The ShadowDark Torch Gimmick IS Stupid

When it comes to attempting to justify the existence of ShadowDark in general, its simps will desperately point to the insipid torch gimmick.

This might seem confusing because at a glance there’s not only nothing about it that makes any sense, as with Arbitrary Kinda Sorta But Not Really 1:1 Timekeeping it adds no unique benefits to the game.

But then…what else is there? After all, ShadowDerp is yet another incomplete post-modern vapidware trash derivative, merely a fraction of 5th Edition with a handful of often questionable mechanics pulled from other games, twisted into something somehow worse, and then clumsily bolted on the side, all pinched out by a lazy, untalented, greedy narcissist.

Even ignoring the fact that it took her several years to do so, it’s not impressive that Kelsey watered down the races to all of one trait, or that classes roll for one of five uninspired benefits (at least one of which is merely a stat boost), or that she put in class-, alignment-, and level-based titles and I have no fucking clue how NPCs are just supposed to magically know what your title is.

Everything in ShadowDerp is “lifted” from something else except, as far as I can tell, the monumentally retarded torch gimmick, which works as follows:

When you light a torch it burns for an hour of “real time”. It doesn’t matter how much time passes in game: if you perform an action that takes 6 seconds, but takes a minute to resolve in real time, you’ve lost a minute. If it takes 5 minutes to resolve out of game, you still somehow magically lose 5 minutes of in-game torch time.

If you try to light a second torch, then one of two things happens and the players get to decide every time (which is but one way that ShadowDerp drifts into storygame territory):

The original torch, the one that is already lit, magically extinguishes itself and is somehow rendered completely worthless, regardless of its condition and how much time it would have had left.

OR

The original torch remains lit, but then the new torch’s duration is set to that of the original torch. So, for example, if you let the first torch burn until it had 10 minutes left, lit a new one AND decided to go with this option (because, again, you get to choose each time), the second torch somehow magically only burns for 10 minutes.

Basically, you can either only have one torch burning, or every other light source will be set to whatever the timer is at. Now, the GM can ignore these absurdities, and it says so right there in the book but, according to Kelsey, the point of this bizarre nonsense gimmick is to “make tracking light sources simple, not frustrating”.

Yep: apparently Kelsey is so stupid that she finds tracking even two different light sources too onerous of a task.

What makes the whole thing somehow even worse is that the torch gimmick doesn’t even add any unique benefits to the game: every D&Dish RPG I’ve ever play provides durations for light sources, and characters need to have access to and track usage.

The only difference is that in actual RPGs you don’t lose time for out-of-game activities and interruptions, plus torches don’t weigh something like 5-10 pounds each.

Not that any of these myriad issues stops Kelsey’s simps from blindly praising it:

I’m going to respond to it bit-by-bit so it’s easier to follow:

“I sort of get where you guys are coming from, that a "real-time" torch timer sounds stupid, illogical, etc.”

That’s because it is stupid. It’s stupid to have torches get consumed faster or slower depending on what’s going on out of the game. It’s also completely arbitrary because it’s the only part of the game that is influenced by real time.

“I will tell you from my experience playing since 1983, none of my groups ever really played hardcore torchlight rules.”

Unsurprising that a ShadowDerp simp would resort to a logical fallacy, but if you’re going to bother to appeal to authority over a game then I wouldn’t limp out of the gate admitting that you couldn’t even be bothered to try to play the game correctly.

It’s also unsurprising that Khoram considers playing a normal RPG where you track torch duration normally “hardcore”.

Anyway, no one ever has or will even attempt to run the game with a strict adherence to time, because it’s not worth the, well, time. This means that no one is going to bother to attempt to precisely track the duration of torches, or spells, or potions, because you will waste an absurd amount of time to, what, still fail to get the duration accurate by at least a handful of seconds, probably even minutes?

“Like rations and encumbrance, it usually (not always) got chucked out the window to make room for "fun". Not everyone will agree. There are a million styles of play.”

I find it amusing that he puts “fun” in quotes. Almost like he knows on some level that what he’s doing isn’t really fun, but rather a way to kill time when you have nothing better to do.

I also find it amusing that he’s unwilling or, more likely, unable to track the basics like food. It’s just such a hassle to go, okay, hunkering down for the night, I’ll mark off a ration and then recover some HP. Khoram just can’t fathom how anyone could remember to do all of that. Similar to, you know, how Kelsey lacks the mental capacity of a child and so can’t handle tracking two different light sources at once.

Though that might still be far too generous as when I was a child I never had an issue with it, and neither have my kids. Granted, we didn’t always add things up correctly, or space things here and there, so we’d “eyeball” time, as it were. Maybe we lost or gained five minutes or so here and there on an item or spell’s duration, but it wasn’t like it was pivotal to any particular outcome, and I think overall, over time, it more or less evened out anyway.

Oh, one last thing: utilizing a pointless nonsense gimmick that adds nothing to the game isn’t the same thing as outright ignoring very simple rules.

“So, GMing Shadowdark for my family in the last month…”

I’d ask what they did to deserve such treatment, but I’m guessing that, like Khoram, they’re the target audience for ShadowDerp: ie, hobby tourists with no expectations and less intelligence, and so marvel at a game that is largely a fifth-of-Fifth-Edition.

“…we use the torch rule. I set a 1 hour timer on my phone when they light a torch or cast Light, and that's it. It's really simple.”

No one is saying that it’s not simple. I know you can’t handle tracking two different light sources or even food, but please try and keep up.

“Basically, everyone forgets about it…”

Ah, yes, perfectly normal for adventurers. There’s no way they could tell at a glance that their torch is getting low. They just…light it and then everyone magically forgets about it, even when it’s reduced to a nub, even when the light would start to fade.

It’s not like it’s incredibly important or anything, or that they spend a lot of time exploring by torchlight and would have some idea how long they last.

Or, again, just look at it and see how low it’s getting.

“…unless something specifically happens to the light (a monster like a darkmantle makes it go out, a carrion crawler bee-lines for it and snatches it out of their hand, etc.).”

Which is but one reason why you would have two or more burning at once. Another would be so that everyone is not beholden to the same light source. Just try going out into the woods—which I feel like I have to clarify to you should be done at night—with a bunch of people but only bring one flashlight.

Now try and imagine that there are monsters in the woods and you need that light in order to see where they are to hit them: why the fuck would you have just one?

“Otherwise, the timer goes off in the middle of whatever they are doing. More often than not, it goes out at the worst time, like in combat.”

Not because it makes any sort of sense but because combat can take up quite a bit of time. Not “in-game” mind you, but in the real world. So, even though you’d only lose perhaps a minute of torch time over the course of an entire combat, because it took you like 10 minutes to resolve everything out of game, you still lose those 10 minutes.

Worse, this is largely an artificial issue because in a normal RPG played by normal people, the torch would deplete at a normal rate of time, you could light more than one, and characters would behave rationally, lighting one before the current one is extinguished because they can clearly see that it’s about to go out.

Also, use lanterns because torches didn’t actually last an entire hour and with a lantern the light source is better protected from wind and such.

“One time it went out at a time and place in a module that specifically had bad consequences for losing the light.”

This would come as a shock to Simplord Khoram, but you can have consequences for not having light in any module, in any RPG, including normal ones. It’s just that in a normal RPG you don’t get hammered by fake difficulty bullshit gimmicks that prohibit characters from behaving normally.

“It adds a strategic element to the game, for very little investment (setting a timer on your phone), that would otherwise be missing from many non-hardcore, non-simulationist games.”

It’s at this point I should point out that, in case his simpery is in doubt, Simplord Khoram made his account on the same day he posted, and only posted in that thread. He made an account specifically to m’lady for Kelsey.

Simplord Khoram is suffering from many delusions, but one of which is that a nonsense torch gimmick adds a “strategic element” because, what? He thinks monsters can’t attack torches in other games? They just…can’t. Somehow. Magically. It’s not like the only difference between ShadowDerp and a real RPG is that in other games torches don’t deplete much more quickly in combat for some mysterious reason.

I get that Simplord Khoram only signed up to spectacularly fail to defend of all things a half-assed “game” with a half-assed name, but despite various grifters lying and shilling for it on YouTube it is neither “hardcore” nor “simulationist”.

Unless you think full-healing on a rest, not dying at 0 HP, and fucking luck tokens are “hardcore”, and that plate armor only weighing three times as much as leather—when in reality plate weighed something like six to twelve times as much—is “simulationist”.

Actually, on the topic of item weight: is it simulationist that a creature with a Strength of 3 or even 1 can carry 10 “slots” of crap, same as a creature three or more times as strong? How about the fact that no matter how much you carry, even up to your absolute maximum, it doesn’t adversely affect you in any way?

You know what’s also “simulationist”, however the fuck Khoram is opting to define it at this point in time? The fact that when you have a lit torch and light a new one, one of two things happen: either all other torches that are lit just magically extinguish themselves, or the new torch only lasts as long as the current one.

Oh, and can’t forget the languages. Yeah, it’s really simulationist to have every single member of a race speak the exact same language. You’re an elf? Whelp, you speak the exact same nondescript “elf” language that every other elf does. There’s no regional/cultural differences at all, because humans are the only race who might possibly have two or more distinct “human” languages.

Then the venoms, which Kelsey often calls poisons in the stat block for some reason (the sentence fragment descriptions correctly refer to it as venom, which makes it even more confusing). Ignoring the magical ones because they’re magical so whatever, I felt the most simulationist ones for sure were the scorpion ones, which force a very minor Constitution save to avoid IMMEDIATELY dropping to 0 HP.

Because that’s like real life, right? Tiny little scorpion stings you, venon teleports throughout your blood stream with a chance to immediately cause you to fall unconscious and die within seconds. Same for the snake: it’s not like, assuming a cobra doesn’t dry-bite you, that there are numerous symptoms that occur beforehand, and you can survive for around 30 minutes or more before dying.

(As a sidenote, I found it amusing that the assassin’s poison dagger doesn’t do anything poison-releated.)

Lastly, titles: boy oh boy it sure does make perfect sense that my level 1 fighter is a “knave” because he’s level 1 and Chaotic and for no other reason, and everyone just so happens to know this, because in ShadowDerp people can’t just apply titles or terms, nor are they bestowed. All those Lords? Why, they were just Lawful fighters who managed to make it to 9th-level!

This is the incomplete vapidware trash game that Simplord Khoram is claiming to be “““““simulationist”””””. It certainly explains why Kelsey had to convince other, equally untalented hacks with equally lackluster derivatives to shill so much on her behalf.

“Someone above said, why not just buy a crap ton of torches? Well, you could, but your inventory is limited.”

As if we needed more evidence that Simplord Khoram is a retarded shill…

See in an actual roleplaying game you don’t use item slots, but encumbrance, where a single torch doesn’t weigh like 5-10 pounds and take up as much space as an entire shield.

But even if you’re so stupid that you have to settle for ShallowGrift, there are workarounds to Kelsey’s arbitrary gimmicks. Torches weigh as much as a suit of armor? Okay, bring hirelings. Bring a donkey. Something to carry extra stuff.

Oh, wait: anything with a Strength of 10 or less can still carry around 50-100 pounds without any issues whatsoever, so just tie a string of 9 torches to a cat (the rope takes up a slot, so that’s the best you can do, sorry).

You could instead slap a backpack on: first one is magically weightless, because ShallowGrift operates via boardgame logic, so just stuff 10 torches into a pack. Bring a couple cats with a bunch of torches, and there, artificial fake-hard problem solved. Though, I suppose dogs would be better since they can follow commands.

Oh yeah, this game is certainly, definitely “hardcore”. It “has teeth”, as one grifter put it. Sooo much more dangerous than pre-WokeC D&D where death was immediate, you healed really slowly, and didn’t have metagame currency to mitigate your not-fun-badrolls.

“And even then, when it goes out, you have to light a new one, and that's done at disadvantage in the dark unless you're a thief.”

Or you just light a new one before it goes out. Or you set a timer for 50 minutes, maybe even 55, and when that one goes off you light a new one.

Also, I don’t know what Simplord Khoram is even talking about: there’s no check to light a torch, and thieves don’t have any special ability that lets them do stuff in the dark. Granted that would make sense, but that would have required Kelsey to put some actual thought into ShallowGrift.

Perhaps if another D&Dish game featured a similar mechanic, she could have ripped it off?

*shrug*

“Yes, you can houserule it to say you light the next before the last goes out or whatever. You're free to ignore it any any other rule in any system.”

Seems like Simplord Khoram is getting a bit defensive. It’s like, while writing his post, he realized how stupid it was, but decided to doubledown and keep going. Simps gotta simp, I guess. Anyway, there’s no actual rule that prohibits you from lighting a new torch before the current one goes out, so I don’t know why he is pretending that there is. Methinks he would fit in well with the Brody Bunch.

“I'm not entirely sure why people are so turned off by it.”

Assumimg Simplord Khoram isn’t being disingenuous, it’s because it’s a retarded gimmick invented by a retarded grifter aimed at retarded hobby tourists that doesn’t make any sense no matter how you look at it.

“Is it because you think you'll only get through 2-3 rounds in 1 real time hour so it isn't lasting long enough to be realistic?”

I’ll try to make it as easy as possible to follow:

• Game time often does not pass at the same rate as “real world” time, so it makes no sense for a torch to always deplete in “real world” time.

• It is completely arbitrary, especially considering that nothing else in the game is linked to “real world” time.

• It makes no sense for every other light source to just switch off because a new one is lit.

• It makes no sense for a newly lit torch’s duration to be tied to one that was already lit.

“Is it because you want to be more simulationist?”

Given that ShadowDerp isn’t at all simulationist, “more simulationist” here would mean “at least slightly simulationist in at least a few areas”.

Actual gamers that actually play instead of simping for a grifting narcissist would be perfectly fine with having torches operate like they normally do, gimmick free: they last around an hour of in-game time, as close as you can reasonably get.

The problem, or at least part of it, is that without her moronic nonsense torch gimmick, there’s little if anything that sets ShallowGrift apart from the rest of the post-modern vapidware trash derivatives.

“I'm a little puzzled.”

Assuming, again, that Simplord Khoram is being honest, which, given that he’s a ShallowGrift simp unable to track food and count, I would not be surprised that he is confused about actual gamers not liking a nonsense torch gimmick.

“If it's the simulationist thing, then yeah rules-light systems aren't going to be for you.”

Reminder: Simplord Khoram just claimed above that ShallowGrift is simulationist, even though like being “hardcore” it’s clearly not. So, yeah, the word obviously doesn’t mean what he thinks it means, but that’s what he said.

Also, a “rules-light” system can just say, “The torch lasts around an hour in-game, keep it as close as possible, and you can light as many as you want because why the fuck couldn’t you?”

This is not only not any more complicated than ShadowDerp, but makes sense. But then again we’re back to the issue that, without a nonsense torch gimmick what else would the moronic ShallowGrift tourists rely on to try and convince actual gamers that the game has any merit or purpose?

“Why would torches in a fantasy medieval world all last exactly 10 turns or whatever in D&D? Are they coming off of some industrialized factory floor that is ensuring each and every torch is exactly the same shape and size and contains the exact same amount of pitch and sap? Maybe that's weird to play that way.”

Oh how desperately disingenuous, even for a Simplord. Or, maybe this is about what I’d expect from one?

In any case, first off if you light a torch in ShallowGrift, hang out in town or relatively tame wilderness and do nothing, they will always last precisely one hour. So, tell me Simplord Karhom: are they coming off of some industrialized factory floor that is ensuring each and every torch is exactly the same shape and size and contains the exact same amount of pitch and sap? Maybe that’s weird to play that way.

Note that Simplord Karhom does not apply this arbitrary standard to anything else: all weapons of a given type inflict the same damage, all armor weighs the same, all rations possess the exact same nutritional value, all ropes are precisely the same length, all coins have the same weight, all gems the same size and weight, etc.

Second, what a pathetic false dichotomy. If you don’t think having torches last a certain duration makes sense, which I’m fine with due to the simplicity, then the correct response is not to replace it with an even more retarded gimmick. Instead, you say something like, “a torch lasts 1d6 x 10 minutes” or even “1d4+2 x 10 minutes”.

This gives you a variable duration that isn’t arbitrarily linked to “real world” time.

Third, a more realistic time would be something like 30 minutes for a torch.

Four, it would be more realistic to use candles in lanterns. Though, in ShallowGrift oil for a lantern normally burns for an hour per flask; I’m curious how you would try to flimsily justify the highly variable duration. I’m assuming that whoever fills the oil flasks actually pays attention, and doesn’t just drip random amounts in each time.

Five, this is, surprise surprise, solved to an extent by normal people playing a normal RPG normally. As I said at the start, no one is trying to precisely track an hour of time in-game to make sure that a torch lasts an hour, not a second more or less. Everyone loses track of time, and so you end up “eyeballing” the passage of time, as it were.

Since this is imprecise to one degree or another, torches rarely if ever last an hour. So, there you go: variable torch time, without arbitrarily tying it to the real world. You can combine this with a variable duration mechanic as well If you want to shake it up even more.

“I also frequently see the complaint that it isn't doing anything new, and is just good presentation.”

That’s because, besides maybe the nonsense torch gimmick, ShallowGrift not only doesn’t do anything new, it plagiarizes potentially interesting mechanics—such as spell mishaps and randomized class features on a level up—and makes them much worse.

It’s also horribly presented and written under the pretense of being “rules light”, “simple”, and/or “succinct”, when it’s merely incomplete,

“Isn't that exactly what everyone was lauding OSE for all these years? It's just B/X but great presentation.”

Not everyone. My understanding of OSE is that it’s AD&D, just reorganized and with worse art, and so I wrote it off as the pointless, lazy cash grab that it was.

Quite fitting that you compare ShallowGrift to it, heh.

Also, ShallowGrift is not B/X. I know Kelsey likes to lie about that for old school cred or whatever, but ShallowGrift is clearly rooted in 5th Edition, just with most of the content removed, horribly houseruled, and somehow worse presentation.

“Anyway, the long and short of it is that the ruleset is very streamlined…”

Ie, incomplete.

“…and plays very intuitively and fast at the table. I've played various incarnations of D&D/C&C/OSE rules with my family, and when we switched to Shadowdark this summer, my kids told me they were relieved to not have to remember so many rules and different mechanics. It has its place, it just may not be at your table.”

It’s fascinating how hobby tourists pretend that older D&D was oh so fucking complex. When I played official D&D as a kid, starting with something like Basic but quickly moving to 2nd Edition, I had no problem remembering the handful of rules that you actually need to remember at any given point in time. Even 3rd Edition wasn’t difficult. Some rules were more complicated than they needed to be, sure, but the main issue was that they were also vastly inferior to other options (ie, grappling).

Frankly, you’re just lazy and stupid. In other words, the target demographic for ShallowGrift. You bought into it because other lazy and stupid people told you to, and when the next post-modern vapidware trash derivative comes out you’ll jump onto that.

Because it’s not about playing a good game. If it was, well, there are numerous other games that are just as simple as ShallowGrift but have actually complete rulesets, even half-decent ideas, and are unburdened by moronic houserules. It’s just that they aren’t propped up by shills and mired in a glut of turd-party slop.