed it. I’m considering creating an adventure for it for a table one day. But I will say the grim dark horror theme got really boring after a while. Maybe I’m just getting older and that stuff doesn’t appeal to me anymore, but it kind of felt like the rpg book equivalent to a kid in school who keeps trying to shock everyone. After a while it just gets old. if I were to run this I’d probably ditch a lot of the revulsion that the author says to use sparingly. I’m far more interested in Weird Wizard and am hoping for an update on it soon.
Great comparison by the way. Both games are good, but it’s interesting to see how they stack up. I’d love to see more videos like this. I think it would be a great gateway for people looking to alternatives to D&D.
It really is a case of "do as I say, not as I do" with the horror I once read "Hunger in the Void"- the supplement dedicated to Demons, and lemme say it was _grotesque_
TBH. The horror is what is really appealing to me. There are a dime a dozen milk toast fantasies out there. I was next lining up a Mork Borg campaign but your vid here has really piqued my interest and I may pick up this book because of it.
The one question that gets in my head and has not gotten out, the real deep fear, is how much the SOTDL rules borrow from DND OSR (if any) that it and Weird Wizard would be subject to this whole mess with the OGL “update”? I already am seeing several game developers going full scorched earth with anything and everything they have created that uses even a single vowel from the OGL and I know, for a damn fact, that I won’t be able to follow them to where they are going.
Another thing: this was a very enjoyable review, could you do similar videos comparing some of the 5e alternatives you mentioned in a previous video? The way you broke down direct comparisons of the systems I think did a good job illustrating the differences for people already familiar with 5e. I have the tabs for torchbearer, 13th age, and fantasy age open on drivethru rpg but don't really have the time to deep dive into them.
My one complaint about SotDL is that it doesn't do exploration that well and the majority of magic and abilities are about outright damage - which is fun, but it meant a lot of fights went very much the same way. Still more fun and varied than 5E though, which can die in a pit
I have run a few games with sotdl. It is a great game. I believe the rules are a bit more complex and cluncky than they seem at first read. For instance the boons and banes as well as the fast turn and slow turn mechanics tend to slow action and turn resolution. Still it is a great player oriented rpg, I'm curious to see if sotww will carry enhancement to the system, making it faster and easier to play.
SotDL is the most innovative game in the classic fantasy system genre. Now that genre isn't particularly innovative, but if I'm forced to run it, I'm picking Shadow.
My players really liked how the character classes functioned, and that they made a very few, very meaningful choices (at levels 1/3/7) instead of a bunch of more trivial ones (like minor +1/2's from feats) that they have to do every level up, or messing with gear. Just streamlines it a lot. The fast/slow combat with no initiative also feeds into this. Just a much cleaner experience. I think the Insanity/corruption mechanics are half-baked, though. I tend to have a problem with them in a most games they crop up (like Delta Green, one of my favorites in general), where their application, while thematic, doesn't seem mechanically as relevant. While DG had a slew of minor things that might trigger it and the values to lower it slowly over time, the payoff wasn't that great. In SotD, triggering them seems ill supported and each tier is very significant, so there isn't the slower dread of losing sanity. If these rules were as clean and well integrated as everything else, I feel like the setting would be better realized, since you could more accurately support the horror/insanity/corruption themes of the game.
@@DaveThaumavore I like the concept of insanity and other meta-inflictions in a game, but I have no idea how someone would pull it off properly mechanically. Something like Blades in the Dark stress, maybe? All I know is I'd never try to include it in a game I was designing unless I have a total banger of an idea. Like sure, if you just have players who are 100% bought in actors and will play their characters slowing losing grip, that works, but then you don't even need rules or a GM for that, haha.
@@NineConsonants I made a homebrew system with stress, panics, and disorders rather than sanity. Characters that pass a stress threshold develop a disorder, which is a character unique pressure valve for stress. These are positive traits actually, rather than spiraling your character down. Addiction for example doubles stress healed by your chosen substance. Depression has a daily chance for a "bad day" where you are so emotionally numb that you do not gain stress except in combat. Memory Loss kicks in when you take too much stress from a single encounter. In that case you lose all memory of the event and take zero stress. My intent with the system is that characters become more eccentric over time due to the horrors and trauma of the world. Lets face it: Its anticlimactic to lose a character to insanity. Theres usually no brave sacrifice, no last words, sometimes its not even done in session, just retired between sessions. Instead of that I just turned it into a mechanical system which helps people roleplay their characters and adds to the darker theme of the world.
I would also suggest that other people in the comments promote other TTRPG that do not use OGL, as a way to providing alternatives for the players in the meantime this whole thing is happening.
Honestly there are plenty of games that would at least wound 5e, but because D&D has the advantage of popular attention, money, and legacy, other systems rarely get a fair fight.
5e was designed as a crowd pleaser system, and it succeeded at that. But once you develop a personal taste for RPGs, it might be good to look at to systems that specialize in specific aspects. SotDL, 13th Age, OSR systems, Pathfinder 2 (to mention only d20 fantasy games), all experiences a bit more tailored to certain preferences. With all the WotC OGL debacle, this should be a no brainer.
It is a great role playing game. My first character was a Goblin chef that killed and ate 100 diseased rats and was a major reason that people came into the inn he cooked at!!
Modern design will always trump a system that is neck deep in game design founded in the early 2000s. As much as 4e wasn't what people expected it tried something new and succeeded at rewriting the engine of the game and creating something fun and different. 5e design is made to be as welcoming as possible for veteran and new players but as a result has no identity or voice of its own. It is simultaneously very open but also incredibly restrictive as a system and certain themes or stories will not be possible with the mechanics as is. 5e is great at telling heroic D&D stories at its core and it does it well but beyond that it requires a lot of tweaking to make it do something it wasn't designed to do.
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I really like that Shadow cuts out godhood and just makes characters heroic. I hope that the current backlash against WOTC means games like this get a little more sunshine!
Yeah me too.
The 10 levels are intentional. It’s based on statistics from TSR and WotC saying that players do not often reach higher levels before the campaign ends. So this way you get the full experience and power in shorter time.
also... you just simply can play ALL D&D / Pathfinder modules. You just don't rush the level ups and tbh most battles and encounters are just "ok do this so the players are leveld up"
Shadow of the Demon Lord has been my go to game for a couple years now since I discovered it.
Dave Thaumavore is a ttrpg national treasure.
Haha! Thanks.
second that. keep up the good work
*ttrpg world treasure
So true. If I made a TTRPG or worked at a company that did, I would send a copy for free to Dave. Dave's videos have inspired me to buy many books for my collection.
I adore SotDL. Easy to teach to DnD players, it has even simpler rules, but provides much much... much more options. The setting can be a hit and miss, but it's not an integral part of the rule system.
Btw, in SotDL Health means your maximum HP. When you are hit, you do not lose Health but rather gain damage, which incapacitates your character if it becomes equal your Health. Decreasing Health is a rare mechanic, that's why it's so lethal.
The way levelling up works in Shadow of the Demon Lord is so much more satisfying than any rpg I have ever played. The amount of choices and just how exciting it is to level is just awesome. Love this game!
I think that larger channels need to follow your lead and make these kinds of videos.
I think this concept will give many GMs a way out of One D&D. In reality it is gamer developers vs corporate developers battle right now.
Thanks for saying so!
I ran SotDL last year and we had lots of fun with it, creating a few new fan, one who went on and bought everything. In our short campaign we had one PC death but we all agreed that he kind of deserved it. lol What is remarkable about the game is the huge variety of combinations of different path, making sure your character will be truly unique. You want a magician gunslinger? Done. Awesome game. Highly recommended.
I am loving the simplicity of SotDL from the bottom of my heart. Almost everything feels fun in this game and the possibilites for players are nearly endless.
I've always run thematically lighter campaigns and it worked totally fine!
Playtest for Weird Wizard is currently in it's last iteration before Kickstarter launches. Schwalb's guess for the launch is the first week of March. I'm hoping that it will reach a much wider audience and bring success to Schwalb as he is a profound RPG writer and designer who deserves it.
I will play SoDL before 5e every single time. Its just a great game.
I like SotDL and I don't want to defend d&d crunch but the attribute system modifier table is very simple. Take the score minus 10 and divide that number by 2. Round down.
(X-10)/2
My TTRP group has just started a SotDL game, and it is so much fun. I love the Banes and Boons system, and how simple it is and the way you build your character
Shadow of the Demon Lord is everything I wanted DND to be. It is my go-to system for Fantasy game. I especially want to praise amazing creature design - there are no monsters that are simple hp bags, and each and every one has some sort of interesting ability that has influence on the outcome of combat encounters.
Agree completely with Farrew. Shadow of The Demon Lord has a great toolkit to make our own monsters too.
One of my favorite parts of Shadow of the Demon Lord.
I’m playing shadow of the demon lord now, solo, and it’s a lot easier to play the system solo compared to DND in my opinion as well. (whoever is interested in solo)
Solo gamers, rise up!
@@verrell1108it’s growing everyday.
I've been thinking about a solo SotDL. Do you have any tips or hints specific to the game to play solo? Maybe quirks of the system or tweaks that you had to do. Would be of great help.
@@new1093 with this game in particular, there wasn’t much tweaking needed because the rules were quite simple, but I would suggest acquiring a game, master emulator, and tables or various categories you could roll on to create random events.
Here's hoping Weird Wizard launches its kickstarter this quarter!
Fingers crossed.
+1
I've had this game since it came out and it's fantastic. Thanks for the video!
Would love to see a similar video on 13th Age. That one really stuck out to me when you mentioned it in the last video.
I have only played two Sodtl one shots and they were both incredibly fun to run through. The system is intuitive and it helps i have a couple friends that are dark souls fans. As a system it gives a lot of flexibility to do many crazy things and homebrew and also expand on the rules. There are awesome outside of character creation tools you can use (which is my favourite thing) like true naming and devil contracts. Overall one can really love this game if they put the time to learn it.
Excellent video... and I'm happy to have this conclusion because I adopted shadow as my CORE game/system when many go to the DnD side...
This game attracted me a lot because of the simplicity in understanding the system, the world,... the horror with "a pinch" of steampunk mixed with dark fantasy attracted me a lot.
I really like to explain to newbies that SotDL is like a mixture of "DnD and Call of Cthulhu". xD
And as the analysis of the video focused only on presenting the main Book of Shadow, it did not show the numerous additional ideas of the other books, such as new paths, ancestries, spells (these have a book called "Ocullt philosophy" with a number of spells that would be the envy of many high fantasy systems,... if I remember there are more than 700 spells not counting those in the main book and the other spells and traditions that appear in other supplement books, I believe that if you put them all together, they would exceed 1000 spells)
Anyway... I loved the video because in addition to being very informative for me, it will certainly open the eyes of many players who are looking for something that resembles DnD but is different from it.
Congratulations!
I was hoping someone would make this! Thanks!
You bet!
Great review. As someone working on her own dark horror fantasy trpg this is very interesting. I have very different design sensibilities and my world building is more grounded in low fantasy.
Thank you so much for this breakdown! This sounds like everything I want to jump into, streamlined "classes" that can be simple if you just pick "priest, cleric, etc" over and over or customized completely in an intended way preventing you from missing out or double diping into same abilities thay just dont combine with each other (looking at any 5e martial and multiatack).
Having straight "lvls" instead of more "buy effects" character creation, to make progression fairly even among player groups, while allowing a ton of variety.
The grim setting is something I am sure my dm would love and I myself wouldnt mind working it a bit down for more fantasy play when I dm but with shadow of the wizard coming it seems like it'll be a none-issue at all soon enough.
Dave! Your video, narration, and atmosphere quality is developing so fiercely that its hard to hold pace with it! What you are making with and for our hobby is truly remarkable! I wish you all the best for your very very hard work, and I hope this channel will get the attention it deserves.
Wow, thank you!
I’ve run several Shadow of the Demon Lord adventures and we all really enjoyed it. It’s quite good mechanically and thematically!
SotDL is great D&D Alternative. I often sell it as "Dark Souls TT RPG" as the world of Rhul is as dark as those of Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Once, I proposed a boss rush to my players. I anticipated a complete onslaugh. Well, happened, but in the player's side! In fact, SotDl does what D&D 5 does but better : more options, banes & boons are more precise and still as easy to use as advantage & disadvantage, tiers of powers are clear as cristal water. It is a better Warhammer Fantasy and a better D&D 1 one game and 1 book, plus it has many add-ons!
I really appreciate your coverage of this game. 👍🏻
I've always enjoyed Schwalb's work, particularly some of his adventures. A little, occasional horror is more than enough for me, so I've continually pushed SotDL to the backburner. I've long wanted to peruse it, but always end up waiting.
I enjoy D&D, including 5E, but sometimes I want to play something a bit less mechanics-focused. I have some games I like for this style, but none yet feel just right for fantasy. Maybe SotDL will be the one, mechanically speaking.
Now, I need to finish this video. 😉
Having now finished the video, I absolutely will check out Shadow.
I may wait for his "Weird Wizard" release, since it might put to use lessons learned in "Demon Lord". I'll always be able to dip into the SotDL books and bring over any mechanics I may wish.
Again, thanks a lot for this review, and all the others. Your channel is a treasure.
Thanks!
Nice! Thank you!
My group switched to SotDL after about 9 months of DnD (which was my first TTRPG). Really quite a good system that fit my expectation of what DnD is way better than DnD 5e.
Started reading SotDL, but it was on PDF, and never made it into my brain. I did like the doppelganger as a PC species, and I liked that they turned to dirt and garbage when killed. Very thematic. I think the list of games that does what D&D does, but better is only getting longer, and in the information age, I think it's only a matter of time I suspect it's only a matter of time before the monolith of the RPG market completely fractures into specific games to cater to specific taste.
This video might just have made SotDL my new game to run. I was gonna play Forbidden Lands, but this game seems to hit all the bases that I want to see in a TTRPG.
I hope Wierd Wizard have by default the section rule game options. I prefer the alternative casting point system vs the casting mechanic described in the manual
I disagree with a notion that making a game aimed at a niche audience is a mistake. The biggest issue with 5e is that it's a grey goo without an identity beyond surface level as it tries to appeal to the biggest possible audience
I just picked this up at the Bundle of Holding. They're very nice books.
love it about to finish my second campaign of it! i enjoy the gm simplicity and player options, not a fan that its all so spread out
Looking forward to the milder Shadow of the Weird Wizard.
^^^
Same here, I really enjoyed the mechanics but the game works better with a less scatological setting.
Agreed!
You can play anything in the setting. Every country has it’s own theme going on. Pirate, knights and chivalry, primitive, steam punk etc.
And limit the traditions available and your good to go.
@@MrXacus Not the point. You are correct in that anything could be played in the setting. The concern is the reaction of the public. We all know that DND was not a Satan-pushing sacrilege fest. But that didn't stop the general public from freaking out about it. If we want high participation in the hobby, we need options that don't include a "scatological setting," as referenced above.
Shadow of the Demon Lord was awesome. I am in awe that it and so many of its supplements were all written by one dude. I never ran a campaign of it from 1 to 10, but even gong to level 5 was very fun. Every level mattered, the combat was fast and loose and bloody, and the theme did not bother me and my players too much (I didn't lean in on some of the darkest parts of the setting or magic or insanity though). I would back Shadow of the Weird Wizard in a heartbeat, day one.
Yeah I’ll be backing WW for sure. Maybe even grabbing multiple copies of the hardback.
The reason DC for everything is 10 is because the GM is told to add boons or banes to different things. If you are climbing a cliff face that might be a DC 10. If it's raining you can add 1 bane. If there are already established footholds or ropes you can add 1 boon. If your profession or background would have involved traversing terrain like this you can add 1 boon and so on
Because Banes and Boons can be anything from a 5% to a 30% modifier each has a chance to be impactful. They also stack making it a higher likelyhood to succeed without it stacking flatly where you get a +30 to a roll, but rather just a much more consistent chance of getting a good roll. This way the DC can just be a 10 which is already a challenge for Novice character who likely have a 60% chance at it if they focused that attribute where as expert and master level character are much more likely to do it and able to cancel out banes that would make a very hard challange possible. That's how i see it
I prefer Dungeon Crawl Classics to Shadow but I do love SotDL. Thanks for reminding me to put it back in my game rotation. Great comparison.
I'm really not into horror themes but I am really excited for Shadow of the Weird Wizard, even more so after watching this video. Great overview!
Shadow is amazing and kind of fuses the best parts of D&D and WHFRP, and has a really nice Discord GM community on top
Finally this system is starting to get attention!
My table has switched to this system over a year ago ± and we haven't looked back
We've finally seen a campaign reach its proper end and have recently started a new one
What were some of the most gruesome moments in your campaign?
@Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews There was little of that, actually, since the GM isn't a fan of such things, but there was one moment that broke the table...
A quick recap was that my character died 100 years prior to the story, and came back to life 2 years before the start, with 0 recollection of his final moments or resurrection (I left that in the hands of the GM)
During one bossfight, the GM drops revelation me: my character was actually a clone of the person he thought he was, a puppet brought to life with falsified memories in an attempt to unravel the secrets of life.
The following identity crisis was... interesting to play out
I wonder if there are any rules for adapting 5e adventures to Shadow actually, I think something like Rime of the Frostmaiden would play a lot better in Demon Lord ruleset than the one it was actually published for.
Both games in this video are great. Got a copy of grand Odyssey sitting on my desk and have spoken about it a bunch and shadows is also a wonderful game that gets overlooked way too much.
i just joined a group that is giving this game a spin. I am more excited for this than anything in the last 3-4 years of gaming.
Slight error in the video: reaching 0 HP doesn't automatically mean death for PCs. This is the case for things like taking damage equal to your health from one source or if the character has insane corruption. However, normally PCs get fate checks which are a whole thing. Basically, if you roll a 1 on a 1d6, you start dying, but roll a 6 on that same check you heal 1 damage and are back to normal. Don't get either of those results 3 times, you're knocked out for a bit. If you're dying, you roll that 1d6 until you get a 1 or 6, you can guess what happens with both.
Been waiting for awhile on the Weird Wizard rpg. Can't wait for it's release!
My favorite action fantasy system, glad you covered it.
This is a great review and breakdown of how to play the game
Loved your review of this game! Can we get your take on 13th Age? And DCC?
So I watched this video because I got this book a while ago and flicked through it before kinda forgetting about it. Watching your video defs made me quite excited to try and run a game and I am sure I can find some people interested. I do have to question how great having "100s of options and spells' are though. You mentioned it as one of the main reasons why it beat 5e in certain places.
The problem is as I was reading the book a lot of the spells are basically copy pasted with very littler variance. Now I will say I haven't read the book super in depth but this is just something I noticed and it still bothers me even if its not that common. Several spell traditions have some sort of magic attack at rank 1 that does around 2d6 or 3d6 damage and that is it. Or an AOE that does around 6d6 damage and little else. The utility spells seem to be where the variety is but as I said they can be a bit repetitive. There are defs some cool spells in here but compared to 5e I think it is more interesting to have a smaller number of spells that all do different things rather than 100s of different ways to do damage.
I found this sort of extends to the classes as well. Some have really cool abilities but others defs feel really lacking. Some classes are better than others but yeah having a million options is good but eventually your going to start wearing out your ways to make variety. Overall I can't say if i agree with this video because I haven't played SotDL. But I am very keen to try it out and hopefully can play it as a player in the future.
Danke!
Bitte!
You don't memorize a table for ability modifiers in 3.5/5e/PF1e and PF pre-remaster. It's (attribute - 10) / 2. It's just one more step that SotDL.
Gonna order this book cause it looks awesome. Just bought Numenera cause it looked interesting
I've heard plenty of good things about this system and some things that I personally wanted in an trpg. This video confirmed what I've heard and doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on them. I'll definetly get into this, but getting my trpg hesitant friends to this system from the more established IP seems like a challange...
My hope is the new draconian licensing rules by WoTC finally leads people to really branch out and try new and better systems.
I suspect if WotC rolls the new "OGL" back that many people will stick with D&D and gobble up the glorified subscription service that is One D&D.
But I refuse to play anything after 5e. I am collecting rulebooks and plan on pulling my main groups away from WotC. Currently I recommend the Fallout Tabletop from Modiphius, Atomic Highway (PDF is free on DriveThruRPG), Traveller, and Savage Worlds.
I'm currently looking into Cyberpunk Red and Shadowrun 6e as well.
Level 10 doesn't mean the campaign has to be short haha
can you explain ? i was wondering if having less levels would make progression slower, would it be a problem?
This is a great review Dave! Nailed it down the line.
Thanks!
My current favorite class based system! The class system is amazing, and the pre made adventures are great!
The more generic fantasy version of SotDL, Shadow of the Weird Wizard is coming out soon. The playtest docks are available on the SotDL Discord. At a glance I am very, very excited to try the system out!
Indeed.
Thanks for shedding some light on this game! I've heard it mentioned a thousand times before but never checked it out, I really love the sound of the character advancement system! The aesthetic is probably a tad too edgy for me though so I might wait and see how Weird Wizard turns out.
Glad I could help!
Thanks for the review, I was looking for one of this game.
Glad I could help
@@DaveThaumavore thanks it was reaaaally helpfull, greetings from México.
@@LaBibliotecaEterna de nada, thanks for watching my channel!
I've been running SotDL games for years at this point and let me tell you I am happy I trusted my instincts with picking it up. I know people find the default setting a little grim, but It works for my group and enables their sense of humor and love for being threatened by horrifying creatures, both.
This game kept me away from horrors of 5e design and allowed me to enjoy all the mutated filthy horrors I loved from my whfrp 2nd ed. days.
my only problem with SotDL is the setting. heard rumours of the creator working on a not-so-grimdark setting, is that true?
@23:55
I haven't watched the whole video... I will just say that Shadow of the Demon Lord is hands down my favorite RPG.
_Shadow of the Weird Wizard_ sounds more up my alley
Happy new year, Dave!
Shadow of The Demon Lord seems suitable for adventures in Berserk, Dark Souls like setting.
HNY! Yeah, I hadn't thought about a Berserk RPG, but that would be perfect. A doomed Order of the Hawk campaign.
Regarding your comment on whether he should've made this game horror or milktoast fantasy, the choice for a small developer is making a less popular version of something someone makes, or making something not many others make.
There actually are 100% full blown speampunk styled airships in the setting. I don't think I'd have ever given D&D the one-up in terms of setting, mainly because I just wouldn't have included all the other options D&D supposedly has beyond Forgotten Realms. Most of them aren't supported, the ones which have had new books are also poorly done.
As far as rules design I do feel you can compare indie to big corporate made games. Well written rules aren't made by throwing money at the problem but by people with innovative ideas.
I agree. But you then also need to market that to expect to sell copies. Chaosium's recent success has been due in part because of superb quality, and in part due to really aggressive awesome marketing. They leveraged Becca Scott, Critical Roll, and other nerdy gaming personalities who are also cool/beautiful people.
Does anyone have any opinions on how SotDL fares against Lamentations of the Flame Princess?
I'm planning on converting the most recent 5e adventure to SDL for my weekly games. I just can't support what WoTC is doing but want to enjoy the book I recently got (before the leak). I love SDL and consistently just ignore the horror element in favor of the excellent mechanics. So far, that's worked out fine. My fondest memory is when my brother played a clockwork who eventually died to revel it was a marine from our world kept in stasis protection for unknown reasons. This marine proceeded to use his limited ammunition Glock 19 to mag dump my final demon boss!
Man, I am actually SUPER interested in this. Seems really easy to digest!
It’s masterfully done.
@@DaveThaumavore only thing i'm a bit worried about is the low HP mixed with how slow it is to recover. i'm guessing that balances out with the damage output though. i can't imagine only having 20 HP max and being able to deal like 30 damage in one attack.
SotDL probably got noticed early on because of the theme. If it were generic fantasy, it probably wouldn't get as much notoriety.
On its attribute modifiers, I don't know if att - 10 is good game design per se (I don't know how that works in play), but it sure is easy to memorize. In D&D for some reason they decided to average the modifiers twice. Once on the ability score generation roll (3d6 = bell curve) and then again on a table... Perhaps they wanted to keep the mods low in either direction, positive or negative, so you wouldn't have a "+8" or a "-6" mod, and thus combat rounds would be more random, less deterministic.
The class system in SotDL also seems like a simplification of the career system in WFRP, which sounds great.
To answer your attribute question 10 is your “0” modifier every point on your attributes matter. An eleven score on say strength with give you a +1 modifier and +1 to your HP. All four attributes are connected to a secondary attribute. So no bloated numbers and all attributes matter.
You don't get as wide a range of statistic values. For example, having a STR of 13 is a +3 modifier. So every single point in a stat makes a bigger difference. So you typically won't see character stats over 14. Likewise, having something at 9 is a -1.
Well, it’s a D&D + WFRP love child. He made WFRP 2nd edition.
SotDL was a swing and a miss for my group. I have nothing but respect for Robert Schwalb, but my group was turned off by the lethality of the game. I like the rules overall, but I got the feeling that it was more balanced for larger groups of players, like 6 or more, than the 3 person group I played with at the time. I’m not just making that up, I spoke with at least one of the playtesters and he confirmed that the game was usually played in large groups. I think that might be the best way to enjoy this game. I also don’t know why Robert didn’t take the ability score simplification one step further and just make the number your bonus. Why force us to subtract 10? If you’re supposed to have a +2 why not just have a 2 instead of a 12? In general, I think this is a wonderful alternate history version of 5E that has a more fun version of Character Creation. The deadlines is just so steep. I made a few mistakes putting my party up against enemies they had no chance of escaping without losing at least one party member. I would definitely like to try running this again some day, and am excited to see what weird wizard had in store.
I haven't played this, but I love it for how much Schule streamlined and improved on some of the most common sticking points.
Very poignant considering the current atmosphere around D&D. Would you consider giving your two cents when things are a bit more fleshed out with OGL and One D&D?
Call of Cuthulu mixed with D&D?
So when are we playing?
I’m ready
The problem with SoDL is not the horror theme, it’s actually not leaning into it enough, which reveals how it was chosen as a way to position the game in the fantasy RPG market. Fortunately, the next version will be the fantasy heartbreaker this was meant to be.
Read through the book and I enjoyed it. I’m considering creating an adventure for it for a table one day. But I will say the grim dark horror theme got really boring after a while. Maybe I’m just getting older and that stuff doesn’t appeal to me anymore, but it kind of felt like the rpg book equivalent to a kid in school who keeps trying to shock everyone. After a while it just gets old. if I were to run this I’d probably ditch a lot of the revulsion that the author says to use sparingly. I’m far more interested in Weird Wizard and am hoping for an update on it soon.
Great comparison by the way. Both games are good, but it’s interesting to see how they stack up. I’d love to see more videos like this. I think it would be a great gateway for people looking to alternatives to D&D.
It really is a case of "do as I say, not as I do" with the horror
I once read "Hunger in the Void"- the supplement dedicated to Demons, and lemme say it was _grotesque_
We mainly cut out the grimdark (and the scat and sex stuff) and played more nobeldark.
Worked really well.
TBH. The horror is what is really appealing to me. There are a dime a dozen milk toast fantasies out there. I was next lining up a Mork Borg campaign but your vid here has really piqued my interest and I may pick up this book because of it.
Would love a recommendation of with shadow supplement books to get first or most worth wild.
Hunger in the Void and Occult Philosophies are the two I’ve been told are the best.
@@DaveThaumavore thank you so much. I'll check them out.
@@LaserCat006 the two dlcs are usually recommended after OP.
Rest depends on what campaign and what kind of character you want to play.
Excellent video.
I wish I was able to play much more, I really want to run this game
Game inbalance works pretty well in the OSR, I have to say
The one question that gets in my head and has not gotten out, the real deep fear, is how much the SOTDL rules borrow from DND OSR (if any) that it and Weird Wizard would be subject to this whole mess with the OGL “update”? I already am seeing several game developers going full scorched earth with anything and everything they have created that uses even a single vowel from the OGL and I know, for a damn fact, that I won’t be able to follow them to where they are going.
Good question!
Playing through a oneshot campaign of this now. Really enjoying it so far.
Another thing: this was a very enjoyable review, could you do similar videos comparing some of the 5e alternatives you mentioned in a previous video? The way you broke down direct comparisons of the systems I think did a good job illustrating the differences for people already familiar with 5e. I have the tabs for torchbearer, 13th age, and fantasy age open on drivethru rpg but don't really have the time to deep dive into them.
My one complaint about SotDL is that it doesn't do exploration that well and the majority of magic and abilities are about outright damage - which is fun, but it meant a lot of fights went very much the same way. Still more fun and varied than 5E though, which can die in a pit
I have run a few games with sotdl. It is a great game. I believe the rules are a bit more complex and cluncky than they seem at first read. For instance the boons and banes as well as the fast turn and slow turn mechanics tend to slow action and turn resolution. Still it is a great player oriented rpg, I'm curious to see if sotww will carry enhancement to the system, making it faster and easier to play.
I can't wait to see what he does with shadow of the weird wizard
SotDL is the most innovative game in the classic fantasy system genre. Now that genre isn't particularly innovative, but if I'm forced to run it, I'm picking Shadow.
Didn't watch the video yet. Big Shadow of the Demon Lord advocate. In a choice between it and D&D, I would go hard on SotDL.
My players really liked how the character classes functioned, and that they made a very few, very meaningful choices (at levels 1/3/7) instead of a bunch of more trivial ones (like minor +1/2's from feats) that they have to do every level up, or messing with gear. Just streamlines it a lot. The fast/slow combat with no initiative also feeds into this. Just a much cleaner experience.
I think the Insanity/corruption mechanics are half-baked, though. I tend to have a problem with them in a most games they crop up (like Delta Green, one of my favorites in general), where their application, while thematic, doesn't seem mechanically as relevant. While DG had a slew of minor things that might trigger it and the values to lower it slowly over time, the payoff wasn't that great. In SotD, triggering them seems ill supported and each tier is very significant, so there isn't the slower dread of losing sanity. If these rules were as clean and well integrated as everything else, I feel like the setting would be better realized, since you could more accurately support the horror/insanity/corruption themes of the game.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience with the game. I’m getting kinda weary of Insanity rules in games myself.
@@DaveThaumavore I like the concept of insanity and other meta-inflictions in a game, but I have no idea how someone would pull it off properly mechanically. Something like Blades in the Dark stress, maybe? All I know is I'd never try to include it in a game I was designing unless I have a total banger of an idea.
Like sure, if you just have players who are 100% bought in actors and will play their characters slowing losing grip, that works, but then you don't even need rules or a GM for that, haha.
@@NineConsonants I made a homebrew system with stress, panics, and disorders rather than sanity. Characters that pass a stress threshold develop a disorder, which is a character unique pressure valve for stress. These are positive traits actually, rather than spiraling your character down. Addiction for example doubles stress healed by your chosen substance. Depression has a daily chance for a "bad day" where you are so emotionally numb that you do not gain stress except in combat. Memory Loss kicks in when you take too much stress from a single encounter. In that case you lose all memory of the event and take zero stress.
My intent with the system is that characters become more eccentric over time due to the horrors and trauma of the world. Lets face it: Its anticlimactic to lose a character to insanity. Theres usually no brave sacrifice, no last words, sometimes its not even done in session, just retired between sessions. Instead of that I just turned it into a mechanical system which helps people roleplay their characters and adds to the darker theme of the world.
@@secretnewmeta1981 Sounds cool, could you share that?
I would also suggest that other people in the comments promote other TTRPG that do not use OGL, as a way to providing alternatives for the players in the meantime this whole thing is happening.
Just wait until Shadow of the Weird Wizard rolls around!
Honestly there are plenty of games that would at least wound 5e, but because D&D has the advantage of popular attention, money, and legacy, other systems rarely get a fair fight.
5e was designed as a crowd pleaser system, and it succeeded at that. But once you develop a personal taste for RPGs, it might be good to look at to systems that specialize in specific aspects. SotDL, 13th Age, OSR systems, Pathfinder 2 (to mention only d20 fantasy games), all experiences a bit more tailored to certain preferences. With all the WotC OGL debacle, this should be a no brainer.
It is a great role playing game. My first character was a Goblin chef that killed and ate 100 diseased rats and was a major reason that people came into the inn he cooked at!!
Awesome!
Modern design will always trump a system that is neck deep in game design founded in the early 2000s. As much as 4e wasn't what people expected it tried something new and succeeded at rewriting the engine of the game and creating something fun and different. 5e design is made to be as welcoming as possible for veteran and new players but as a result has no identity or voice of its own. It is simultaneously very open but also incredibly restrictive as a system and certain themes or stories will not be possible with the mechanics as is. 5e is great at telling heroic D&D stories at its core and it does it well but beyond that it requires a lot of tweaking to make it do something it wasn't designed to do.