Dungeon Run 2 – The Items

40k has been a tad quiet in my garage as of late.  The group just isn’t feeling it, so we spend more time playing board games and the like.  One of our old standbys is Dungeon Run by Plaid Hat Games.  If you haven’t seen, I’ve been doing a blog series about making an unofficial expansion to the game.  My last post concerned making various encounter cards, and now I’m moving on to item cards.

Unlike encounters, items won’t break up into neat little sections because pretty much all of them are the same.  I suppose I could break them into slots or classes, but I think it will just be cleaner to leave them all as one large table at the end of this post–and I’ll talk about them prior to.  Feel free to bounce back and forth as I reference items throughout.

With items, I was keeping in mind the words of the original game designers:

Each hero will be able to use roughly 75% of all treasure, which will be especially appreciated when mixed with the treasure cards from Dungeon Run. Now instead of treasures being a rare treat, heroes can spend more time focusing on choosing which horrible new tool they can wield against the others.

I took that to mean that most of the treasures should have three classes on them, so I tried to hold to that throughout.  I didn’t bother to compare them against treasures from the first set–rather I just tried to think up of ideas that may not have been fully explored in the base game.  Things like adding to specific stats, adding attack dice using slots other than hand weapons, etc.

Some of these really feel like Artifacts to me, but then I wasn’t sure how to put them into the game.  For instance, the Crown of Demigos and the Dusty Libram likely should be artifacts.  How do I incorporate them though?  Referencing them on a “stranger” card is doable, but it’s been done.  So perhaps I reference them on a specific monster card, or in a room tile?  For now, I’m just shuffling them in, and we might have to tweak them as time goes on.

Keep in mind that all of these items are a first draft.  Some of them didn’t survive in this form when I printed out the first playtest cards because of obvious balancing issues: some cards are just too good, and others make almost no sense in playing.

One thing I realize now that I have them printed out is that I’ve created more items here than were in the original game.  So, shuffling the deck means that you’re more likely to pull out an expansion item than an original.  I’m not sure just how I feel about that, but I suspect I’ll need to cut a few of these.

Below you’ll find a list of my item templates that I came up with.  In a future post, I’ll go over the rooms and character ideas I had.

Item Templates:

Name	Slot	Class	Enchanted?	Artifact?	Description
The Crown of Demigos	Head	Any	Yes	No	Roll two additional dice when using your magical rating.
Truncheon of Power	Primary Hand and Off Hand	Prayer, Talent, War	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking with your brawn rating. When attacking monsters, apply your damage first.  If your damage is sufficient to kill the monster, ignore all outstanding wounds done by it.
Stalwart Plate	Body	Prayer, War	No	No	Ignore the first damage taken each combat. Wearer cannot use more than one MOVE action per turn.
Winged Boots	Feet	Any	Yes	No	You may move an extra square once per turn.
Helm of Clumsiness	Head	Any	No	No	If this card is obtained by a search action you must immediately equip it, dropping any item in your head slot to the ground.  You cannot unequip this helm.  As a free action, you may discard any 1 card from your loot pile to discard this helm.
Vekkid Phase Blade	Primary Hand	Any	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking. In addition, players who are attacked by this knife can not benefit from  shields or items worn in the body slot.
Hulking Boots	Feet	Prayer, Talent, War	No	No	Roll 1 die after a moster or hero attacks you.  Any number less than 4 that could block a hit does so immediately. You cannot use this die as a hit.
Silken Slippers	Feet	Magic, Prayer, Talent	Yes	No	When you rally, you may move into an adjacent previously discovered square.
Silken Robe	Body	Magic, Prayer, Talent	Yes	No	Each time you place a new dungeon tile, you may rally.
Stone of Warding	None	Any	Yes	No	Add +1 to your Life Rating
Stone of Ferocity	None	Any	Yes	No	Add +1 to your Brawn rating
Stone of Prowess	None	Any	Yes	No	Add +1 to your Magic rating
Stone of Agility	None	Any	Yes	No	Add +1 to your Skill rating
Rod of Striking	Primary Hand and Off Hand	Magic, Prayer, War	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking. You may attack players in adjascent rooms.
Adroit Handbow	Off Hand	Talent, War	No	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking. You may only use this weapon once per round.
Curious Imp	Companion	Magic, Talent, War	No	No	You may look at face down treasures in your tile and adjacent tiles. Familiar: You may discard this card to absorb one damage during combat.
Faithful Hound	Companion	Any	No	No	Familiar: You may discard this card to absorb all damage from one attack during a single round of combat.
Pesky Sprite	Companion	Any	No	No	If this card is obtained by a search action you must immediately equip it; a character of your choice sharing a square with you may take any one item from your loot pile. Familiar: You may discard this card to absorb one damage during combat.
Trained Homunculus	Companion	Any	No	No	You may use one extra “Primary Hand” item. Familiar: You may discard this card to absorb one damage during combat.
Waeling Blade	Primary Hand	Talent, War	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking with your brawn rating. Each hit that is not blocked causes 2 wound markers to be placed instead of 1.
Demon Fang	Primary or Off Hand	Any	Yes	No	You may not attack with more than 2 dice. Each attack you make with this weapon counts as a free attack.  If you end your turn on a tile with a monster and have not attacked without this weapon, the monster receives a free attack on you.
Iron Footlocker	None	Any	No	No	Items can not be taken from your loot pile.
Cat-o-Nine-Tails	Primary Hand	Magic, Talent	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking. Each time you attack, you may also pick up one item from the tile and add it to your loot pile.  This does not count as an equip action.
Maeltrap Leg Club	Primary or Off Hand	Talent, War	No	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking. You must sabotage players sharing a tile with you.
Divine Cudgel	Primary or Off Hand	Magic, Prayer	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking. You must assist players sharing a tile with you.
Robe of Shifting Realities	Body	Magic, Prayer, Talent	Yes	No	Add +1 to all escape attempt rolls. If you are the subject of a free attack, you may discard this item before any dice are rolled to ignore the attack.
Bag of Bounty	None	Any	No	No	When drawing this card from the treasure deck, immediately discard it and draw two additional treasures.
Tiara of True Sight	Head	Magic, Prayer	Yes	No	The first time you draw an encounter card each turn, you may choose to discard it.  If you do so, draw the next encounter card instead.
Talisman of Blackened Ire	None	Magic, Talent, War	Yes	No	You may sabotage players from adjacent rooms.
Talisman of Heightened Purity	None	Magic, Prayer, War	Yes	No	You may assist players from adjacent rooms.
Phylacterial Remains	Off Hand	Magic, Prayer	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking Undead or Demon monsters. Discard this weapon to automatically defeat a non-boss Undead monster.
Dusty Libram	None	Any	No	Yes	You may look at the dungeon boss card at any time. Discard this card to replace the current dungeon boss with another random boss.  Use only if the boss lair has not yet been placed.
Cloudy Potion	None	Any	Yes	No	Roll a die for each wound on your hero card.  Each roll of 4+ regains 1 lost wound.  Discard cloudy potion if any doubles are rolled.  May only be used when you have three or more wounds.
Truthseeker’s Mattock	Primary Hand and Off Hand	Prayer, Talent, War	Yes	No	Roll 1 extra die when attacking with your brawn rating. As a special action, you may discard this card.  Shuffle the current tile back into the deck and replace it with another available tile.  Encounter that tile as if it were just explored.  You may not use this effect in a tile where an encounter is already present.
Elixir of Speed	None	Any	Yes	No	As free action, consume this potion.  For the rest of the turn, you may move an additional tile each move action.  You must still stop when you explore a new tile or enter a square with a monster. Discard after use.
Waelish Mead	None	Magic, Talent, War	No	No	At any time you may drink this item.  For your next attack, roll three extra attack dice.  You cannot block attacks that combat round. Discard after use.
Jester’s Shoes	Feet	Magic, Prayer, War	Yes	No	You may re-roll unsuccessful escape attempts.
Ring of Duplication	None	Any	Yes	No	You may ignore “assist only” when printed on boss cards or dungeon tiles.
Drums of Deftness	Off Hand	Any	Yes	No	Roll two additional dice when performing skill tests or attacking with your skill rating.
Lucky Goblin’s Foot	None	Any	Yes	No	Discard this card to re-roll all of your dice in a single attack roll, escape attempt or skill test.

A Free Copy of Space Freaks: the Board Game

I listen to entirely too many podcasts.  Oddly enough, despite this being a largely 40k inspired blog, I listen to exactly zero 40k related podcasts.  That wasn’t always the case, mind you.  I used to listen to the Independent Characters and some others, I’m sure (though I have since forgotten even their names).

This isn’t because there isn’t good content available.  I’ve actually heard great things about Mob Rules and Glacial Geek (both of which are “local” to me)–I just can’t find the time to work them into my lineup.

In fact, most of the podcasts I listen to routinely aren’t gaming related at all.  Somewhere in my travels I turned into an adult and started listening to talk radio, so I feel like my podcast choices reflect that.  To give you an idea of what’s in my playlist, you’ll find:

• RadioLab
• More Perfect (is this going to start up again ever?)
• Stay Tuned with Preet
• Stuff You Should Know
• This Week in Tech
• Rough Translation
• Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me
• Houston: We Have a Podcast
• You are Not So Smart
• PM Podcast
• Security Now
• Drive to Work
• the D6Generation

All of them have value, of course, or I wouldn’t listen to them.  Some of them exist there solely so I can stay up with the industry that I work in; others exist for continuing education credits required to maintain my certifications; and most are general knowledge/trivia kind of things because I just enjoy them.  If you look closely, you’ll see that I listen to two gaming specific podcasts: Drive to Work (which is a podcast by Magic’s lead designer), and the D6 Generation.

That’s a podcast I’ve listened to for years now.  I’ve gotten a lot of great advice about games to purchase, and taken great information from them.  They’re also “not too horrible,” as a form of entertainment, though the cast gets a tad long winded at times.  They’ve held a few contests over the years, and I’ve entered a few, but never won.  This blog post is about the latest such contest.

Latest is a loose term, because the contest was actually announced in October of 2017–19 episodes ago.  The requirements were that you had to come up with a radio ad for a new game from Stronghold Games.  I don’t think the game had been released at the time though, so it wasn’t clear what it was about or how it all worked.  All I really had to go on was a bit of a teaser from them, along with the name of the game: Space Freaks.

Normally, it wouldn’t have been the sort of contest that I’d jump out of my chair for.  Sure, I like board games as much as the next guy, and Stronghold has come up with some real winners (I’m a big fan of Space Cadets, and I’ve also heard good things about Terraforming Mars).  What I did find intriguing though was a combination of two factors:  This was an audio based contest, and Stronghold had agreed to pony up copies of the game for the best three entries.

Having been a listener to theD6g for years, I know that audio entries habitually have really low turnout.  I wasn’t sure exactly how many entries to expect, but I knew it would be low.  So low, in fact, that if I put any modicum of effort into it, I should be essentially guaranteed a copy of the game.  So, why not?

I made a note to work on a script of sorts, and then set a calendar reminder and promptly forgot it.  When the calendar reminder showed up, I sat down with a friend of mine and we recorded our lines, then I downloaded a copy of Audacity, plus a bunch of various sounds I pulled off the internet, created my entry and submitted it.

Months past by, and I sent occasional emails to the podcast to figure out what happened.  They apparently had recorded a session, then lost part of it, and then their hearts fell out of podcasting (which has resulted in them cancelling–or rather, morphing the show into some–yet to be determined–form).  Well, the last time I emailed them was about a month or two ago, and they let me know that they were scheduled to have Stephen Buonocore from Stronghold on again in their penultimate episode, which was finally released last week.

At minute 12:27 of the podcast, they started to talk about the content, and largely recap what I went over above.  It turns out that they only had five total entries, and rather than competing against them all, Stephen decided to give away a game to everyone who entered (which was quite generous).  I have to say though, my entry was good enough that it should’ve easily won one of the original three prizes–though I would be doubtful if mine would be considered the best (feel free to listen to them if you’d like–you can find it on Stitcher, or whatever your preferred podcast player is).

So, maybe I’ll go through the motions of reviewing that game.  I don’t do a lot of board game reviews, but then again, I don’t win many of them either.  I also owe a big thank you to Sam for helping out with the recording, and modifying the script to make it funnier.  Thanks a bunches, Sam–let’s get together and play this game when it comes in.

Image Credit: Thed6Generation logo is copyright them.  Space Freaks is the property of Stronghold games.

 

 

 

Dungeon Run 2 – The Encounters

I’ve been working on my expansion to Dungeon run for a while now, and while things don’t exactly flow sequentially, I find it makes for better blog posts, so I’ll go ahead and take this tact.

In actuality, I am working on four-five tabs at once, and things get fleshed out over time, but it’s just easier to reveal entire swaths at once.  So, let’s start with the encounters, shall we?

As I said in my previous post, I started by identifying all of the different columns that were available to encounter cards.  Primarily this includes name, type, race, attacks, offense, defense, escape, & life.  That covers all of the basic parts of a monster card, but it doesn’t cover traps (which also require Disarm & Damage) or strangers, which simply have a block of text.  Add those all together, and you have the bones you need to start creating the various card types.

I set forth originally to create 50 total encounter cards (though I wound up falling far short of that).  Arbitrarily, I opted on making four new bosses, four strangers, ten traps, and the rest would be monsters.  Let’s take a look at each individually

Traps:

Though I’m starting out with them (based upon the order that they fell in my spreadsheet), traps were actually the last types of encounters that I created.  This is because I felt like they were largely unimaginative: you just put a trap name and then do a little damage to players.  The one overarching theme I tried to integrate into the traps was what Plaid Hat had mentioned in their spoilers for their rendition: “The Traps in Dungeon Run 2 focus less on causing damage and more on causing mayhem.”  With that in mind, I tried to come up with trap ideas that suited that theme and this is where I landed:

Dungeon Run 2 – Ideas & Templating

In my last post, I spoke about coming up with an expansion for Dungeon Run, and I’ve started making good progress towards this.  My thought process was that it was best to start with the bones.

By that, I mean that I wanted to start with the foundation for the expansion, rather than to monkey around with art or templating.  So, I started off by creating a spreadsheet with six distinct tabs: Notes, Encounters, Rooms, Items, Characters, & Lookups.  This was to create a single location where I could put all of my ideas, and easily track/share the ideas with my friends.  I started by creating one tab for each of the different types of materials I’d need in the expansion.  Since I wasn’t planning on creating any ground-breaking concepts like entirely new decks, I knew I was going to have to create encounters, rooms, items and characters.  So those seemed the logical starting points.  See the example from the “Encounters” tab below:

In each tab, I entered the relevant sections for that type of card/tile, and then created some input validation rules.   That might be a little nerdy sounding, but what it means is that when you choose “type” from the drop down column, you could choose either “Trap,” “Monster,” “Stranger,” or “Boss” (all information that I stored on the “Lookups” tab to keep things clean and consistent).  The advantage here is that you don’t get a bunch of garbage data in your spreadsheet–no typos, etc.  So when it came down to making my playtest cards, I could easily export them with a mail merge or similar and ensure that the data was clean.

Dungeon Run 2 Expansion

My gaming group hasn’t been playing all that much 40k. This is because I try not to alienate folks who show up, and not everyone in the group actually plays 40k (plus, those of us that do, don’t always bring models, or aren’t always interested in playing).

So, that means that many weeks we aschew 40k in favor of board games. One of the old standards that we’ve been playing a lot is Dungeon Run by Plaid Hat Games (which is, apparently, out of print). It’s not a typical game that I would enjoy because, while it does have a level of strategy involved, who actually wins the game is seemingly random. It’s a semi-cooperative style board game wherein you explore a dungeon together, but then fight each other to escape. And when I say that it’s random who wins, I truly believe that. Sometimes it’s the person who gets all of the treasure, or sometimes it’s the person who spent the entirety of the game laying face down because they’ve been repeatedly killed by the wandering monsters.

Typically that’s not the sort of game that I enjoy, but this one sees the table more than most, and I always walk away with a smile. The down side is that there’s just not all that much meat to the game. The game is solid, but I find myself wanting a little more: diversity, length, options… something.

Well, as luck would have it, Plaid Hat announced an expansion to the game called, suitingly, Dungeon Run 2. Of course, this was more than six years ago, so hopefully you haven’t been holding your breath. If you read around forums online, it’s pretty clear that people aren’t expecting this to come out ever (which makes sense–why bother releasing an expansion to a game that isn’t even in print).

But then I got to thinking–why not? Granted, there’s no money for Plaid Hat to publish an expansion, but why couldn’t I create one of my own?

So that’s what I’m planning to do. I’m gonna whip together an expansion for the game, complete with new characters, items, bosses, encounters, and dungeon tiles. I won’t add any new card types, but I might play with some of the existing classes/structures. I plan on incorporating what I can from their planned expansion: they have already announced Demons as a monster type, voting mechanics, and changes to traps, so I’ll be sure to include all of those in my homebrew expansion.

I should be clear that I don’t intend to sell this–it’s for personal use–but I certainly won’t mind sharing it with anyone who might be interested.

My first step is to to create a spreadsheet, so I can come up with all of the various information in a consolidated location. Once I come up with enough ideas, I’ll break into templating. I’ll also create a search term for DungeonRun2 that you can use to follow the progress of this on my blog, should you be interested in it.

Wish me luck!

Image Credit: Plaid Hat and Dungeon Run Logos owned by Plaid Hat Games.