My Four Against Darkness Tweaks

With LARPing out of the question for the time being, I have developed a real itch for some fantasy gaming. I decided to reboot a campaign I had started a while back but left hanging. It involves 2 characters that I created for Four Against Darkness (4AD), an excellent solo dungeon crawl game.

Now that I am posting new adventures on this blog, I thought I would tell you a little about the campaign. This turned into a rather lengthy discourse, so I have divided it into multiple posts.

First, let me tell you about how I play 4AD. While I really enjoyed it as written, I eventually made some changes to better fit my personal preferences. Here are changes that I am employing in this campaign.

Two Against Darkness
Before 4AD, I was running some homebrew solo RPGs with 2 heroes (essentially a main character and a sidekick). I found it a little easier to control the characters and it felt a little more cinematic. I actually created Khamen and Candorra to see if 4AD would work with 2 heroes.

I have given them a little assistance here and there to compensate for the missing party members. They start each adventure with a healing potion and I will reduce the enemies to manageable numbers. Sometimes an NPC will join them. Shortening the adventures (see below) also helps.

Overall, I like the change. I feel that I can concentrate on developing the main characters more (and they have certainly taken on a life of their own - but more about that in a later post). By judicious tweaking, I have kept the challenge level appropriate. My characters meet with danger but are not completely overwhelmed. It's been a lot of fun.

Shorter Adventures
I find that I start to get bored if the adventure goes on too long. 4AD does recommend using a time limit or a smaller map if pressed for time. This just felt a little artificial to me. Therefore I took some different approaches to speed up the game and reduce the time needed to finish a dungeon.

• I restricted the map to a 4 x 3 square grid, with each grid equally a room or corridor. This means that there is a maximum of 12 encounters per adventure (although I have done some 2-part adventures). I have a rule that the boss cannot appear in the first half of the map unless the characters complete 5 other challenges. This prevents the game from ending too quickly.

An example of a 4 x 3 grid

• Because I changed the map, I also changed how to determine room shape. It's pretty quick (no shuffling through pages to find the room). I lose a little flavor; the maps tend to be more generic and less interesting than straight 4AD. But I find the gain in speed worth it.

Streamlined room layout generator

• I created an adventure sheet with the encounters listed on it. Before I start the game I fill in the potential encounters. This greatly speeds up the process of determining encounters during the game. It also allows me to create a more focused, thematic dungeon.

A blank adventure map
I fill in the possible encounters before starting

No Loot

I've written about this in a previous blog post but I will reiterate that I don't care for the RPG obsession with acquiring stuff. To me, that is not heroic. Therefore I have dispensed with looting and instead assume that my characters get needed supplies from a patron, usually the Temple (i.e. the church). This causes a couple of issues in 4AD:

• Characters don't have money to bribe monsters. I generally just ignore the reaction tables. Instead, if there is a chance for a parley, I give the party an influence roll (I generally just come up with the needed value on the fly). If they succeed they can avoid combat. In most cases, however, combat is unavoidable. For example, when the heroes met the cultists in the Library, there was no chance for negotiation. In the campaign's backstory, the cultists were deadly rivals to my characters.
• There is no chance to acquire random magic items. I alleviate this by allowing a chance of acquiring magic items after defeating the boss. The patron can also furnish items - for example, I start each character with a healing potion, courtesy of the Temple, at the start of an adventure.

Of course, I don't find these problems to be insurmountable. For me, dispensing with loot has increased my enjoyment of the game.