Looking for a Miniature Dungeon Crawl Game

[Darksider]

As the title says, I am looking for a good old Dungeon Crawl game with miniatures.

Unfortunately I have no idea where i should look. I have some games at home, but there is always something tiny that puts me off. Don't get me wrong I like them all, but I am looking for "that" game.

I try to explain what i want, i hope that there is such a game . To say it simple, i am looking for a game like pathfinder or dungeons and dragons but without the RP and with more Combat and Exploration. It should have miniatures and should be playable on a grid or without a grid.

My friends and I only want to smash in the door to a dungeon, slaughter some monsters, take their treasures and hear the lamentation of the women=) (i like Conan XD )

Here are some Games i own.

Otherworld Miniature Skirmish (don't like the activiation system, and for my taste not enough monsters).
Frostgrave (like it, but only wizard and captain can advance)
Song of Blades and Hereos (also like it, but i hate the sticks sometimes)
Open Combat (never tried it)
D&D (as i said before, i like it but i hate the RP)
Pathfinder ( i really love this game, but not so much the RP side)
Basic Fantasy (old school RPG, it's more that what i want, but i don't know)
Sword and Wizardry (light, continual light, core, complete, like it, but it's the same as with all rpgs)


Okay i will stop here. Should be enough games and you should get a sense of what i like and what i want.

I hope some of you can help me.

[Arthadan]

I've heard good things about Goalsystem Delves:

http://www.four-colorstudios.com/goalsystem-delves.html

[gnomehome]

Have you considered the WotC D&D boardgames ? There are five

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game (2010)
Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game (2011)
Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game (2011)
Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil Board Game (2015)
Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation Board Game (2017)

The game play is very easy and are available online so you can read through them to see if it fits your needs.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/59946/dungeons-dragons-castle-ravenloft-board-game/linkeditems/integrateswith

[Darksider]

Thanks for the answers. Yeah goalsystem delves, was one of the games i considered. Will have a look at it again.

I already own all of the d&d boardgames . I liked the first 3 a lot, but then the quality of the minis got worse with each new set.

I don't like the level system it has, cause it happens during a game if you roll a 20. Also you can only level up to lvl 2=(.

[Commander Carnage]

I think Melee and Wizard would fit the bill nicely. They are the precursors to The Fantasy Trip by Steve Jackson. Melee and Wizard were about the combat. Super simple but with all the depth you want to create. It  is long out of print but Steve Jackson has the rights back and is currently on kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying?ref=email

[Arthadan]

Thanks for the answers. Yeah goalsystem delves, was one of the games i considered. Will have a look at it again.

I've just learnt there is a 2nd edition on preorder: https://feralgamersinc.weebly.com/delve-2nd-ed.html#

[Hobgoblin]

I've long thought that the perfect dungeon crawler is a bit of a red herring. I'd either go with a top-notch skirmish game or a top-notch RPG and just ditch the role-playing elements.

For the latter, I'd recommend The Black Hack (and at two quid, you can't go far wrong ...). it's got a great resource-management system using dice (for torches, arrows, etc.) so you never quite know when you'll run out. But because it's got the traditional stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) and a system of saving under them on d20, you can use it for non-combat challenges (leaping chasms, climbing cliffs, dodging boulders, etc.). You might have to allot a movement rate (five squares or whatever), but the system's really sound and simple.

Rolling up characters and buying gear is simple, quick and fun. The armour system (temporary hit points, in effect) and the resource-management stuff add a lot of tension to games.

Then it depends whether you're using a referee or not. If you are, just have him or her set up a simple dungeon and run it without the role-playing element but with all the trips, tracks and whatnot.

If not, you could randomly generate rooms, corridors and opponents using Ganesha's 4 Against Darkness and a Paizo flip mat and markets (or dungeon floorplans, if you have them, or whatever).

Between them, the two games cost less than a tenner in PDF form.

[Hobgoblin]

Another thing I've done with both Whitehack (my favoured system for full-on RPG campaigns) and The Black Hack is to set up a full dungeon with floortiles and just generate/place monsters as the players go through. So no real roleplaying, but the full weight and variety of an RPG's monster rules. I blogged about that here.

[Darksider]

Thank you all for your help .

@Commander Carnage
Is Melee and Wizard comparable to GURPs? I have Dungeon Fantasy at home, which is in some way based on GURPs and i find it kinda hard to understand.

@Arthadan
Thanks, good to know ^^.

@Hobgoblin
You're exactly saying that what i think all the time XD. Good to know that I am not the only one^^. Black Hat, I stumbled once or twice about the name, but never looked into the system. Maybe I should give it a try.
If it's possible we prefere to play without a referee or a GM or DM.

Have to rules at home for 4 Against Darkness and already had the idea to use it for generating rooms, but never tried it. Thought it wouldn't work well with pathfinder. I have everything at home from flipmats and dungeontiles (d&d boardgames), so should be easy to get some rnd dungeon together.

I did something similar, only that I used Pathfinder Beginner Box Rules. I created a Dungeon and then i used Basic Fantasy rnd room generation rules, for filling it.

Then i took the pathfinder rules and thought about a good CR for each room containing Monsters and Traps. Most of the encounters where only CR 1 or 2 as the heros only had lvl 1.



Something I want to try is two hour wargames Sword and Sorcery. Seems like something that also could fulfill my demands.
Does someone has experience with the system?=)

I also found Dark Fast Dungeon, but i don't know. Seems it's more focused on printing out tiles and minis for the game.

[The Bibliophile]

Not that this will scratch your itch today, but I have been developing and playtesting for about 18 months now what I have always wanted in a miniatures-based dungeon crawler. I hope to get it in good enough shape to be able to release it to the world in the next few months. Essentially it's a head-to-head dungeon crawl system with good tactical combat mechanics, balanced character creation, and campaign-style character development. Each player controls both their own party of adventurers and their opponent's encounters, so nobody has to play game master yet foe behavior isn't pre-programmed (because your opponent is actually controlling the foes you encounter in the dungeon).

I've written up quite a bit about the concepts and my playtests at my blog. Here are the three main posts:

POST 1: https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2017/11/ballads-of-dungeon-delving.html


(Note: I started my game's design using "Song of Blades & Heroes" as a foundation, but eventually chaffed at some of the things that you mentioned as downsides, too, and so abandoned it for an entirely different set of mechanics. While I kept some of my initial ideas, you'll see in the second and third posts below how I evolved my game away from Songs mechanics and into something I think works better for dungeon crawling games.)




POST 2: https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2018/01/dungeon-delve-crypt-of-mighty-lord-thule.html




POST 3: https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2018/05/dungeon-delve-when-first-rooms-are-last.html

[driller]

Can't wait for the kickstarter of your system, Bibliophile! (when I've asked you via comment on your blog whether your rules will be available, you've said that you'll kickstart them )

[Darksider]

@The Bibliophile

Wow that's a really long time. But what you say sounds interesting. Will have a look at your system, if it is available after ks. Kickstarter doesn't work for me unfortunately.

[Storm Wolf]

Try looking for dungoneer on the web

[Koyote]

Massive Darkness

https://cmon.com/product/massive-darkness/massive-darkness-49d6eb3a-e7a7-4e08-9ed9-5ba83ead8de3

[warlord frod]

I always enjoyed Mage Knight Dungeons. Of course, you may not like the Miniatures but I think they were fine. I still play it from time to time

WIN_20170421_12_32_06_Pro_LI by John Grusendorf, on Flickr