Welcome to Dungeon Delvers

I’m here to lay out exactly what this game is, where it came from, and what it’s about. The original Dungeon Delvers could be found floating around a college campus in early 2017 when I introduced most of my college friends to the dragon game. I thought the game was too complicated for complete newbies, so I simplified the rules and we played a fantastic game. Since then, that campaign and that rule set has haunted me and my friends for the rest of our tabletop careers as one of the most fun games we have ever played. So, 7 years later, 7 years of game design experience and rules futzing behind me, I decided to take another crack at it, and recreating a game that is better designed to pull what I think the most fun parts of that initial version were.

Starting with what this game is: Dungeon Delvers is designed to take the most recent version of the dragon game and bend it to low fantasy settings with highly stylized classes where a characters story can be told through the character sheet via the items and loot they found as the predominant “cool shit” rather than the abilities they chose when they leveled up.

Yes, like most other d20 fantasy games out there, this is my take on what the dragon game should do. You can call this OSR, you can call it a clone or a bad take, whatever. This is the game that I developed so I could have fun. That’s it. I simply published it (giving it away for free on the internet) because I feel like it and I can’t physically sell it (some words were written by some magic-users, none of this art is mine) and maybe someone out there will find it fun. I certainly try to add a few more abilities than most OSR style games give. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. There are no new added mechanics, nothing that hardcore indie folks are going to enjoy. This is purely my attempt to make the dragon game fun for me and my friends. Maybe this works for you too. If you want to try a cool new indie game with unique mechanics, go check out 6Gun, the trifold cowboy ttrpg built for one shots that also has support for longer campaign play. I’m pretty proud of it (and it’s only $5).

Additionally, I focused down on trying to create classes that were actually fun to play, and felt like they all filled a niche. You’ll find a lot of classes have abilities wholly unique to them, and that lots of classes have several options to pick from when they level up. This is to make it so no two Fighters feel the same in each campaign, kinda thing. Obviously, some classes it’s a little easier than others.

In terms of support for this game, I may or may not release a pdf of all the monster stat blocks I use. I mostly take BX stats and then slap on converted 5e abilities. I may release a guidebook to the Silver Sea, the campaign setting I’ve built this ruleset for (I firmly believe that rules support the world and vice versa). I guess, watch the social media (@gavestonecrew) for that information if that’s released.

Last things I’ll say: If anyone finds anything racist, transphobic, homophobic, or ableist, let me know. I’ll try and address it. I have zero intention of repeating anything of that ilk, and I wholly desire to keep that rid of my games and tables. I don’t have money for a sensitivity reader, and I hope that you will be gracious enough that if I have offended, I will try and mend.

If you like the shit in this game, steal it for your own.

We are only as good as the obscurity of our references.

-F. Scott Graves