Implementation seems fine to me, I’m not sure what people think is dubious?

It’s obviously a different take on the “survival” data horde. Its obviously not intended as a wasteland survival kit, it seems intended for a scenario where the power is still on but universal internet access isn’t a given.

As long as you understand the limitations, AI is just a vastly more efficient way to find information in large knowledge bases. For a topic that you know nothing about a chatbot gives you the ability to work through the information in a conversational manner, honing in on the specific bits you’re trying to understand and filling in the “things that I don’t know I don’t know” holes, and then you can go to the source material and verify the details.

Yeah they both are built around the classic D&D gameplay loop of exploring and dungeon crawling. I run my own adventures rather than using purchased modules so I don’t have to worry about converting monster stats and stuff. But Shadowdark converts very easily to old D&D versions, it would be straight forward to run any old pre-3rd edition D&D modules in it.

Greyhawk is far and away my preferred setting for D&D-like games, I’ve run a bunch of rules in it but mostly 13th Age and Shadowdark.

I’d advise that you talk to a professional and don’t seek mental health advice from social media.

You’re incoherent.

Don’t feed the trolls.

I plot out a few thousand years of history for the setting so that there are recognisable strata of cultures in the locations the players explore. I usually tie quests and narratives into the history so that its all meaningful and not just window dressing.

I do usually use an existing setting as a base, preferably one that has some established history to build off, usually Greyhawk.

I don’t think a unilateral GM and the mother-may-I it implies

You really sound like you don’t trust the GMs you play with. If that’s the case, why are you playing with them.

I probably shouldn’t have posted in an OSR thread knowing I dislike the genre.

Yes.

I think that’s an ignorant take. “Unilateral” GMing is completely necessary to the style of play and opens up player creativity and engagement in the ways I discussed in other comments. Do you really think the OSR would be thriving if it actively encouraged terrible behaviour? It seems like you play with young or immature groups, if you think this is a pervasive problem in the scene.

Players in OSR games want simulation, not collaborative story telling. They want to test themselves against an organic, immersive world where their actions have consequences, good or bad. You cannot get that experience from collaborative storytelling games, and games with a lot of fixed rules can’t cover all of the possibilities of a complex world. This is the core appeal of OSR play and changing it removes the reason most people play it.

Reminds me of teenage games where the DM would be like “you’re crippled now because the orc hit your leg” just because they said so, and your only options are deal with it or quit.

I mean, terrible GMs will be terrible no matter what system they are running.

I think because OSR games often feel unilateral and top down from the GM, and I don’t enjoy that… I’m more of the writer’s room style where we’re writing a story together…

You are talking about a completely different style of game.

One of the commonly touted tenets of OSR play is “diegetic progression”; most character progression is in the world, not on the character sheet. This is why you see a lot weird magic items in OSR resources, stuff that gives particular abilities that encourage creative uses rather than just a + to stats. This type of progression also includes relationships with NPCs and factions that players can call on for assistance. Players don’t need to be able to defeat the Ogre in combat if the local chieftain owes them a big favour for rescuing his daughter and will send a squad of his best soldiers to fight it for you/chase it off.

Not having skills on the character sheet is one of the core ideas of OSR play, the idea that players should be coming up with creative solutions in the game and not just relying on the pass or fail of a dice roll to solve problems. Hand in hand with this is, as the above commenter mentions, “rulings over rules” which emphasizes the GM making decisions about how player actions play out in the world rather than looking for mechanics in a rulebook. This encourages stuff like creative tactics in combat, e.g. a player tips over a bookshelf onto the group of goblins; the GM decides the goblins next to it have a 50% chance of dodging out of the way or getting knocked down, or players have advantage against them on their attacks next round as the goblins dive out of the way, etc. There’s no rules for this, so the sky is the limit for players to try out cool ideas. Players stop looking at their character sheets and rulebooks when presented with a problem in the game, they engage harder with the game, usually asking questions about details of the situation to see if there is anything they can use to their advantage. For groups that embrace this style of play it is much more immersive than playing a game where your options are dictated by game mechanics rather than the game world.

The most important idea in this, imo, is that a lot of stuff shouldn’t even be rolled for; if its reasonable that a player could do it, then it just succeeds. If the players come up with a good idea, just have it work for them unless they are under stress (e.g. hurrying to pick a lock while a boulder rolls down the hallway at them) or there is some adversarial element where an opponent’s skill could counteract the player’s, e.g. seeing through a player’s disguise, avoiding 2 players trying to wrap them in a rope, etc. This really incentivizes the players to think creatively, when their good ideas are rewarded without being at the fickle whims of the dice.

I think the funnel dungeon is worth a shot to get your players used to the idea of character deaths.

For my games, in character creation I get my players to come up with 3 words that describe their character (e.g. stubborn, grumpy, drunken) and optionally one “special thing” that can be either an event from their past or just something about them. This lets them put some personality into their character but in a more OSR way than coming up with an entire backstory. It keeps to the ethos of being able to create a new character quickly and it makes the character a little bit more than just a cardboard cutout without the player spending a heap of timing developing them and becoming too attached.

Shadowdark was literally created for your situation, it is designed to be an OSR game with mechanics that will be familiar to 5e players.

As you said, it doesn’t do anything completely new but it is one of the most elegant rpg systemsI’ve ever played. A wonderful balance of simplicity and richness.

If you’re new to OSR styles of play my tip would be to embrace the fragility of life. Having character deaths be an expected part of the game can be quite jarring to players used to 5e. Consider running a “funnel” game where your players each have multiple “level 0” characters that go through a dungeon where most of them will die, and the survivors become your character pool. Its a way to get players to shift their mindset.

The Lair of the Lamb by the brilliant Arnold K is a great funnel dungeon: https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2020/04/lair-of-lamb-final.html

Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

The Witch King was still gonna go him.

He’s not at all invulnerable, in the book they were about to throw down and the Witch King was pretty confident about his chances. Also Gandalf literally gets killed by the Balrog. And beaten and imprisoned by Saruman.

This is exactly what the previous comment is saying. Jackson changed stuff for the movies to cater to mainstream movie audience expectations, at the cost of the worldbuilding and lore.

He literally is not a man.

This is why you should play Shadowdark.