Hi all! Just reading the rules and wondering how to handle darkness …
I see dim light increases ob difficulty by 1 - seems simple. I see darkness prevents any kind of reading and limits conflict options.
What else does darkness do? Should it also increase obstacle difficulty? Do you use darkness as an obstacle/twist unto itself? Any input would be appreciated!
The second paragraph under darkness: “Darkness is a factor in all tests except riddling.”
OK so dim light and darkness are just a factor in all tests (and they are not additive), the difference being the additional conflict/reading limitations from darkness.
While not good, I thought darkness would be much worse no?
I had always assumed that the factor from Darkness stacked with the factor from Dim Light. If that’s the case, then you’re looking an an increase in obstacle of 2, which is pretty statistically punishing. But I might have that wrong.
I thought this at first too, but then I switched to treating it as a single factor.
This made the players a lot more willing to do things like douse their light and set an ambush for enemies (using description of ENEMY lights to find their way, etc).
In fact, we’ve done a lot more description using sound, smell and touch since the change. It’s very atmospheric!
And of course, the party’s Assassin is overjoyed.
The more I think about it the penalties for darkness seem right.
I’d maybe make navigating to a previously mapped room an obstacle in the dark however … and up the factor by one for every extra room they need to go. This would make getting back out either slow or very treacherous! Failure would result in some good twists I think (henchman with the lootbag goes missing, etc.)
In darkness, their map can’t be read, so they get no benefit from it.