(TFT) now readable: Dungeon Crawl review

[Joel BoardgameRpger <joel.siragher@gmail.com>]

Before I say anything else, I have to tell you that I have no financial
interest in this game. Its a glowing review. I just really liked the game.
I'm quite biased at this point And above all, please pardon my grammar and
punctuation.


In my quest to find the perfect dungeon crawler... I have UNCOVERED a gem.
I made a self calculating character sheet for it which I can share via
Google spreadsheets, because its one of my compulsions.

Dungeon crawl written by Alex Bermudez of Smackwell Games.
This game is a squad based dungeon crawl. It can be played cooperatively
with a round robin dungeon lord (GM or what have you). Or, it can be played
with a dedicated dungeon lord. Each squad member/character is defined at
game start by the players. You can play it as either a strategy game or as
a roleplaying game.

Like Fantasy trip and Gurps characters have four stats.
You have a choice of 4 races: Human, Dwarf, Halfling, Elf, and 5 classes:
Warrior, barbarian, rogue, cleric, sorcerer.

To create your hero you pick your race and then your class and combine the
stats from both. Here's a human Barbarian

BEEF (str): 1 + 1 = 2
ZIP: 1 + 1 = 2
SMARTS: 5 - 1 = 4
HEALTH: 5 + 3 = 8

Life points are your starting health/hit points.
Adrenaline is beef plus zip plus 3. You use adrenaline to modify your
attack dice or defense dice or movement or revive from death. There is a
really neat chart of adrenaline maneuvers. Should your hit points get
knocked down to zero or below, you need at least 3 adrenaline points to
'revive from death'. Or, you could take a life potion which also brings you
back from death.

Attack dice is Beef + weapons damage. Roll # of attack dice. Count
successes (4 thru 6). Damage is what gets thru your opponents Defense dice
successes.

Defense dice is calculated by Zip + armor

At every even level you also get to choose a skill from your race or your
class. The skills are well thought out and you don't have to take them in
any order.

At every level I think you get a new spell to use for sorcerers and clerics.

On top of the Races and Classes, your character can join an adventurers
guild which have deed or money requirements. It adds a lot of flavor to the
game. You could get a magic weapon or item to help you in your quests.

Your sword and armor equipment pieces have a level requirements. At level
one you can only take a small number of weapons. Artifacts are found during
the scenarios and random dungeons and they are kept when found from
scenario to scenario. I cant remember if they are unique. I will have to
look that up again.

There is Character / Squad advancement. Each character goes up a level
every 50 exp points.

You know I might say that this game has a lot of potential, but that phrase
is often loaded with weird intent. The game is GREAT and it is complete. It
is BEYOND the potential phase. Currently it is sold by the Author and
artist himself through his website. So what do you get for fifteen measly
bucks?

The main book is 148 pages. it covers Character Creation, Combat rules and
options for the players and monsters. It comes with optional rules. A
campaign section and a role play section.

The main book is not all rules. The actual rule section for dungeon crawl
is 5 pages. That isnt to slim and it isnt too complicated. This guy doesn't
wastes space and he writes well enough to keep some one like me interested.
Since the question as been asked out side of the review, let me qualify the
contents:

Page 1-50: Rules. It includes character and squad generation.
Pages 51-57: Campaign
Pages 58-64: Amory
Pages 65-83: Beastiary
Pages 84-94 Random Rules. Playing an entire game with out a dungeon lord
Pages 95-107: Deathblow arena. Coliseum type battles. This includes
skirmish battles.
Pages 110-132: Artifacts
Pages 133-148: Roleplay Rules


In addition you will receive a separate full color campaign book with 35
adventures in it. You also get a 90+ page game component book with about
160 print and play cards, Dungeon components (tables chests tokens
standups) and a professionally developed tile set. I mounted mine using
chipboard and laser labels. There are close to thirty 8 by 8 inch tiles.
The work that went into the tiles is quite impressive. Finally there is
another file containing play aids. I went to the authors forum boards and
found a Tileset expansion for the tileset app. I dont have that program.
Ill have to get back to you on that.

If you like darkcity.com games modules for TFT and Legends of the ancients,
you could easily adapt those products to DarkCity's solo quests/group
quests.

The game has a lot of heart, and smarts. It's obvious that this is a true
labor of love, and I feel that it has to be lifted out of the shadows so
that its can sparkle in all its humorous glory.

Content: 5 out of 5. No kidding. There is nothing missing. This game rivals
the pros (Descent and warhammer quest). I hope he kickstarts.

Art: 5 out of 5. Professional quality components. Nuff said. (Aside: print
the cards in black and white. You wont miss anything, and you will save
costly color toner)

Quality: 5 out of 5. Very professional. Be prepared to print a lot of
cards.

Gamplay: This is a very well thought out game. I ran through the solo and I
cant see any problems.

Over all: I hope to be running this for a group soon.

I cant say enough good things here. I probably need to edit this review. I
didn't look it over yet.

Ill do that later, Cheers.

-- 
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English is a beautifully spoken language.
*Are you uptalking?   high rising terminal (HRT)*?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuP9VdTzUMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkETbHpyF4

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