Dungeon Crawler project DEV-LOG 1

Well, I'm sure this is a weird place to talk about my hobbies and something different from my NSFW illustrations, surely I will end up moving this somewhere else, but for now, just to begin writing about this project I'll leave this here.

For the last couple of months I have been working on a print & play tabletop dungeon crawler. I'm sure very few here might be familiar with such games, let me explain what I'm talking about and why I'm into this really weird and niche project.

So let’s begin with print & play games, what are those? Well in short they are typically table top games that are distributed mainly online, you download the files with the rules and components and print it yourself at home or by employing a print on demand services like drive through RPG or similar ones. You will find a lot of different types of print & play games, among them dungeon crawlers like Notequest or 2d6 dungeons.

These two along with games like D100 dungeons and 4 against darkness are what many call roll & write dungeon crawlers or RPGs. What is great about these is how they are built around solo play and the use of limited components, mostly a set of dice plus pen & paper. All these offer a similar experience to an old school tabletop RPG for solo players, of course if you don’t mind some bookkeeping.

While all these games are great, after experiencing games like HeroQuest and seeing battle reports of other tabletop dungeon crawlers like Warhammer Quest and others alike Is hard to deny how much components like dungeon tiles and minis do for the game feeling. Then I found there are also print & play dungeon crawlers which include these types of components, of course mainly paper minis and tiles. Still after building a copy of a game using print & play components I can see how people would just avoid games like these, after all not all enjoy the process of printing and building components.

Well here is where my idea came from, to find a happy medium, a print & play game which uses game components, but mainly common ones like D6 dice, playing cards, plastic peons and checker pieces to play, and so I found out I might be onto something.

Picture of a playtest ussing prototyped components 

Using common game components for a dungeon crawler is not a noble idea either, Dead Belt comes to mind, However I really want to make an experience more similar to the original Warhammer Quest (95) but accessible, after all that game will literally cost you a kidney (you will find beat em up and incomplete sets of that game on the thousands).

Exploratory piece for the artstyle for the game, inspired on 15mm miniatures.

Of Course if you are interested in making a dungeon crawler in a fantasy setting it is important to check the OG, none other than Dungeons & Dragons, more specifically the original editions. In my case I have been referencing a system called Old School Essentials, a retro clone of the original D&D B/X that funny enough has procedures that feel very table top or at least I can see how other table top dungeon crawlers just took inspiration from.

My first interaction with older editions of D&D and what people refers to as the OSR (Old School Renaissance) is a lot older than this project, in fact all begun with a little TTRPG called DURF, a neat rule set contained in 12 pages and what serves as base system for this project, it is Creative commons and honestly love their simplicity but mainly their inventory and stress system.

Basically this allows players to push their characters allowing them to do certain abilities and for this game re-roll the dice, mitigating a little the randomness of the game, or allowing you to have an extra chance in critical moments. But since stress is stored in your limited inventory, it must be used wisely or risk not being able to obtain treasures and with them experience to advance their characters.

Anyways, the little play testing I have done so far has proven the idea can really work. Games play quickly, I have been prioritising keeping bookkeeping to a minimum (within reason, you still need to track your character attributes, inventory and wounds, hirelings and turns). Simplified combat (well maybe not so simple, i love some obtuse things like attack matrices, However they really speed up combat in my opinion), and offer other options to solve encounters (you can bribe monsters to leave your party alone or even join your party).

In short I have been working on a table top print & play dungeon crawler that  implements many ideas from other games in the genre like DURF, D&D, Dead Belt, Warhammer Quest, Notequest, D100 dungeons and others like frostgrave, all with a heavy OSR flavour.

How much will it take me to finish, well currently I'm still working on the core rulebook text (haven’t stepped on the art and image instructions yet, but I feel they will be necessary) not to mention an adventure book containing all the quests, campaign and dungeons. But still I'm optimistic.

Small example of the type of illustartions the rulebook will need, this one depicting line of sigth

This is just the first of many dev-logs I hope will see how the journey goes, for now I will continue working on NSFW and this project in my spare time. Until the next time.