Welcome to the table,
I love coming across random gaming stuff when I’m not even looking for it. We live in this wild age where indy game developers are out there making all sorts of cool stuff and I feel like this is one of those neat little treasures more people should know about.
Dungeon Reavers by Alex Damaceno also known as @GnarledMonster is a ruleset for dungeon-crawling adventures that is heavily inspired by role-playing games like Knave by Ben Milton and The Black Hack by David Black and published by Square Hex. Dungeon Reavers was Created for the One-Page RPG Jam* and this mini-zine has all the rules you need to play dungeon games on a sheet of paper.
I really love when the creative community comes together to make these fun projects. They are not always super polished but they showcase just how much love and care that makers out there are putting into their projects and I feel a lot of these smaller projects have the potential to be the seeds of a grand forest of even more developed ideas down the road.
Dungeon Reavers has a 3D6 core mechanic, no character based armor class, armor, and shield items that help you negate damage, a freeform sorcery mechanic that allows you to cost whatever you want with a cost associated, and a character growth system that is based on the story you are playing in rather than outside information that you may find in some other systems.
It’s super simple to learn and play and while I don’t see it as an “all-the-time food” I think it could be a really cool system to run a weekend one shot with or a game night with some friends when you want to take a break from your normal campaign.
You can check out the demo PDFs in both English and Portuguese at this link and the basic rules at this link. You can also purchase the Dungeon Reavers – Cardcrawl.pdf and the Dungeon Reavers – Treasure & Magic.pdf at this link and really get the full package of what this neat little microsystem can do.
This kind of thing, in my humble opinion, is the beating heart of the gaming industry. We have titans like Pathfinder, Blades in the Dark, and Dungeons and Dragons that have big teams of really talented people working on big systems with tons and tons of players. I have nothing but respect and love for these Titans. I treasure my library shelves full of core books from them. These little PDF/Zine microsystems and settings though are like playlists cobbled together from rad ideas by someone who digs the same stuff you dig and they just feel fun and good and sure, you may only listen to them on a random Thursday with a midnight margarita and homemade taco fries, but damn if that is not a great night to be had by all involved!
Until next time, Taco fries are amazing and I will drop you guys a recipe at some point. Go enjoy the weird stuff that is out there and you may be surprised just how cool indy gaming content can be.
*Jam – Typically when a group of creatives gets together in person or digitally with a common project goal and an established timeline of completion. Jam’s can be used to create all sorts of things from gaming zines to short films to comics and more.
**Also, just because I am sure you want to know this… Jam is made of mashed fruit but Jelly is made with strained fruit juice. There are no pieces of fruit in jelly.
Welcome to the table, I love coming across random gaming stuff when I’m not even looking for it. We liveCOMICONRead More