Very, very early thoughts on 52 Kingdoms

It is human nature to give added weight to something for arbitrary reasons. For example, I try to make the first game I learn in a year one I think will be a good one. For 2025, I taught myself 52 Kingdoms: Adventures.

It is from Postmark Games, a game publisher that I fell in love with last year. And it fits most of the basic parameters of their other games. It only exists as a Print and Play game and doesn't require any construction. Print out a couple of play sheets and you are good. However, instead of using dice as the random element, 52 Kingdoms uses a standard deck of cards.

It is also a dungeon crawl, a genre I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I cut my teeth on Dungeons and Dragons back when dungeons crawls were its basic format. I have played more dungeon crawls than I can remember. On the other hand, I have seen just so many. It's hard for me to get excited by one now.

Each game consists of two sheets of paper. One is of the dungeon map, which honestly bring back memories of old Dungeon magazine, which isn't a bad thing. The other is a choice of two characters to play. You slide the character sheet under the map so you only see one character. The reason I phrase it that way is because there are two maps and two sets of characters... so far. More are yet to come.

I'm not going to go through the rules. Honestly, after I've played a lot more of 52 Kingdoms, I plan on coming back to it and giving a more nuanced review. What I will say is that cards serve as special items, equipment, loot, wounds, monsters, and a randomizer. While far from the most complex dungeon crawl I've ever seen, I do feel like 52 Kingdoms packs a lot into its small space. 

I feel two dangers micro dungeons crawls can fall into are being too simple or too finicky. 52 Kingdoms avoids the latter through graphic design. The play sheets have clear areas for you to place each type of card. There are clear tables for monsters and curses. Good graphic design makes a huge difference between confusion and good game play.

One weakness that 52 Kingdoms has is that, sometimes, the bookkeeping overcomes the theme. I stop feeling like it's about magic and monsters and dungeons and I feel like I'm doing some accounting with a deck of cards rather than a calculator. That said, I think abstraction is inevitable when you're scaling down a concept.

So far, I've found 52 Kingdoms interesting but I haven't really been drawn into it. But here's the thing. I haven't explored even half of the content has been released and I know there will be more maps and characters released. And I am interested to keep on going and see the whole scope of the system.

The potential is there and I feel positive about that.

I also want to note that, when I first saw the name of the game, I was hoping that 52 Kingdoms would have a greater scale than a dungeon. However, its called 52 Kingdoms: Adventures, which gives me hope that this is just the first game in a series that uses this basic system.

Roll Crawl: Yahtzee and Fantasy Combat pared down to the bone

I went into Roll Crawl assuming it would be a dungeon crawl. I mean, the word crawl is in the title. But it is really just a line of monsters that you have to fight. Which is all some dungeon crawls end up being but there's usually a little flavor text to hint at exploration and setting. Roll Crawl cuts right to the chase.

Roll Crawl consists of eighteen cards, plus some tokens to keep track of health and dice to make things happen. There is a selection of heroes, companions, and monsters, including boss monsters. Each game consists of two heroes, one companion and five monsters that always includes one boss monster.

The game really comes down to Yahtzee. And, while Yahtzee in and of itself is dry, it makes for a good base to build mechanics off of. Each hero has a pool of three dice. Their abilities are keyed off specific combinations of dice like sets or straights. And the heroes can combine dice to activate the companion. Monsters roll dice to do damage but they have some automatic special powers. Kill all the monsters, you win. They wipe out the party, you lose.

A long time ago, I played a game called God Dice that was fantasy combat based on Yahtzee. I felt that it ultimately failed because it took too long and it was too easy to have turns where nothing happened. Later on, I played a game called Delve that used Yahtzee as a dungeon crawl that worked much better by having a much tighter design.

Roll Crawl falls more into the Delve camp. It is a very short and simple game but your decisions matter. That comes down to getting to reroll the dice, the ability to work towards a specific goal. It does exist in a design space where I feel you can find better games but Roll Crawl works. And that can be a tougher standard than you or I would like to think.

The biggest weakness the game has is that the deck is too small. In particular, the pool of monsters is sparce. You end up seeing the same monsters over and over again over multiple games. Heck, there are only two boss monsters. So, while the mechanics do hold up , the content isn't enough to encourage a lot of replay.

I like how Roll Crawl gives you some actual agency, even if the whole game comes down to rolling dice a whole bunch. As I've said, Yahtzee is a good foundation. However, it really needs at least twice as many cards.

Railroads and Dungeon Crawls

 Now, I don’t mean a dungeon crawl set on a train, although what limited knowledge I have of the cartoon Infinity Train makes me think that might be what that is.

Railroading is when a game master has the game set up so that there’s a preordained set of events with predetermined outcomes. The players effectively become actors in a script that’s already been written, without any acutal agency.

Dungeon Crawls, of course, are adventures that are set in some sort of spatially limited set of areas. Dungeons, castles, temples, caves, ruins, they come in different flavors but they are all a defined set of areas.

Part of me wondered if they were variations on the same idea. After all, there usually is some kind of order in how you go through a dungeon. Then I realized that they weren’t really the same at all.

You see, railroading controls what you can affect, sometimes even what you do. A dungeon crawl just controls where you can go. Maybe. I was once in a party where the party leader specialized in divination. Once he also got access to teleportation spells, he would crack open dungeons like Danny Ocean. (Fortunately, that amused the dungeon master)

The long and short of it is that I don’t like railroading. It turns the game into a movie that the game master is trying to force into existence. It turns the players into being an audience, not participants.

On the other hand, I have both a fondness and appreciation for a dungeon crawl. Yes, it is a controlled and limited environment which leads to controlled and limited choices but everyone knew what they signed up for. It’s transparent and doesn’t have a predetermined outcome.

I have also known plenty of game masters who have suffered from Bruno. Being able to get away from complex politics and elaborate schemes and villages where everyone has detail personalities and just run a dungeon? I am beyond fine with someone needing to just handle some orcs coping with home invaders.

And if someone says why don’t you just play a game like Descent in campaign mode with funny voices, I would say why not? 

Italo Calvino and dungeon crawls

I have been crafting a couple of micro crawls (MiniSkull Caverns and 8-Bit Dungeon, in case you are curious) while reading Time and the Hunter by Italo Calvino, which has been a weird combination of head spaces. 

Time and the Hunter is sort of, kind of the second volume of Cosmicomics. It definitely contains some Cosmicomic stories but other parts deconstruct life and space and time in a little less whimsical way. Does DNA’s programming mean there is no present or future or free will but only a constant repackaging of the past? Is a traffic jam one contiguous entity that offers no options for any part or is there a way to create your own piece of time and space within its confines? Did Calvino read the same Count of Monte Cristo that my Classic Comics edition was based on?

Dungeon crawls have been a part of board games, video games and role playing games for decades. (I remember an early edition of Tunnels and Trolls outright describing the setting as a world of dungeons) You would think of the dungeon crawl as a dead horse at this point but it’s clearly not.

And that’s because it is so effective and simple as a narrative structure. Dungeons crawls are a way of setting one challenge after another in a way that makes sense. There’s a lot of room for nuance, don’t get me wrong. I have some friends who argue that Keep on the Borderlands (one of the ur-adventures of D&D) should be played as a diplomatic adventure.

That said, I remember more than one D&D campaign where we all relaxed when we hit a dungeon. No more political intrigue or wilderness journeys. Just a good, old fashioned dungeon crawl full of combat and treasure.

But with Calvino in my mind, I find myself thinking of a dungeon as a microcosm, as a tiny universe that ends with the dungeon walls. And with some dungeon crawls, like the ones I just finished making copies of, the dungeon is indeed all the real estate and the universe that exists for he game.

More than that, with so many dungeon crawls, each area is its own encounter. Each room is its own event, unrelated to any of the other rooms. You only take the treasure and the damage from room to room. (And,yes, any game master worth their salt isn’t going to run a dungeon like that. I remember dungeons where the first fight managed to draw most of the inhabitants out as waves of reinforcements)

But if a game is ‘programmed’ without a game master, which can be the case in board or video or even role playing game, having each encounter be a singular entity is a mechanically sound choice. It makes play manageable.

So now, I am not just seeing a dungeon as entire tiny universe unrelated to anything beyond itself, each area is its own singular moment in time. Time doesn’t become one event after another, not a continuity of events. Instead, time is determined by geography.

I am currently seeing a dungeon crawl as a deconstruction of time and space, thanks to Italo Calvino. The when is not important. The where might not be important either. All that is significant is that an event occurs.

Crafting a game just to make the pieces

When I first looked at the Dungeon Sprint, it didn’t interest me at all. A one-page, minimalist dungeon crawl that looks like a luck fest with uneven special powers for the different classes. It doesn’t look like the worst dungeon crawl I’ve ever seen but I have seen better ones and better one-page ones. (The Delve series and even the Sword of Valhalla that I think has definite issues are the first that come to mind)

Dungeon crawls really aren’t my thing and Carrie, my wife, is even less into them. Since they are kind of common PnP, I have started looking at them more but I look for ones that have solitaire options, which Dungeon Sprint definitely does not have.

Then, the one review noted that you could replace the chits with plastic miniatures or paper standees. And I found myself thinking about how I’ve never tried to make paper standees. And I wondered how it would work out if I used a laminator and a bone folder.

So I’m planning on making a copy of Dungeon Sprint, which really just means laminating the board, to justify trying out making some standees. 

But, but, couldn’t I just make the standees and skip making a board? 

Well, yeah. Technically. But actually making it a part of a game, part of a project means I’m more likely to actually do it :D

I am breaking one of my personal rules. I really am trying to just craft games that I both think will be fun and I really think will get played. I don’t think Dungeon Sprint fits either category for us. 

However, the side effect of making standees, really any three-dimensional shape for a game, made me to decide to craft it anyway. (Really, I’ll just laminate the board and make the standees. The standees are the real work)

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63525/dungeon-sprint

Lairs, a Kickstarter project that appeals to my imagination

Lairs is a Kickstarter project that checked off enough boxes for me that I ended up backing is on the PnP level. Admittedly, the fact that the PnP level was only a dollar was one of the boxes but there were other reasons it sparked my interest.

At its heart, Lairs is a dungeon crawl, which is a genre which that doesn't lack for games. As someone who spent a couple decades playing Dungeons and Dragons, I like dungeon crawls but I've never found one that I've liked as much as actually playing Dungeons and Dragons. 

Although, now that I don't have time to be in a campaign, there's more appeal. :D 

However, compared to a lot of dungeon crawls, Lairs definitely has a different feel. In fact, it steps away from the traditional, post Tolkien fantasy and explores a narrative that's both more whimsical and melancholy. 

Instead of wizards and warriors, the players take the role of strange beings of power. Between the artwork and the backstories, they look like the cast from a collaboration by Lord Dunsany and Edward Gorey.  

The narrative choices is a big reason why the game interested me. Some of the characters are just very interesting. There is the tragic Stonewrought Senator whose soul is trapped inside an unmoving statue. The Potted Prince takes the idea of a sentient potted plant and gives is pathos and seriousness is actually pretty cool.

I'll admit that the Dame of Catterbury is what pushed me over the edge to pledging. A magical cat locked in war against dogs and who has the most altruistic backstory? Yeah, you got my dollar for that.

They are each building their own dungeon in the same mysterious magic mountain and whoever finishes first gets to be the dungeon master as the others invade their lair. The dungeons are less a serious of rooms full of monsters and more interlocking mini games with a chance of monsters.

Frankly, the mechanics of Lairs reminds me a lot of Betrayal on the House on the Hill, which I played a fair bit of when it came out. The first half of the game is spent building a haunted house. Then someone gets possessed and you play out one of fifty different scenarios with everyone else trying to stop the possessed.

Mechanically, Betrayal had a ton of issues, not the least of which was that that first edition was horribly edited. While the underground lake on the second floor was particularly memorable, it was far from the only error. The errata ended up being something like fifty pages long.

And the random factor was so high that it could nullify any choices a player might make. Any given game could end up being a landslide victory for one side or the other. In particular, I remember the possession going off in one game at the first possible roll, leaving us with a haunted house the size of a one-bedroom apartment full of killer rats. The game ended shortly after that with some very fat rats.

But, as buggy and problem-filled as Betrayal was as a game, it almost succeeded at delivering a story. Heck, the tiny apartment full of rats might have been almost pointless as a competitive game but it did make for a great anecdote. Despite its myriad of flaws, Betrayal did deliver an experience so Lairs reminding me of it is not a knock.

Frankly, I don't know if Lairs will turn out to be a good game. They did a great job with the theme and the mechanics sound promising. But they would have failed Kickstarter 101 if the game didn't sound promising. I'm prepared for the game to be meh or even a tram wreck.

But, getting the art and the backstories will be totally worth a dollar, even if the game is terrible. And I am intrigued enough that I will make that print and play.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/201782/lairs

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10547/betrayal-house-hill

Into the Odd, old school with some indie ideas

I want to like Into the Odd so much more than I do. True to its name, it's an odd combination of indie mechanical sensibilities and serious old school theme. And that's something that should work but, in this case, it came out feeling half-baked. 

At its heart, Into the Odd is an old school dungeon crawl. And I mean 1974 Darkmoore old school, before dungeon crawls were codified into medieval European sword and sorcery. 

Character creation and mechanics are dirt simple. You make a character by rolling 3d6 three times for strength, dexterity and will plus a d6 for hit points. You then cross reference your highest stat and your hit points to get your starting pack. Which doesn't just include equipment. You also get things like supernatural powers or disfigurements. The chart is the great equalizer. If you have lousy stats, you get great equipment and powers.

If you're trying to do something that doesn't involve hurting folks, you need to roll under the appropriate stat on a d20. 

For combat, you don't need to roll to hit. You just roll for damage and subtract the other guy's armor from it. Hit points are really just ablative. After you work through them, you start damaging strength with a chance at doing critical damage. Some things, like poison, do extra nasty stuff with critical damage.

That's pretty much the rules in a nutshell. It takes about a minute to explain the rules and another minute to roll up a character. Of course, quick character creation and simple rules aren't that hard to find.

What actually makes Into the Odd interesting and ultimately, heartbreaking for me is the setting. It owes more to Jack Vance's Dying Earth than it does to Tolkien or Howard or Leiber. Although it's never actually explicitly stated, it sure feels like a post-apocalyptic world where the good times are so far gone that they are just vague myths. Not quite to the point of the Dying Earth but working its way there.

It's clearly not medieval since there are things like guns and factories and steam engines. On the other hand, most of the world seems to be nothing ruins and wilderness with city states being the biggest form of government.

Adventuring in the world of Into the Odd consists of going out into the wilderness and ruins and forgotten catacombs to find the lost wonders of the ancient world. So scavenging and grave robbing is clearly a major economic force.

What really gives the setting a distinctive flavor is the Arcana, the lost wonders and treasures of a forgotten age of miracles. These are not your generic magic items. They range from tchotchkes that can fit in your pocket to pieces of architecture. 

And they do very specific, ridiculously specific things. Think the mini-series The Lost Room things. Figuring out what Arcana can do and then how to make that useful is definitely a distinct part of the game.

I do have to say that the book doesn't just include the standard starter dungeon but a good-sized wilderness area around it, complete with a wandering encounter table and  encounters and story books on different hexes. As long as you're willing to wander around the Fallen Marshes, there's a decent amount of adventuring a GM can run in the fly.

Here's the rub. Into the Odd has simple rules and will make for a good quick and dirty dungeon crawl. But neither of those things are that hard to find. There are a lot of options out there for either one of them.

It's the setting, which is so old school that it touches the primordial roots of D&D that is the selling point for Into the Odd. And while the city of Hopesend Port and the Fallen Marshes do give you enough to run a short campaign, I wanted to see so much more of the setting. Yes, minimalism fits the old school feel but I could have easily enjoyed more than twice as much setting material.

Simple rules are nice but the flavor and setting was what I took away from the game and I wanted so much more.

Into the Odd is a quirky game that is three quarters Old School Revival with one quarter indie sensibilities about simple, intuitive rules. If it wasn't for that being a such extreme juxtaposition, I don't know if I'd consider it a indie game at all.

It's really not a game that I'd suggest. These days, my interests are in narrative driven games. But if someone else wanted to play it, I'm sure I have fun.

http://lostpages.storenvy.com/products/10964031-into-the-odd-print-pdf