Kelsey is the kind of person I want to support. She seems so genuine and down to earth.

Kelsey has clearly spent some time thinking about RPG's and games in general. Such a great interview.

We are not our characters, we are an audience to our characters. I love that.

I had the same reaction to Five Torches Deep. I absolutely loved it when I first read it and reread it. The ideas and streamlining was very cool. But I just couldn’t get it to work at the table in the way I wanted. I ended up modifying so much in order to run it that I had basically rewritten the whole thing.

Then Shadowdark was announced and I downloaded the QuickStart rules and swapped systems. We have been happily playing Shadowdark ever since. The thing I love most about Shadowdark is that it is “complete”. You can just play it as written without having to “fix” things the way I had to with 5E or FTD. I suspect lots of play testing and a willingness to re-edit to get things right made all the difference.

0:00 Intro & Develop Africa fundraiser
3:52 Why design Shadowdark (SD)?
5:14 Which systems influenced SD?
8:14 What ideas were pulled into SD from those systems?
12:30 What was the process of creating SD?
15:14 What are design pillars?
16:21 Any design ethoses in conflict with one another?
20:05 What non-D&D RPGs are your favourite?
21:05 Metagaming Dread's Jenga tower and SD's torch timer.
22:25 Favourite RPGs other than Dread.
23:33 West End Games Star Wars (part 1).
24:09 Running unused RPGs as one-shots for a year.
24:58 Surprises and revelations from playing a year of one-shots.
26:37 West End Games Star Wars (part 2).
29:45 SDs Random dungeon maps only generate 5 to 10 rooms.
30:15 Make five, five-room dungeons and smack them together.
32:05 Did you consider rolling under for SD?
33:57 Are you considering revamping any of your previous work?
35:07 Is your game design more 'intellectual' or more 'gut feeling'?
36:57 How does darkness impact the overland portion of SD?
38:57 How do you balance mechanics for a non-heroic fantasy system without feeling like the game is punishing the players?
40:44 How do you know something is not working at the table?
42:02 SD doesn't work for long-term campaign play?
45:34 Where did Kelsey's shirt come from?
46:15 Absence of saving throws.
48:07 THAC0 (Part 1).
52:26 Spell mishaps in SD and luck tokens.
53:10 THAC0 (Part 2).
54:58 D&D wasn't designed until 3e.
57:47 Have you seen an RPG system that is so well designed you feel defeated trying to design your system?
1:05:00 Develop Africa fundraiser update.
1:07:29 What are your opinions on rolling damage without the need to roll to hit?
1:10:18 What adventures do you have in the works?
1:11:29 Do you think Spell levels will be the next sacred cow to get the axe in the gaming sphere?
1:13:28 When are the next issues of Cursed Scroll for sale in paper? I'm hoping to get physical copies.
1:13:51 How did you come up with giving the monsters one simple ability?
1:15:20 Kelsey's approach to class design in SD?
1:17:20 Kelsey's game world and games worlds in general.
1:22:34 Geopolitics and game worlds.
1:29:28 Advice from an improv GM, let the players discover why its not the richest city.
1:30:53 Develop Africa fundraiser update.
1:32:17 What are your favourite mega dungeons?
1:35:31 Should you keep secret doors from your players?
1:36:46 The 365 room mega dungeon in 10 hours.
1:40:23 How do we play rules light games like SD, but make them more heroic?
1:42:38 How can we get people to play games that are not D&D 5e?
1:47:58 What systems do you think simulationist rules work best for vs where abstraction works best?
1:49:30 Marcus Aurelius criticises the SD bard class.
1:50:14 Outro

I came of age in the 90s and there were so many different games that we all played. There was no stigma then. Like we went and played at so&so’s house and he was running GURPs… we played that and then we went to Bob’s and he ran a heavily house ruled 2e D&D game… we played that… then my friend Bird ran EarthDawn and that system was totally RAD! No one batted an eye about having to learn a new system. That was half the fun! It was an adventure learning new stuff.

Shadowdark is all killer, no filler. Kelsey is an inspiration.  Many thanks to her for making it exist.

Not that 40 is old or anything, but goodness do the both of you look SO YOUNG! Must be a product of loving what you do?

This was a wholesome good time. I don't even normally like livestreams but this was phenomenal. Great friend chemistry

Kelsey is legit cool. She is the Paragon of Chill.

I will eventually buy this book, because she seems like a true gamer and a critical thinker who examined the many options and distilled the best elements into her game.

For those wondering what Baron was referring to: “Dungeon Tuber thumbnail tier list” was created by Elder Goblin Highmage

Some better than I said Shadowdark was B/X 5e or Basic 5e and this is feeling I get as I read the rules for Shadowdark.  I can easily run the classic modules using Shadowdark and I can easily add or subtract what I like a don’t like. Kelsey did a great job.

The thing I remember about d20 Star Wars was that there were two entries for "data sticks" on the equipment menu.  One for an "empty data stick" and one for a data stick containing data.  And the one that contained data WEIGHED MORE.  Apparently, in Star Wars (according to that game), digital data has physical mass.

I’m so thrilled to hear Kelsey knows the “GURPS guy” phenomenon.

Wow, two of my favorite ttrpg people in one room, very excited to watch this

Kelsey is awesome. Glad to see you two collaborating.

What a great chat! So many things  our table is going through were addressed by both of yall. Yall are reading my mind! Thanks for the perspective!

So cool to see you guys in the same place!

THACO: Gygax played naval wargames. The term Armor Class refers to ships: how thick, and how well-covered the ship was in armor plates. An AC of 1 was very good: it meant first-class armor. AC 2 meant second-class, and so on, such that a higher numerical value for AC meant that the protection granted by the armor was worse, and so it was easier to score a damaging hit against the ship.