Murder Mansion vs Shadowdark RPG
Compare Murder Mansion and Shadowdark RPG side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Murder Mansion | Shadowdark RPG | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Fantasy |
| Tags | Survival, Dungeon Crawl, Resource Management, Inventory Management, Gritty, Deadly, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Random Tables | Deadly, Dungeon Crawl, Rules-Light, Theater of the Mind, Roll to Cast, Random Tables, Resource Management, Inventory Management, Random Character Creation, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d20 and add Guts, Brains, or Nerve, meeting or beating a target number that is usually set by the GM, from 5 (almost trivial) to 20 (nearly impossible). There is no separate to-hit roll. A survivor's attack is the weapon's damage die plus Guts, minus the target's Protection. A turn allows up to two actions, normally only one of them an attack. | Roll a d20 plus the relevant stat modifier and meet or beat the difficulty class or Armor Class. Advantage and disadvantage use two rolls and keep the better or worse result. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | Low | Low |
| Availability | Paid | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 2 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | Shadowdark RPG Third-Party License Version 1.1 |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Commercial publishing allowed — Shadowdark RPG Third-Party License |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Wall of Text Games | The Arcane Library |
| Year | 2024 | 2023 |
| Languages | English | English, French, Italian, Portuguese |
| Best For | Groups who want a survival-horror escape for a one-shot or short run, where rationing ammo and solving lock-and-key puzzles matter more than winning fights. | Groups who want dangerous dungeon expeditions driven by resource choices and player ingenuity. Suits campaigns where recovering treasure matters more than defeating every monster. |
| Highlights | Gear with a durability die, such as flashlights and lockpicks, is spent when that die rolls a 1, which keeps survivors scavenging for replacements. Hunter-class bosses cannot be killed by ordinary attacks and return to ambush the party, so finding a scenario-specific weakness becomes its own objective. Three ready-to-run sample adventures with keyed maps come in the core book, so a group can play before designing its own mansion. | Torches burn for one hour of real time, putting a time limit on dungeon exploration. Gear slots make carrying treasure compete with supplies needed to survive the return trip. Procedural generators let the GM create dungeons and encounters during play. |
| Considerations | There are no levels, experience points, or other advancement rules, so winning fights never makes survivors stronger. Healing items cannot be used during combat except through the Medic's Combat Medicine skill, so damage taken in a fight stays until it ends. The rules cover escaping a single location, with no procedures for social conflict, travel, or downtime between scenarios. | Low starting hit points make a few successful attacks potentially fatal. Class talents are rolled at odd-numbered levels, limiting control over advancement. Social interaction relies mainly on spoken arguments and GM judgment rather than a dedicated conflict subsystem. |