u/Von_Loch

I ran 5e for a year, hated it. I've since gravitated toward the OSR and love what I've run and/or played. From BECMI/OSE to Shadowdark to Mothership. And I want to run a solid sci-fi game with my friends. I tried to run a Mothership campaign, but a long-term game built on a structure of character degridation just doesn't work well. Was looking at some games with some better bones and landed on SWN. I really like what I'm reading so far. But it would help if I had practical references. Are there any Actual Plays on YT or Podcast that any of you would recommend for a good GM learner's reference?

-EDIT:

Thank you, everyone for all the incredible recommendations! The enthusiasm for this game is infectious! And to a sci-fi nerd, all these recs are a veritible treasure trove! I've started with Astronomica, has me bowling over laughing from go. But I'm going to be listening to all of them.
In the mean time, thank you all for the encouragement and advice! I will definitely be around in the subreddit, and if I have any questions, I will make sure to ask!

I'm currently working on converting the Barrowmaze Monster manual into Shadowdark monster stats. For the most part, it's fairly easy. I use SD equivelant monster (since most are variations on a theme), adjust HD, mark the level, and apply THAC0 to reverse calculate the AC.

But here's the rub. Most monster abilities I'll run as written. That is, until I came to the Barrow Wight. I'm conflicted about it's ability to drain XP. Specifically, the ability says taht "the physical touch of a barrow wight drains one level of experience from its victim." I didn't find any base monsters in the SDM with level drain. And I do happen to know that in some B/X circles, this ability is controversial to the point that some GMs will "fix it" to be a stat drain instead.

So my question is, what are the Shadowdark community's thoughts and feelings on this ability? Especially those of players who've gotten characters to upper levels of play. For reference, the Barrow Wight is 6 HD, which would convert to a 6th Level monster in SD. Would this be a feels-bad-moment for players or does it, infact, fit SD's general grit and difficulty?

Should I keep the ability as-is? Or should I tweak it to, maybe, 1/day or maybe make it a stat drain instead of level drain?

EDIT - thank you for the feedback! The stat block for the SD's Wight has Life Drain which reduces CON by 1d4 and death at 0 CON. So it seems The base monster is already doing the heavy lifting. And I don't think having level drain with CON drain at same time is a fun time. I think the right answer is to drop Level Drain, keep the CON drain mechanic and maybe fold in Barrowmaze's wight resurrection, similar to the vampire maybe with some limitations. I don't know that I like the idea of a level 6 monster being on-par with a level 11 monster.

But thank you, everyone, for the help!

I made this primarily as a tool for my players for my upcoming Megadungeon game after finding Foundry OSE content limited. While this is made mainly for my players, I was also keeping in mind it's usefulness for other GMs who may want to hand it off to their own players. This video follows each of the 13 steps of creating a new characters in classic and its target audience are players completely new to creating characters in OSE. The GM instructions I put at the beginning of the video for easy and quick reference. Also for eas of reference, the video is split in chapters for all steps of character creation.