Daniel (@Dungeondive) dives into the For Against Darkness solo dungeon-crawling system, presenting an updated six-tier buyer guide for 2024. Whether you’re a curious beginner or a seasoned adventurer, this guide helps you navigate the game’s expansive library of over 40 expansions, each adding depth and variety to your adventures. Daniel shares valuable tips for newcomers, such as pairing the core rulebook with essential expansions like Twisted Dungeons and Twisted Minions, while also pointing out community-made resources to streamline your first steps into the game.
As your skills grow, the guide introduces ways to expand your experience with advanced rules, thematic decks, and custom dungeon cards. From exploring necropolises to battling spider queens, Daniel highlights expansions like Wayfarers and Adventurers and the Twisted Final Fights, which bring unique characters, powerful traits, and epic boss encounters into your campaigns. For those seeking even greater challenges, the advanced tiers offer high-level playbooks, sprawling city adventures, and pre-written campaigns such as Fortress of the Warlord and Digressions of the Devouring Dead.
Packed with insights and recommendations, this video is your ultimate roadmap to unlocking the full potential of For Against Darkness. Whether you’re crafting a custom dungeon, managing a persistent town, or venturing into the depths of the abyss, Daniel’s guide ensures you’ll always have new adventures waiting. If you’re ready to embark on an endlessly customizable journey into solo fantasy gaming, this is the perfect place to start!
Here’s a summary of the For Against Darkness 2024 Updated Buyer Guide in a structured, bullet-point format:
Introduction
Daniel provides a six-tier guide for getting into For Against Darkness, updated for 2024.
Notes the complexity of rules across 40–50 expansions and suggests a comprehensive rules index or second edition would greatly help.
Tier 1: Getting Started
Core Rulebook: Essential for all expansions; offers basic gameplay but lacks variety.
Recommendation: Download community-made files from BoardGameGeek to enhance usability (flowcharts, combat trackers, party sheets, graph paper).
Recommended Add-ons:
Twisted Dungeons: Adds dungeon variety with new themes, monsters, traps, and encounters.
Twisted Minions: Expands enemy encounters, providing greater variety in foes.
Tier 2: Adding Variety
Wayfarers and Adventurers:
Introduces new classes (e.g., Druid, Gnome, Troll) and gameplay elements like character traits, rare traits, milestones, spells, and animal companions.
Twisted Series:
Twisted Traits: Enhances character customization with new traits.
Twisted Final Fights: Introduces unique boss encounters with special treasures.
Twisted Hordes: Adds magical and unusual treasure items.
Tier 3: Using Cards
Dungeon Decks: Pre-made thematic dungeons with unique treasures, traps, and bosses.
Examples:
Curse of Castle Ravenstein (horror theme)
Roads of Peril (outdoor adventures)
Forest of the Spider Queen (nature-based dangers)
Map Decks: Necropolis and mine-themed maps for diverse dungeon layouts.
Monster Decks: Expands the bestiary with unique foes and rules.
Hero Cards: Pre-made characters with special abilities.
Tier 4: Expanding the Scope
Urban Adventures:
Treacheries of the Troublesome Towns (Volumes 1 and 2):
Introduces persistent towns with urban encounters, factions, and settlement-building mechanics.
Tier 5: Advanced Play
Expands character levels and challenges:
Four Against the Abyss: For characters at levels 5–9 (uses d8).
Four Against the Forsaken Depths: For characters at levels 10–19 (uses d10).
Adds more deadly traps, encounters, and high-level treasures.
Tier 6: Campaign Play
Pre-written campaigns for a structured gameplay experience:
Fortress of the Warlord: Multi-chapter campaign for levels 4+.
Digressions of the Devouring Dead: Thematic undead campaign suitable for all levels.
Closing Thoughts
For Against Darkness is a robust solo dungeon-crawling system that shines with expansions.
Despite the potential for complexity, it’s an excellent choice for long-term gameplay with ever-growing variety.
I just want to add we will be posting a new Ganesha Games catalog right after the Christmas break (yeah, I know, doing that after the break doesn’t make sense commercially, but we are having some little health troubles and we are a lot behind our publishing schedule, and we are “product first, marketing later” people). Hopefully, the catalog will be another tool in planning your 4AD purchases (and maybe give a look at our other products – we publish plenty of books for a variety of reading ages, genres and game systems).
Looking forward to an updated catalog! I know a ton of people also really, really, REALLY want a comprehensive rules index so we can quickly locate the books that the rules are in!
Not a fan of all the table look-ups when playing 4AD. The Adventure Cards from Alexey Aparin really made the game sing for me. The card draw for table look-up is a simple and elegant solution. Each card deck provides a detailed adventure setting that works to maintain a consistent narrative throughout.
