We all know the trope. The adventurers enter confined spaces overrun by monstrous creatures, kill everything that moves, and take anything of value with them. Dungeon crawlers are a successful formula for a reason: the gameplay loop is straightforward, the rewards are clear and enticing, the mindless violence helps us exorcise some ghosts and just chill out for a bit.
However, we are also well-aware of the issues associated with the genre, namely how it can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and reinforce colonialist tropes, especially if you disregard those stories, and rely on the narrative of “we are just having some fun killing evil creatures”.
So when it was my turn to create a dungeon crawler, I wanted to be mindful about it. I mean, it is part of the history of my country, for goodness’ sake. A content warning wouldn’t be enough.
We come in peace
So yeah, I am writing a dungeon crawler. It will be my entry for Zine Month 2023, and the crowdfunding campaign starts on February 1st!
The idea for the game began when my great friend and awesome game designer Igor Moreno released the SRD for That Dungeon Game with Dragons and Stuff (yep, that's the actual name of the game). The mix of minimalism, innovative mechanics and quirky fun was an irresistible invitation for me to tweak it into a new thing.
The original game is unapologetically a dungeon crawler, and his take on its issues is highlighting its absurdism through gonzo. Characters and enemies alike are a mix of fantastic species, animals and beasts. Everything is a delightful mess of references and made-up nonsense.
My game takes the experience to space, but with humans facing aliens. Things get a little more complicated that way. The first step to address this problem was to create what it appears to be a very good justification for what the adventurers do.
So I asked myself, “What if Star Trek went terribly wrong?”
We ventured out into the stars with a purpose. We were the ambassadors of humanity, the trailblazers of a new age of understanding and cooperation. But then the attacks started. They came out of nowhere, these creatures, these monsters. They swarmed our ships, our stations, our outposts. They killed, they destroyed, they consumed. And we were powerless to stop them.
We lost everything, everything we had built, everything we had fought for. Our homes, our families, our friends. So now we explore the galaxy, but not for knowledge, not for diplomacy. We delve into the derelict ships, the abandoned stations, the ruins of our peaceful missions. We scavenge for supplies, and we hunt for the monsters that destroyed the hopes of a better world.
And this is how the idea for the game start to take shape.
Mercenaries, yes. But with a good cause! We were not doing anything wrong, right? Our intentions were pure! They started it!
This layer of righteousness and good will was enough for the buy-in. But then… I wanted to go deeper.
“Nothing must leave this planet alive. Nothing”
That’s when I was reminded of the little gem of a game, 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. If you are not familiar, this is an even more overt violent game, as it describes itself as a game about “Space Troopers killing bugs all across the Cosmos”.
What is not so obvious is the very clever ways in which the author embeds in the mechanics an opportunity for a gradual realization that there’s something wrong about this whole mission.
Let’s take a look at how he describes the Weakness mechanic:
You quickly provide a flashback to an event in your character’s history. This brief snapshot should display some quality about your character that is a weakness. Put a cross through the box since the slot is now used up and we cut back to the present.
And then later:
One of the Flashbacks is mandated to be “Hatred For Home”. This is the final Weakness that is made available to a PC. Your PC only gains this Weakness as a character trait, though, when he uses it in the game.
As an option, once a single PC gains access to the Weakness “Hatred for Home“ then any other PC can acquire it as an available Weakness if they want using one of their existing Weakness slots.
Isn’t it clever? At some point in the game, as characters have been exposing their flaws and past mistakes, seeing their comrades falling, suddenly a character reveals their hatred for home. And it doesn’t stop there.
Now check out this part of the advancement rules, when they explain Higher Ranks.
When a PC becomes an Officer then they do not leave the other PCs behind. You simply work the rank into the story. The promoted character will, however, have new Orders to follow and new dangers to face.
The keyword here is Orders. Let’s see how they escalate:
LIEUTENANT [rank 3]
Order 5: Ensure that no creatures in an encounter survive.
Order 6: Enforce discipline on the lower ranks.COLONEL [rank 7]
Order 13: Identify planets for destruction and inform Lt Colonels.
Order 14: Kill those who disobey orders.BRIGADIER [rank 8]
Order: 15: Kill all life in the Cosmos.
Order 16: Ensure that the Expeditionary Force does not return to Terra under any circumstances.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You see that? In the last order of the highest rank you can achieve, there it is: you can never go home. You were never supposed to.
“I can see it now. It’s… it’s beautiful!”
I wanted something like that for Derelict Delvers, but I am not pretending I’d be able to devise something as elegant and gut-wrenching. But I tried.
Instead of focusing on a progressive comprehension of the real mission objective, I aimed to emulate how it would feel like to slowly realize that the “monsters” you’ve been mindless killing were not that different after all.
What I came up with is the mechanics for Wounds.
When a character gets hit, they may contract an infection. As the infection spreads, you are asked to roll on a table, with increasingly higher dice (starting with a d6, going up to a d12).
The alien DNA in your blood at first gives you some advantages. You start to recognize their movement patterns and tactics, which makes it easier to kill them. But then, as you get higher results on the table, things get messy.
You get a glimpse of their hive mind, and comprehend their language, their culture, their individuality. You question your purpose and your morality. You begin to intermingle your consciousness with them. You understand as they talk of their home and of their losses. And that finally breaks your soul, when you realize the horror you brought to a society you didn't understand.
I realize it is not as subtle, and it is pretty much an elaborate version of the story of the orc guard with a note in his pocket saying, “Have fun at work, daddy!”
But it is a theme I needed to explore. How can I bake in regret mechanics for a bunch of trigger-happy mercenaries brainwashed to believe that what they are doing is in humanity’s best intent?
That was my answer for this game.
There’s a lot more that I like in these rules (especially the mechanics for creating your own weapons and powers), so if you want to, please check out the campaign, and spread the word about it! I think you will enjoy it.
Holy shit is all I can say.
Sounds a bit like District 9