The League of Dungeoneers (Part II)
The crate was already on the lectern when I arrived this morning, though I had not asked for it brought up. The porters tell me it has been on the staging shelf since Part I went to the wall. Five files this time, threaded through nearly two years of correspondence between Daniel (@dungeondive) and the game’s designer, Michael — and the through-line is plain enough that even the catalogue clerks have been gossiping about it. The book that arrived broken has been mended in public.
The first printing of League of Dungeoneers shipped with a rulebook that contradicted itself in places — climbing tests that no longer existed, sign-flipped charts, bestiary entries out of step with revised initiative. Daniel’s review (Part I of this wing already names it) catalogued the damage honestly. Five months later he was opening a preview package with art on the dungeon-event cards he had asked for. A year after that, the full second-edition state arrived: revised hardback rulebook, errata absorbed, False Prophet expansion in tow with two new ancestries, two new classes, two new biomes, and a campaign of its own.
Bracketing the correspondence are the soloist’s experiments — Daniel’s running attempt to wrestle a four-hero system into a one-protagonist game by abstracting his mercenaries into utility decks, damage pools, and re-roll engines — and a comparative study against Dungeon Crusade and Dungeon Universalis, the other two old-school heavyweights this archive currently catalogues.
I have shelved the files in delivery order rather than chronological order. The reader can decide which sequence flatters the game more.
The Exhibit Catalogue:
- Customising LoD for a solo RPG experience — one hero on the map, three mercenaries abstracted into utility, damage pool, and re-rolls
- The 12-point Review — closest thing in print to a Warhammer Quest 1995 reprint, errata and all
- The Ultimate Showdown — Crusade vs LoD vs Universalis — twelve categories, three contenders, no replacement
- Expansion preview & reprint announcement — dungeon event cards with art, and the lore behind the Socks of Perpetual Comfort
- So much new stuff! — acrylic standees, the upgrade kit, and the False Prophet big-box delivered
328 transcripts • 407 posts archived
– The Keeper
Notes that the only thing rarer than a small-press dungeon crawl with no errata is a designer who answers his correspondence in print.