Dungeoneer 2.1 Rules Revisited - with AI!

 I still have mixed feelings about AI, and continue to hold the position that it is the world's greatest random word and image generator. It's not useful for serious work as it takes more effort to clean it up than to just write and draw from scratch. And Odin knows we are inundated with AI slop.

However, there are some things it is OK at. It is a better grammar checker than Microsoft's Clippy. Alright, I know that's not saying much. But for fun I ran the Dungeoneer 2.1 rules through ChatGPT to see how it would interpret these (unnecessarily dense) rules. And I think it did a pretty good job, with some light editing and formatting it is presentable.

Check it out for yourself, this does not include any of the graphics. You'll need the original rules sheet for that.

Dungeoneer 2.1 Rules by ChatGPT

update: link broke, fixed it.

Dungeoneer Master Deck Box

Dungeoneer was published 21 years ago. Somehow it has continued to remain in print with a small, but consistent following. In appreciation for your continued support I put together one of the most oft-requested items: a deck box to hold all the components and cards.

After 21 years Dungeoneer finally has everything needed to play the game.

I am impressed with the quality that The Gamecrafter has managed to achieve, and their boxes are sturdy and well designed, with satisfying snug fit lids.

I did everything I could to get the price down to as reasonable as possible. This Master Deck Box will fit all your Dungeoneer decks. The components included are specifically for Tomb of the Lich Lord. If this box does well I'll make the components for all the other Dungeoneer sets available. For now you can print out the Hero cards from these files.

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/dungeoneer-master-deck-box

Game deck not included

The Original Dungeoneer RPG

Like many in middle school I started designing my fantasy heartbreaker when I was around 12. Anyone who is a DM becomes a game designer as soon as they start modifying the 'official' rules. One concern I have about the current batch of players of 5e is that they seem to have an even more devotion to the letter of the official rules than any of the 'rules lawyers' from my youth. I know, that's one of those "kids these days..." sentiment from an old man. So as long as they are having fun and exercising their imaginations it is all good.

This game that eventually became the Dungeoneer card game lived most of its life as a pseudo-RPG. I say pseudo because it was always kind of boardgame like in its design philosophy. I didn't know it at the time, I was just trying to make something fun and interesting to play. It very naturally evolved into a card game. Still, I wonder what it would be like to finish that RPG I started back then. A major motivation in becoming an illustrator was so I could illustrate my own games. Looking back at those old drawings is painful as all I see is how to draw them better. But I suppose there is a certain old-school charm to them.

Here is a scanned in page from one of my attempts to actually lay the RPG out with art. I was still enamored with the 3-column layout that was popular in the era of TSR modules that I think started around the time of the first Dragonlance modules. Now I find that format too cramped and ungainly. This was originally laid out back when I was just learning about desktop publishing in Aldus Pagemaker, which Adobe bought and turned into InDesign.

Talindor (Tarniss) Inked Drawing

At some point in the 90's I drew an inked version of Tarniss, the fantasy setting for the Dungeoneer card game, which was at the time being called Talindor. The map drawing has a heavily illustrated border with important characters and scenes from the world. It wasn't completed because I didn't like how the illos were dominating the map. Looking back at it now it isn't as terrible as I thought.

The illustrations are, clockwise from top left:
Princess Perilina: she was a princess with super-powers, inspired a bit by the nameless protagonist in Tanith Lee's novel The Birthgrave.
Draken Lairs: the Shadowhaven mountains are infested with Drakens, basically small dragons.
Fire Pits of Shadar: no specific memories of anything specific about this other than lava pools being a great adventure locale.
Temple of Cholizar: this eventually became the Realm of the Ice Witch expansion for Dungeoneer.
The Kargak: basically like the tarrasque from the first edition Monster Manual 2
Hope, Revelation, Despair: kind of like the Norns from Norse Mythology
Kez the Unwaking: a great hero in stasis who could be reawakened when his sword is put back together.
Dimension: the goddess of 3 dimensional space and time
Broken Sword of Kez: yeah, Kez's sword was broken in 3 parts.
Palanthion: the capital of Dolmaranthus.
Gwildor: a great paladin who battled the demons back to hell, he was obliterated when the gate to hell was sealed. His holy armor spread into the Sea of Souls. He is later named Gvandir in the lore.
Gates of Bandimar: a seal on a portal to hell that is manifested as a great thunder, lightning, and fire storm that whirls over the island of Bandimar.
Haunted Mistenwoods: this became The Haunted Woods of Malthorin expansion for Dungeoneer.
Lilus Arcana: a magic plant
Arcanuz the God-King: the big bad guy of the world. Part lich part insane eldritch lord. He was the servant of the 13 demon lords that once ruled ancient Talindor (Tarniss).

This map is a photo copy in my old high school D&D campaign binder, I don't know if the original drawing still exists or if it's stored in the garage somewhere.

Dungeoneer Deluxe: Upgrading and Updating Dungeoneer

Dungeoneer is over 15 years old, and almost from the time it was published I was already redesigning it. The game was quite well received but always fell into that "cult hit" category. It sold well enough to stay in print, but never quite gangbuster numbers. I always felt it was a pretty strong game with unfortunate production short comings.

The game should have come with dice and tokens. It is really silly that it didn't. I was a naive young designer and was just happy it was published. It deserved so much more. Still, it is a lot of fun to play and any gamer has dice and tokens around they could use to play the game when they got a deck.

There was another thing, the rulebook was never fantastic. It was overly written and hard to understand. They say a designer shouldn't write their own rulebook and that's true! I got a lot of help from Atlas Games who did the best they could with what I gave them. Part of the problem though wasn't the rulebook, it was that there was genuine kludgy-ness to the game. Unnecessary complications, that had a purpose when the game was designed but really could and should have been streamlined.

Dungeoneer Deluxe.
This is my redesign of Dungeoneer from the ground up. Yet, somehow it is exactly the same game with all the kludgyness gone. It is streamlined, fun, competitive, finely balanced and more tactical. The game I was trying to design in the first place. Also, it has all the components needed in the box! I even designed some special dice that makes combat lightning fast and easy to play even for younger gamers.

Also, my art skills have improved (I think) and I've made some great new art for it!

I'm posting this now because I have a prototype that I'm bringing to Protospiels around local game conventions and events. If you are in the San Francisco bay area and go to Dundracon or Kublacon you can check it out, play it, and tell me what you think.

Dungeoneer Review

A rather positive review of Dungeoneer by the writer/director of Bone Tomahawk (a really well done independent film staring Kurt Russel!).

"A clever dungeon crawler that focuses on quests, exploration, resource management, and battle.
Dungeoneer is smartly done and really enjoyable, though an undervalued boardgame...
Generally speaking this is a clever dungeon crawler that focuses on quests, adventuring/exploration, character modification, resource management, and battle. Leveling up occurs quickly, altering playing styles, and during the course of a game (approx. 40-60 minutes for 2 players), characters will explore rooms, escorts prisoners, take skill tests, alter the shape of the dungeon, challenge other players, fight monsters, deal with traps, boost skills, build a pack of monsters, and do many other things.
...
That so much memorable and creative adventure comes in two decks of cards rather than a 20 pound box of stuff is to be applauded."

Read the full review here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RLV7ZGCTJXQV2/

My First Roleplaying Game Design

Shortly after discovering D&D in Jr. High sometime around 1980 while living in Marana Arizona, my parents moved to Reno Nevada. This was a period where I had no one I knew who played. All I had where a basic set, a few modules, the DMG, PHB, Deities & Demigods, and Fiend Folio (it was sometime before I finally got the Monster Manual). So I took to using the solo rules in the DMG - and found them basically unplayable. AD&D was just too complex a beast to boil down to a few random tables. So I took to making my own simpler version called Soldier of Adventure!
There were 5 hand typed booklets on 3"x5" cards, with plans for an additional 10 booklets!

Characters: this created your Soldier of Adventure character
Soldier of Adventure: this created the solo dungeon crawl adventure with random tables
Treasure Trove: dozens of magic items you could find
Dungeon Denizens: a monster manual of sorts
Princess Captive: an adventure module

Yeah, the art was terrible. I hadn't learned anything about anatomy or composition yet, and didn't have anything to go by other than the art in the D&D books (I'd seen a Frazetta book once, and I may have had a Boris Vallejo book). Rest assured, as bad as the art was, the writing was even worse!

This rules lite "RPG" was an auto-adventure generating game. Characters were based on classes and levels. Advancement was your tried and true XP system for killing stuff and taking its gold. It was all firmly rooted in old school gaming.

The interesting part of this is that Soldier of Adventure, after many, many iterations finally ended up as the game Dungeoneer published by Atlas Games. I've often considered polishing up the last version, before it became a card game, into a bona fide RPG.