Recently I was gaming with some friends and one of them brought out Dungeon Run. As it is a Dungeon Crawl of the most classical form and we were all fans of D&D, we decided to give it a shot. (The rules being relatively short and straightforward helped too.) After a quick read-through we selected out characters and began the crawl.
The map of Dungeon Run is formed by drawing new tiles as the heroes explore. It is very similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill in that aspect. With every new tile there is a chance for a monster, trap, or treasure for the hero to kill or take. Combat and other skill checks require one or two rolls that are easy to calculate and compare. Once the stack of tiles runs out the game shifts from exploration to combat. At this point the Boss, carrying the Summoner's Stone, spawns on the map. The goal becomes to kill the Boss and then be the Hero who leaves the dungeon with the Summoner's Stone. That is right, once the Boss is dead the game becomes a free-for-all where Heros battle one another for the Stone. Unfortunately this portion ends up not being as fun as it sounds.
Both games of Dungeon Run progressed about the same way. Each hero split off into their own piece of the Dungeon and, barring something like a Magic Immune Troll, handled all the encounters and picked up all the treasure in their portion. Overall there was almost no cooperation unless the game forced it. Further there was no reason to trade because no one had any real trouble (unless the monster was built to hose that class) and we all knew the backstabbing would commence as soon as the Stone dropped. The Bosses were surprisingly easy overall, usually just requiring two characters supporting each other to kill.
In both games the real play ended when the boss died. Someone had chosen Vargagg, the Orc Barbarian, in both games and he dominated the post-Boss PvP. Not only is he very powerful in combat, he also can gain the ability to move an extra space on leveling up. This made it so he could simply out run every other hero and escape unchallenged. His utter dominance was a big factor in the groups eventual disinterest in the game.
My impression of the game is it has some very solid core mechanics but is very poorly balanced. In addition there are some issues with who controls the monsters as there is no GM and the end game PvP in general. Really the game needed a lot more play testing before being released as there were some obvious issues that our group noticed after just a few play-throughs.
The combat system is very elegant and only requires two rolls to resolve. Further the game places the player squarely in control of the combat. They roll second and can use their dice to either block the monsters hits or damage the monster. Everyone in the group picked it up fast and seemed to enjoy the system. The issue with combat is it is strictly better to have a single high attribute because it gives you more dice. This wouldn't be too bad, except the characters have a fairly wide range of max stats and overall start with too many dice diluting the challenge and reducing the incentive to team up.
Overall the character stats were completely unbalanced. First having a high Brawn or Magic is dominant in the game. Not only does it make killing monsters easier, but can often be used in place of Skill to avoid traps or board impediments, essentially rendering the 3rd stat of limited use. On top of this the total starting stat points is not uniform across the characters. In fact both magic users have the lowest sum by 2 and neither has Brawn stat above 1. The first thing the game needs to do is bring the characters into better balance by equalizing the total stats more and reducing both the average sum and the max possible starting value of each stat. This will both make all the character more playable and facilitate more cooperation as the characters will be weaker.
The other issue with the characters is the vast power discrepancy in starting and level up abilities. We found the most powerful abilities were the simple always on modifiers. The subtler abilities like long range trading or leveling up faster from certain monster types were never relevant due to the length of the game. The most potent ability, which should not be in the game unless all the characters have access to a form of it, is the ability to move an extra square in a turn. This is essentially a 50% increase in movement as normally players can only move two squares in a turn. A player with this ability can arrive at the center of action much faster and evade any pursuers in the end game.
A big issue in the end game is how easy it is to avoid PvP. Not only can one character move faster than the others, but there is no way to stop people from moving through or leaving your square. With monsters you have to roll to leave their square, else they get a free attack on you. Players have no such ability and cannot restrict each others' movement. This makes the end game a mad dash for the exit, rather than a strategic move through the dungeon to evade capture. An easy fix for this would be to have the Skill stat affect your escape ability against players if they don't want you to leave their square. Maybe something like you roll yours skill stat and the target number is anything greater than the opponent's stat. This would give high skill players an edge in map management, which seems fitting.
The monsters themselves are reasonably interesting. In addition to their differences in attack and defense each has a special ability which forces different tactics and spices up play. The monsters range from very easy to moderately challenging, which is about right for a casual game. The sole exception to this is the Ice Troll. This monster is immune to Magic, so characters must use their Brawn stat to attack it. Unfortunately this is a very tough monster in general and no magic user has a Brawn stat above 1, leading to running away being the only option. This issue is partly fixed by re-balancing the stats, though I think that Immunity is very powerful in this game and should either be removed or placed only on weak monsters. It is very disheartening to have the boss spawn with an immunity because then the only thing a player strong in that stat can do is wait for the others to kill it. A better ability would be <Attribute> Resistance X, where if you attack with that attribute you remove X dice from your pool. This allows for more fine grained control of difficulty and can allow players to be at least marginally useful against such a monster.
Traps seemed very lack luster in this game. I think that there were two things wrong with them. First most could be overcome by Skill or another attribute meaning most players could power through on Magic or Brawn and shafting the usefulness of the Skill characters. Second traps don't persist, they trigger once and then are gone. It would be more interesting for them to stick around inhibiting movement and giving Skill characters more options for leveling up.
I almost thing that taking out the endgame or significantly changing the goal would make this game more enjoyable. The pace and timing of the game through the Boss seemed about right. Each player would gain 1-2 levels and have 1-3 items, which was sufficient for killing the Boss. Even if the power of the characters is toned down a bit everything in the game is doable if the players cooperate. The problem is running is a better strategy than fighting especially as the character with the stone gains some very powerful abilities. I think that if the game ended with the Boss it would be about perfect, as short dungeon run that you can play multiple times in a sitting. After thinking about it for awhile I am not sure there is a good way to create the endgame PvP because that tends to drag it out and make people wish the game had ended once a clear frontrunner appears.
One possible way to add more to the endgame is to have the players have to escape the dungeon with the Stone. Maybe every turn a monster spawns on the square with the Stone if there is none, else it spawns in the boss room. And have players re-roll every time they enter a room for new monster and traps but not treasure. To keep the pressure on it might be worth either making all the monsters have a 2nd ability after the Stone drops or not provide experience after the Boss dies. This would force a lot more cooperation and really emphasize the idea that the dungeon doesn't want them to take the Stone.
These sort of mechanical spawns also removes the GM issue that appears with monsters when no player is designated GM. Honestly the game has a very elegant first player system which makes it hard to get stuck and clear who is the arbiter on monster movement at that moment. Even in the endgame, this part of the game works well, though doesn't compensate for the bad PvP.
Overall I think the core of the game is very solid in concept but not execution. It uses a classical exploration system and has an intuitive dice system for resolving everything. Even the pace of play and power progression through the game seems very close to correct. The real issue is character imbalance and poor incentives for PvP in the endgame. These show the game needed more play testing and probably should jettison the current endgame for something that encourages players to be less assholes to each other.
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