The humble Torch is an adventurer’s first, best, and most interesting tool. Are you using it to its full potential?

One of the things I love about Shadowdark is that it puts the torch front and centre. Losing light means you’re making random encounter rolls every single round, while dealing with disadvantage. Add in the real-time torch timer, and it keeps the light at the front of your mind.

And isn’t that where it should be? In a game about entering subterranean darkness, isn’t light at the thematic core?

If you’re playing fantasy TTRPGs with Darkvision, you’ll miss out on some really great tension, mystery, and challenge. If you’re brave enough to challenge the darkness with only a burning piece of wood, try these three tips to get the most excitement out of light and darkness.

Light is Small

In most variations of elfgame, torches give off thirty feet (about 9m) of light.

As I’ve pointed out before, this is quite generous.

Still, even at 30′, torchlight is often dwarfed by the darknesses your PCs will encounter. If your adventure has a room that is bigger than 30′ in any direction, your players should have no idea how big it is when they first enter the room. Monsters may hide in the darkness towards the back. Ideally, details can be split; what can you see from the door? What must you move deeper into the room to shed light on?

How high are the ceilings? In all likelihood, the torch is being carried at about 6′ off the ground. If the ceilings are higher than 36′, there’s no reason the PCs should have any idea how high the ceiling is. This looming overhead darkness makes a great place to put monsters — or even just some random skittery animals. Trying to raise a light source an extra ten feet to sight ranged attacks on ceiling monsters can make for an interesting combat complication.

How many light sources are your players burning? If it’s just one, everyone else is essentially tethered to this little pool of light. Played right by a canny DM, this can be an interesting source of tension and resource drain, especially if the party splits up or investigates different aspects of a large area.

Light is Fragile

Most rule sets have rules for dropped torches, and it is an OSR axiom to ‘target the light’. Take it a step further. Traps, gusts of wind, the death throes of certain monsters, spells, and environmental challenges can all threaten the light. It makes a great, non-lethal way to throw unexpected dangers at your players.

One of the best ways to make goblins memorable? Arm one of the little buggers with a pail of water. Low-level monsters go from cliche and boring to terrifying once the light goes out. So many of the goblins and bugbears in these games start from one universal human experience: hearing some rustling in the dark and knowing that you are completely defenceless. Tap into this! Remember the rule: target the light!

And speaking of OSR axioms: Strict Time Records Must Be Kept! Using the 6-turn lifespan of a torch helps keep up time tension, preventing your players from dilly-dallying, dungeon resting, and using siege tactics inside dungeons. That resource pressure also buys you a lot of verisimilitude; ration counting can have the same effect, but torches work on a scale of ten-minute turns rather than whole days of travel.

Light is Alien

The players need light to survive. Nothing else down here does.

In fact, many of the things contained in the mythic underworld your players are exploring have not seen the light in many ages. Some may be horrified by it; others, enchanted. There may be whole underground ecologies that burst into frenzies of life when light falls on them, like flowers surging from a desert when the rain comes. It may be a precious thing, coveted by deep-pocketed subterranean life. Or it could be lethal poison, frightening even to creatures that might otherwise wish to help you; earning their trust could require extinguishing your torches — if you trust them.

Remember that everywhere your players go underground, they take a little piece of the surface with them. Like deep-sea divers, they must bring their environment with them. If their little globe of light cracks, and darkness rushes in, they will drown in it.

Use these tips!
Enlightened DMs know that torchlight is tiny, fragile, and alien!

Enjoy this rant? Check out some of our adventures for Shadowdark, Knave, and 5e! We’ve also got more great blog posts; check out this one about a monster that eats light! Also, I just finished Mistborn, so next week you can expect some talk about overthrowing fantasy tyrants.