Alchemy's Workbench #11: Putting Meat On The Bones

In my last post, I made comment that I would be looking to tweak the new release of Dungeon!, the classic board game of dungeon crawling. Despite a couple of questionable choices with the revamp, this was nothing to do with Dungeon! being a bad game. I just think that it could be more.

So here's what I have brewing so far:

Leveling up: Whenever you roll a double that is greater than your current level (you start at level 1), you go up one level. This should give a nice curve to progression, making it harder to achieve higher levels, which I feel is truly representative of early role playing games (and more modern ones come to think of it). I intend to introduce bonuses based on class and race that will be gained at various levels but those are still very much on the drawing board.

Character Generation: Instead of going with the box standard Halfling Rogue, Elven Wizard etc, players will be able to mix and match race and class as they wish. The treasure target will depend upon the combination selected, so whilst certain races may offer bigger benefits to the player, they will need to earn more treasure in order to win.

The race / class build list looks like this so far, using those in the base game:

Class

Rogue: +5,000 GP

Cleric: +5,000 GP

Fighter: +10,000 GP

Wizard: +15,000 GP

Race

Halfling: +5,000 GP

Dwarf: +5,000 GP

Human: +10,000 GP

Elf: +15,000 GP

So a Human Rogue would need to collect 15,000 GP worth of treasure and return to the Great Hall to win the game and, would have access to the Rogues and Humans bonuses as they leveled up.

That's all that I have so far but I also have a few ideas for the bonuses that certain classes / races might grant the player as well as a few other modifications that I would like to add to the game, including different "Monster Attacks" tables for different classes, maybe introducing puzzles in addition to monsters and traps that simply cause a player to lose turns instead of inflicting damage upon failure to overcome them. The actual monsters, their levels and, their values also seriously need tweaking.

Dungeon! (2012): Huh?

I finally picked up a copy of the Wizards of the Coast re-release of the dungeon crawling classic, Dungeon! and, on closer inspection I have been left wondering, well, huh?

As much as I appreciate Wizards breathing new life into this game and opening it up to a new generation of gamers, without forcing them to trawl E-Bay, a number of the changes that they have made have left me puzzled. Some of which just defy logic.

For example, one of the cosmetic changes that they have made is to include a minotaur, which is great. Minotaurs are a firm favorite of mine. But as a level 1 monster? Really? A minotaur on the same level as goblins and kobolds. Level 2 is only orcs and hobgoblins and, you're telling me they're tougher than minotaurs!? The values that they have assigned to defeat these monsters seems more than a little arbitrary as well.

The other major change (other than a tweak to the way magic swords work) is to the characters. This change is purely cosmetic, meaning that instead of Elves, Heroes, Super Heroes and, Wizards you now have Halfling Rogues (instead of the Elf), Dwarven Clerics (instead of the Hero), Human Fighters (instead of the Super Hero) and, Elven Wizards (instead of the Wizard).

Despite being purely a re-branding of the old characters, I did find it interesting that the introduction of Dwarves, Clerics and, Halflings didn't draw upon the expansions for those very classes released for earlier versions of Dungeon!

So all in all, the new release has raised a lot of questions, for me at least, but I am sure as with the previous versions the fans will set it straight in the long run. I may even have a crack myself. As a start though, some veteran players have released some interesting variants on the Wizards website that are worth a look.