Shadow of the Demon Lord sale

Shadow of the Demon Lord (SotDL)* is one of my favorite "versions" of D&D. I have it in both PDF and print - it is one of the few non-D&D, non-GURPS books I have in print. It is, in many ways, more interesting than D&D 5e.

It does many things we have been discussing here in terms of "minimalist D&D": most things are just contested rolls. If you have Str 17 (+7) and your target has Agility 15 (+15), for example, you just have to roll 1d20+7 and beat 15 (barring armor, etc.).

Another thing I enjoy are boons/banes - SotDL's version of advantage/disadvantage. Add a d6 to your d20 roll if you have one boon. If you have three boons, you roll 3d6, but only add the highest. This keeps both simplicity and "bounded accuracy".

The coolest thing about the system is that it keeps some simplicity while giving you LOADS of character options, but they are organized in a way to make choices limited according to your level.

The only thing the system is missing is a SRD, I guess, so we could easily edit and share our house rules. Schwalb does offer some possibility of publishing 3rd party stuff, IIRC.

Of course, I also enjoy the "dark fantasy" aspect of the game. It is in many way a darker, leaner version of D&D, with lots of humor and gore - something in the vein of Warhammer.

The random tables are also fantastic.

In short, if you like my stuff, you'll probably like this one too.

I'll probably write a longer review someday... For now, I'll just mention that apparently all Shadow of the Demon Lord books are on sale through June. The sale includes other titles, such as PunkApocalyptic.

Now, while I have acquired a lot of SotDL modules, I haven't actually read many, so I'll hold the recommendations for now... but I'll let you know as soon as I have something else to recommend.

EDIT: I am starting to get into Tales of the Demon Lord and I'd like to say... I like what I see so far. I think I'll actually run this campaign very soon! Stay tuned for more updates...

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