Has anyone else tried Ganesha's Four Against Darkness?

[Hobgoblin]

I bought Ganesha's new solo game, Four Against Darkness, to play with the kids over the holidays. They loved our first game (they were splitting the four characters between them, while I supervised). It's not really a miniatures game, but miniatures help for governing marching order. It does have a great random dungeon-generator system, though, complete with encounters, reaction tables, wandering monsters, traps and treasure.

Anyway, what struck me is that the system could be used in conjunction with Song of Blades of Heroes (or Tales of Blades and Heroes, or any other skirmish game) to create a pretty comprehensive randomised dungeon-explorer game. Each square on the maps/graph paper is supposed to allow two characters to stand abreast, so each square would effectively be 2 x2 in dungeon tiles. I've been thinking about printing out a whole heap of free dungeon plans, cutting one or two of each room type out and then amassing plenty of loose bits to build duplicate rooms. I think that would work pretty well - and the 2x2 format would allow a fair bit of room for manoeuvre. Room features - especially raised areas and obstacles - might take a little more work, but I can imagine a simple table with a roll to decide where objects go (centre, north/south/east/west wall and so on).

Has anyone else tried out the game? Any thoughts along similar lines?

[Avidwargamer]

I just purchased this earlier this week.  I have not had a chance to play yet but looking forward to it soon.    Lots of ideas churning in my mind as well. 

[sespe]

I work long shifts with random downtimes.  This game is perfect for those times.  A couple sheets of paper, a dice-rolling app on my phone, and I can play.  We also played it on a recent camping trip.  It is a lot of fun, makes me want to paint a couple minis just to put faces on my characters.

[Hobgoblin]

I'll probably use Tales of Blades and Heroes as the main engine, to make the heroes more durable, and then play it as an adversarial game. Or I might use ASOBH and give each hero the Tough and Hero traits. Minions and Vermin would all have the Rabble trait, I think, which would balance things out nicely.

I've started a discussion on this on the Lead Adventure Forum fantasy board, as I think the game has huge potential for "proper" miniature gaming. One thing - because two heroes can stand abreast in corridors, my plan will to be make each square 2 X 2. Delaney King of King's Miniatures did some excellent 30mm square free floorplans that give a bit more space, and I think those would be great to give more room for a measuring-stick game. 

[Emir of Askaristan]

I'm on a vintage dungeon bash kick thing at the moment and will probably make up the rooms from a box of old uncut dungeon floor plan tiles I bought off eBay. Perfect I think, saves me doing all the hard work of thinking up the mechanisms and stats myself.  Good work Ganesha.

[Avidwargamer]

I started playing around with this some.  Only generated a bit of dungeon.  So far my party consists of a warrior, a rogue, a wizard and a cleric.   First room in was a special encounter - The Lady in White with a special quest.  I've fought and killed goblins, orcs and trolls so far.  I've disarmed a spear trap, found a cursed altar, and found hidden treasure underneath the altar.    I've had exploding d6 resulting is fantastic results and have rolled 1s that resulted in a failed sleep spell and wounds in battle.  Having fun and have only explored a few rooms and hallways.

[Argonor]

Does it use the SBH mechanics?

[Sangennaru]

Interested in reviews as well. I met Andrea last month but i didn't know about this game so we talked about other projects...

[Avidwargamer]

The game mechanics are slightly different than SOBH/ASOBH.  It is a simple d6 roll to determine attack resolution with modifiers for equipment, character level (for some). A 1 is always a failure and a 6 is always a success.  If you roll a natural 6, you roll another and add the result, similar to the dice mechanic in Tales of Blades and Heroes (the RPG version of SOBH).  Not sure how much to share without giving away anything that might be 'proprietary'.   Andrea has just released an updated version that reorganized, easier to search through and has some additional 'pocket size' components such as the rooms, monsters and characters.  Well worth the $8US in my opinion.

http://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cPath=1_55&products_id=295&osCsid=57lqma5cdf8uvjllebe0ag4qq2

[YPU]

hmm, sounds like this is almost of of those games that plays itself half the time, like talisman. Not necessarily a bad thing since rolling some dice and seeing a narrative unfold before you can be great fun.

[Slorm]

Yes I have played and modificated them for a SpaceHulk thematic.
Here are a pair of AAR:
http://slormwargames.blogspot.com.es/2016/04/four-against-darkness.html
http://slormwargames.blogspot.com.es/2016/04/4ad-space-frontier.html

[Sangennaru]

Not sure how much to share without giving away anything that might be 'proprietary'.

Unless you copy-paste parts of the book, i think you shouldn't worry about that, explaining as finely as you with the rules.
Personally, i wouldn't buy a game without knowing well the mechanics before. I'm sure Andrea will understand.

[sespe]

Here's a review I wrote that explains the basic mechanics, including a pic of the book.  Andrea just smiled...

http://wanderingview.blogspot.com/2016/04/4-against-darkness-classic-solo-dungeon.html

By the way, the next room after the last corridor shown in the post contained a boss monster.  And by a freak roll of the dice, it was the final boss monster.  World's shortest dungeon...

[ced1106]

>  Combat is real simple; roll d6 add/subtract modifier and compare to level of monster/encounter. Subtract life points until you or enemy dies.

So, no, it doesn't use SoBH mechanics. I think, though, that you could pick-and-choose parts of 4AD to use with Song of Gold and Darkness, such as the dungeon generator and monster reactions.

[NickNascati]

I haven't bought or used 4AD, but I did buy Song of Gold and Darkness to use along with SOBH for Dungeon crawls.  Loads of great ideas in it, even for solo games.