[Ruleset Review] Dark Places & Demogorgons

 Dark Places & Demogorgons

I've had an itch to play something in the mood of the series "Stranger Things". I've collected a few games on the subject but decided to start with the oldest of them, the first to surf on the Demogorgon Wave. Another reason is that the book is small in size and not heavy, perfect to read in bed (yes, Tales from the loop, I'm looking at you. You're too heavy for reading in bed! [Is it still fatshaming when it's about a book 🙈🙉🙊?])

1.) What is it?

"Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons" (DP&D) is a 2017 game in the genre of "80ies teenagers fighting mysteries while trying to keep good grades". Stranger things made this a big thing and very successfully to say the least.

The teenagers play a game of D&D featuring a Demogorgon in there, hence the name of the game, which also closes the circle of a game inspiring writers, whose series inspires a game in the end.

DP&D is a rulebook to play in this style. It's 200 pages long, black and white. My book was lulu-printed (a print on demand printer) and does not have anything written on the binding (a common problem with PoD).

2.) When did I hear about it for the 1st time?

It was so quickly out after the release and success of stranger things, that it kind of made a bang. I probably heard about it on a french roleplaying forum

I even heard that it was based on B/X D&D, like the game the teenagers play in the series. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the older D&D versions (I just prefer unified systems).

3.) What did I expect?

A very old school game, with classes as race, but where the classes are "80ies kids archetypes", no skills and a a level progression up to lvl 14 (like in the expert set). And Tools to set the mood, create a town and hoped for a few scenarios / adventures

4.) What did I get?

• Well, i'm not a big fan of B/X to start with, and to be honest this is not a bad adaptation, but B/X is not my favorite D&D to start from
• The skills are handled nearly like in 3E, which is not per se a bad thing, but skills bonuses are capped at +5 (and there are lots of skills for few points to allocate), when you have reached lvl5. And there are only 5 levels in total (which I find a bit few)
• Art is not ugly, but also not great (but the family photos of the game developers are ugly on purpose at that's kind of great - sadly very pixelled)
• No scenario / adventure. Quite a few synopses featuring a "monster of the week" which are mostly inspiring, but offer no clue as to how to fight this danger / resolve that situation
• But what mostly disturbed me with the game is that the chances to achieve anything in the game (roll against TN) are miserably low. Or better said, the random factor is too high compared to the skill possibilities.
  At level 5, you could have a skill at +5, and an attribute giving you +3. Against a TN of 15 (normal): that a 55% chance of success.
  For a maxed out character.
  So imagine the chances of an unskilled starting character to achieve any good idea of their player...
  
  Sure, the DM can give you advantage like in 5E. Or just consider no roll is necessary if the idea is great (did not read this in the game, though). But for a jinxed player like me, such system would just be hell...

5.) Conclusion

I hope this does not sounds too harsh, because it was really not all bad and I'd never read through if it was really bad. There are just enough small problems that it's not worth my time to patch it to my liking.

There are a few excellent tables for background and adversaries generation in the book that I'll certainly use and actually are worth paying the price of the game for. I just won't play it by the book (I'll see what Kids on bike and tales from loop have to offer)

Now I'd really be interested in what B/X-aficionados think of the game ! Comment away !

Addenda (13th december 2020):

6.) Developments

Since I've posted this review, some reactions have brought me clarify something.

I may not be a fan of the B/X system, but that is not the only reason why I dislike the system of "Dark Places & Demogorgons". In my opinion, it is a bad adaptation of B/X, my main problem being the skill system.

7.) Noteworthy commentaries

On Facebook, Jo-Herman Haugholt described a bit further what he thinks of DP&D (and its skill system, and what I got wrong with it). With his permission, I'm adding his comment to this post:

"Pretty close to my assessment, after running a small campaign which recently ended due to a too-long hiatus due to lockdown.

The rules are functional but are a bit unclear in places. They're better at being flavourful than being a solid exhaustive rules system, so expect to make many rulings on things.

If you're planning on running a campaign, I would recommend getting the "Player Options & GM Guide" book as well, as in addition to raising the level cap and adding additional classes, it includes some re-balance of the core classes. The newer "Cryptid Manual" is also very nice; beyond being in another league when it comes to presentation, it also clarifies several rules and fleshes out many of the creatures found in the core book.

I also missed a proper example adventure; while the book includes several adventure seeds, they all require some work before they can be run as a full adventure. This trend continues in the setting book and topic books.

The stated DC values seems a little high and those few examples that are in the book seem to trend on average a bit lower than the stated DC 15 for moderate difficulty.

But characters don't max out at +5 on skill rolls as the post suggest, as most classes include significant bonuses beyond what you get from skill points and attribute. For example, in our campaign at level 2, The Princess ended up rolling Persuasion checks at +9 vs. boys/parents (+7 against everyone else). In addition, abilities that give advantage or re-rolls aren't that uncommon, and you can always re-roll failed rolls by spending a Survival point.

Though I'm used to judging DCC where the DC of an average adventurer task is 10, so while running the game, I probably did set the DCs a few points lower than the guidelines suggested most of the time.

It's a game with many good ideas, but a bit rough in execution. If you enjoy the BX/OSR inspiration and are willing to do a bit of work, there is potential here. The later books are much more polished, and the newest game in the line (Survive This! Fantasy) looks to much more solid game, which probably could be used to flesh it out. But there are probably also more complete games in the genre, like Kids on Bikes, and possibly the newly kickstarted D&D5e version of the game."

Thanks for this comment, Jo! This is definitely an interesting point of view and a great expansion of the review onto the whole line of DP&D products (which I supposed would expand the classes and level caps, but i was not ready to buy it just for review purposes)