4 Against the Darkness - classic solo dungeon delving

Links at the start:

This comes from the wonderful  Ganesha Games

It only costs Eight bucks!  What have you got to lose?  it's a steal

So, late at night at the fire station, when we are supposed to be napping, waiting for the next alarm, I have a dirty little secret.  I’m not napping.  I’m crawling through dank dungeons, battling dragons, and I’m doing it all with a piece of paper and a smart phone.   A couple dice would be easier than the smart phone, but I AM a geek.  I'm not online, it's just me and a pad of paper.

The game is called “Four Against the Darkness” (4AD).  It is an old-school, solo, dungeon delving adventure.  You develop your party of adventurers, roll up a dungeon room-by-room as you go through, and fight, negotiate, or run away from whatever is in each room.

It’s not exactly a minis game.  Everything is plotted on graph paper.  It’s not exactly a table-top game.  The whole thing fits on a couple sheets of paper, and can be easily hidden from my crew so they don’t know I’m nerding out instead of watching hockey in the dayroom.

What is a dungeon like?  Here’s a short play-through of a start of a new dungeon.  My adventurers, this is their 4th dungeon (well, most of them), so they’ve all had a chance to level up.  The group was formed by the young wizard Sykeson.  He figured the best way to power up quickly was to hire some help and go dungeon crawling.  So far they lost a cleric, but gained a dwarf along the way.

Sykeson:  Wizard, Level 3.  Has a couple spell scrolls sitting around to boost his numbers.  He did manage to find a magical short staff (+1 crushing).  Usually travels in the back with the new dwarf:

Geardo:  Dwarf, Level 2.  He’s a dwarf from the sticks that tries real hard to look the part of a real battle-dwarf, but has problems fitting his pudgy frame into the armor.  Still, as a dwarf he has helped the party sniff out a lot of gold.  Heavy armor, 2-handed axe, you know the look.  He wants to be like the big guy up front:

Zircon the valiant warrior leads from the front.  (level 2)  Actually, through 3 dungeons now it has been “Zircon, the can’t hit the broad side of a cave from the inside” warrior.  He has consistent bad luck with attack rolls.  The real savior of the group walks next to him:

Mr. Shadow, Thief, level 3.  This rogue, (don’t call him loveable) just might be the power behind the throne.  He also has a magic weapon, a small war hammer (light hand weapon) that is +1 crushing.  And he has a secret teleport ring that he thinks nobody else knows about…

Okay, so that is our crew.  Perennially short on gold, (Zircon still thinks he can drink a dwarf under the table), they heard rumor of a new cavern to the North.  They do have the group discipline to load up on bandages, having lost their cleric.

Traveling for a day, they enter the darkness and find:

A dark entrance with 3 corridors branching off.  Being of good trained firefighter stock, we commence a right-hand search pattern and check out that corridor.

This is what it looks like in the book

And mapped on the paper...

We roll 33 and that’s the drawing

Fit it to the dungeon…

That’s the complete mechanics of making a dungeon.  Fit it as best you can.  Once you fit it, you roll to see what is in it.  My roll says it is empty, but there is some sort of special feature in it.  Roll again and find it is a puzzle room!  The Wizard and Rogue can have a go at solving this puzzle, but wait, I have a dwarf.  Sniffing, he determines there is a gold necklace worth at least 130 GP in the box.  It’s worth it, so the rogue tries first.  He just barely makes his roll, and disarms the trap!  The Dwarf holds on to the treasure (never forget to feed the dwarf).  On through the next door.

It’s a huge room, with doors to the north and south.  And it has a pile of treasure in it, defended by a trap!  The rogue has a chance to defuse the trap before the dwarf can sniff out the treasure.  He doesn’t see the giant boulder over his head and it falls, striking the Wizard!  Sykeson has no defense boosters,  and takes a boulder to the noggin, dropping his life by 2 levels.  Not very happy with the rogue, right now.  But now the treasure is revealed, another 130 GP necklace.  This dungeon is starting to look like a Jared’s.

Keeping to the right-hand search, they go south.  It’s a dead-end room, but minions are here.

6 fungi folk turn towards the adventurers.  They are usually belligerent towards interlopers so you order the attack!  It’s a room, so everybody gets to fight.  Zircon roars his battle cry and charges in.  True to form, he barely nicks one enough to take it down.  Geardo winds up and buzz-saws across the room, taking 2 more down at the knees / stems.  Mr. Shadow, now that the numbers are running in his favor, takes down another from behind.  These are tough mushrooms, though, and the rest stay to fight.  Sykeson doesn’t want to waste a spell, so he bonks one of the remaining on the head with his staff.  No luck.

Now the remaining minions can attack.  With 2 minions and 4 adventurers, it will be a random attack.  The first mushroom goes for Zircon the warrior, who easily dodges his attack.  The other one hits Sykeson, who successfully dodges this time.  (All my guys have leveled up at least once.  Most minion encounters are not this easy.  Beware.)  Back on the attack, Zircon finally starts rolling sixes and chops the last minions into mushroom puree.  A lousy roll on the treasure table shows us what the dwarf already knew, there wasn’t any treasure here.

Heading back through the trap room to continue searching, we roll once in each room to see if wandering monsters attack.  And of course, they do.

It’s 2 hobgoblins, resetting the trap.  They have an even chance of not attacking, so the party stomps in to negotiate (roll for reaction instead of just attacking).  It was a good call, the 2 panicked and raced like hell for the exit, leaving yet another necklace, this one worth only 60 GP.  Mr. Shadow joked that Zircon should wear all the necklaces and we could call him “Mr. Z”, but nobody got the joke.

The next room to the north was an empty corridor, with doors to the left and right.  Or was it empty?

The above took longer to write out than it did to play out.  Right now, tables are mixed through the book/PDF, but the next update (free!) will consolidate all tables into several pages.

Edit to Add:  The update is already out.  All tables are consolidated, have a quick-reference, and even include separate "pocket guides" to help arrange everything.

Although billed as a "solo" game, I have already run it as DM with my son running his own characters.  That seems to be even better, as he never has to drop the dice to look at tables, etc.  And although it doesn't require figures, I'm growing attached to these guys and want to paint some up.

The last bit below is paraphrased from another reviewer, because I could not say it better myself:

"Andrea has been very responsive to questions and clarifications, and has posted an FAQ to the Yahoo group to clear up questions, which will be put into the revised PDF rulebook available as a free update to those who have purchased the PDF to date. He has also acknowledged some of the shortcomings in the layout, and will be working to make it smoother to use in a future update. He has also mentioned there will be many future supplements with expanded rulesets and alternate genres possible  .... Overall, for the price and simplicity, you can't find a better solo dungeon crawler that you can play almost any time, anywhere."

Galleys & Galleons - Fair Winds playtest 2

Got some new players, some updates from the author, so it was time to try again.  You’ve heard of the Kraken, of course, but have you heard of the extremely rare “albino kraken”?  Only found in arctic waters, the eyes of the albino kraken are rated as more expensive than the biggest crown jewels.  One of these monsters has recently been sighted, and 2 competing expeditions sail to claim the prize.

The British maritime expedition was unchanged from the last game, a Man Of War with a pyromancer, and 2x frigates with bombs.

The Spanish expedition had a minor change, the submersible now is fitted with an “unorthodox” propulsion system (from the new rules).  This fits the theme of the submersible much better.  And the airships received a paint job.

The 3rd player this time (me), had several creatures to defend with:
Albino Kraken  Q3  C3
Alpha Creature
Bilious Cloud
Iron Grapples

Giant Blenny  Q4  C3
Hydromancer

Sammy the Shark  Q4  C3
Ramming

The board was set with both fleets entering with a fair wind, with the Kraken and his minions waiting in the center of the board.  And icebergs.  We had icebergs.

Wind blowing straight towards camera, icebergs moving left to right with the current.  All creatures started submerged, the other players didn't know what was out there.  British player has already taken her first move.

On the initial move the British player learned the danger of sailing her ManOWar too close to an iceberg, and ripped heavy damage into her hull.

 Soon after, the giant blenny used his hydromancer magic to shove the ship into her compatriots, just barely missing a 3-way collision.

Big Ship Coming Through!

However, an unfortunate turnover next caused Sammy the Shark to get impaled on another iceberg, taking him completely out of the fight.

The British, (after sorting out the traffic jam) had a hard time slowing down, and charged right up the table.  The lead frigate got a broadside into the kraken before it sank back below the waves.  The ManOWar unleashed a powerful broadside at the large Spanish Airship, but because of the altitude difference caused no damage.

The rear frigate made a bombing run on the kraken, and missed!  The Kraken responded by surfacing and grappling the frigate, and started to make mincemeat of her crew.

The ManOWar had most of her crew repairing damage, so the pyromancer launched some fireballs at a passing airship.  A triple failure on his activation caused him to blow up.  So much for the damage repair.  The small airship dropped down to low-level to attempt to cut the British line, but the activations weren’t there.

I could have raked you both.  Just sayin...

In the next turn it got really crazy.  The trailing frigate, hacking at tentacles with all her might, managed to break free!  But then the wind caught her and she zoomed down the table, smashing into the heavily damaged ManOWar.  A great save roll for the big ship was followed by a horrible one for the frigate, and down she went, sinking with all hands.

Excuse me while I rear-end you.

The Kraken, angry now, latched on the low-flying airship, to see if they tasted better than the British.

 And that was when the Spanish player’s luck finally deserted her. She rolled a failed activation and turnover.  No chance to fight the kraken, the submersible stuck playing chicken with an iceberg, and her large airship on a course straight for the edge of the table.

Normally, we don’t let the same player activate twice in a row, but the turnover was the end of a turn.  Her chit was drawn next, so she had a chance at redemption.  And, not so much.  A second turnover roll of 3 ones caused her big airship to sail off into the sunset.

It's OK, Dad.  I still have root beer

But that same turnover was bad news for the British, also.  The ManOWar, still reeling from the first collision, smashed broadside into the second frigate!  This time her luck failed and down she went.

Got Geico?

The British now had one badly damaged frigate left, running out of sea room.  The Spanish had a damaged airship and an unscathed submersible.  And the giant blenny, caught by the rapid turnovers, ran smack into another iceberg and quit.

Missed an important picture here.  While the airship and kraken battled it out, the last frigate repaired some damage and managed to turn back into battle, unleashing a full broadside at close range into the locked combatants.  She managed to sink the airship and stun the kraken.

It was down to the final duel.  Submersible sailing towards the fight, hoping her string of bad rolls was over.  Frigate maneuvering for a shot.  The submersible launched a torpedo but missed, and was forced to surface.  At long range, the frigate fires one last broadside…

…And scores a lucky hit!  The submersible rolled a 12 on the critical damage table, finally getting a high roll.  With a giant explosion, the submersible disappeared, leaving the kraken’s body for the damaged frigate to recover.  Talk about yanking victory from the jaws of defeat!