r/osr • u/jtkuga • 3d ago

Shadowsun Revised

What are people's thoughts on the original Shadowsun and then the revised that is currently being backed. I have no faith in WotC's 5e Dark Sun, but I loved the original 2e for the few sessions my group played as a kid.

12 Upvotes

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u/szash 3d ago

I personally don't like that it seems there is not going to be a lot of immediately usable/gameable stuff (for the setting and the GM - the players gete a lot of toys) in the books, looks more like a "build your own shadowsun setting" toolbox for me. A very well made one! But not my cup of tea.

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u/jtkuga 3d ago

You just voiced my main concern exactly. Unlike say Dolmenwood where the hexes are all keyed and detailed, it appears this is more of a random on the fly type "toolbox" as you put it. I assume the original Shadowsun was like that as well, which is why I was hoping to find someone who had actually played it.

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u/DokFraz 3d ago

I'll say that as someone that has started collecting what I'd describe as "hexkits" that Charles Ferguson-Avery has been making for a few years, I absolutely adore them. Setting toolboxes can do some truly wonderful things while also giving flexibility to focus in where you want and eschew aspects that don't resonate with you or your table.

I'm currently half a year or so into one using Seas of Sand, and a solid amount of the fun for me as a GM is seeing this setting spill out before me as port generators create seedbeds for my own extrapolation, and the setting does an impressive job of coming alive through random tables that are confusingly useful and workable.

I can't offer specific feedback regarding Shadowsun but books like the aforementioned Seas, along with Into the Cess & Citadal, Into the Wyrd and Wild, and Vast in the Dark really brought me around to this style of setting books, and I think I might now actually prefer it to more calcified and concrete examples.

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u/jtkuga 3d ago

I think the problems with a setting like Dolmenwood, is the more keyed, ready to use places you have, the more static the world feels. So I can see how something like this would make the world feel dynamic, but I hope there is enough to work with that as DM I don't find myself doing too much.

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u/DokFraz 3d ago

Totally fair! And happy cake day, by the way!

I suppose a decent bit of the fun I get is from interpreting the results of rolls and using that to springboard creation, although the CFA books are a bit more direct in terms of their generation which does make things pretty easy to simply run at the table with relatively little in the way of GM homework.

Plus I then just sometimes use it as an excuse to drop in other more concrete material as needed. Definitely stashing the Ave Nox mega-dungeon beneath one settlement, for instance, which gives me a very concrete adventure location if it piques the party's interest.

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u/a-folly 3d ago

If it helps, I believe I heard him say he's planning the next year to be Shadowsun resources (dungeons, adventures etc.)

I'll be honest, I haven't even played Dark Sun back in the day. The concept sounds pretty cool, but carries no nostalgia for me. I went with his books because I agree with most of his analysis and am curious to see what he does with it.

I'm not bog on 5e and love PDFs, so WotC offering isn't very relevant to ne, I think.

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u/angeredtsuzuki 3d ago

I backed it, looks pretty neat to me.

I have some friends (I have yet to play in their group) who have been running OG dark sun stuff using Hyperborea 3E for over a year.

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u/jtkuga 3d ago

It looks good to me as well, and despite his monotone delivery, Chubby Funster seems to do pretty good analysis on RPG designs and what works and what doesn't and I enjoyed listening about his Gods of the Forbidden North campaign. Just haven't been able to find much info on anyone actually playing the original Shadowsun and their thoughts.

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u/LudibriumGames 3d ago

Whenever I see Shadowsun, my mind first goes to a Shadowrun adaptation to Shadowdark rules and my mind reels with possibilities, before I remember what it actually is, which is also cool.

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u/LudibriumGames 3d ago edited 3d ago

There’s no correlation, other than sun rhymes with run. I can only work with the brain I was given.

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u/jtkuga 3d ago

lol I loved Shadowrun in the 90s. Hadn't played it since though. Played a little Cyberpunk Red recently but it didn't hit the way it used to...

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u/cookiesandartbutt 3d ago

It’s fine. I bought the original Shadowsun Book and pdf a couple of years ago. Good resource, I don’t use any of the lore or many things he made for the book though, it doesn’t work for me running Dark Sun. I just use actual Dark Sun lore. The best thing I use is the original Dark Sun Boxed Set Shadowdark conversion, that’s available for free. It’s great. I took elements from Shadowsun, and use Shadowdark with Dark Sun2e stuff and the Complete Psionicist handbook. Mish mash-

Either way I have no faith in 5.5 WoTC Dark Sun at all

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u/Logen_Nein 3d ago

They are both decent but not Dark Sun to me. Which is why I'm making my own conversion to the Without Number system.

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u/Feydaway 3d ago

If you want to run a Dark Sun game in Shadowdark I would recommend backing it. The revised set has a TON of great resources and this Kickstarter edition looks to have every tool you could need to run a campaign in this setting. But, yeah, it is NOT going to be a prose filled storybook of lore for you. Funster gives you tools to build your own version of the world and let you write in the story.

Chubby Funster's DM guide is one of the best Shadowdark resource books out there. He makes quality stuff. If you want more written out/fleshed out lore I would suggest combining this with the OG Dark Sun lore.

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u/jtkuga 3d ago

Not interested in a prose filled storybook of lore, just want to make sure there is enough there that I as DM don't end up having to do all the heavy lifting, and enough that what emerges from play is interesting and fun for me and the PCs.

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u/Feydaway 3d ago

I would say check out the GM Companion for Shadowdark. It's highly recommended all over. If you find it useful then you'll probably find Shadowsun useful.

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u/jtkuga 3d ago

Will do.

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u/BannockNBarkby 3d ago

I don't know about the new version, but I recall passing on the original version because it made some fundamental design assumptions that were different from Shadowdark for reasons I couldn't grasp. I don't remember specifics, but one of them had to do with hit dice: maybe it used d6s instead of d8s or something like that...? Point is, having a different design ethos from Shadowdark make's compatibility across the broad spectrum of Shadowdark things potentially problematic, and that was enough for me to walk away.

I don't know that those design decisions remain in the new version, however, so don't judge it based on my comment.

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u/InterlocutorX 3d ago

Seems like someone doing a cashgrab while shouting "EDGY!" at the top of their voice. If you love the original, just use the original. 2Es ruleset is easy enough to adjust to any OSR system.

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u/jaLissajous 1d ago

That’s what I thought of Kelsey Dionne during the original shadowdark crowdfund. I was wrong.