Legendary Dungeons

I’m 56 years old. Everyone knows I’m a gamer, musician, writer, artist, and all around uber-nerd. I grew up when DnD was invented, and played the board game Dungeon!™ (1975) many times, as well as Dungeons & Dragons™ of course. 

 

While DnD was great, it was always hard to find a good DM™ and people to play with regularly (for me). And while I had fun playing Dungeon! as a kid because it was simple and I loved the theme, it was ultimately too simple and totally unbalanced (sorry to all the fans, but it is!). I always wanted something in between - something that captured that magical forest realm between the village of Dungeon! and the mountain of DnD.

 

That desire was where the seed of Legendary Dungeons™ came from, so thank you David R. Megarry (Dungeon! designer) for all the joy, fun, and inspiration you’ve given me! 

 

After I had kids, I of course introduced them to Dungeon! But I could not resist altering the rules, not only to fix balancing issues, but to add more traditional fantasy elements that would make it even more fun. 

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Original hand drawn Shop cards I made quickly one night

At first, I added a simple Store where players could buy items to improve their characters, or potions and scrolls to add unique effects to the game and to balance out the characters. 

 

The poor Rogue had no chance of surviving Levels 5 & 6, and only the Wizard could really make it down there. Given the winning condition was whoever got the most gold, that seemed unfair, as everyone knew all the big treasures were deep in the gullet of the Purple Worm or buried in the hordes of the Dragons!

 

That evolved, and I decided to create special events that would occur in each of the Chambers, like The Kitchen or Armory, or… the Hole! Of course something was going to come out of that Hole! It felt like they really needed a story! 

 

Those places looked like they should be interesting, and like DnD, offer the players some choices or storyline to increase engagement. I made some Chambers offer the heroes benefits, like cures for curses and healing (oh, yeah, I added a Health stat too to both Heroes and Monsters, as Combat was too fast and had no strategic choices!). 

 

Then I added Adventures to create a motivation for the game beyond gold, and something that required a Party to work as a team rather than toward their own ends. Wouldn’t it be better to have to slay a Dragon together? I mean, in DnD you always play as a Party where bonds are forged through common experience. Just getting more gold wasn’t really all that interesting, and I wanted my kids to learn something more about working together. 

 

I even created new board overlays people can download and print themselves, designed to match the same art style of the board so they felt like part of the game. The overlays helped to track the sequence of play, roaming monsters, the new monster attack and dungeon turn tables, track monster health, and more.  

 

Custom made Dungeon! board overlay #1: Dungeon Turn Table, Monster Health Tracker, and Hero Rest Table. NOTE: This was made for my own personal use, as Wizards of the Coast does not allow game expansions to be created and shared.

 

 

Custom made Dungeon! board overlay #2: Combat Table, Sequence of Play and Monster Damage

 

 

Example of new Monster Attack Table:

 

 

I planned to offer these for free online, but Wizards of the Coast does not allow fans to give away free expansions like that, which I can understand. So it just stayed here at home for the enjoyment of friends and family. 

 

All of this was intended to work with what the game already had so you didn’t have to have new monster cards or heroes, just new rules and some free to print shop cards and board overlays.

 

At the same time I was messing with the original game, my two teenage kids (both of whom follow in my nerdom footsteps) and a number of their friends had been asking me to teach them how to play DnD, or to be a DM for them in their first adventure. 

 

However, It occurred to me that attention spans being what they are today (sorry kids!), it might not be likely that they would want to learn all they needed to in order to play a full DnD campaign, and that learning DnD wasn’t actually what they were asking for. They wanted to have an adventure! They wanted to feel that thrill of role playing, and getting immersed in a fantasy world that challenged their thinking and got them excited to dive into that pool of imagination and wonder that is so attractive for the young and old to experience. 

 

I looked at what I was doing to overhaul Dungeon! and realized it was becoming something more. I had a game that needed to break free of the limits of the Dungeon! board and components, and I felt like I was on the precipice of creating something more in line with the core of my original dream - to play something that captured the middle ground between the great DnD and Dungeon! Games - a really good “intro to RPG games” experience.  

 

Thus, Legendary Dungeons was born.

 

I have tried my best to pour all of the cool stuff I felt about fantasy games into this experience.

 

You play as a Party. You have cool dice to roll. You select and improve a character through experience. You role play (Yes! This board game brings actual role playing in!). Monsters are unique and challenging, but battle is quick. You embark on a grand Adventure with a deep story that expands continuously through play, and there are multiple Adventure Modules for replayability. 

 

You can even write your own Adventures into this simple system, building your own maps, events, and special challenges for others to enjoy. 

 

 

Original equipment list in my old DnD game manual

There are spells, magic items, weapons, traps, and gear (I even made sure to include the original list of items available in the very first DnD rules and give them real purpose. I mean, what the heck were you supposed to do with a 10 foot pole and an iron spike?? And I love that Wine is on the list, like twice!).

 

And now there is a reconfigurable 3D dungeon board lit up by an actual torch light!

 

There is even a “DM-like” role called The Fatebinder. Though not required, it is highly recommended, and is actually one of my favorite roles to play in the game. 

 

The good news is that unlike DnD, it doesn’t take long to learn at all. The Fatebinder can really add some unique moments (just like a good DM does), with opportunities to create a more engaging, fun and rich experience for everyone. Just put on your inner “theater kid” hat and do those NPC voices!

 

In the end, I hope this is a great introductory game to the Fantasy Adventure RPG genre. I’ve had lots of fun designing this, and playing it with kids and adults alike. 

 

I hope you find it as entertaining as I do, and that it brings your friends and family that amazing escape and bonding experience that only a good adventure can.

 

- Wayland