Need suggestions for a "granular" Dungeon Crawler

[Cherno]

Hello everybody,

help me, you are my only hope, etc.

Me and my friends, we have played games like Hero Quest, Adv. HQ, Warhammer Quest, Descent and so on a lot in the past. However, one thing that eventually killed all campaigns in these games was the lack of granularity and character advancement options. In HQ, you don't raise any stats or skills at all, you only gain better equipment, but it very soon hits a power ceiling. In Adv. HQ, you can level up, but only by one or two points in the attributes that matter, and once you can buy the best armor (Mithril I believe), every enemy has to roll a 12 to wound you, making fights kinda pointless (this happened after the third dungeon). I don't know how the WHQ campaign ended.

Anyway,  we will go on vacation together in two weeks and one of my buddies tols me to bring "something easy, like Hero Quest" to offset some of the heavier stuff I will bring along like Mage Knight: the Board Game. Now, HQ is a little bit too easy for me, but we all really love Dungeon Crawlers but I was never satisfied with any rule system for the reasons mentioned above.

So what am I to do? I am searching for a rule system that fits the following criteria:

- Fully cooperative OR a "benign" Dungeon Master that is not playing against the heroes as in Descent, but rather whose role it is to provide an enjoyable expeirence like in HQ & AHQ.
- Granularity! Preferably something in the D12 to D20-based range so the heroes can level up multiple times without hitting a power ceiling too soon.
- Role-Playing is NOT needed at all! It would be a nice bonus, but if there are good enough rules for combat and exploration, that's enough.
- Must have a campaign mode so heroes can advance, keep their equipment, hoard gold etc. (not like in Descent which I don't like anyway)
- Complexity is ok as long as it doesn't ovberqhelm the players; Often each of my friends plays two heroes so games like D&D 4E are too much stuff to keep track of with all the status effects and powers/feats that have lengthy descriptions

Aside from that, since I already own one or multiple copies of HQ, AHQ, WQ, Descent, all with many, many add-ons and expansion packs, I already have more than enough dungeon tiles, miniatures and dice to last me a lifetime (I hope ), so I am not necessarily looking for a complete board game, just a (downloadable) rulebook is more than enough.

Suggestions welcome 

[robh]

My suggestion would be to go "Old School" (although I hate the expression) and pick up the free d/l of "Swords and Wizardry"

http://talesofthefroggod.com/swords-wizardry-complete-rulebook
(Select pdf in the format box)

Then grab a few 1st ed AD&D, 0ed or OSRIC adventures, there are loads free on the web. RPG just for the fun of it again.

[Elbows]

If you're going simple...(and skip the advancement stuff) why not something different like Talisman or something?  Light, but enjoyable.

[Peithetairos]

Songs of Blades and Heroes by Ganesha Games with the Dungeon Crawl extension might fit the bill. They also have a RPG system on offer.

[Michka]

I have to agree with Robh. I'd just pick up one of the many D&D clones out there and give it a go. My preference is Labyrinth Lord. There's a complimentary no-art version free to download available on the Goblinoid Games site.

http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html

But to be honest any Old School Renaissance game would do. Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Swords and Wizardry, OSRIC, Castles and Crusades, or any of the others would probably fit the bill. Just find or write up a scenario that uses minis from Warhammer Quest, HeroQuest, Descent and whatever you have on hand and you're golden. 

[BigB]

I also recommend Swords and Wizardry.  It is DnD Lite.

[Grün]

Take a look at Dungeon Crawl :
http://dungeoncrawl.smackwell.com/
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42415/dungeon-crawl

[fourcolorfigs]

Might I suggest my own book, Goalsystem Delves?  If you don't mind the Goalsystem's dice pool mechanic, this seems to check all of your boxes! 

You can get a hard copy here:

https://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProducts.asp_Q_ProductLineID_E_2137428150_A_ManufacturerID_E_2145086760_A_CategoryID_E_16_A_GenreID_E_

Or get the PDF here:

http://www.wargamedownloads.com/item.php?item=1065

Thanks!

[psyberwyche]

Okay - some of the recommendations so far have been a bit 'roleplay-ey', and I kinda thought the OP was after something more 'board gamey' with roleplay elements. I just downloaded Swords & Wizardry, and at first glance it's not much different to 1st ed AD&D 

Assuming you don't have the excellent, but long OOP Warhammer Quest, I think you should try to pick up the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Board Game. Mechanics wise, it's identical to Heroquest (shamelessly, I'd say), but with added complexity and bigger choice of characters. You can pick it up on Ebay or Amazon for around 30-40 GBP http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dungeons-Dragons-The-Fantasy-Adventure-Board-Game-VGC-/231228816202?pt=UK_Toys_RolePlaying_RL&hash=item35d64fbb4a

A bit more complicated (but not much) is the Ravenloft game (I think there's a Drizzt version too). These are based on the D&D miniatures game, but with an integral board and adventure book rather than open-ended play. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dungeons-Dragons-RavenLoft-20-Sided-Encounter/dp/0786955570/ref=pd_cp_k_h_b_cs_0

Hope that helps.

[Cherno]

Thanks for the replies so far!

Her are some of my opinions on them (take each one with a truckload of salt and in fact I may be wrong with several "facts" I state!):

Swords & Wizardry (and Labyrinth Lord): I downloaded both and will consider them; If combat is about thrice as fast as in 4E, it might fit.

Talisman: I know many people regard it as a classic, I never played it or even conwidered it, from what I understand of the game mechanic, the whole structure is too narrow-focused for my taste.

Songs of Blades and Heroes: I read a lot about this, but I believe that the combat mechanics are extremely... how should I say it.. .decisive? As in, one die roll and a model is either dead or lives on? Not enough granularity, I like it if heroes have anywhere from 4-16 hitpoitns and normal monsters maybe 1-6. Similar to AHQ. Not as much as in D&D where combat is more of a whittling down affair.

Dungeon Crawl: Never heard of it, I will try to find out more about it. If anyone has played it, I would really like to hear how the game works (stats, skills, combat).

Goalsystem Delves: I have played a campaign of The Department (somewhere in my signature link is a comprehensive report), it also uses the Goalsystem. I am not against dice pools per se, but I have to say that in Goalsystem, you generally have between 2 and 6 dice to roll, which for me is not nearly enough granularity. I guess it's good enough for one-off games of short campaigns though. On the other hand, games like Shadowrun also have dice pools but there the larger range comes with the players having to roll 10 or even 20 dice at once (if thigns like combat pools are taken into account), which is kind of ridiculous. That being said, I didn't play Goalsystem Delves itself, I heaard lots of good things about it, I will give it another look. It is pretty easy to grasp and is very elegant rules-wise which is a big plus. To summarize what I don't like about The Department:
1. The lack of big differences between character stats (both between stats on the same character, and between different characters)
2. One stat to rule them all, with the other two only seldomly used

The newer D&D Boardgames (Ashdalon, Ravelon, Drizz't): While they seem to have a high qulity on par with games by FFG, the reviews I have read state that they are very generic and basically amount to randomly drawing a room, putting monsters on the board, and fighting them, rinse and repeat. I guess it would be possible to design deeper gameplay experiences, but without the need for a dedicated gamemaster out of the box I guess it would be quite a lot of work.

@Psyberwyche: Indeed the D&D Clones are not called D&D Clones for nothing They are of course derived from 1st or 2nd ed. D&D. That being said, one ccould always disregard most of the heavier RPG stuff and concentrate on just exploring the dungeon and fighting hordes of monsters; I guess some classes might need a little work in this case (particularly those that are all about social interaction).
I do own Warhammer Quest and all box Expansions, I thiunk it works best as one-off adventures where yu just play for the fun of it and don't care much if a hero dies because he drew the wrong dungeon room card. I have read that it scales very poorly with higher levels, I downloaded a fan-rework that opts to solve most of these issues but so far I have not tried it.

[Cherno]

By the way, and I think I have asked this question before, did anyone use Save Worlds for a combat-heavy dungeon crawl campaign? I have heard good things about it but I'm concerned the initiative system with the card drawing might be too slow for round after round of combat after combat

[phreedh]

We seem to be after much of the same thing, really. I'm with you, SBH or similar systems won't do the trick. A dungeon crawl should be lethal, but the main problem for the adventurers should be attrition and how the wounds pile up between encounters. If you use SBH, every single encounter would be a potential party kill but there would be no lasting effects between each encounter.

You could try out Cavern Crawl by our very own Funghy Fipps. It's a bit inbetween a D&D retro-clone and Song of Blades in granularity and complexity. It's quite nice!

[Cherno]

We seem to be after much of the same thing, really. I'm with you, SBH or similar systems won't do the trick. A dungeon crawl should be lethal, but the main problem for the adventurers should be attrition and how the wounds pile up between encounters. If you use SBH, every single encounter would be a potential party kill but there would be no lasting effects between each encounter.

I agree. So far I am opting to test out GoalSystem Delves, easy but nice variety and can be adapted without any problems (I want to convert all adventures from the classic Dungeon Crawls HQ, AHQ & WHQ). Unfortunately there seem to be no sellers in the EU, and with a 200+ pages book printing the PDF version is out of the question

[phreedh]

Have a look at Cavern Crawl first then:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6lobr4s038rdvgl/PROPER_Cavern_Crawl_final_2.8.pdf

Or just check out Gareth's blog here:
http://drumsdeep.blogspot.com/

[Donpimpom]

If you decide to go into the rpg option, I suggest you Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC RPG) from Goodman Games.
http://www.goodmangames.com/dccrpg.html
It may seems like another retroclone (like Labyrinth Lord) but its quite different, its oldschool flavor but with a fresh approach, slightly based in a streamlined 3.5.
I'm currently playing a campaign and we are having great fun.