I’ve been playing and reading about a feel Roll & Write games recently. A Roll & Write is a game which, essentially, involves people rolling some dice and then using the results to draw something on a grid.

I wanted to make a condensed little version of the old Dungeon Keeper games using this set of mechanics, so here it is! It’s going to use a couple of revisions, and I’ve already run into a few questions about the rules (trying to get clarity onto a single A4 rules sheet was a bit of a reach). Clarifications below.

All you need are some yellow and red dice (one of each per player) and some squared paper. It can support a large player count and probably solo play too, if you set yourself a score target.

41089000_1289324007858834_442165229560791040_n

Clarifications:

  • Traps and Loot can be placed anywhere in the dungeon, not just on the Tunnel you just drew (although the latter approach could be tried if you want a more hardcore variant of the game).
  • Loot goes into Tunnels. Boulders and Minions also go into Tunnels. Arrow traps point at the walls they shoot out of. Imagine the arrow you draw is a bolt inside the wall, ready to pop out when someone walks past!
  • When I say “each ARROW TRAP scores *2* if it is able to hit a LOOT symbol” I mean that the arrow must be able to travel through the wall in a straight line and hit any loot symbol without any other walls being in the way.
  • In future I’d like to convert the rules sheet into a landscape 2-page split with smaller writing, so there can be diagrams for some of this stuff!
  • Scoring is pretty arbitrary at this stage. It might make sense to have an Arrow Trap score more for each loot symbol it can hit in a row, but all of that will be revisited at a later date.