What Non-D&D Would You Use For A Dungeon Focused Campaign

[Bill Zebub]

Dragonbane.

Yeah since Shadowdark doesn't count, I would vote for Dragonbane.

 

[Arilyn]

His Majesty the Worm is all about Dungeon play and has an excellent card based resolution system. Very unique.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

D&D-style? The Fantasy Trip for something simple, beer & pretzel style or HERO for the Full Monty.

Sci-Fant? Shadowrun or Star Wars D20.

Sci-fi? Traveller or Prime Directive.

 

[Autumnal]

Naturally I’m going to say QuestWorlds, and mention that Loner has a good dungeon fantasy book.

To take things in a different direction, Adventure and Leverage provide good support for dungeon leaping, swinging, and generally carrying on instead of crawling. You’ve got the tools for disguises, spying, con games, and the like, and you can easily attach a magic system like Shadowdark’s, or something quite different. Trinity psychic powers could take the place of a magic system.

 

[dbm]

At the moment I would feel like I have lots of dungeon crawling options open to me. Both Draw Steel and Daggerheart would be really interesting to try. I still haven’t gotten Dragonbane to the table, or The Fantasy Trip either. Then I have stalwarts of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy or an implementation of Savage Worlds (two first party options here - Savage Pathfinder or via the Fantasy Companion). Truly an embarrassment of riches.

Which I would go with would depend on the type of dungeon focussed game I wanted to run. Daggerheart seems a bit more ‘dramatic’ perhaps? Draw Steel is high action, Savage Worlds pulp action. Dragonbane, GURPS and TFT are all more grounds with different levels of gritty in them.

 

[Reynard]

I'm a huge fan of TB2e. My actual play thread is here: Torchbearer 2e - actual play of this AWESOME system! (+)

Key system elements are: inventory; clear phases (adventure, camp, town) with distinct "currencies" that drive each; journey rules, that incorporate weather; light sources; a reasonably brutal condition track that interacts with the adventure and journey currencies, and that also relates to the rules for food and drink (which in turn interact with the inventory rules).

Here's a thread, which includes posts form the system author (Thor Olavsrud) about converting the Moathouse dungeon (from module T1) to TB2e: T1 Moathouse adapted to Torchbearer

And here's a thread about converting UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave: Beyond the Crystal Cave - adapting to Torchbearer 2e

Here's one good comment from Thor in the T1 thread:
Related to this, I think that TB2e is better suited to "local" dungeons rather than "epic quest" dungeons. The anchoring elements in TB2e are the PCs' enemies and friends, the towns they have connections to, and their constant need for loot.

Is there a quickstart for TB2E? I found a free introductory adventure, but it does not seem to have the rules of play included.

 

[zakael19]

His Majesty the Worm

Was going to recommend this! I think this is one of the most modern "ground-up" designs specifically to "make dungeon crawling fun" that took the play ethos built up in the OSR blog sphere but adjusts the design and procedures to help the GM and players achieve that and keep Interesting Choices at the heart of play.

It's got a decent bit of Darkest Dungeon etc style stuff going on in there too.

 

[Reynard]

Was going to recommend this! I think this is one of the most modern "ground-up" designs specifically to "make dungeon crawling fun" that took the play ethos built up in the OSR blog sphere but adjusts the design and procedures to help the GM and players achieve that and keep Interesting Choices at the heart of play.

It's got a decent bit of Darkest Dungeon etc style stuff going on in there too.

That looks interesting. I am not a huge fan of the tarot card bit, but I would love to find a dungeon game that was more about the crawl than the combat.

 

[Reynard]

Naturally I’m going to say QuestWorlds, and mention that Loner has a good dungeon fantasy book.

What is your 100 words or less summary of Questworlds?

 

[adw]

Dragonbane is my default choice for kitchen sink fantasy these days, but I could be tempted to run Heart: the City Beneath. Heart's slow attrition of the characters makes sense for a dungeon crawl. It would be neat to see in practice.