Crawl 'n' write
Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler Game is a 1-8 player roll and write game in which you explore a dungeon with a team of four adventurers – a warrior, a wizard, a cleric, and a thief. It is currently available for pre-order from Alley Cat Games' website.
At the beginning of the game, a dungeon card is drawn and the corresponding walls and monsters' locations must be recorded on the grid shown on the player sheet. A random ability is also picked up to be used throughout the game. The goal is to score as many glory points as possible. You can earn glory by finding treasure while exploring the dungeon, defeating minions, crafting artifacts, or participating in the boss fights. You can also fulfill specific missions to earn even more points.
The game lasts 8 rounds. On each round, six dice are rolled, showing either a Skull (inflicting damage), a Clover (wild), or one of the four character classes. For each non-Skull die, the player chooses an action: level up the matching hero (healing 1 HP in the process), craft an artifact, brew a potion or explore the dungeon. When exploring the dungeon, you can move up to two squares, tracking your position on your character sheet, and checking if anything happens. Traps can be triggered, treasures can be found, minions can be battled against. There are four different kinds of minions; each can be defeated by one of the corresponding classes of characters, provided the level of your character beats that of the minion.
In rounds 3, 6, and 8, a big monster shows up and a fight occurs. However, to be able to participate in the fight, you must have first passed through the monster location. To defeat it, you sum up the total strength of your heroes and check it against the monster’s strength. Additionally, each monster shows a specific weakness against one character class, which then inflicts damage equal to double its level. The game ends with the final face-off in round 8.
Besides the regular mode, a campaign is available, taking you through 12 different dungeon cards in a specific order. The goal of the campaign is, once again, to score as many glory points as possible over the course of its 12 scenarios.
Comments