So, it’s been some time since I have had a chance to sit down and do a bit of writing but I have been meaning to write about this for a while. Four Against Darkness is a very intriguing game and has been filling the little cracks of time I do have to spend on my own hobbies lately. It is a solo game (or possibly cooperative if you wish to play with a friend but past that point there are a slew of other games that might work better for you if you have a larger group and time) that lets you play your own randomized dungeon crawl adventures with some of the classic heroes you would expect.
All of the dungeons and dragons box set classics are here. Warrior, Cleric, wizard, thief, elf, dwarf, halfling. I imagine you certainly get the idea. Each of these characters has some starting ability, usually based on their level, a list of equipment and some money as well as a starting health value.
Once you have decided on your heroic (or anti-heroic foursome) you have an opportunity to purchase some items from a town list of adventuring gear. Different weapons, rope, potions and so on, the sorts of things you’d expect to see in any respectable dungeon crawling based RPG. Once that is done you are ready to begin your own cerebral adventure of sorts!
What you need to play:
- The Four Against Darkness rulebook, physical or PDF
- A piece of graph paper and some kind of character recording mechanism (A Notebook works just fine.)
- Two six-sided dice (Only two!)
- A pencil
- A good eraser
- A bit of mental setup and girthy imagination. It’s a solo game after all.
So here we get into the core mechanic of the game which is relatively simple and where imagination and personal storytelling start to take the drivers seat. Rolling dice. You will roll dice to determine the starting room of the dungeon. You will roll dice to determine the construction of the dungeon. You will roll for encounters in each room. You will roll for combat. You will roll for treasure. If doors are locked you will roll to unlock them. You get the point here and every roll is based on a single d6 Roll + x or two d6 rolling as percentile dice (Or a d66). All to emulate that old tabletop RPG feel. If you aren’t putting imagination into this, it amounts to just rolling dice until you don’t feel like rolling dice anymore.
Usually, the book defines the goal of the dungeon as defeating the boss monster of the dungeon (Which will also be determined by, you guessed it, a roll) and then successfully escaping the dungeon with whatever loot you may have gathered on the delve. During encounters you may be given opportunity to level up your characters. This is also determined by a roll as well as how many minion monsters you have defeated. Boss and weird monsters usually always give you a chance to roll for a level up.
The core of the game goes to level 5 and honestly for the way the game is designed, that works perfectly fine. I don’t know that I would see much fun in any kind of higher-level style play with a game of this style. Asking it for more is basically just asking it to morph into D&D again or any other number of high fantasy style game. One thing that I do actually find both useful and enjoyable from this game is that it can sort of act as both an activity style solo game as well as an inspiration to build random dungeons. At the end of each session, you will have a map of some kind. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s silly, maybe it makes no sense at all. But the bones are there and it’s super easy to just pop onto your own game mat or favorite mapping software if you are into the cartography side of things and see what kind of kick it gives to your creative juices and I kind of like that side benefit.
There has been both some published modules as well as player made content if you want to try that out to expand your game as well. I very much enjoy the fact that it gives the fantasy creative player an option to work within their own mind much like in days past one might bring a book of sudoku or crossword puzzles with them to pass the time. It’s a bit more interactive than say a choose your own adventure book or the published adventure books that might come with some level of character interaction but no actual dice.
I highly commend creator Ganesh Games for this one and love that they have decide to shoot for more genres as well as I think that will also be a lot of fun to play around with.
Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope my fellow gamers and hobbyists find this review helpful!
Relevant Links:
Ganesha Games Site
http://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cPath=1_55&products_id=295
DriveThruRPG link
https://apenaquillandadatapad.com/drivethrurpg/Four-Against-Darkness
Amazon Paperback Link
https://apenaquillandadatapad.com/Four-Gainst-Darkness-paperback/Amazon
Modules and additional themed games from Ganesha Games:
https://apenaquillandadatapad.com/4AD=search+modules
Youtube Review