Gauntlet: the tabletop party game

[GMMichael]

Introducing Dark Amulet: the GM-less dungeon crawl that pits the warrior, elf, valkyrie, and wizard against endless, monstrous hordes in pursuit of treasure, survival, and more. This game requires a dungeon map, standard roleplaying dice (with several d20s), character sheets, and the tables in the game book to play.

Note that this game is:
- a type of fan-fiction, provided free for the enjoyment of all
- a rules module for Modos RPG, so a working knowledge of the game is helpful
- under construction, so it's in need of ideas, artwork, and playtesting.

Here's the gist of gameplay:

One or more heroes wander room-to-room until they find an exit to the next, deeper, dungeon level. Each step of the game is taken by the action - the standard unit of time. The first player to enter a room rolls on tables to determine the room's contents, monsters present, and exits. This player also begins the action sequence of turns that proceed around the table to the left. Players use their actions to attack, defend, or maneuver, killing off the monsters in the room (the "horde") until all monsters, and any monster-generators, are destroyed.

This is where it gets fun.

After each player has taken a turn, the first player then takes the role of the monsters, four at a time. Play proceeds to the left until each monster in the horde has acted. As players get deeper into the dungeon (recycling the same map if they don't have more than one), the monsters get more dangerous, the treasure gets more plentiful, and food (for healing) becomes more scarce. To relieve the sense of impending doom, players earn hero points for making game announcements as certain events occur, such as "Red Wizard needs food, badly," or "Yellow Elf shot the food!" These hero points can be used to improve roll results, unlock doors, and perhaps most importantly, buy another credit (resurrect) for your character.

For what it's worth, the rules of the game are fairly simple to use, but it's taking on a level of complexity that would really benefit from various types of playtesters - solo players, small groups, large groups, high-score seekers, roleplayers, and optimizers...to name a few. Drop a line here or PM if you'd like to help, add your ideas, or ask questions.

 

[GMMichael]

Design question of the day:

I'm using the dungeon level (number) as a slowly-increasing number that adds to difficulty. For example, when you roll to find the size of a monster horde in any given room, you add the dungeon level to a static number based on room size.

I also want to use dungeon level to increase the difficulty of monster type. Off the top of my head, the monsters from least to most dangerous are skeletons, ghosts, barbarians, lobbers, demons, and wizards. With only six monster types, I can't just add dungeon level to a die roll and neatly get an increasingly dangerous 1-6 result. My current solution goes like this:

[sblock]The first table rolled (1d8) determines the presence and/or size of a monster horde in a room. The 8th result is "special," and goes to a second table. The monster type table uses d8+DL and goes from 1-20 in small clumps (like four skeletons, then four ghosts...). So as DL increases, you can access harder enemies on the table. Realizing this significantly narrowed the variety of monsters found on a given dungeon level, I added more horde encounters under the Special result, and a special horde requires you to roll 1d20 to find that horde type, versus d8+DL.[/sblock]

Do you have a simple solution for using an increasing dungeon level to result in increasing monster (type) difficulty? I'd love to hear it!

 

[GMMichael]

Here's a smattering of the draft-phase fun stuff:

Reflective Shot (potion): when you make a Fight (missile) or Magic attack, roll two d20s. You can choose which result to apply to your attack.
(Very helpful when a comrade is holding a choke point, or when you're trying to shoot a potion behind several monsters.)

The Doppleganger: this special encounter takes the place of a horde. A doppleganger is the mirror-image of a player of your choice, but with only 3 health. If the doppleganger resembles you, you can attack it without penalty. If it resembles your comrade and you roll odd damage, you damage your comrade. If you roll even damage, you instead damage the doppleganger.

Food: picking up this magical plate of food heals 4 damage.
(Attack rolls of 1 hit and destroy the food.)

Ale: roll d4. On a 1, this magical jug is actually a poison that deals 1 damage. If you don't roll 1, heal 4 damage.

 

[GMMichael]

Characters are starting to form:



And yes, the game's tables will be posted to the OGRE. That should allow you to roll up an entire room's contents in one click.

Not my art, by the way.