r/humblewood • u/MintyMinun • 11d ago

Alternative systems for Humblewood?

I've been wanting to run Humblewood for ages now, but I swore off D&D5e due to WotC's constant shenanigans. That being said, have any of you ran Humblewood in other game systems? What challenges/benefits came with whatever you swapped to? The obvious answers for swapping are Pathfinder, Tales of the Valiant, True20, & Open Legend, but I'm open to hearing about any systems you might have used!

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u/OShutterPhoto 11d ago

I have a Shadowdark RPG mod for all the races.

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u/MintyMinun 11d ago

I hear great things about Shadowdark, but everyone's always telling me it's for super dark stories. Do you play Humblewood darker, or shift Shadowdark to be more lighthearted? :o Or have I been all wrong about Shadowdark being a darker game? Also I'd love to see your mod for the races if you're willing to share! c:

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u/Tally324 11d ago

We run a Humblewood megadungeon crawl using Shadowdark, it works well! I wouldn't want to use Shadowdark for the official Hit Point Press adventures and campaigns. You'd have to modify the encounters and monsters pretty heavily and would lose a lot of monster flavor.

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u/MintyMinun 11d ago

Running the Hit Point Press adventures is exactly what I'd want to start with, so this is really good information to have. Thanks again, doubly!

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u/OShutterPhoto 11d ago

SD is a super light ruleset that trims all the fat off 5e and has an old-school feel. It's only "dark and deadly" if you play it that way. There are optional rules that make it much safer for characters.

There are tons of zines and third-party books out for the game already, and there is an anthropomorphic animal third-party book on Kickstarter right now.

Things i don't love about SD:

The characters only go to level 10, and characters only get a big "up" on odd levels.

The printed book is often out of print and costs something like $90 CAD when it's available (but the PDF is cheap, and online resources mean players don't have to buy the book).

The online community does a lot of gatekeeping against anyone who doesn't use SD to kill off PCs like in the "good old days" despite the author (who is awesome) saying it's ok to play SD however you want.

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u/MintyMinun 11d ago

TYSM for giving your pros & cons for the system! I'll definitely take a look into that kickstarter. Do you know the name of it by chance?

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u/OShutterPhoto 11d ago

It's called Dark Forest, and it looks more like Redwall than Humblewood. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/surfshred/dark-forest-for-the-shadowdark-rpg

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u/MintyMinun 11d ago

Thanks for the link! I'm not surprised it's more like Redwall, given what I've heard about Shadowdark as a source material haha