DM Tales

This is part 2 of my ShadowDark review ¹, which covers the product design and interior layout. If you’d like to read about the game itself, follow this link.

Book Design

ShadowDark is an A5 “digest” size book with a sewn binding. The size fits well next to my Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy volumes and feels great in the hand. The thickness of the book did take me by surprise, as it comes in at 325 pages. That page count is influenced by the way the book is laid out, which I’ll cover below.

The book’s cover boasts a terrifying visage, which is not a beholder, printed in silver metallic ink. The back cover displays The Arcane Library logo, and the spine bears the game’s name in a blackletter font. The overall exterior presentation of the product is stunning.

Taking a nod from Old School Essentials, ShadowDark also utilizes the interior cover pages as a pseudo GM screen. The front cover has information for common weapons and armor, advice for setting a task’s difficulty class, morale, the death and dying rules, the categories the game uses for distance, and spell focus. The rear cover displays rules for random encounters, the reaction table, the attribute bonus scale, a list of languages, an XP rating chart, and a quick name generator for NPCs. This is a fantastic use of the space, and I wish more games would take up this option!

The flat paper ² is a good weight, but I have noticed that some of the inner-most pages in the signatures tend to fold up when turning the page. I’m not sure if this is a construction defect, or a combination of the book’s thickness and smaller size, but it’s something of which readers should be mindful. On the plus side the book does include a book ribbon, which is always a cause for celebration.

Even with the odd folding issue, I expect this book to last a long while.

The Artwork

The art in ShadowDark is some of the best I’ve seen in any TTRPG book. It’s all black and white inks which convey the ethos of the game perfectly. Many of the images are highlights but Lucas Korte’s Owl Bear, on page 248, may be the most threatening depiction of the creature I’ve ever seen.

Lucas Korte also did the cover art ³ and is a brilliant tone-setter for the entire game. Kelsey’s celebration of Lucas’ work was, in fact a big reason why I decided to support the kickstarter. I was convinced any game where the author talks about an artist’s death metal album covers with the same cheeriness one might talk about a cute puppy had to be worth playing. And I was not wrong, the combination of Kelsey’s cheerful enjoyment and the utter terror imposed by the cover art is exactly what I’ve experienced while playing this game.

The Layout

One critique I’ve seen for the ShadowDark book is there is just not enough material on each page. Folks point out the combination of font size, line spacing, and paragraph spacing is all a bit greater than is typical in most TTRPG books. Tables also seem to have a lot of vertical space between rows, which does make the tables taller than they “need” to be.

I have no doubt that these choices increased ShadowDark’s overall page count. But I also must say, “I don’t care.” All the choices for the book make reading it more accessible for me. The larger font allows my older eyes read the text in lower light without straining. The book’s spacing allows my mind to process the information on the page in more digestible chucks without my attention being hijacked by surrounding materials. I can read large portions of ShadowDark in little time without growing tired, and the layout that helps make that possible ⁴.

The individual design elements in the book are fantastic. Tables headings and pull quotes share a black background with a nice stippled texture on the left and right edges. Spell descriptions also use this texture for their headings, which leads me to believe that they are borderless tables. Table and spell headings utilized a bold face body font, while pull quotes use a rough serif font ⁵ which further sets it apart from the body text.

Chapter’s each have their own title page which utilizes the same blackletter font ⁶ in which the game title is written, underlined with a decorative flourish. The Lower portion of the title page presents a pull quote which is appropriate for that chapter.

There are no headers in ShadowDark, except on pages where a new section begins. On these pages a black border is set in the header, and the section title is presented in the same font used for the pull-quotes. It’s a fantastic way to say, “Something new is starting on this page.”

Footers are minimalist, the current page number is presented in the body font, on the outer corner of each page.

ShadowDark’s presentation is high contrast, clean, and jolts a reader to attention without exhausting them. It’s an amazing design.

Contents

The first 100 pages of the book are all player focused. Rules for character creation, the core mechanics, equipment and spell lists, and combat are all found here.

There are also rules for carousing, which allows party members to blow some hard-earned treasure in exchange for more XP. The results of this decision go from suffering a hangover (2 XP) to jolting back into consciousness inside the local ruler’s home while holding a valuable family heirloom (6 XP, if you escape with the treasure!). This is the type of wackiness that gives ShadowDark a particular charm.

The players’ material ends with an example of play, in good old school fashion, but not before it introduces a dice game called “Wizards and Thieves” through which characters may wager their wealth to strive for greater rewards. It’s fun stuff.

From page 101 on is the realm of Game Masters. The opening section, up to page 117, is an extended block of advice on running the game. The only new rules found in these pages cover what happens when a party’s light source is attacked ⁷, guidelines for setting up random encounters ⁸, and the 2d6 reaction table ⁹.

Pages 118 to 186 are filled with glorious tables. These cover random rolls for settlement building, dungeon creation, traps and hazard design, and random encounters by terrain type. A GM could design the framework for an entire campaign setting without leaving this section of the book!

ShadowDark’s bestiary begins on page 187 and it includes some random tables for creating custom creatures to throw at the party. Inclusions like this always make me glad. Monster listing are compact and easy to read. The heading lists the monster’s name, followed by a short description and a compact listing of the creature’s stats. Like 5e, creatures have all the same core attributes that player characters possess, and their modifiers are listed in the stat block. The creature’s actions and attacks are listed below the stat block with terse descriptions. The presentation is compact and easy to follow, I am a fan.

The final section of the book, beginning on page 267, deals with treasure. There are random tables to see what types of items can be found, rules for designing magic items, and descriptions for pre-generated magic items the characters might discover. As with everything else in ShadowDark, the presentation is terse and easy to digest.

Conclusion

ShadowDark is a top of the class example of how design, layout, and game structure can all work together to create a compelling product. It’s one of the best TTRPG books on the market and if you haven’t checked it out, it’s well worth looking in to. You can purchase the book at The Arcane Library‘s website.

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1. I’ve changed the spelling from part 1 because of how the game title is written. ↩

2. Flat paper, it’s just better. ↩

3. Which is not a beholder. ↩

4. Kelsey’s writing style doesn’t hurt, either. It’s great! ↩

5. Old Newspaper Types, by Manfred Klein. ↩

6. JPS Blackletter Font, by Jeffery S. Lee. ↩

7. “Let There Be Darkness,” page 110. ↩

8. Page 112. ↩

9. Which is one of my favorite mechanics ever. ↩