pawsplay
Hero
Ok, for the uninitiated, Dark Dungeons is a restro-clone, specifically, built around the Rules Cyclopedia version of D&D and various supporting material like Wrath of the Immortals.
This stuff is crazy.
On the one hand, the author went through a good deal of effort to meticulously adapt hundreds of creaky old rules, including Weapon Mastery (known euphemistically as Weapon Feats). Since the game is supposed to be interface-compatible, it is not necessary that all the inner workings be exactly the same, so they aren't. But basically, the game is a loving recreation of a D&D of a more distant time, incorporating some houserules and smoothing over where it won't disrupt the experience.
But on the other hand, the author seems to have made some crazy stuff up. If this stuff has an independent reference, I am not aware of it. The two examples that stick out for me are the Troll, which is a "loathsome 8' tall asexual humanoid(s) made of a gelatinous yellow-green slime... Only by burning the troll's heart can it be permanently killed." ... What? That is arguably as weird as anything in Runequest's Glorantha.
The other one is the Dragons. "Dragon queens" are the spellcasting dragons, and additionally, seemed to have inherited the special attacks of gemstone dragons. Male dragons are territorial brutes. I am not familiar with any previously published D&D setting in which female dragons are intelligent, promiscuous spellcasters, and whose offspring match the color of their fathers, whereas males are Int 5 "lizards." Females take on the shapeshifting dragon archetype... which is handy, since the game has no gold dragons I can discern!
Even though page 10 talks about retro-clones in some detail, I'm not sure Dark Dungeons strictly qualifies. Although it is extraordinarily similar to the game it is modelled after, many elements are definitely not plug-and-play with existing campaign worlds and modules. Seriously, if you knew little of "classic D&D" and picked up a copy of Dark Dungeons, plus an old D&D module that included some dragons, it would be clear pretty quickly that despite some similar terminology, you were not looking at the same dragons. Dark Dungeons appears to be a sort of retro-clone, that was then converted to someone's (mostly familiar but weird in some ways) campaign world, even though the game as a whole is built heavily toward customization. It's like, "Here, have some crazy ideas of mine you can use, just to spice things up."
This stuff is crazy.
On the one hand, the author went through a good deal of effort to meticulously adapt hundreds of creaky old rules, including Weapon Mastery (known euphemistically as Weapon Feats). Since the game is supposed to be interface-compatible, it is not necessary that all the inner workings be exactly the same, so they aren't. But basically, the game is a loving recreation of a D&D of a more distant time, incorporating some houserules and smoothing over where it won't disrupt the experience.
But on the other hand, the author seems to have made some crazy stuff up. If this stuff has an independent reference, I am not aware of it. The two examples that stick out for me are the Troll, which is a "loathsome 8' tall asexual humanoid(s) made of a gelatinous yellow-green slime... Only by burning the troll's heart can it be permanently killed." ... What? That is arguably as weird as anything in Runequest's Glorantha.
The other one is the Dragons. "Dragon queens" are the spellcasting dragons, and additionally, seemed to have inherited the special attacks of gemstone dragons. Male dragons are territorial brutes. I am not familiar with any previously published D&D setting in which female dragons are intelligent, promiscuous spellcasters, and whose offspring match the color of their fathers, whereas males are Int 5 "lizards." Females take on the shapeshifting dragon archetype... which is handy, since the game has no gold dragons I can discern!
Even though page 10 talks about retro-clones in some detail, I'm not sure Dark Dungeons strictly qualifies. Although it is extraordinarily similar to the game it is modelled after, many elements are definitely not plug-and-play with existing campaign worlds and modules. Seriously, if you knew little of "classic D&D" and picked up a copy of Dark Dungeons, plus an old D&D module that included some dragons, it would be clear pretty quickly that despite some similar terminology, you were not looking at the same dragons. Dark Dungeons appears to be a sort of retro-clone, that was then converted to someone's (mostly familiar but weird in some ways) campaign world, even though the game as a whole is built heavily toward customization. It's like, "Here, have some crazy ideas of mine you can use, just to spice things up."
