Review: Dark Places & Demogorgons

This review is part of a series on thematic OSR games (as defined here). Also note that some of the links below are affiliate links (meaning I get a small percentage of the sale without extra cost to you).

The subtitle of Dark Places & Demogorgons is "It's the 1980s and there are strange things happening everywhere!" (emphasis not mine), and it surely is accurate. In this game the players portray teenagers from a small town (the default setting is Jeffersontown, Kentucky), solving mysteries. The game is built on the familiar old-school rules chassis, but the game completely focuses on investigating strange occurrences. There are combat rules, but fighting monsters isn't sustainable for teenagers.

Network System Success Rates

The following table summarises the chances of success (in percentages) for various Target Numbers in the Network System (used by Sertorius, Servants of Gaius, Terror Network, and Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (all affiliate links)). The resolution mechanic is "compare highest result of Nd10" (except for 0d10, where the result is the lowest of 2d10). I have included probabilities only up to 6d10 as it is a soft cap in Ogre Gate.

	0d10	1d10	2d10	3d10	4d10	5d10	6d10
TN 3	64	80	96	99.2	99.84	99.97	99.99
TN 4	49	70	91	97.3	99.19	99.76	99.93
TN 5	36	60	84	93.6	97.44	98.98	99.59
TN 6	25	50	75	87.5	93.75	96.87	98.44
TN 7	16	40	64	78.4	87.04	92.22	95.33
TN 8	9	30	51	65.7	75.99	83.19	88.24
TN 9	4	20	36	48.8	59.04	67.23	73.79
TN 10	1	10	19	27.1	34.39	40.95	46.86