All manner of fortune-seekers gather in the island town of Vesterport, seeking gold and glory across the waves in lands long forgotten during the dark days of the undying storm. Merchant princes from the mainland plan new trade routes and struggle to establish order in this sea of chaos where wily pirates and bloodthirsty raiders prey on the unwary.
When a Shadowstorm howls in from the furthest reaches of the ocean, pirates and merchants alike flee for safe harbors and make common cause against demons of wrack and ruin that ride those cursed winds, hungry for souls. Once the storm recedes, explorers once again seek the distant isles. What will they find out there? Isolated communities ready to resume trade with the known world, or ruined remnants of lost civilizations twisted by the Shadowstorm into deadly horrors?
This site is for scheduling and character tracking for our mostly in-person open-table Shadowdark RPG games set at the far edge of the Western Reaches.
In the "Characters" tab you can create a placeholder character; your actual character will be made in person on paper at your first game, so the digital placeholder here is mostly just for scheduling. You need to be signed in with Discord to make a character.
In the "Adventures" tab you'll be able to sign up for any upcoming games that are available, once you've made a placeholder character in the Characters section.
The "Wiki" page on this site is for more info on rules, character creation, the setting, adventure locations, and an expanding map of places that have been explored during games. The Wiki usually starts on the map page, but if you're not currently logged in with Discord that page shows as "access denied."
To sign up for games here you'll need to join the Vesterport discord server and then sign in here through your DISCORD account (which is free to create if you don't already have one). The button to sign in with discord is on the upper right corner of your screen.
The Vesterport discord server can also be used for discussions about the game, player-shared stories about their adventures, and discussion of downtime activities.
Join the discord server: https://discord.gg/bgePYR8u6e
It helps to have discord access to use all the features here, particularly for scheduling, but if for any reason you can't make a discord account you can contact Phil M directly and he can handle scheduling for you. You'll still be able to see most of what is on this site, but you won't be able to access the player discussion threads on the discord server.
Shadowdark is a streamlined version of D\&D that captures the spirit of the original game and the clarity of modern rules, with an emphasis on fast-paced gameplay. Anyone who has played any version of D\&D will find the rules very familiar, and if you haven't played at all they're simpler and easier to learn than pretty much any other version of the game.
Shadowdark characters are not born heroes destined for greatness, and they have no plot armor. You don't need to come up with an elaborate heroic back story for your character; their story is just beginning and will be told as you play. They can be created pretty quickly, so we can make new characters for anyone who needs one at the beginning of a game session (more on this in the "Characters" tab).
This is not a game in which the player characters can win every fight they might stumble into, and it is often better to come up with clever solutions than to solve every problem with your sword. If you're clever and lucky, your character might live to a ripe old age and retire peacefully. Even strong characters can die if the winds of chance turn against them, though, so it's not a bad idea to have a backup character or two waiting in the wings.
Open Table, or West Marches, is a style of play in which anyone can join any game session and no one has to commit to show up at every single one. It is possible to play a character long term across multiple sessions and get very involved in various plots and schemes, or to just drop in and play one time.
This is in contrast to the epic campaign format that is a little more common nowadays, in which a set group of a few characters play in an extended series of sessions, and every player needs to be at every session or the story suffers. Scheduling can be a big challenge for that kind of game and to tell a good story in that format often requires a commitment of months or years.
The open table format allows for much more flexible scheduling and for new players to join in at any time with no long-term commitment.
An open-table campaign is not just a series of disconnected one-shot games, though. All the adventures take place in a coherent world and things that happen in one session affect future sessions. All the players are exploring and discovering the same world and its dangers, and they might return to the same locations as they did in prior sessions. While there is no pre-written plotline here, longer-form story elements can emerge from the game sessions.
What makes the open table format work is that each session begins and ends in a safe place. In this case, that is the island town of Vesterport.
Check out the Wiki page for more details on Vesterport and its environs.
Old and new friends in the east bay for in-person games, and we might run some online sessions for people further away. New players are totally welcome, so if there's room in a game feel free to invite that friend who wants to try playing a game with no long term commitment. Shadowdark is much easier to learn to play than other versions of D\&D, and we can make new characters at the beginning of a session, so no need to do any "homework" before showing up. An interest in the fantasy genre might make it more fun, but a willingness to roll dice and engage in a little improv-style play-acting is all you need.
Time and scheduling are the greatest enemy of all D\&D parties... the open table format helps a little with that, but it's still hard! I'm putting games on the calendar when I know I can run them, which is usually on the weekends, mostly midday Sunday. If a group of players want to go on a particular adventure and self-organizes to schedule it, that would be amazing and I'll try to make it work if I can! I might run some early-morning online sessions for friends on the east coast or Europe, or maybe a shorter weekday evening online session. I'll aim to schedule about two games per month.
Check out the Adventures page for games I've already put on the calendar.
