The final version of Dark Dungeons, an OGL retro-clone of the best single book version of TSR's D&D game ever published, is now available in hardback and softcover from Lulu and as a free PDF. While the system rules are a fairly direct clone of the original RC, much of the campaign related material -- such as the structure of the planes -- is fairly original (due to copyright law).

Nevertheless, the author "Blacky the Blackball," has done a excellent job. There are rules for running fiefs and becoming an immortal for higher level characters making this the first retro-clone I know of which includes the 0e/1e/BEMCI "endgame." There are even rules for immortals that are much easier to understand and use than either of the Immortals sets published back in the 1980s and early 1990s. The new outer planes setup created for Dark Dungeons even allows for "spelljamming" campaigns similar to the 2e setting.

The PDF Version of the Dark Dungeons rulebook is 345 pages and is fully illustrated. Dark Dungeons is published under the OGL. Best of all, all the original text of the game is not only open game content but is placed in the public domain.

You can obtain a copy (hardcover, softcover, or free PDF) here: Get Dark Dungeons.

Dark Dungeons is not perfect, but with copies of the original RC getting more and more expensive, it's really great to see this. By the way, the name of the game is a deliberate play on the old anti-D&D Chick Tract from the early 1980s. The characters used in the examples in the rules are even named after some of the characters in the Tract. I love that touch.

Awesome. I thank you for sharing the knowledge of these books.

How does Dark Dungeons compare with Labyrinth Lords?

One is in effect a clone of RC/Mentzer, while the other is a clone of B/X/Moldvay-Cook, I get that. Are the differences going beyond this?

Quote from: Benoist;383896How does Dark Dungeons compare with Labyrinth Lords?

One is in effect a clone of RC/Mentzer, while the other is a clone of B/X/Moldvay-Cook, I get that. Are the differences going beyond this?

Quite a few, from what I'm seeing. You have the skills and weapon mastery from the RC (not to mention 36 levels for all character classes). More importantly, there is quite a bit of material on campaigning, including things like handling strongholds and fiefs, wars and mass combat, other planes, immortals, etc. Just as there was in the RC.

I haven't had a chance to read the entire book so I can't say how much different things are from the RC, but I'm initially very impressed by Dark Dungeons.

I like Lulu's hardcovers. They are way more usable to me at an actual game table than Pathfinder volumes are, as a point of comparison. They open and lay flat much better, IME. Plus, the shipping costs from Lulu to Canada have been way down lately.

I'm going to add this to my Wish List.

Very impressive, of all the iterations, classic DND basic is the easiest, most enjoyable and most naive of the games ever written, glad to see this exist.

Quote from: Benoist;383896How does Dark Dungeons compare with Labyrinth Lords?

One is in effect a clone of RC/Mentzer, while the other is a clone of B/X/Moldvay-Cook, I get that. Are the differences going beyond this?

Quote from: RandallS;383920Quite a few, from what I'm seeing. You have the skills and weapon mastery from the RC (not to mention 36 levels for all character classes). More importantly, there is quite a bit of material on campaigning, including things like handling strongholds and fiefs, wars and mass combat, other planes, immortals, etc. Just as there was in the RC.

I haven't had a chance to read the entire book so I can't say how much different things are from the RC, but I'm initially very impressed by Dark Dungeons.

I'll just add some bits to the list of differences I noted as well, now that I've spent a bit more time with the document.

• Weapon mastery (renamed weapon feats) seem toned down from the RC; less damage creep, more sane abilities.  Also, guns!(?)


• In some ways, its almost MORE complete than the RC because it seems to have gobbled up and digested the Immortal play rules, including some utterly epic tables of THAC0s and monster Hit Dice.


• More discussion on skill and ability checks and their appropriate use.  A much more succinct skill list.


• Randall hit the big one that jumped out at me, but it is worth repeating because, well, it's big.  Demihuman levels go up to 36.

Are you getting a hardcopy of this WB?

This looks pretty awesome so far...I'd love a hardback version, but I'll wait and see if a second version gets printed, in case of errata and whatnot. (buying the original S&W softback then watching it get reprinted twice has burned me from buying anything 1st printing...)

Quote from: Benoist;384140Are you getting a hardcopy of this WB?

I've seriously considered it.  I'm waffling.  The price is very reasonable but I am also exceptionally stingy.  Here's my mental pro-con assessment.

There are some good game-play related changes, already mentioned.  Nothing that couldn't be plugged in though.  However (as I mentioned in like my first or second post here) I'm extremely concerned about the condition of my RC.  The pages are yellowing and becoming slightly brittle on account of the paper acidity and environment the book is kept in.

I do have some minor gripes too.  The book may be SO complete and so large that the binding might not stand up to all the flipping one must do to use it.  This really depends on the binding Lulu uses, so I won't blame the creators.  A second reservation is the illustrations.  I appreciate the fact that the author relied on open-source, but the illustrations chosen are so bland I can't honestly imagine myself putting this book in front of a friend and hoping they would get excited about it.  Sincerely, I think I would have preferred the author ask his buddies that sometimes draw stuff to do the illustrations over the bland and sometimes misplaced artwork.  I'm no art snob, either.  It almost never factors into my purchase decisions.  I disliked the art that much.

That considered, if I bought the book, it would be primarily for personal use and an effort to keep the condition of my RC from deteriorating.  I don't know if I can justify the purchase of a book for that use alone.  You can try to talk me into it, if you'd like, but I would really want to know:

• Does Lulu print on acid-free paper and how is the quality of their binding?
• Will WotC ever offer the RC as a pdf again? (clearly, I missed the boat here. I'd love to have one).

Yeah, the condition of my own Rules Cyclopedia is a concern.

I've had generally good experiences with Lulu hardcover bindings, between Iron Heroes Revised, OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry.

A big part of the art, including the cover, is from Gustave Doré's rendition of Dante's Divine Comedy. I'm a HUGE fan, personally, so it's a plus, for me. What I'm not too sure about is the shades of grey of the art. Normally, Doré's art is dark. It's supposed to be:

http://www.candlelightstories.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/gustave-dore-don-quixote-001.jpg

Have the PDF of the RC. It's a MASSIVE file, let me tell you. 82 Megs.

I don't think, from what I read from Greg Leeds and other WotC guys, that they're really thinking of releasing PDFs again. Sounds more like they'd be happy to offer them for stuff like Kindle or iPad, more controllable e-distribution channels, you know. Maybe never. I'm not waiting for them. As a matter of fact, I don't want to buy anything from them so... that's another plus for me right there.

Oh. I also noticed that the Immortals rules in Dark Dungeons don't look like anything I remember from the Mentzer Immortals boxed set.

Quote from: Benoist;384195Yeah, the condition of my own Rules Cyclopedia is a concern.

I've had generally good experiences with Lulu hardcover bindings, between Iron Heroes Revised, OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry.

A big part of the art, including the cover, is from Gustave Doré's rendition of Dante's Divine Comedy. I'm a HUGE fan, personally, so it's a plus, for me. What I'm not too sure about is the shades of grey of the art. Normally, Doré's art is dark. It's supposed to be:

http://www.candlelightstories.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/gustave-dore-don-quixote-001.jpg

Have the PDF of the RC. It's a MASSIVE file, let me tell you. 82 Megs.

I don't think, from what I read from Greg Leeds and other WotC guys, that they're really thinking of releasing PDFs again. Sounds more like they'd be happy to offer them for stuff like Kindle or iPad, more controllable e-distribution channels, you know. Maybe never. I'm not waiting for them. As a matter of fact, I don't want to buy anything from them so... that's another plus for me right there.

Oh. I also noticed that the Immortals rules in Dark Dungeons don't look like anything I remember from the Mentzer Immortals boxed set.

Answered in reverse order:

I don't think your memory is failing you.  The Immortal rules seem to me to be based more heavily on the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set rules for Immortal play.  You can take that with a grain of salt since my RPG library is currently split in half and I can't find Wrath of the Immortals (I literally had it in my hands last week and I can't find it in my 2-bedroom apartment.  Emerged sentience?).  I never ran an Immortal-level campaign using those rules, but I did run some of my NPC Immortals using those rules and I have that tinkle of familiarity.

I envy you and everyone else that snatched up the RC in pdf.  Not being able to legally acquire that document is a crime against humanity itself.

I won't pretend I would have recognized the art as being significant or important to the world of art, I am shamefully ignorant of such things.  I don't hate the pieces as works of art in their own right in their own historical context (now that I know them), but I still don't believe they do anything to evoke Dungeons & Dragons, 'old school' or the tropes of play.  I will give the producer credit for sticking to the same style throughout the book, but even your singular example demonstrates that there were better, more evocative choices, yes?

I am glad to hear your generally positive comments about Lulu.  Do you know what kind of paper they use?

Finally, I am sorry to hear that your own copy of the RC is a concern for you.  I have other TSR material from the same era stored in a similar environment that doesn't show half the decay that the RC does.  I can only guess that either a different type of paper or ink was used or there is some sort of interaction with binding/packaging taking place.  My Mystara boxed sets look mint.  My saddle stitched supplements look mint.  It boggles.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384210Answered in reverse order:

I don't think your memory is failing you.  The Immortal rules seem to me to be based more heavily on the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set rules for Immortal play.  You can take that with a grain of salt since my RPG library is currently split in half and I can't find Wrath of the Immortals (I literally had it in my hands last week and I can't find it in my 2-bedroom apartment.  Emerged sentience?).  I never ran an Immortal-level campaign using those rules, but I did run some of my NPC Immortals using those rules and I have that tinkle of familiarity.

The rules in DD actually caught my interest. I haven't really read through, but it looks interesting, almost like a game within the game, with powers you spend EXP on to perform, 36 levels of Immortals, etc. Definitely not the rules in the Gold box.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384210I envy you and everyone else that snatched up the RC in pdf.  Not being able to legally acquire that document is a crime against humanity itself.

Well the scan itself is kinda shit. So don't envy me too much, now.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384210I won't pretend I would have recognized the art as being significant or important (...), but even your singular example demonstrates that there were better, more evocative choices, yes?

Yeah, I'm going to agree there. Choices could have been better, for sure, in terms of relevance, at least. It was nice to see the pics representing the classes though. I'm a sucker for Classic art like this.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384210I am glad to hear your generally positive comments about Lulu.  Do you know what kind of paper they use?

Well it's a plain kind of paper. I don't know about any particular treatment. It's not glossy or anything, but it's relatively thick, and it holds up pretty well in time. I've had my IH book for ... quite a few years now, and it doesn't show any sign of aging yet.

Anyway. I heard about some books that occasionally had problems of binding. More like one-off occurences rather than systematic errors. In that case, what you should do is contact Lulu directly for a replacement. They usually don't make any problem with this, from what I heard.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384210Finally, I am sorry to hear that your own copy of the RC is a concern for you.  I have other TSR material from the same era stored in a similar environment that doesn't show half the decay that the RC does.  I can only guess that either a different type of paper was used or there is some sort of interaction with binding/packaging taking place.  My Mystara boxed sets look mint.  My saddle stitched supplements look mint.  It boggles.

Like yours, my copy's pages are "yellowing" with age. The spine shows some significant wear, but the book is still in a very good shape overall. If I could avoid using it at a game table though, I would, at this point.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384210The Immortal rules seem to me to be based more heavily on the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set rules for Immortal play.  You can take that with a grain of salt since my RPG library is currently split in half and I can't find Wrath of the Immortals

They are definitely closer to Aaron's Wrath of the Immortals version of the rules that they are to Frank's Set 5: Immortals rules. IMHO, this is a good thing. Set 5 was almost incomprehensible. I think I remember Frank saying (on Dragonsfoot) something to the effect that no one at TSR aside from him understood his Immortals rules.

Samwise7 from DF made a YouTube vid about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1dQe2uZKvo

Pretty cool.