TEXT: a game of old-school dungeoneering with an all-new bent
  Written by Clinton R. Nixon.
  Designed by Clinton R. Nixon and Zak Arntson.
  Cover art by James V. West.
  Interior art by Rod Alexander, Vincent Baker, Tim Denee, Chris Martinez,
  Bob McNamee, Ben Morgan, Colin Theriot, and James V. West.
  Character sheet by Ben Morgan.
  Layout by Clinton R. Nixon.
  Donjon is © 2002 Clinton R. Nixon / Anvilwerks.
  All rights reserved.
  
  Copyrights and other not so interesting 
  stuff
  Mentions of trademarked works of any type in this text are intended 
  as reference and not as challenges to trademark or copyright. This 
  includes the French comic Donjon, which I had no clue about until 
  about 5 days before this was finished.
  This text (including illustrations) may not be reproduced in whole 
  or in part (except for personal use or for reviewers for the public 
  press) without written permission from the author. You can feel 
  free to print a copy for yourself at Kinko’s or other fine copying 
  establishments, and if they give you lip, point them at this.
  Some images ©2002 ArtToday.com.
  Check out our artists’ websites or e-mail them:
  James V. West: http://www.randomordercreations.com
  Rod Alexander: Barvino@aol.com
  Vincent Baker: http://www.septemberquestion.org/lumpley/
  Tim Denee: timdenee@paradise.net.nz
  Chris Martinez: http://arashi_.tripod.com
  Bob McNamee: http://www.equinoxartstudios.com
  Ben Morgan: http://www.ad1066.com
  Colin Theriot: colintheriot@earthlink.net
  About this version of  Donjon
  This version of Donjon is intended for screen use. It should fit pretty 
  easily on your screen for reading, and can be printed out to put in a 
  three-ring binder sideways. (This is a good idea for conventions.)
  It’s not as pretty as the print version of Donjon, and leaves some 
  blank white spaces, as the text is identical between the two versions.
  
  1
  Table of Contents
  Introduction................................................................3
  How this game came to be.......................................................................3
  What this game is about...........................................................................3
  Acknowledgements and thanks...............................................................4
  Chapter 1: Basic Concepts..........................................5
  How to read this book..............................................................................5
  Glossary of terms.......................................................................................5
  Rolling the dice..........................................................................................6
  Dial: Die size................................................................................................6
  Deciding what to roll................................................................................7
  The Law of Successes...............................................................................7
  Chapter 2: Character Creation....................................8
  Initial concept.............................................................................................8
  Dial: Seriousness level....................................................................................8
  Attributes....................................................................................................8
  Dial: Attribute generation..............................................................................9
  Class or Race............................................................................................10
  Dial: Humans and other races.....................................................................10
  Level..........................................................................................................10
  Flesh Wounds..........................................................................................10
  Provisions and Wealth............................................................................10
  Saving Throws.........................................................................................11
  Abilities.....................................................................................................11
  Player Tip: Choosing Abilities.....................................................................12
  Distributing initial dice...........................................................................13
  Some examples of character creation...................................................13
  Chapter 3: Money and Goods...................................17
  The Spending Test..................................................................................17
  Buying items.............................................................................................17
  Selling items..............................................................................................18
  Weapons and armor................................................................................19
  Provisions.................................................................................................21
  Using Abilities with Wealth and Provisions........................................21
  Permanent possessions...........................................................................22
  Chapter 4: Resolution...............................................23
  Attributes and Abilities...........................................................................23
  Uncontested actions................................................................................23
  Contested actions....................................................................................24
  Design Decision: Hey, I’m better at lower levels!..............................25
  The Law of Successes and narration....................................................25
  Player Tip: The Law of Successes is your friend............................................26
  GM Tip: The Law of Successes is your friend, too........................................26
  Failure and damage..................................................................................26
  Chapter 5: Combat....................................................28
  Starting a fight..........................................................................................28
  GM Tip: Rolling initiative...........................................................................28
  Distance and movement.........................................................................30
  Dial: Miniatures..........................................................................................31
  Attacking and defending........................................................................31
  Player Tip: Charging....................................................................................32
  Player Tip: Using everything you have...........................................................32
  Damage and injury..................................................................................33
  
  2
  Chapter 6: Magic.......................................................35
  Magic Words............................................................................................35
  Casting spells............................................................................................35
  GM Tip: Figuring out what to roll in Spell Tests.........................................40
  Magic items...............................................................................................41
  Chapter 7: Running Donjon.....................................42
  The Gameplay Flowchart.......................................................................42
  Town.........................................................................................................42
  The Adventure Revealed........................................................................44
  Into the Deeps!........................................................................................46
  GM Tip: Monsters and special abilities........................................................49
  GM Tip: Pre-defined treasure.......................................................................52
  Climax.......................................................................................................52
  Back to Town...........................................................................................52
  Dial: Advancement..................................................................................54
  Chapter 8: Your First Adventure...............................55
  Adventure synopsis.................................................................................55
  Town.........................................................................................................55
  Adventure chapters.................................................................................56
  Chapter 1: Through the Crimson Forest.............................................57
  Chapter 2: Into the Cave........................................................................58
  Chapter 3: Spores Below........................................................................59
  Going back to Town...............................................................................59
  Appendixes...............................................................67
  How to Make Your Own Role-Playing Game (Cheap)....................67
  Things I Like............................................................................................72
  Index of Artists’ Work
  Rod Anderson
  59
  Vincent Baker
  65 (Big Snake)
  Tim Denee
  64 (Orc Hermit)
  Chris Martinez
  62 (Poison Toad)
  Bob McNamee
  63 (Daolites)
  Ben Morgan
  33, 42, 60 (Blood Goblin), 64 (Living Ooze), 65 (Sporegobs)
  Clinton R. Nixon
  56
  Colin Theriot
  14, 15, 16, 37, 39, 46, 60 (Fighter), 66 (Mushroom King)
  James V. West
  Cover, 19, 22, 27, 29, 36, 41, 47, 48, 51, 62 (Snake)
  
  3
  Welcome to Donjon! Either you’ve played role-playing games before 
  and have decided to check out this one, or by some chance, this is 
  the first role-playing game you’ve ever come across. Either way, 
  read on.
  Donjon is a rip-roaring, make-it-up-as-you-go-along game of bashing 
  down doors, exploring dark dungeons (or donjons, as we like to call 
  them), killing monsters, finding loot, and saving the day. It’s a fan-
  tasy role-playing game because you, the player, play the part of a 
  fictional character in a fantastic world. (You get to play lots of char-
  acters if you’re the GM.) The best analogy for this is given by Ron 
  Edwards, a bad-ass of a game designer. He likens playing a role-
  playing game to being in a band: the members get together and de-
  cide what kind of music they want to play, one person (the GM) 
  leads off, and the rest of the members add what they have to make 
  something that is, hopefully, exactly what they wanted. Just like with 
  playing music, one member of the band might find a cool riff that 
  no one was expecting, and everyone else jumps on it. Donjon is like 
  acid jam-rock. It’s made to give players a lot of control: they can 
  bust into guitar and drum solos whenever they wish. If something 
  sounds groovy, then they can go with it. There’s no band-leader 
  here to bust your chops.
  How this game came to be
  Five people sat around a table on a Sunday afternoon, all with piles 
  of dice in front of them. We’d gotten together for an afternoon of 
  role-playing, and decided to play our favorite game from our child-
  hood, a slim red-covered version of the original Dungeons and Drag-
  ons.
  Introduction
  Zak (the Dungeon Master): You’re in a small room, with walls 
  made of grey stone and covered with slime. The floor's about a foot 
  deep in water. 
  Clinton (as an Elf): I look for secret doors. (Rolls some dice.) Suc-
  cess. 
  Zak: Ok. You find a secret door. It’s... um, I don't know... on the 
  left wall. 
  Clinton: Really? Was that on the map, or did you make that up? 
  Zak: Made it up. You searched, and were successful, right? 
  Clinton: Kick-ass.
  We suddenly realized we were having fun. We decided to drop the 
  idea of common sense, and had every successful roll have some-
  thing happen. Whenever I successfully searched for secret doors - 
  there was one. Whenever I listened for noise successfully - there 
  was noise.
  It worked like a charm, and I went home with ideas fluttering in my 
  head. A hundred e-mails, dozens of phone calls, and a few edits lat-
  er, Donjon emerged.
  What this game is about
  This game is about, first and foremost, that sense of wonder you 
  had the first time you played a fantasy role-playing game. (If this is 
  your first game - which strikes me as funny, but great - it’s about 
  making sure you get that sense of wonder I did the first time.) I re-
  
  4
  member my first time well. I played original D&D, and my charac-
  ter was an elf. I had no idea what the rules were, but I knew I could 
  swing a sword and cast some spells, and that was cool by me. The 
  rules seemed easy enough, and what I remember enjoying the most 
  was the ability to try anything. The rest of the players had been in the 
  game for a while, and did what they were used to. As for me, I tried 
  just about everything I could, and loved it.
  I want to make it clear that this game is not a satire. It may produce 
  funny situations, but it’s a work of love - an homage to what dungeon 
  crawling in your parents’ basement was, and what dungeon crawling 
  in your own basement can be. This game’s about letting players 
  come up with cool situations and actions. I also remember getting 
  attacked by some huge mosquito-type things called “stirges” that 
  first time I played, and getting frustrated when I couldn’t try and 
  drive them away with a huge acrid fire. Mosquitoes don’t like 
  smoke, I figured, so why not try the same tactic against these 
  things?
  Lastly, this game is about winning. Don’t be fooled by the fact that 
  you’re all friends: the GM’s job is to take whatever you say and twist
  it around and screw you with it. Think of the GM as a genie - an 
  evil one. You make wishes, and he tries work them to his advan-
  tage. The players’ job is to not let the GM do this: think of cool ac-
  tions she can’t thwart, build characters that are engines of fun 
  destruction, and smite down all the enemies she can throw at you.
  This game is different than what you’re probably used to - if you’re 
  a hard-core dungeon crawling machine, you’ve probably not seen 
  mechanics that allow players to drive the situation like these. If 
  you’re some sort of narrativist bleeding-edge pansy that’s used to 
  having players run everything, you’ve probably not had the chance 
  to wallow in the blood of your enemies like this.
  Acknowledgements and thanks
  Thanks to Jared Sorensen for reading over this text at an early stage 
  and providing valuable input, and thanks to Ralph Mazza, Mike 
  Holmes, Vincent Baker and all the members of The Forge 
  (www.indie-rpgs.com) that helped out with the development of 
  Donjon. The developers’ knowledge of many other games went into 
  this one. Direct influences were the aforementioned original Dun-
  geons and Dragons, which we cut our teeth on; Sorcerer and Elfs by Ron 
  Edwards, both of which managed to lay their eggs in our minds and 
  infect us; and the wonderful new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, 
  which made us think, “This could be fun again.”
  Very special thanks goes to Ron Edwards for making the challenge 
  and setting the bar. You are always the example of a mentor. Super-
  crazy thanks goes to Zak Arntson, who co-developed this game 
  with me. His influence is all over the place, and if an idea strikes 
  you as funny, you can be sure he had a hand in it.
  Lastly, thanks to my playtesters: Zak Arntson, Christopher Chinn, 
  James “Yasha” Cunningham, Matthew Moore, and Ralph Mazza.
  
  5
  How to read this book
  We’ve tried to make this book as easy as possible to read. You’ll 
  find a few identifying marks throughout the book. Whenever you 
  see indented, italicized text, it contains an example of the concepts 
  being discussed.
  This is an example of, strangely, an example.
  You’ll also note shaded boxes throughout the text. These boxes 
  contain one of the following:
  • Dials. These are options that the players and GM can decide 
  to “switch.” Each box will tell you whether a dial can be 
  switched in play, or if it must be switched before play.
  • Player tips. Some of the concepts in Donjon may have implica-
  tions that do not seem apparent at first. Player tips contain 
  notes from the author that explain concepts in further detail 
  and help the player to play Donjon most effectively.
  • GM tips. With the players having so much power to narrate in 
  Donjon, a GM needs good tips on how to keep them in line. 
  GM tips are full of ways to beat down characters (and players.) 
  • Design decisions. These explain why certain rules are the way 
  they are in Donjon.
  • Tables. Exactly what it sounds like - these are reference tables 
  for running Donjon.
  Chapter 1
  Basic Concepts
  Glossary of  terms
  Ability: A special function of a creature. These are the qualities that 
  define a character or opponent and make them unique. Each type 
  of creature in Donjon is made up of different Abilities.
  Attribute: The raw capabilities of a creature. This is a common lan-
  guage used to describe how strong, smart, alert, quick, tough, and 
  influential a character or opponent is. Attributes are common to 
  every living thing in Donjon.
  Class: A character’s occupation or role within the group. “Fighter,” 
  “Librarian,” and “Wizard of Nod” are all suitable Classes. 
  d20: A die with twenty sides. These are found in hobby stores or 
  behind the bookcase of any gamer.
  Donjon: This is different from the dictionary definition, which is a 
  keep in a castle. “Donjon” in the context of this game is an en-
  closed area in which the player characters move and encounter trou-
  ble. This is the area in which an adventure takes place.
  Game Master: This player, instead of creating and playing a character, 
  creates the adventure and controls all the opponents during the 
  game. Also known as a GM. In order to show her the utmost re-
  spect, I recommend calling her the Donjon Master.
  Median: the middle number when arranging three numbers in nu-
  merical order. For example, 2 would be the median of the numbers 
  1, 2, and 5. This is different from the mean, or average.
  
  6
  Narrate: This is just a fancy word for “deciding what happens.”
  Non-player character: Also known as a NPC. This is a fictional charac-
  ter that is not controlled by a player. Instead it is controlled by the 
  GM and is used to interact with the players’ characters.
  Player character: Also known as a PC. This is a fictional person that a 
  player creates to use as his proxy - like a Monopoly piece - in the 
  game world.
  Race: This is not the same as in the real world. In Donjon (and most 
  fantasy role-playing games), a Race is actually a different species, 
  usually anthropomorphic. Goblin, ogre, centaur, or human would 
  all be Races.
  Saving Throws: These scores are your ability to resist the ill effects of 
  magic.
  Scene: This is the basic unit of game-play in Donjon. A scene is the 
  whole of any encounter in the game. This encounter does not have 
  to be favorable or unfavorable, but merely a cohesive interaction 
  with the environment which results in a decision. Examples of 
  scenes are a conversation with an NPC, finding an obstacle in the 
  PC’s path and finding a way around it, or one entire combat. Merely 
  seeing something interesting, walking down a path, or entering and 
  exiting a room without doing anything do not constitute scenes. 
  Scenes are sometimes called encounters.
  Test: This is an actual roll of the dice. When you roll dice and the 
  Game Master rolls dice, and you compare the rolls, that is one Test.
  Rolling the dice
  Donjon uses dice pools for its resolution system. When you see a 
  score referenced in this text, it is referring to a pool of dice equal in 
  number to that score, and all examples in this text assume these 
  dice to be twenty-sided 
  dice, or “d20’s.” 
  For resolution in this 
  game, you will be asked to 
  compare rolls (called a 
  Test.) This is the core of 
  the game, and is a modifi-
  cation of the technique 
  used for resolution in the 
  role-playing game Sorcerer. 
  Here’s how it works. 
  Each player rolls a num-
  ber of dice depending on 
  the situation. (This is al-
  most always an Ability or 
  saving throw score, plus 
  its associated Attribute.) 
  The two rolls are then 
  compared for successes. 
  Each player looks at his 
  highest die. The player 
  with the lower roll loses, 
  and all dice that the win-
  ner has higher than the 
  loser’s highest die are 
  called successes.
  If both players have the same highest die, set that die aside, and 
  look at the next one. Repeat until there is a winner. The winner 
  takes all his tied dice as successes, as well as counting all normal suc-
  cesses. If by chance, all dice are tied, both people add an additional 
  Dial: Die size
  Twenty-sided dice do not have to be 
  used in Donjon. A group of players may 
  use any size of dice as long as they all 
  use the same size.
  The size of dice makes two differences 
  in the game: the variation of successes, 
  and the amount of ties. With a smaller-
  size die, there is a slightly greater 
  chance that a player rolling a smaller 
  number of dice than another player will 
  win anyway. With twenty-sided dice, 
  the outcomes are more predictable. The 
  increased frequency of ties that comes 
  with smaller-sized dice causes the num-
  ber of successes in any Test to be high-
  er.
  Make sure and decide what size of dice 
  you will be using before the game be-
  gins. Using sizes other than twenty-
  sided is frowned upon by the author, 
  however, and “pure” Donjon players 
  may feel free to mock dice deviants re-
  lentlessly.
  
  7
  die to their pool, and compare successes. If by far chance, this re-
  sults in another tie, repeat until there is a clear winner.
  This is not as hard as it sounds. Look at an example:
  Player rolls 5 dice: (4, 7, 9, 11, 12) 
  GM rolls 4 dice: (6, 12, 15, 18)
  The GM wins, and her dice that rolled 15 and 18 are successes, for two 
  total successes.
  Another example:
  Player rolls 5 dice: (3, 11, 12, 13, 15) 
  GM rolls 5 dice: (5, 8, 10, 13, 15)
  The player wins with four successes. The 13's and 15's were tied, so the 
  player and GM looked at the next die. The player’s 12 was the highest 
  die, and his 11 and 12 were higher than the GM's 10.
  Deciding what to roll
  Almost every roll in Donjon will be a combination of an Attribute 
  (outlined in Chapter 2: Character Creation) and an applicable Abili-
  ty. Your GM will help you decide what to roll, but you should get 
  the hang of it easily.
  There may be many things you want to do that you do not have an 
  Ability for. In that case, you will roll just an Attribute.
  The Law of  Successes
  The Law of Successes is the most important rule in Donjon. The 
  Law of Successes states:
  1 success = 1 fact or 1 die
  What this means is that for every success you get on a roll, you can 
  decide to either state one fact about your action, or carry that suc-
  cess over as a bonus die into another related roll.
  For example, Jonathan has stated that his character is looking into the 
  forest for something. He has not stated what the character is looking for, 
  only that he is using his powers of perception to see what's out there. Jim 
  gets three successes on his roll.
  He has to decide what to do with these successes. He decides to state two 
  facts: he sees a small group of orcs, and they are busy making a fire. He 
  takes his last success and uses it as a bonus die when rolling to sneak up 
  on the orcs.
  
  8
  • Does my character domi-
  nate a situation with his 
  overbearing wit and charm, 
  or does he grunt and flex 
  his muscles?
  Attributes
  Once you have a rough outline 
  of the type of character you 
  want to play in your head, you 
  need to create scores for your 
  character’s Attributes. The At-
  tributes are:
  Virility (Vir), a measure of 
  one’s raw strength and power. It 
  is used for physical actions, de-
  termining the weight of armor 
  and weapons you can carry, and 
  inflicting damage.
  Cerebrality (Cer),  intellectual 
  bearing and knowledge. It is 
  used in contests of wit, for 
  spell-casting, and remembering 
  to pack the right supplies for a 
  donjon adventure.
  Chapter 2
  Character Creation
  Dial: Seriousness level
  An important thing for the 
  group to determine before play is 
  the seriousness level of the game. 
  Donjon is a very different sort of 
  game in that the players have the 
  ability to create as much of the 
  outcome as the GM.
  Playing a game with high humor 
  can be rewarding, but can also be 
  grating if attempted with the 
  wrong players. Likewise, some 
  players may not enjoy the vis-
  ceral horror of a grim rust-and-
  blood sort of game.
  This dial must be set before the 
  game begins, and has the settings 
  of: Monty Python and the 
  Geeks (over-the-top), Slapstick 
  (lots of funny), Tongue-in-
  Cheek (full of allusions to role-
  playing cliches taken deadly seri-
  ously by the characters), Black 
  Humor, Serious, and Rust-
  and-Blood (fantasy horror). 
  This dial should be set by agree-
  ment between the GM and play-
  ers.
  Initial concept
  The players and GM should sit down before play to discuss the sort 
  of world they want to play in. While Donjon is always set in a fantas-
  tic world, there are many variations on the fantastic. The world 
  could be like a fairy tale, full of curious goblins, mushroom-cap sol-
  diers, and knights clad in silver on dragonfly mounts. The world 
  could be a gritty Dark Age land, with flesh-eating trolls, demonic 
  sorcerers, and steel stained red with blood everywhere. The world 
  could even be far in the future - characters could explore aban-
  doned lunar stations, using their rayguns and psi-powers to guard 
  against alien predators and zombie spacemen.
  Once the players and GM have a good idea of what the world they 
  are going to play in is like, each player should sit down and think 
  about what sort of character they want to play. This can be only a 
  rough idea at this stage, but things to consider are:
  • Does my character think first or swing first?
  • Does my character make a strong impression on others, or 
  does he skulk in the shadows?
  • Does my character often find himself in trouble, or is he always 
  on top of the situation?
  • Does my character use magic or a big freaking sword? Or 
  both?
  
  9
  Discernment (Dis), the ability to think clearly and wisely. It is is 
  often called “common sense,” and used to perceive hidden or un-
  clear things, resist the influence of others, and ignore mind-affecting
  magic.
  Adroitness (Adr), one’s capacity for litheness and speed. It is used 
  in actions requiring finesse and skill, attacking with a weapon, and 
  dodging blows.
  Wherewithal (Whe), the ability to take and absorb pain and suffer-
  ing. It is commonly known as “grit,” and is used to take damage, 
  exert yourself, and resist body-affecting magic.
  Sociality (Soc), a measure of your charismatic charm and power. 
  Persons with a high Sociality may be as frightening as they are com-
  pelling. It is used to bargain for goods and convince or intimidate 
  people.
  Each Attribute will start with a number between one and six in it. 
  Zero indicates a total lack of ability, three is equivalent to average 
  human ability, and six is superhuman in nature.
  To create your character’s Attribute scores, you will need three six-
  sided dice (d6’s), exactly like you’d find at the corner store or in a 
  game of Monopoly. Roll these dice and look for the median roll. 
  Place this number in your first Attribute. Repeat for all six Attri-
  butes in order.
  Jonathan is rolling the Attributes for his character, Fiera Thick-heart. 
  His rolls, and the associated Attributes look like this:
  Roll: 1, 5, 6 = Virility of 5
  Roll: 1, 2, 2 = Cerebrality of 2
  Roll: 4, 4, 4 = Discernment of 4
  Dial: Attribute generation
  The method of attribute generation used here is very random, and 
  will often not result in the type of character a player originally envi-
  sioned. It is a type of attribute generation used in the classics of fan-
  tasy role-playing, and so I include it out of nostalgia and respect. It 
  can be highly rewarding to let the dice fall where they may. When 
  players have a strong character concept, they need a different option, 
  though.
  This dial has three settings:
  Standard: The method described in the main text.
  Whiff-Proof Standard: If a character's scores add up to 15 or less, 
  that player may re-roll all the scores.
  Player-Allocated Bonus: As Whiff-Proof Standard, but the player 
  adds add one to one score and subtracts one from one score after 
  rolling.
  Player-Chosen Random Rolls: The player rolls 3d6 and records the 
  median rolls as in Whiff-Proof Standard. However, he places these 
  rolls in whichever attributes he likes. This setting gives the players 
  options while limiting extremes in attributes.
  Player-Allocated: The player is given 21 points to distribute how-
  ever he likes among the six attributes. No score can be lower than 1 
  or higher than 6. The setting gives the players the most options, but 
  can produce characters with wild attributes.
  The GM sets this dial before play. Each player, however, has the op-
  tion to turn back the dial to the Standard method for his character.
  Roll: 2, 5, 5 = Adroitness of 5
  Roll: 3, 4, 6 = Wherewithal of 4
  Roll: 1, 1, 6 = Sociality of 1
  
  10
  Class or Race
  Each player creates his character's Class or Race at this point by 
  simply creating a name for it. A Class or Race may be anything one 
  likes, given that the GM deems it suitable for her campaign. A Class 
  or Race may have a simple name, like “Thief” or “Elf,” or a more 
  complex name, like “Knight of the Silver Lance,” or “Granite-Bone 
  Troll.”
  The only real difference between a Class or a Race is nomenclature. 
  A character with a Class is deemed to be human, as humans have a 
  globe-spanning reach that includes myriads of cultures and potential 
  careers. A Race, on the other hand, is a unified group of one species 
  in which all members have the same Abilities. By creating your 
  character with a Race, you are actually defining the entire species.
  Examples of Classes: Mercenary, Archaelogist, Purple-Robed Sorcerer, 
  Wilderness Scout, Tinkerer
  Examples of Races: Pebble Gnome, Sentient Forest Ape, Red-Nose 
  Goblin, House Ogre, Snap-Tooth Dragon-Kin
  No two players within the same group should create characters of 
  the same Class or Race. Party diversity is important in Donjon.
  Level
  All characters usually start the game at Level 1. Mark this on your 
  character sheet.
  GM’s may sometimes instruct players to create characters of a 
  higher Level than normal. In that case, create a Level 1 character 
  using this chapter, then use the advancement rules in Chapter 7: 
  Running Donjon to increase your character’s Level.
  Flesh Wounds
  Flesh Wounds are a measure of how much damage a character can 
  take before becoming gravely wounded. These are different from 
  other scores that define your character in that you will never roll 
  these. Characters start with few Flesh Wounds; however, these will 
  increase during play as the character grows hardier and learns to 
  suffer more.
  Provisions and Wealth
  Provisions are a measure of your current state of readiness for don-
  jon adventures. It is an abstract quantification of the goods you are 
  Dial: Humans and other races
  A GM may determine before the game that humans are not the dom-
  inant species, or race,  in her campaign. If this is the case, the GM 
  may set this dial to the dominant race, be it elves, goblins, or blue-
  skinned aliens.
  If this dial is set to anything but humans, that race has a plethora of 
  careers - or classes. All other species, including humans, are treated as 
  normal races according to the rules. If, for example, the dominant 
  species is goblins, characters might be: Cave Guard, Pumpkin Bomb-
  er, or Grub Hunter.
  The GM may also allow all species to have diverse classes. In that 
  case, races work slightly differently: all members of a race (except hu-
  mans) have the same Main Ability. All characters are assigned a class 
  (so you might have, for example, a Rock Troll with the Class Moun-
  tain Raider), which is how their Secondary Abilities are determined.
  In all honesty, this is an inferior way to play Donjon and should be 
  frowned upon, but the good heart of the author forced my pen to 
  give you the option.
  
  11
  carrying to help you through trials. These are things like food, rope, 
  ten-foot poles, crampons, and tent stakes.
  Wealth is a measure of your finances - gold coins, gems, and the 
  like. This is used to buy weapons and armor, as well as more Provi-
  sions.
  Saving Throws
  Saving Throws are scores used to determine a character’s ability to 
  resist magic and misfortune. There are two Saving Throws in Don-
  jon. 
  Save vs. Illusion and Confusion: This saving throw is used to re-
  sist all magic that affects the mind, be it illusions, confusion, or 
  other mind-manipulating magic. It is normally rolled with Discern-
  ment.
  Save vs. Poison, Paralysis, and Transmogrification: This saving 
  throw is used to prevent any sort of natural or magical body manip-
  ulation. This could be poison, disease, turning into a frog through 
  magic, paralyzation, or any other body-affecting magic. It is nor-
  mally rolled with Wherewithal.
  Abilities
  The last and most important thing you have to do to create a char-
  acter is determine his Abilities. Abilities are what make a Class or 
  Race unique - things they can do that not everyone else can. In Don-
  jon, you invent your character’s Abilities. 
  You must choose one Main Ability, and four Supporting Abilities. 
  A Main Ability is what defines a Race or Class: it is a broad Ability 
  that they are renowned for.  A Main Ability should be very versatile.
  Supporting Abilities are tangential to the definition of the Race or 
  Class. They are Abilities that help the Race or Class, but are much 
  more specific in nature. Examples of some Classes and Races to 
  illustrate, with each one’s Main Ability in italics:
  Mercenary: Hit People With Weapons, Run and Charge, Knock 
  Down Doors, Intimidate, Take Damage in Melee Combat
  Purple-Robed Sorcerer: Cast Spells, Understand Demon Languag-
  es, Avoid Magic, Lie Convincingly, Damage Demons
  Granite-Bone Troll: Take All Sorts of Damage, Play Dumb, Eat 
  Rocks and other Hard Things, Leap Across Chasms, Hand-smash
  Elf: Be One With Nature, Cast Nature Spells, Use Bows, Attack with 
  Longswords, Find Secret Doors
  Noble: Influence People, Knowledge of Heraldry, Dodge in Melee, 
  Bargain with Authorities, Ride Horses
  Note from the above examples the difference between Main Abili-
  ties and Supporting Abilities. A Mercenary can use any weapon at 
  his disposal, but an Elf can only use a longsword or bow. (Actually, 
  both can use any weapon. The Elf can only use his Ability with a 
  bow or longsword, though.)
  The Granite-Bone Troll can absorb damage from any source, be it a 
  weapon, a falling rock, fire, or magic. The Mercenary can take more 
  damage than the average character, but only in combat. Traps, back-
  stabs, and falling would hurt him like normal.
  The Noble can use his Main Ability in any social situation. The Pur-
  ple-Robed Sorcerer is useful in social situations as well, but only if 
  he is lying.
  A Main Ability should affect all of one type of roll - all attack rolls, 
  all damage rolls, all influence rolls, or all attempts to hide. A Sup-
  porting Ability should be constrained so that it only works in spe-
  cific situations.
  
  12
  The constraint on a Supporting Ability can be equipment-based, 
  opponent-based, or any other sort of constraint. Note the Purple-
  Robed Sorcerer compared to the Granite-Bone Troll. They both 
  have Abilities that let them increase their damage. (“Hand-smash” is 
  used to do more damage when hitting things.) The Purple-Robed 
  Sorcerer  can use his Ability whether attacking a demon with magic 
  or a sword. The Granite-Bone Troll, on the other hand, can hurt 
  anything, but he must hit it with his hand.
  Because you can invent any Ability you want, you may need to stop 
  here with the GM and define what your Abilities do. If you wanted 
  to backstab, for example, you'd make a “Backstab” Ability. How 
  does Backstab work, though? Your GM will be familiar with these 
  rules, and can help you out with these questions now. (Backstab 
  would add to your damage roll whenever you hit an opponent fac-
  ing away from you. Alternatively, it could add to your attack roll 
  whenever an opponent is facing away from you. It could not do 
  both, however. This is why it is important to make sure your Abili-
  ties are well-defined before play.)
  Magic Abilities
  You've probably noticed above that the Purple-Robed Sorcerer has 
  “Cast Spells” as his Main Ability, and the Elf has “Cast Nature 
  Spells” as a Supporting Ability. A general Ability to do magic - Cast 
  Spells, Magic-Slinging, or whatever else - must be taken as a Main 
  Ability.
  If you want a very specific type of magic, you may take it as a Sup-
  porting Ability. Examples would be Cast Nature Spells, Mystical 
  Stealth, Create Illusions, or Psychokinesis.
  All these Abilities are spell-based magic, and use the magic system 
  outlined in Chapter 6: Magic. If you make a character that uses 
  spell-based magic, you should read this chapter before play. It tells 
  you how to define your magical style and choose your Magic 
  Words, which you’ll have to do to finish making your character.
  You do not, however, have to have spell-based magic at all to have 
  a Ability that is magical in nature. For example, if you want to create 
  a spritely little creature whose only magical talent is making light, 
  you could choose “Making Light” as an Ability. If you wanted to 
  have your hands burst into flame in combat, you could choose 
  “Hands of Flame,” and define it as adding to your damage when 
  Player Tip: Choosing Abilities
  The option to choose any Abilities you want for your character may 
  be daunting. Remember that successful actions will let you narrate 
  what happens in the game, and plan your Abilities around that.
  If you chose an Ability like “Hear Noise,” you could use this at any 
  time, not just when your GM called for a roll. A successful roll would 
  allow you to create an encounter by saying that your character hears 
  footsteps behind him, the sound of a giant eagle in the trees, or the 
  scraping of a huge worm ahead in a tunnel. If you chose an Ability 
  like “Find Secret Doors,” you could use this to find a short-cut 
  around big trouble in a dungeon, or even use it to find a way out of a 
  combat that’s not going in your character’s favor.
  Also remember that successes can be used for bonus dice on another 
  roll, and choose Abilities that can be used as “combos.”
  If you chose an Ability like “Speed of the Ancients,” you could use 
  that to increase your initiative in combat. If you chose Abilities like 
  “Run and Charge” and “Strike with Broadsword,” you could run at 
  an opponent, using successes to add to your ability to strike him. If 
  you chose Abilities like “Find Treasure” and “Evaluate Worth,” you 
  could search for treasure, evaluate the worth of it, and then make a 
  roll to loot, using successes from each roll to build up a huge pool of 
  dice.
  
  13
  punching. Since all Abilities use the same resolution system, and are 
  rated identically, these sorts of Abilities are not over-powering even 
  though they are magical in nature.
  Powerful Abilities
  Some players may take Abilities the GM determines to be too pow-
  erful for her game. This should be very hard to do, as all Abilities 
  are rated identically. 
  If you are a GM, and a player has an Ability that seems too power-
  ful, discuss a way to tone it back with him. Most powerful Abilities 
  can be translated into a perfectly fine Donjon Ability.
  Jonathan wants to play a Snap-Tooth Dragon-kin. He writes down 
  “Immune to Fire” as a Supporting Ability. His GM notes that there is 
  no sort of “immunity” Ability in Donjon. She asks him, “Wouldn't 
  that work better as ‘Resistant to Fire?’ That way, we can rate it easier.” 
  Jim agrees, and takes “Resistant to Fire.”
  If the Ability can absolutely not be toned down to a level appropri-
  ate for your game, a good solution is to set a limit on its use with 
  the player. Most powerful Abilities are fine when used only once 
  per encounter. If you are a player, and want an Ability that seems 
  over-powering, suggest this to your GM.
  Jonathan, the trouble player in this group, also has “Regenerate Dam-
  age” as a Supporting Ability. His GM frowns. “But, Nikola,” he 
  whines, “I can only use it when I'm damaged.” Nikola shakes her head. 
  “That's not nearly limited enough for a Supporting Ability.”
  “What if I make it ‘Regenerate Adroitness Damage’?” Jonathan asks.
  “Ok - that's fair. But, you can only use it once per encounter,” Nikola 
  adds. “Otherwise, you could just use it over and over until all your 
  Adroitness damage was healed every encounter.”
  Distributing initial dice
  At the end of character creation, you should have Flesh Wounds, 
  two Saving Throws, and five Abilities with unallocated scores on 
  your character sheet.. You have 20 initial dice to allocate to these 
  scores however you see fit. However, you may not have more than 
  your Level + 3 in any of these scores.
  You should also have a Wealth score and a Provisions score. Set 
  one of these at 5 dice and the other at 3 dice to determine initial 
  Wealth and Provisions.
  Your character is now completed and ready for play.
  Some examples of  character creation
  Three players, Robin, Ron, and Jonathan, sit down with the Game 
  Master, Nikola, to make characters for Donjon. They have decided 
  that the game will be fairly serious, although none of them object to 
  a little humor, and Nikola has decided that Attributes will be allo-
  cated with the “Player-Allocated” method.
  Roland the Wilderness Scout
  Robin says, “This game, I want to play a character that’ll let me nar-
  rate a lot. I think someone who can find monsters and know all 
  about them would be best. I’m going to play a human - his Class is 
  ‘Wilderness Scout.’” He writes down the Class on his character 
  sheet.
  He’s got 21 points to allocate to Attributes. He says, “I want this 
  character to be almost supernaturally perceptive, but he’s got to be 
  quick, too, so as not to get killed. I’m going to set his Discernment 
  and Adroitness really high. I don’t think he’s that strong or impos-
  ing, though - kind of a smart, quiet guy.” He allocates his points and 
  
  14
  ends up with Virility 2, Cerebrality 3, Discernment 6, Adroitness 5, 
  Wherewithal 3, and Sociality 2.
  Ron says, “Great. Aragorn. Whoopee.”
  Robin turns to him. “Hey, buddy. If you want to comment, get your 
  head out of that book. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. Anyway, this 
  guy’s nothing like Aragorn. He uses a machete, and climbs trees.”
  For Abilities, Robin already 
  has his Main Ability in mind: 
  “His Main Ability is ‘Track 
  Anything.’ I should be able to 
  use that to find tracks of peo-
  ple, monsters, or whatever 
  else I want to encounter.” 
  For Supporting Abilities, he 
  thinks of three that will help 
  him out: “Sneak in Forests,” 
  “Climb Trees,” and “Swing 
  Machete.” He can’t think of 
  another one, though.
  Jonathan says, “What about 
  ‘Wild Animal Lore’? You 
  could state facts about the 
  creatures you find.” Robin 
  thinks that’s perfect, and adds 
  it on. (Having other players 
  help you with your character 
  is highly suggested.)
  All Robin has left to do is 
  distribute his 20 initial dice. 
  He puts four dice, the maxi-
  mum, into Roland’s Main Ability, as he wants him to be great at it. 
  He wants Roland to be relatively tough, sneaky, and decent in com-
  bat, so he puts three dice into Flesh Wounds, “Sneak in Forests,” 
  and “Swing Machete.” He doesn’t particularly care about mind-af-
  fecting magic, so only puts one die into Save versus Illusion and 
  Confusion, and puts two dice in everything else.
  For Provisions and Wealth, he puts five dice into Provisions and 
  three into Wealth.
  Azar the Purple-Robed Sorcerer
  Ron’s been reading some other role-playing game while Robin 
  made up his character. He looks up and says, “I like the idea playing 
  someone who uses magic, but his magic revolves all around de-
  mons. I’ll call him a ‘Purple-Robed Sorcerer.’”
  Jonathan and Robin laugh. “Man, you always play that character.”
  Ron sneers. “And he always kicks ass, so shut it.” He writes down 
  the Class on his character sheet and continues, “This guy’s weak as 
  he can be from all the other-worldly forces he’s summoned, but 
  he’s smart, and his flesh has turned leathery and tough. He’s not the 
  sort of guy you’d like to know, but he’s powerfully frightening, 
  too.” He assigns his Attribute points, and ends up with Virility 1, 
  Cerebrality 6, Discernment 2, Adroitness 3, Wherewithal 5, and So-
  ciality 4.
  Ron says, “Well, ‘Casting Spells’ has got to be my Main Ability. 
  What else can I use to make this character cool?”
  Jonathan says, “Um... how about make a different character?”
  Ron growls. “Keep it up, man. Just keep it up. We’ll see whose 
  character’s lame when we’re knee-deep in human feces under Da 
  Nang.”
  
  15
  He also puts five dice into Wealth and three dice into Provisions to 
  finish the character.
  Fiera the Snap-Tooth Dragon-Kin
  Nikola asks Jonathan, “What sort of character are you planning on 
  playing?” Jonathan says, “I was thinking about playing a non-human 
  - maybe a cute female dragon-person.”
  Robin says, “Dude, you always play chicks.”
  Jonathan says, “Shut your punk mouth before I shut it for you. 
  Anyway, there’s lots of dragon-kin, right?” Nikola nods. “She’s one 
  of the Snap-Tooth Dragon-Kin, a group of strong, but non-flying 
  dragon-kin. I think I’ll call her Fiera.” He writes down Fiera’s Race 
  on the character sheet. “She’s going to be a bad-ass, but doesn’t get 
  along with people well. It’s not because she’s mean, though, al-
  though people think she is - she’s actually shy, as she thinks people 
  won’t accept her, so she’s always trying to prove herself.” He takes 
  his 21 points, and allocates them as Virility 5, Cerebrality 3, Dis-
  cernment 4, Adroitness 4, Wherewithal 4, and Sociality 1.
  Ron looks up again. “Man, it’s just Donjon. Cease with all the back-
  story and just create your combat-ready chick so we can play al-
  ready.”
  Jonathan says, “Hey - I like this character. You’re just upset because 
  we’re not playing the game you wanted to this week.” Ron mutters 
  and looks back down at his book. “Ok, Abilities,” Jonathan thinks 
  out loud. “Well, ‘Breathe Flame,’ of course. And since that’s a Main 
  Ability, I can use it in combat, or to destroy flammable things, right, 
  Nikola?” She nods again. “Ok. Let’s see. I’m going to add ‘Thick 
  Hide’ to absorb damage.”
  Nikola says, “But that’s a Supporting Ability. What sort of damage 
  do you want to avoid?”
  Jonathan laughs, “Dude - Da Nang? What?”
  “Never mind,” Ron grimaces. “Robin - can you help me out here?”
  Robin says, “How about ‘Understand Demon Languages’? You 
  could roll it to understand what a demon’s saying to you, and use 
  the successes to actually state what he said.”
  Ron agrees. “That’s awe-
  some. That and “Damage 
  Demons” in case one gets 
  out of control. Hmm... 
  what else? I’d like to be able 
  to roll some extra dice in 
  Damage Tests against mag-
  ic, and lie to people. ‘Avoid 
  Magic’ and ‘Lie Convinc-
  ingly’ sound good.”
  Like Robin, Ron puts four 
  dice into his character’s 
  Main Ability, “Cast Spells.” 
  He does care about mind-
  affecting magic, so he puts 
  four dice into Save vs. Illu-
  sion and Confusion as well. 
  With only 12 dice left to 
  spend, he puts three into 
  “Lie Convincingly,” one 
  into “Save vs. Poison, Poly-
  morph, and Transmogrifi-
  cation,” and two into 
  everything else.
  
  16
  Jonathan thinks for a second. “All damage from sharp things - they 
  have a hard time getting through her hide. I’m also taking ‘Resistant 
  to Fire,’ ‘Intimidate People,’ and ‘Regenerate Adroitness Damage.’ 
  Remember, we talked about that one, Nikola.”
  She agrees. “Yeah - it seems to be an alright Ability, as long as you 
  only use it once per scene. What about your dice?”
  Jonathan puts four dice into “Intimidate People” to make up for 
  Fiera’s low Sociality, and also puts four dice into Flesh Wounds, 
  since she’s supposed to be tough. He puts three dice into “Breathe 
  Flame,” one into “Regenerate Adroitness Damage,” and two into 
  everything else.
  He finishes up by putting five dice into Provisions, and three into 
  Wealth.
  
  17
  In Donjon, the amount of money and goods your character has is 
  not quantified as some sort of concrete quantity. You won’t find 
  references anywhere in the game to “20 doubloons” or any other 
  such nonsense. Instead, your character has a Wealth score, which is 
  an amorphous reference of his current money situation, and a Pro-
  visions score, which is a reference of his state of readiness for don-
  jon adventures - basically, how full his backpack is.
  The Wealth score is primarily used when your character is in town, 
  shopping for weapons, armor, or other items. It’s also used to in-
  crease his Provisions score, and bribe or influence people. The Pro-
  visions score is only used when out on an adventure.
  The Spending Test
  All uses of Wealth and Provisions in this chapter use a standard 
  method of resolution called a Spending Test. (You’ll find out more 
  about Tests in Chapter 4: Resolution.) The steps involved in a 
  Spending Test are:
  1. Decide on a number of dice to take from your Wealth or Pro-
  visions score. (This will be indicated in the text.) If the Test is 
  successful, these dice will be lost from your score.
  2. If rolling a Wealth Spending Test, add Sociality to the number 
  of dice in your dice pool; if rolling a Provisions Spending Test, 
  add Cerebrality to the number of dice.
  3. Roll these dice and compare to a roll by the Game Master. 
  (The number of dice the Game Master rolls will be indicated in 
  the text as well.)
  Chapter 3
  Money and Goods
  4. If successful, you get the item or service you were trying to 
  purchase. The dice you took from Wealth or Provisions are 
  lost from that score. If unsuccessful, return the dice you took.
  The Law of Successes (described briefly in Chapter 1: Basic Con-
  cepts, and more fully in Chapter 4: Resolution) does not apply to 
  Spending Tests. 
  Buying items
  Characters may only buy items when in town. In order to buy an 
  item, make a Wealth Spending Test against a number of dice ac-
  cording to Table 3-1: Item and Service Worth. Markup is always 
  added to the GM’s number of dice. Markup is a score that will dif-
  fer depending on the town, and the nature of goods the character is 
  trying to buy, and is covered in detail in Chapter 7: Running Donjon.
  If you succeed in this roll, your character gets the item he was trying 
  to buy. If unsuccessful, your character cannot buy this same item or 
  service from this vendor. He can go to a different blacksmith, coach 
  driver, or inn, if there is one, but this vendor wants nothing more to 
  do with him until his Wealth is increased, or the GM rules that the 
  situation has changed (the characters do a favor for the vendor, a 
  magician casts a spell increasing the character’s Sociality, or some-
  thing of the like.)
  Buying more Provisions
  The other thing your character can buy in town are Provisions. 
  When at a Provisions vendor, if you want to increase your 
  character’s Provisions, make a Wealth Spending Test against your 
  
  18
  character’s current Provisions, plus the town’s Markup for Provi-
  sions. All of your successful dice are added to your character’s Pro-
  visions.
  Robin wants to increase his character’s Provisions before going adventur-
  ing. He has a current Wealth of 9 and Provisions of 4. In addition, his 
  Sociality is 2 and the town’s Provisions Markup is 3. He chooses to roll 
  6 of his Wealth dice in order to increase Provisions. His total roll is 8 
  dice (6 Wealth + 2 Sociality.) The GM rolls 7 dice (4 Provisions + 3 
  Markup.) The results are:
  Robin: 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20
  Table 3-1: Item and Service Worth
  Worth
  Item or service
  Damage
  Rating
  Weapon or armor
  0
  Cheap stuff (a beer, a night in a stable or common room, a 
  meal)
  3
  Moderate cost (a 10-mile coach ride, a room for a week, 
  decent information, a silver ornament)
  6
  Expensive stuff (a trip on board a ship, good information, a 
  cart and horse, a ruby-encrusted gold ring)
  9+
  Very pricey stuff (a small house, a team of horses, some 
  cows, a pound of rare spice)
  The GM may feel free to assign Worth to an object that is between the 
  values above. If an object could be considered of more than moderate 
  cost, but not truly expensive - a fighting dog, for example - you could 
  assign a Worth of 6 or 7 to it.
  GM: 2, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16
  Robin has two successes, so he increases his character’s Provisions by 2 to 
  6. His Wealth score is now 3.
  Using Wealth as influence (buying favors)
  You may spend your character’s Wealth, either in town or on an 
  adventure, in order to have him bribe or influence an NPC. To do 
  so, make a Wealth Spending Test against the NPC’s current Wealth 
  score, plus his Discernment.
  If you succeed in this roll, you may add the number of successes 
  you received to the number of dice you roll the next time your char-
  acter attempts any sort of social proposition with the influenced 
  NPC. (In other words, this roll modifies the roll on your character’s 
  social attempt. It is not the social attempt itself.)
  Ron's character, Azar, is talking with Baron Duval, the local lord. He 
  needs passage onto his lands in order to hunt for the Scourge of the 
  Golden Dawn, a fiend that he has been tracking. So far the baron's 
  refusing, but Azar has a great deal of money, and decides to curry his 
  favor with some of it. Ron decides to spend 8 of Azar's 12 Wealth. He 
  rolls Azar's 4 Sociality, plus 8 Wealth against Duval's 2 Discernment, 
  plus 10 current Wealth. He succeeds with 2 successes, and loses all 8 
  dice from his Wealth.
  Ron can now add 2 dice to his roll when Azar asks the Baron for his 
  permission to cross his lands.
  Selling items
  At some point, your character may wish to sell a weapon, a piece of 
  armor, a castle, or some other item. There are two ways this can be 
  done.
  
  19
  Weapons and 
  armor
  Weapons are concretely quanti-
  fied in Donjon, as is armor. 
  Weapons and armor are what 
  donjon crawling is all about. 
  Weapons and armor are most 
  easily described by their poten-
  tial for causing or stopping 
  damage, called Damage Rating 
  (DR). DR is calculated by look-
  ing at Chart 3-2: Weapons and 
  Armor. Note that the descrip-
  tions in this chart are not set-
  in-stone descriptions. The 
  player can describe his 
  character’s weapons and armor 
  however he wants: if the player wants the character to carry a dwar-
  ven war-axe and wear bear-skin furs, decide how much potential for 
  damage a dwarven war-axe has, and how much damage bear-skin 
  furs can possibly stop.
  However, if you can only use certain weapons (because of a Sup-
  porting Ability like ‘Swing Elvish Sword’) the DR of those weapons 
  must be defined before play.
  No mundane weapon (that a human-sized character can wield) or 
  armor can cause or stop more than 4 dice of damage.
  Weight
  All weapons and armor have a Weight score. The Weight score is 
  always equal to the mundane Damage Rating of the weapon. 
  Weight is measures against a character’s Virility to determine ef-
  Sell the item for Wealth: You roll a number of dice equal to the Worth 
  of the item, plus your Sociality, and the GM rolls your current 
  Wealth score, plus the merchant’s Markup. Any successes you have 
  on the roll are added to your character’s Wealth. If you fail, the item 
  is still sold - it was not sold for a high enough price that it increased 
  your Wealth. You will note that it is harder to gain Wealth from 
  selling an item when your Wealth is already high.
  Use the item in trade: If the GM rules that a vendor would be inter-
  ested in your character’s item, you may add a number of dice equal 
  to its Worth to your roll in a Wealth Spending Test to buy whatever 
  item you are trading it for. If you fail the Test, you have not traded 
  away the item. This usually results in a much better value than sell-
  ing the item.
  If the character is selling a service, the GM and the player must 
  agree on a Worth beforehand. The roll to exchange the service for 
  Wealth, or to use it in trade comes afterwards, when the service is 
  completed.
  Jonathan's character, Fiera, has a huge axe (with a Worth of 4) that he 
  wishes her to be rid of. Jonathan considers the options:
  He can have Fiera sell the axe. He would roll Fiera's Sociality of 1, 
  plus 4 dice for the axe, against Fiera’s current Wealth of 5, plus the 
  merchant's Markup of 3. He realizes his chances aren't high of making 
  any Wealth.
  He can have Fiera use the axe in trade. The merchant carries armor, 
  and Fiera could use a chain shirt (Worth of 2). He can make a Wealth 
  Spending Test and spend no Wealth at all, using the axe in trade. He 
  would roll Fiera's Sociality of 1, plus the axe's Worth of 4 against the 
  shirt's 2 Worth, plus the merchant's Markup of 3. He decides to spend 
  two Wealth to increase his chances to 7 dice versus 5, and tries to trade 
  the axe for the chain shirt.
  
  20
  fects. If the character uses no piece of equipment with a Weight 
  greater than his Virility, there are no effects.
  If a weapon has a Weight greater than a character’s Virility, the 
  character’s chance to hit with that weapon is penalized by the differ-
  ence between the two scores.
  If a character wears armor with a Weight greater than his Virility, 
  his Adroitness is penalized by the difference.
  Robin’s character, Roland, has a Virility of 2, Adroitness of 5, and the 
  Supporting Ability “Swing Machete” at 3. Unfortunately, Roland finds 
  himself in the possession of plate armor (DR 4) and a broad sword (DR 
  3). When Roland is wearing the armor, his Adroitness is penalized 2 
  dice (Weight 4 - Virility 2.) In addition, if he uses the sword, his chance 
  to hit is lowered by 1 die.
  In addition, a chance must have a Virility score higher than a melee 
  weapon’s Weight in order to use it in one hand. If a weapon has a 
  Weight equal to or greater than a character’s Virility, it must be used 
  two-handed, preventing the character from using it and a shield, 
  torch, or other hand-held object.
  Missile weapons
  Missile weapons are rated just like melee weapons, by damage. They 
  do not, however, have a score for range, or how far they can shoot. 
  Range is the same for all missile weapons, except thrown items, and 
  is covered in Chapter 5: Combat.
  Missile weapons in most role-playing games require some sort of 
  ammunition - arrows, bolts, or bullets. By default, the assumption in 
  Donjon is that you have enough of these things that you need not 
  worry about them.
  Table 3-2: Weapons and Armor
  Damage Rating
  Example of weapon or armor
  Melee weapons
  -1
  Fists and feet
  0
  Small weapon (sap, dagger)
  1
  Medium weapon (short sword, mace, hammer, club)
  2
  Large weapon (broadsword, longsword, warhammer)
  3
  Huge weapon (halberd, two-handed sword)
  +1
  Sharp weapon (swords, axes)
  Missile weapons
  1
  Thrown items
  2
  Short bow, hand crossbow
  3
  Long bow, light crossbow
  4
  Composite bow, heavy crossbow
  Armor
  1
  Leather or padded armor, shield
  2
  Studded leather, chain shirt
  3
  Scale mail, chain armor
  4
  Plate armor
  
  21
  If Azar was standing in front of a door that he knew had massive trea-
  sure behind it, and his player, Ron, wanted him to pull out a lock-pick 
  that would give him 2 extra dice for opening the door, the GM would 
  roll:
  3 dice (automatic) + 2 dice (Ability: Pick Locks 2) = 5 dice.
  If you succeed at this roll, you successfully retrieve the item you 
  were looking for from your backpack (or other place of storage.) If 
  you fail this roll, you may not try to retrieve the same item again 
  until you increase your Provisions.
  Items can have Abilities, just like characters. These Abilities are 
  Supporting Abilities, and add to the character’s dice pool when us-
  ing them. An item can only have a score in an Ability from 1 to 4 
  without being magical.
  You cannot retrieve weapons, armor, or magic items from your 
  Provisions. If you attempt to retrieve an item that is too big to fit in 
  your backpack or be strapped across your back, you will incur a 
  penalty.
  Using Abilities with Wealth and 
  Provisions
  In all the cases above, your Abilities may increase the number of 
  dice you get to roll, as explained in Chapter 4: Resolution. Having 
  an Ability like “Evaluate Weapon Worth” can greatly increase your 
  chances of picking up a weapon for a good price. When you have 
  an Ability applicable to any action described in this chapter, you 
  may add its score in dice to your dice pool.
  Jonathan’s character, Fiera, is buying a two-handed axe, which has a 
  Worth of 4. She has an Ability of “Intimidate People” of 4. He decides 
  to only spend 2 Wealth trying to get the axe, and rolls her 2 spent 
  If your GM wants to keep track of ammunition, she will let you 
  know before the game begins. In that case, 10 pieces of ammunition 
  cost the same as a DR 1 weapon (Markup + 1 die).
  Unusual weapons
  Unusual weapons can occur quite easily in Donjon, as it is so player-
  driven. When a player has an idea for a weapon that seems very 
  non-traditional, the GM and the player should sit down to figure 
  out the damage (and cost) of the weapon.
  Jonathan is playing a character, Fiera, that can blow flame. Flame 
  breath is a pretty unusual weapon, but Nikola, the GM, thinks it’s a 
  neat idea. She asks Jonathan how much damage he wants the flame to 
  do.
  “Well, it’s not that big, but it’s flaming, so is three points ok?” Jona-
  than asks.
  “That’s fine,” says the GM. “That means you’ll have to buy a weapon 
  of Worth 3 - what do you call it, though?”
  “Maybe Fiera has to eat a special diet,” Jonathan says. “I have to buy 
  exotic goods to carry with me to eat.”
  Provisions
  Provisions - assorted donjoneering equipment that isn’t used to hit 
  people or avoid being hit - are not listed on your character sheet. 
  This sort of litigious bookkeeping is for lesser games. Instead, your 
  character has one Provisions score. This score is a reference of his 
  general state of preparedness for donjon adventures, and a measure 
  of how much stuff he has in his backpack. When your character is 
  on an adventure, and you wish he had a certain item, make a Provi-
  sions Spending Test against a number of dice found on Chart 3-3: 
  Provisions Roll.
  
  22
  adventure, you must erase all possessions except the character’s per-
  manent possessions. Which possessions of yours are permanent 
  may change, however; the number of possessions you have at the 
  beginning of an adventure is the important part.
  Wealth, plus her Sociality of 1, plus her Intimidate Ability of 4, ending 
  up with 7 dice. The GM rolls the axe’s Worth of 4, plus the Markup of 
  3, totaling 7 dice.
  Kimberly’s character Zoe, a Level 3 Spelunker, has an ability of “Stuff 
  Backpack Full” of 5. She wants to retrieve a glass bottle from her back-
  pack in order to keep a sample of some cave fungus she has found. She 
  takes 1 from her Provisions, and adds her 4 Cerebrality, plus her 5 dice 
  from Stuff Backpack Full, totaling 10 dice she gets to roll. The GM 
  rolls the automatic 3 dice for Provisions, plus the Worth of the item, 
  which she determines to be 2, totaling 5 dice. Zoe’s ability greatly in-
  creased her chances of having a glass bottle with her, and lowered the 
  amount of Provisions she had to spend.
  Permanent possessions
  During an adventure, your character will gain all sorts of posses-
  sions - goods he rummages from his Provisions and things he finds 
  on enemies’ bodies or in treasure caches. You can feel free to have 
  him use all of these dur-
  ing the adventure.
  Your character sheet 
  shows your permanent 
  possessions, however. (At 
  Level 1, this is one 
  weapon, one piece of 
  armor, and one other 
  possession. You will 
  have a chance to in-
  crease the number of 
  permanent possessions 
  your character has 
  through experience.) At 
  the beginning of each 
  Table 3-3: Provisions Roll
  3 dice
  Automatic
  +x dice
  Item’s Worth (see Table 3-3: 
  Item and Service Cost)
  +1-4 
  dice
  or Item’s Ability score (Abilities 
  and Worth do not add together; 
  choose the larger value of the 
  two.)
  +3 dice
  The item isn’t something you’d 
  usually carry (a troll with a lute, 
  for example) or is too large for 
  your Provisions.
  
  23
  The Game Master or player can call for a Test at any time in order 
  to determine if a character can successfully perform an action. As 
  discussed in Chapter 1: Basic Concepts, a Test is a roll of the dice 
  used to determine the success of an action.
  Attributes and Abilities
  When rolling a Test, the player normally rolls a number of dice 
  equal to his character’s Attribute that is most appropriate to the 
  task. Table 4-1: Attribute Appropriateness lists common tasks that 
  fall under each Attribute.
  In addition, the player normally adds an appropriate Ability (or Sav-
  ing Throw) if his character has one. The GM is the final arbiter of 
  whether an Ability is appropriate or not, but it is the player’s re-
  sponsibility to mention if his character has an appropriate Ability. 
  (Only one Ability may be used per action, although if the character 
  has any items with Abilities that are appropriate to the task, their 
  values can be added as well.) A player may add an appropriate Abil-
  ity score to his die pool any time a Test is mentioned in these rules 
  unless otherwise noted.
  Uncontested actions
  When a Test is resolved between a character and an obstacle 
  (climbing a wall, looking into the darkness, jumping a chasm), this is 
  called uncontested. The player and GM choose the character’s most 
  appropriate Attribute for the action, as stated above, and the player 
  rolls this score, adding dice from any appropriate Ability, Saving 
  Throw, or item Ability to find out how many dice he is rolling in 
  Chapter 4
  Resolution
  Table 4-1: Attribute Appropriateness
  Attribute
  Common tasks
  Virility
  Lifting heavy things
  Breaking open doors
  Pulling someone out of a river
  Climbing a wall or cliff
  Damaging someone
  Cerebrality
  Remembering a monster’s weakness
  Solving a puzzle, riddle or math problem
  Deciphering another language
  Casting spells
  Discernment
  Noticing things
  Resisting mind-affecting magic
  Empathizing with someone or something
  Perceiving intentions
  Adroitness
  Dodging
  Running a short distance
  Jumping out of a trap’s path
  Picking locks or pockets
  Wherewithal
  Resisting damage, body-affecting magic, poison, or 
  disease
  Running a long distance
  Sociality
  Convincing a monster not to eat you, a bandit not 
  to rob you, or a king to grant you passage
  Getting a good deal on your equipment
  
  24
  the Test. The GM will roll a number of dice appropriate to the diffi-
  culty of the action, as shown on Table 4-2: Uncontested Difficul-
  ties.
  Robin wants his character, Roland, to swim across a fast-flowing under-
  ground river. The most appropriate Attribute for this is Virility, and 
  Roland has no Swimming Ability, but does have a magic ring with the 
  Ability “Magic: Float in Water 2,” which is appropriate. The current 
  Donjon Level is 2, and swimming across this particular river is a Hard 
  task.
  Robin will roll 4 dice (Roland’s Virility of 2, plus 2 dice for the ring) 
  and the GM will roll 8 dice (Donjon Level 2, plus 6 dice for a Hard 
  task.)
  When a player requests a test based on a perception-based uncon-
  tested action, the difficulty of the Test is determined a bit different-
  ly. Since Donjon is so player-driven, a player can say, “My character 
  Table 4-2: Uncontested Difficulties
  Difficulty of task
  GM’s dice
  Easy (climbing a fence)
  0
  Medium (climbing 100 feet with the appropriate 
  equipment)
  3
  Hard (climbing a tall cliff with equipment, climbing 
  100 feet with no equipment)
  6
  Very Hard (climbing a sheer, wet cliff)
  9
  Crazy (climbing glass)
  12
  The GM always adds the Donjon Level (Chapter 7: Running Donjon) to 
  the number of dice listed above.
  is peering into the darkness,” and he will get to determine what his 
  character sees. In these cases, the GM should set the difficulty ac-
  cording to how much control she wants over the scene. If she 
  wants little control, set the difficulty to Easy. If she wants an aver-
  age level of control (the default), set the difficulty to Medium. If she 
  wants her way with no changes, set the difficulty to Crazy. Remem-
  ber that the GM will never have total control, though, even in the 
  face of complete character failure.
  After getting across the river, Roland finds a path leading further under-
  ground. Robin wants him to look at the ground and find tracks of the 
  last creatures to walk down this path. The GM doesn’t have a set idea 
  for what she wants to be down the path, so she sets the difficulty to Medi-
  um.
  Robin will roll 10 dice (Roland’s Discernment of 6, plus an Ability of 
  “Track Anything” of 4), and the GM will roll 5 dice (Donjon Level 2, 
  plus 3 dice for a Medium task.)
  Contested actions
  When a character attempts a task opposed by another character or 
  NPC, this is a contested action. For these Tests, the player rolls nor-
  mally (Attribute plus modifiers) and the GM does the same for the 
  NPC. If two players’ characters are acting against each other, the 
  players each roll normally against each other.
  Once on the other side of the river, the party runs into a little goblin 
  scout. The goblin takes off running to alert his friends, and Jonathan 
  wants Fiera to stop him. In order to do so, she’ll have to catch up with 
  him. Fiera’s sprinting, so the most appropriate Attribute is Adroitness, 
  which is one of her best Attributes.
  
  25
  Jonathan will roll 5 dice (Fiera’s Adroitness of 5, and no appropriate 
  Abilities), and the GM will roll 7 dice (the goblin’s Adroitness of 5, 
  plus an Ability of “Sprint like Ass is on Fire” of 2.)
  The Law of  Successes and narration
  So, what do you do with all these successes? In Donjon, we have a 
  concrete rule as to what each success means. The Law of Successes 
  states:
  1 success = 1 fact or 1 die
  When a player wins a Test, he is left with a number of successes. 
  For each of these successes, he can state one discrete fact about his 
  character’s success, or turn the success into a bonus die for a related 
  action. (This action is normally the character’s next action. Howev-
  er, it does not necessarily have to be.) The player cannot state irrele-
  vant facts - facts concerning something besides his action - and 
  success in the action is assumed unless the player states otherwise.
  Ron’s character, Azar, is looking for a secret door, and Jim gets 3 suc-
  cesses on his roll. He uses all three successes for facts, and his facts are:
  • The door has demonic script around it.
  • It is in the north wall of the room.
  • There is a key in the keyhole.
  He could have said “The door is unlocked,” or “The door is only 3 feet 
  high,” or even “Azar finds no door at all.”
  After a player states his facts, the GM takes these facts and narrates 
  the outcome of the action, making sure to use all the player’s facts. 
  The GM can feel free to add new information to the outcome, or 
  expand upon the player’s facts.
  Design Decision: Hey, I’m better at lower levels!
  You’ll probably notice quickly that you have a better chance of at-
  tempting actions that do not fit any of your Abilities at lower levels. 
  As you increase in levels, the average Donjon Level that you’ll be ad-
  venturing on will rise, and you’ll need Abilities, which rise much faster 
  than Attributes, in order to perform most tasks. For example, a Me-
  dium difficulty task on Donjon Level 1 gives the GM 4 dice to roll. A 
  character with even an average Attribute will have a chance at win-
  ning. On Donjon Level 10, the same task gives the GM 13 dice, an 
  amount that a character will need an Ability to have a chance against.
  This is entirely on purpose. As you play Donjon, your character is not 
  the only one to gain experience: you learn how to play as well. At 
  lower levels, players should feel free to try out all sorts of ideas in play, 
  and their chances of succeeding will be higher. As they rise in levels, 
  their choices will have to become more focused. In addition, as you 
  gain levels, you’ll gain items, both mundane and magical, that will 
  greatly help you out. You’ll find that the perceived disability of higher-
  level characters is quickly evened out by their equipment.
  The GM narrates Azar’s attempt to find a secret door: “Azar looks 
  around for a secret door, and pulls back a tapestry on the north 
  wall. He finds a door with demonic script surrounding it and 
  a key in the keyhole, decorated with an ornate skull at the top. 
  Four finger-bones jut out from underneath the door, as if someone tried to 
  claw the door open from the inside.”
  If the player fails in his Test, the situation is reversed. The GM’s 
  successes can be used to state facts about the player’s failure, or 
  they can be used as bonus dice for the GM in a related action by the 
  player’s character.
  After the GM states his facts, the player has to narrate his 
  character’s failure, making sure to use all the GM’s facts. Failure in 
  the action is assumed unless the GM says otherwise. The player can 
  
  26
  hyena, and then suddenly get very quiet, staring at the player with 
  only one eye. That should teach him.
  Later, Azar is attempting to climb a wall. Ron rolls the Test and fails, 
  with the GM garnering 2 successes. The GM’s facts are:
  • Azar falls down the wall and lands on a pile of garbage.
  • Rats leap out of the garbage.
  Ron narrates: “Azar loses his hand-hold on the wall and slips, land-
  ing in a pile of garbage. He hears a hissing, and rats leap out 
  of the garbage, each the size of a dog. One of them starts to meta-
  morph into a human form, and says, ‘Master...’”
  Nikola, the GM, stops him. “Hold on there. ‘Master?’ I don’t think 
  so. So, one of them starts to metamorph into a human form and grins 
  evilly at you...” The game continues on.
  Failure and damage
  Sometimes a Test carries the threat of damage along with it - for 
  example, if the Test is to avoid a trap, climb a tall cliff, or slip under 
  a descending ceiling before it hits the ground. If a failing a Test may 
  cause damage, the GM should announce that to the player before 
  the Test is rolled.
  If the Test is failed, any of the GM’s successes that she uses for bo-
  nus dice are used as bonus dice on a Damage Test. The player rolls 
  his character’s Wherewithal score plus modifiers, and the GM either 
  rolls the appropriate Attribute and Ability of the opposing NPC, or 
  if no NPC was opposing, the current Donjon Level, plus modifiers 
  based on the severity of the damage. This is most usually Medium 
  (+3 dice), but can be raised or lowered if the GM feels it is neces-
  sary.
  Player Tip: The Law of Successes is your friend
  The Law of Successes makes you very powerful as a player. If you use 
  an Ability like “Hear Noise,” noise will be heard if you succeed. It might 
  even be heard if you don’t succeed, although then the GM will tell you 
  what sort of noise you heard. This means you are in control of the 
  adventure, unlike in most fantasy role-playing games where you can 
  only do the things the GM has set out for you to do.
  In addition, the bonus dice you can get are extremely helpful when 
  you don’t have enough dice to have a chance at an action. Let’s say 
  you want to jump across a wide pit, so wide that the difficulty is Very 
  Hard. You don’t have a jumping Ability, and you don’t think you can 
  make it. There’s a tree nearby, though, and you have a “Climb Trees” 
  Ability at 6. You can climb the tree and use those successes as bonus 
  dice when you leap from the tree across the pit.
  If you’ve been wondering how characters work together in Donjon, 
  you’ve got your answer in the Law of Successes. You can use your 
  successes as bonus dice for a friend’s action just as easily as you could 
  use them for your own.
  GM Tip: The Law of Successes is your friend, too
  Just because players get to state facts when they succeed doesn’t make 
  you powerless as a GM. Remember, you get to narrate when they suc-
  ceed, so stick it to them. Their facts are like wishes to a genie - up to 
  your interpretation. If your players get too full of hubris, declaring 
  that they find treasure here, and fall into a bed of feathers there, turn 
  those screws. Maybe they find a gold ring - that grows teeth and bites 
  into their finger when they put it on. Maybe they fall into a bed of 
  feathers - that happens to be the back of the biggest bird they’ve ever 
  imagined.
  add new information to this outcome, but the GM may stop his 
  narration at any time. If the player tries to get out of using all the 
  nastiness the GM has thrown at him, the GM should cackle like a 
  
  27
  The specific effects of damage on characters are detailed in Chapter 
  5: Combat, but in brief, each success for the GM on a Damage Test 
  removes one Flesh Wound from the character affected.
  Jonathan’s character, Fiera, is trying to climb the same wall Azar was 
  earlier in the adventure. The GM warns Jonathan that if he fails the 
  Test, Fiera will fall and possibly be damaged. Jonathan goes ahead and 
  rolls the Test, and the GM gets two successes. The GM says, “I’m going 
  to use all of these as bonus dice in the Damage Test.”
  Fiera has no Ability to absorb damage from falling (“Thick Hide” only 
  protects Fiera from sharp things), so Jonathan just rolls Fiera’s Where-
  withal of 4, while the GM rolls 7 dice (the current Donjon Level of 2, 
  plus 3 for Medium damage, plus the 2 bonus dice.) This fall is probably 
  going to hurt.
  A Test can carry the threat of damage to an item with it. In that 
  case, the GM need not announce the threat beforehand. The GM 
  must state that the item may be damaged as a fact when she suc-
  ceeds, however, using one success to do so. The player then rolls a 
  Test of the item’s Worth, and the GM rolls as above. Each success 
  for the GM on this roll can remove one die from one of the item’s 
  mundane Ability scores.
  Roland is trying to pick a lock, and has a lockpick with the Ability 
  “Unlock Doors” at 2. Jim rolls the Test, and fails, with the GM getting 
  3 successes. The GM spends one success to announce the fact, “You hear 
  your lockpick crunch as it twists in the lock,” and spends the other two 
  successes as bonus dice on the Damage Test against the item. Robin rolls 
  the lockpick’s Ability score of 2, and the GM rolls 4 dice (the Donjon 
  Level of 2, plus the 2 bonus dice.) The GM succeeds in the Damage 
  Test with 1 success, and the lockpick’s Ability score drops to 1.
  If all of an item’s mundane Abilities drop to 0, the item is de-
  stroyed. (If an item has no Abilities, one point of damage done to it 
  will destroy it.) Also, the Law of Successes does not apply to Dam-
  age Tests. If the player succeeds, his character and character’s items 
  have taken no damage, which is his only reward. The GM can use 
  no successes for narration.
  
  28
  Combat is the heart of donjon crawling. For all the fun of narrating 
  new encounters and results, combat is where characters have a li-
  cense to chew up the scenery and emerge victorious, spoils in hand. 
  In combat, the Law of Successes sometimes acts a bit differently 
  than normal, so read closely to find out exactly what you can and 
  can’t do.
  Starting a fight
  Combat begins any time the GM or the players call for initiative. Call-
  ing for initiative means that you are asking everyone to make Initia-
  tive Tests to see when they are allowed to take actions in combat. 
  When calling for initiative, you must name the party your character 
  is attacking, if you are a player, or the party that is attacking the 
  characters, if you are the GM.
  In order to make an Initiative Test, each player rolls his character’s 
  Level, plus the character’s score in Discernment. No other Abilities 
  can be added to this roll. The GM rolls for each NPC in the com-
  bat, rolling the NPC’s Level, plus Discernment. Write down these 
  numbers, or leave the dice in front of you.
  Combat is measured in what we call flurries. A flurry does not corre-
  spond to any sort of time measurement. Instead, it is a full ex-
  GM Tip: Rolling initiative
  If you have to roll initiative for many NPCs of the same type, all with 
  the same Level and Discernment, feel free to roll one Initiative Test 
  for all of them. Each of the NPCs will go on each of the numbers you 
  have rolled.
  Chapter 5
  Combat
  change of blows at the end of which all participants have a slight lull 
  in combat as they consider whether they want to continue combat. 
  The GM counts down during the flurry from 20. (If the group is 
  using a die size other than twenty-sided dice, the GM counts down 
  from the highest number on the die.) Whenever the GM calls a 
  number that a player rolled in his Initiative Test, that player’s char-
  acter can perform an action. If the player rolled the number multi-
  ple times, his character gets to make multiple actions. When the 
  GM gets to 1, and all actions have been taken, that is the end of the 
  flurry. If either side wants to extend the combat, a new flurry begins, 
  with both sides making Initiative Tests. (There is a way to escape 
  from combat - see “Distance and movement” below.) If neither 
  side wants to extend the combat, combat is over.
  When their characters are fighting two minotaurs, Robin, Ron, Jona-
  than, and the GM, Nikola, roll the following for initiative:
  Robin: 2, 5, 8, 10, 10, 15, 16, 18
  Ron: 2, 3, 10, 20
  Jonathan: 10, 13, 14, 17, 19
  Nikola (Minotaur 1): 5, 8, 17, 19
  Nikola (Minotaur 2): 7, 9, 10, 12
  When Nikola counts down, Robin’s character will get an action when 
  she calls out 18, 16, 15, 10 (he gets two actions on 10), 8, 5, and 2. 
  Ron’s character will go on 20, 10, 3, and 2; and Jonathan’s character 
  will go on 19, 17, 14, 13, and 10.
  This may seem odd if you’ve played other role-playing games that 
  have combat to the death, and rounds, and initiative rolls each 
  
  29
  round. If you need to, you can think of each flurry as a 
  round, and your character as going many times within 
  that round. This way, though, you get lulls in fighting 
  where each side gets a moment to think, “Is this going 
  the way I want it to?” If not, both sides get the chance to 
  disengage. You can even use this lull to parley with your 
  opponents, offering them the chance to surrender or 
  walk away. Game Masters should be sure to give players a 
  chance to talk amongst themselves before a combat is 
  extended.
  Actions
  An action is any one task a character can do. This should 
  be simple to adjucate, really - a character can move in an 
  action, or attack one other character, or pull something 
  out of his backpack, or change weapons. The one impor-
  tant thing to remember is that only one normal Test can 
  be made in an action unless stated otherwise. (Damage 
  Tests, saves against magic, and the like do not count.) If 
  you want to perform two Tests, and plan on one giving 
  bonus dice to the other, this will take two actions.
  Ties in the Initiative Test
  When two characters roll the same number in the Initiative Test, 
  actions progress in the order of the players, moving from the player 
  to the left of the GM around the table clockwise. (Players may want 
  to sit in order of their character’s Adroitness scores in order to pro-
  vide realism, if they like that sort of thing.) This ensures that NPCs 
  will always go last in the case of ties. When each player gets his turn, 
  his character can make only one action - he will get to control his 
  character’s next action on the next rotation around the table.
  When Nikola, the GM, calls out 10 in the initiative order, Robin gets 
  two actions, Jonathan gets one, Ron gets one, and Minotaur 2 gets one. 
  Robin is sitting to the GM’s left, then Jonathan, get Ron. Their actions 
  occur in the following order: Robin, Jonathan, Ron, Minotaur 2, and 
  then Robin again.
  Surprise and initiative-increasing Abilities
  It is possible to get more actions during a flurry by using surprise or 
  by having an Ability that could increase your initiative. When sur-
  prising someone, simply use successes from an attempt to sneak up 
  on an enemy as bonus dice for your Initiative Test.
  
  30
  Earlier, Robin was trying to have Roland sneak up on the minotaurs, 
  and got three successes in his Test. The number of minotaurs had not 
  been specified, so he spent one success to state, “I sneak up on the two 
  minotaurs,” and then spent the other two successes for two extra dice in 
  his Initiative Test.
  If several characters are simultaneously sneaking up on NPCs, have 
  each of them roll and use their successes. The GM can feel free to 
  use her successes, if she wins the roll, to catch the characters un-
  awares and increase the NPC’s dice in the Initiative Test.
  If you have an Ability like “Swift Sword-play” (Supporting Ability) 
  or “Ninja Speed” (Main Ability), you may make a unopposed Test 
  (Medium difficulty) of this Ability, plus your score in the appropri-
  ate Attribute (usually Adroitness) and use the successes as bonus 
  dice in your Initiative Test.
  Distance and movement
  Donjon does not use a traditional system of feet and yards, or me-
  ters, or any of that other stuff that hurts the author’s head in com-
  bat. You are always one of the following distances from your 
  opponents:
  • Out of range
  • Two actions away
  • One action away
  • In close
  You never begin combat out of range. It is up to whoever initiates 
  combat to decide how far away the opponents are when combat 
  begins.
  Once combat begins, you can spend an action to have your charac-
  ter either move closer or further away from his opponents. If his 
  opponent sees him moving, he can abort a later action - scratch off 
  the character’s next initiative number, or remove the next initiative 
  die, depending on how the player or GM is tabulating the 
  character’s initiative - to resist his movement (run away as he gets 
  closer, or chase him if he’s running away.) If no one is resisting your 
  movement, you do not have to make a Test at all to move. If some-
  one is resisting your character’s movement, you must make a Move-
  ment Test against the opponent. Roll your character’s Adroitness 
  score, plus a pertinent Ability if you have one, and the GM rolls the 
  same for your character’s opponent. If you are successful, your 
  movement is successful (you move one level of distance), and your 
  successes can be spent, as normal, for facts, or for bonus dice on 
  your next movement or attack.
  If a character moves out of range, he is out of the combat. If a char-
  acter is two actions away, he gets a penalty of 3 dice to attack with a 
  missile weapon, cannot throw a thrown weapon, and cannot engage 
  in a melee attack. If a character is one action away, he gets no pen-
  alty to attack with missile or thrown weapons, but cannot engage in 
  a melee attack. If a character is in close, he gets a penalty of 6 dice 
  to attack with a missile weapon, 3 dice to attack with a thrown 
  weapon, and can attack normally with melee attacks.
  If a character is in close and attempts to run away, his opponent 
  gets a free attack on him. If the opponent is resisting the move-
  ment, and wins the Movement Test he can use his successes to add 
  bonus dice to this attack.
  The author will be very up-front here and tell you that this is a huge 
  abstraction. It works well, but the GM will have to arbitrate at 
  times, especially if there are many combatants, and they all move 
  
  31
  around. If a player cannot figure out how far his character is from 
  an opponent, ask the GM, who will know or make up something.
  Before the party rolled initiative, as talked about above, they discussed 
  how they wanted to execute the attack on the two minotaurs.
  Robin: “Well, Roland’s already snuck up behind them, so he’s in close. 
  Jonathan, don’t you think that Fiera should just leap into the fray? 
  She’s not sneaky, and doesn’t have any missile weapons.”
  Jonathan: “That sounds like a good idea, and it’ll distract them from 
  noticing Roland or Azar. Ron, Azar’s casting spells, right?”
  Ron: “Yup. I’m going to start him down the tunnel, two actions away. 
  Wait - Nikola, can I see two actions away in here?”
  Nikola: “Not well, but if Jonathan has Fiera breathing fire all the time, 
  it should be bright enough for you to target the minotaurs. Also, Jona-
  than, you’re either going to have to start one action away, as the mino-
  taurs notice Fiera, or you could try to have her sneak in close.”
  Jonathan: “That’s ok - I’ll jump out of the shadows one action away, 
  and rush in.”
  The party begins the combat, and as it continues, the last minotaur left 
  tries to run away. Robin aborts his next action to have Roland chase 
  him, so they both make a Movement test against each other. Nikola 
  wins with two successes, using them for the minotaur’s next Movement 
  Test, and putting the minotaur at one action away. Robin has an action 
  next, and chases the minotaur. Robin wins this time, though, getting a 
  whopping five successes, and moves in close with the minotaur again. On 
  its next action, Nikola has the minotaur continue to run, but Robin 
  uses his five successes he kept for bonus dice in this Movement Test. 
  Robin and Nikola roll again (with Robin aborting yet another action) 
  and Robin wins again, with three successes, keeping the minotaur in 
  close. He gets a free attack with Roland, as the minotaur was in close 
  Dial: Miniatures
  You might think, “Miniatures? But Donjon’s all about narration and 
  fun!” Miniatures are fun, especially if you throw away the whole fetish-
  istic collection sub-culture, and bust out your plastic dinosaurs and 
  He-Man figures. If your group wants to use miniatures during com-
  bat, it’s easily done. Settle on a distance for one action’s worth of 
  movement. If you’re not using some sort of square- or hex-based 
  map, a distance will do just fine, like three inches. If you have a grid-
  ded map, decide on a number of squares or hexes.
  A few guidelines when using miniatures are:
  If a character runs away on his action, he moves whether he is resisted 
  or not. If he is successfully resisted by another character (the character 
  is chasing him and wins the Movement Test), the other character 
  moves the same distance in the same direction.
  If a character runs toward someone, he also moves whether he is re-
  sisted or not. The same rules as above apply - the resisting character 
  only moves if he is successful in the Movement Test.
  Remember that players can use successes as facts to invent things dur-
  ing combat. Don’t let a map constrain your imagination - it’s easy to 
  represent a new tree, pit, or whatever else on a map as soon as the 
  player comes up with it.
  and Nikola failed the Test. He chooses to use the three successes from the 
  Movement Test as bonus dice again, and gets three bonus dice on his 
  attack, killing the minotaur.
  Attacking and defending
  To have your character make an attack on one of his actions, de-
  clare who your character (the attacker) is attacking (the defender), and 
  make an Attack Test of Adroitness, plus any applicable attack Abili-
  ty. Both missile and melee attacks are made in this fashion.
  
  32
  The defender can either actively defend (parry) or passively defend (dodge). 
  To parry, the defender must abort a later action. The character then 
  defends, rolling his Adroitness, plus applicable attack Ability in the 
  Test. Either a melee weapon or a spell (a fiery shield, for instance) 
  can be used to actively defend. Only melee attacks can be actively 
  defended against, not missile weapons or spells. The winner of this 
  Test damages his opponent, whether it is the attacker or defender. 
  This can be thought of as a counter-attack: it is treated exactly as an 
  attack back on the attacker if the defender is successful. To dodge, 
  the defender does not have to abort a later action. This does mean 
  that a defender can defend against an infinite number of attacks. 
  The defender rolls his Adroitness, plus any sort of dodging or 
  avoidance Ability. If the defender succeeds, he does not damage the 
  attacker in any way, and these successes are lost.
  If the attacker wins, he damages his opponent. The successes on 
  this roll can be used as bonus dice on the Damage Test or another 
  related action, or can be used to state facts about the attack. While 
  using them as bonus dice on the Damage Test is most common, 
  using them as facts or as bonus dice elsewhere is a great way to ma-
  Player Tip: Charging
  You can use successes in a Movement Test as bonus dice on a related 
  roll, including your next Movement Test, if it’s right afterwards, or 
  your next attack. This means, if a NPC is resisting your movement 
  towards him, or running away, you can charge him. (If he is standing 
  still, you do not make a Movement Test, and so have no bonus dice. 
  Chalk it up to him being able to prepare for your charge.) Take those 
  successes from running at the NPC and roll it over into a shattering 
  attack, stopping him in hiss tracks for good.
  Of course, you might have some sort of charging Ability. In that case, 
  you can add its score to your attack after moving towards an oppo-
  nent no matter whether the opponent runs or stands his ground.
  nipulate your opponents into falling down into holes, tripping over 
  roots, or smashing into each other.
  Earlier in the fight, Fiera was fighting one of the minotaurs. She had 
  three actions left (on 14, 13, and 10), and the minotaur had two actions 
  left (on 8 and 5). She attacked once, with Jonathan rolling her 4 
  Adroitness plus Breathe Flame Ability of 3 for seven total dice. The 
  minotaur had no sort of dodging Ability, and Nikola decided to actively 
  dodge the attack, scratching off the minotaur’s next action at 8, leaving 
  the minotaur with one action at 5. She rolled the minotaur’s 2 Adroit-
  ness plus “Kill with Axe” Ability of 4 for six total dice, and Jonathan 
  ended up with two successes, damaging the minotaur. Jonathan had Fi-
  era attack the minotaur again at 13, and Nikola had the minotaur 
  actively defend again, losing its last action at 5. It barely succeeded this 
  time, though, and hit Fiera, damaging her.
  Fiera has one more action, however, and the minotaur has none. Jona-
  than has her attack the minotaur one more time, and all Nikola can do 
  is have the minotaur passively defend, rolling only its 2 Adroitness.
  Player Tip: Using everything you have
  Remember that your character can do a whole lot more than just run 
  around, attack, and defend in a combat. If you are fighting a difficult 
  opponent, it’s in your character’s best interest to use all his Abilities, 
  in order to gain successes for bonus dice.
  For example, if you were playing a Charlatan, with an Ability of 
  “Distract Stupid People and Things,” and were fighting a tough Ogre, 
  you might have your character exclaim, “Hey, look over there!” with 
  one action. Since the Ogre’s Cerebrality is painfully low, it would 
  probably fail this Test. You can take your successes from this Test 
  and use them as bonus dice to pop the Ogre in the back on your next 
  action as it stares off in the distance, trying to find what you were 
  pointing at.
  
  33
  Damage and injury
  If you succeed in an Attack Test, whether you were attacking 
  or actively defending, you get a chance to make a Damage 
  Test against your opponent. A Damage Test is made by rolling 
  your Virility, plus weapon Damage Rating if you are using one, 
  plus an applicable Ability against your opponent’s Wherewith-
  al, plus armor Damage Rating, plus an applicable Ability, if 
  they have one. As stated in Chapter 4: Resolution, the Law of 
  Successes does not apply to a Damage Test in the normal 
  manner. You can use successes in this roll to do one of two 
  things:
  Remove Flesh Wounds from the opponent on a one-for-one basis. Flesh 
  Wounds are the currency of character health. When reduced to 
  zero Flesh Wounds, NPCs fall down unconscious and can be 
  slain with a stroke; PCs fare a bit better, but have a chance to 
  die as soon as they are reduced to zero Flesh Wounds.
  Damage the opponent’s Attributes. In order to damage an Attri-
  bute, spend one success to state what you are doing as a fact. 
  (“I slash him across the eyes, lowering Discernment!”) Further 
  successes can be spent to lower that Attribute like Flesh 
  Wounds. If you want to get wild and split your successes be-
  tween Attributes, you can, by spending more successes on 
  more facts. (You may even spend some successes on Flesh 
  Wounds, and some on Attributes. Just remember to spend one 
  success for a fact per Attribute you wish to damage.) If a char-
  acter has no Flesh Wounds, you do not have to spend suc-
  cesses on facts to damage Attributes.
  When Jonathan has Fiera attack the minotaur this on her last action 
  at 10, he gets to roll seven total dice, while Nikola only gets to roll 
  two dice for the minotaur’s Adroitness. Jonathan succeeds with a 
  
  34
  whopping four successes. Jonathan then makes a Damage Test versus the 
  minotaur, rolling Fiera’s Virility of 5, plus her breath weapon’s Dam-
  age Rating of 3, plus the four bonus dice from his attack successes for 12 
  dice. Nikola rolls the minotaur’s Wherewithal of 6, plus its Main Abil-
  ity of Tough Hide of 5 for 11 dice. Jonathan’s not so sure Fiera’s mas-
  sive attack is going to do any damage, but he ends up with three 
  successes. He could remove three Flesh Wounds from the minotaur, drop-
  ping it from 6 to 3 Flesh Wounds, but he doubts Fiera will get in as 
  good of an attack again. With the minotaur’s formidable Attributes and 
  Abilities, he needs to guarantee her success next time, and instead spends 
  one damage success to declare, “Fiera’s flame breath sears the minotaur’s 
  hide, withering its torso,” and uses the other two successes to remove two 
  dice from Wherewithal. The minotaur will still be formidable, but has 
  two less dice to roll when defending against damage now.
  Death
  All NPCs fall down unconscious when reduced to zero Flesh 
  Wounds. It takes only one attack, which requires no Test whatsoev-
  er, to kill the NPC once he is unconscious. PCs, on the other hand, 
  are treated a bit nicer. They do not collapse at zero Flesh Wounds. 
  Instead, they must have zero Flesh Wounds and be smashed in order 
  to fall unconscious. To smash a PC, the NPC must roll a Damage 
  Test against the PC and have every one of his dice come up as a 
  success. When smashed, PCs fall unconscious, and can be killed 
  with one attack, like NPCs. PCs always roll one die in Damage 
  Tests, even when their Wherewithal is reduced to zero.
  The minotaur Fiera is fighting has made a bit of a come-back, and has 
  hit Fiera repeatedly, knocking her to 0 Flesh Wounds. She’s still stand-
  ing and fighting, but just barely. The minotaur hits Fiera again, and 
  Nikola rolls seven dice in a Damage Test, getting three successes against 
  Jonathan. She uses all three successes to lower Fiera’s Wherewithal from 
  4 to 1. (Since Fiera had no Flesh Wounds, Nikola didn’t have to spend 
  one of her successes to have the minotaur damage Fiera’s Wherewithal.) 
  If all seven of Nikola’s dice had come up successes, Fiera would have 
  been knocked unconscious. 
  Healing
  Player characters heal one die or Flesh Wound of damage at the 
  beginning of every scene. (For a definition of a scene, see Chapter 1: 
  Basic Concepts.) Damage to Attributes is always healed first, start-
  ing with the lowest Attribute score. Once all Attributes are healed, 
  Flesh Wounds are then healed. All damage is healed between ad-
  ventures. Characters can, of course, be healed by magic, as detailed 
  in Chapter 6: Magic.
  After the party emerges victorious, Fiera, Roland, and Azar move on, 
  finding a tunnel leading down that the minotaurs must have come from. 
  Finding this tunnel is the beginning of a new scene, so all three of the 
  characters heal one die or Flesh Wound of damage. Roland and Azar 
  only took damage to their Flesh Wounds during the fight with the mino-
  taurs, but Fiera has damage to her Wherewithal, so one die of damage to 
  it is removed. When it returns to 4, healing will be applied to her Flesh 
  Wounds.
  
  35
  The magic system in Donjon is designed to provide a very flexible, 
  yet easy way for your character to put on the beat-down. It is based 
  around a very magical system of dice manipulation and word play. 
  Instead of a list of spells, your character has a list of Magic Words 
  that he can use. You will make up spells on the fly using these 
  Words. Your character also does not have a maximum number of 
  times per day that he can cast spells. Instead, he may cast spells as 
  often as you like as long as he doesn’t have to strain himself.
  “Magic” in Donjon doesn’t just refer to hoary old wizards throwing 
  fireballs or summoning demons. “Magic” is any supernatural ability 
  to alter reality. These rules should work for priests granted powers 
  by their god, psychics using the preternatural powers of their mind, 
  or traditional magicians just as well.
  Magic Words
  When you create a character that can cast magic, you get to choose 
  a number of Words that show the types of magic he or she can cast 
  at the beginning of the game. If your character has magic as his 
  Main Ability, choose four Magic Words. These can be any noun, 
  verb, or adjective in your native language. (Articles, such as “a” and 
  “the,” and pronouns, such as “she” and “it,” are right out for obvi-
  ous reasons. As for adverbs - I never liked them in eighth grade, 
  and I swore I’d have my revenge on them someday. The day is 
  now.)
  When Ron was creating his Purple-Robed Sorcerer character, Azar, he 
  chose the following Words:
  Chapter 6
  Magic
  fiery, madness, demon, cloud
  If you have magic as a Supporting Ability, your character is more 
  limited. You must choose two Magic Words, both of which can be 
  reasonably considered to be associated with your type of magic.
  Ron, Jonathan, and Robin are all making characters for another game 
  where every character has magic as a Supporting Ability. They come up 
  with the following Magic Abilities, and Words to go along with them:
  Nature Magic - tree, squirrel
  Shadow Magic - sneaky, tendrils
  Bardic Magic - courage, calm
  You will get the chance to add more Magic Words to your character 
  as you go up in experience and levels.
  Casting spells
  In order to have your character cast a spell, you must follow the 
  following steps:
  Gathering Magic Power
  Your character has to spend at least one action gathering Magic 
  Power before he can cast a spell. While you might have an idea at 
  this point what sort of spell you want to cast, it is not necessary to. 
  Gathering Magic Power is normally an Easy uncontested action, 
  although the GM can change this to a Medium or even Hard task is 
  the character is distracted, hurt, or uncomfortable. The difficulty 
  
  36
  may also rise if in an area 
  where magic is harder to 
  cast.
  To have your character 
  gather Magic Power, roll a 
  Test of your character’s 
  Cerebrality plus spell-cast-
  ing Ability against the dif-
  ficulty. If successful, your 
  number of successes are 
  your Spell Dice - dice you 
  get to use to state facts 
  about or add bonus dice 
  to your spell. The facts 
  you can state are restrict-
  ed, however - they are fur-
  ther explained in the 
  section below. If you were 
  unsuccessful in this Test, 
  the GM may use her suc-
  cesses either as bonus dice against the next time you try to gather magic power, or as 
  facts to state anything that may have happened as a result of your failed attempt to 
  gather Magic Power.
  You may find that you want more Spell Dice than you get with your first roll. In that 
  case, you may attempt to gather more Magic Power by spending another action to roll 
  again. You must take a penalty of one die from your spell-casting Ability every time 
  you do this, though, as you are straining your power. (These penalties are removed 
  after a good night’s rest.) If you ever reach zero dice in your casting spells Ability, you 
  may not cast any more spells until you are rested.
  If you are successful when you roll again, you may add your successes to your Spell 
  Dice. If unsuccessful, however, the GM’s successes are subtracted from your Spell 
  Table 6-1: Spell Effects
  Number of Words used (effects)
  Spell Dice
  1 Word
  Free
  2 Words
  1 die
  3 Words
  2 dice
  4 Words
  4 dice
  5 Words
  8 dice
  Number of people affected
  Spell Dice
  1 person
  Free
  A small group (around 5)
  1 die
  A large group (around 25)
  2 dice
  A city block
  4 dice
  Crazy numbers of people
  8 or more dice
  Time affected
  Spell Dice
  Instantaneous
  Free
  One flurry
  Free
  On e scene or combat
  1 die
  One day
  2 dice
  One week
  4 dice
  One month
  8 dice
  Longer
  A whole lot of dice
  
  37
  When Azar is holding Magic Power, a large horned shadow falls over 
  him, reflecting the demons he has mastered to learn his power.
  Second, the number of Spell Dice you are holding are added as a 
  bonus to the GM’s dice whenever you do anything active, as you’ve 
  got to maintain your concentration to hold them. You can passively 
  defend (dodge) and make Damage Tests and Saving Throw Tests 
  without the GM getting a bonus, but that’s all.
  Dice. (If the GM has more successes than you have spell 
  dice, she can use the remainder as bonus dice against the 
  next time you try to gather magic power, or as facts about 
  your botched attempt.)
  Ron decides he wants Azar to cast a spell. The party’s in a Level 3 
  donjon, and Azar has Cerebrality of 6 and Cast Spells at 4. Ron 
  rolls the Test against the GM and gets three successes, giving him 
  three Spell Dice. That’s enough to cast a decent spell, but Ron’s got 
  big plans and decides to strain his power in order to get more. He 
  takes a penalty, dropping his Cast Spells to 3, and rolls again, roll-
  ing only nine dice this time against the GM’s 3. He gets two more 
  successes for five total Spell Dice.
  He’s not in danger of being attacked right now, and decides to push 
  his luck once more in order to build up a tremendous pool of Spell 
  Dice. He drops his Cast Spells to 2 and rolls eight dice. Unfortu-
  nately, he fails this time, and the GM gets one success. He loses one 
  Spell Die, dropping him to four total Spell Dice. He can’t afford to 
  take any more penalties, and decides to release the spell.
  Your character may hold Magic Power in reserve until you 
  choose to have him release the spell. However, a few rules 
  apply while doing this.
  First, your character is quite noticeable to other people and 
  creatures while holding Magic Power. You should define 
  what your character’s Power looks like before play, and it should be 
  very visible. If you are playing a holy cleric, he could be suffused 
  with light. If you are playing a thief that uses shadow magic, his skin 
  could grow darker and his eyes grow black. The more Magic Power 
  your character is holding, the more pronounced the visual effects 
  will be.
  
  38
  will last. Table 6-1 shows the number of Spell Dice you will need to 
  spend for each level of range.
  Finally, release the spell. You will roll your Cerebrality plus spell-
  casting Ability plus any remaining Spell Dice you have in a Test for 
  each effect of the spell. The GM will roll a number of dice depend-
  ing on the effect, as explained in the GM Tip: Figuring out what to 
  roll in Spell Tests.
  Example 1: a simple spell
  Roland, Fiera, and Azar are in a combat with a gang of bandits that 
  have ambushed them. Ron decides to have Azar cast a spell to help them 
  out. He makes his Test to gather Magic Power, and ends up with 2 
  Spell Dice. That’s not a lot of dice, so he decides not to spend any of 
  them on extra Magic Words or range for the spell. He chooses one 
  Word, “fiery,” and defines the spell as merely doing damage to one char-
  acter. He names the spell “Azar’s Fiery Cascade,” and Azar aims it at 
  the bandit leader. Ron rolls Azar’s Cerebrality plus “Casting Spells” 
  Ability plus 2 Spell Dice in a Damage Test against the bandit leader, 
  scoring 5 successes and slaying the leader where he stands.
  Example 2: a bit more complicated spell
  Azar sees a small group of goblins coming towards him in the forest. 
  Ron decides have Azar cast a spell, and looks over his Magic Words. 
  He sees “cloud” and thinks that he could use that to cloud the goblins’ 
  minds. He rolls to gather Magic Power and gets a whopping nine Spell 
  Dice.
  Since he has not announced the spell yet, he can still change anything he 
  wants. He’s gone up a level recently and added a new Word, “reversal.” 
  Ron thinks that the goblins might make a good group of friends or fod-
  der for Azar and revises his plan. He spends one Spell Die to affect a 
  small group, and another two Spell Dice to affect them for the entire day, 
  Third, if your character is hit while holding Magic Power, it may 
  backfire. If hit, roll a Test of Wherewithal plus your spell-casting 
  Ability against the number of Spell Dice you are holding, plus the 
  amount of successes your opponent rolled on his Damage Test. 
  (Even if your opponent rolled no successes, you must still make this 
  test. Also, the Law of Successes does not apply to this Test at all.) If 
  you succeed, you manage to hold on to your Magic Power. If you 
  fail, however, you lose all control of your Magic Power, which is 
  released in a mystic explosion. You, and everyone within two me-
  ters (or six feet, or whatever - everyone close) must make a Damage 
  Test against the number of Spell Dice you were holding.
  Defining the spell
  Spell Dice are used to define your spell. First, you have to name the 
  spell. Choose a number of your Magic Words you wish to use in 
  your spell. As shown in Table 6-1, the first Word is free, but you 
  must pay one Spell Die for each other Word. Each Word you use 
  will give the spell one more effect. Take these Words and think of a 
  good name for the spell. You may add other mundane words as fill-
  er, but they cannot be the focus of the spell.
  Decide what effect each Word will have. Your GM or fellow players 
  may have ideas for you. For example, the word “fog” might be used 
  to create a thick fog to hide in, or it could be used to fog the minds 
  of men. It could even be used to deal damage to enemies, if you 
  made a spell called “Choking Fog” or “Acid Fog.” Uses like this 
  that stray too far from the meaning of a word, though, will give 
  your GM bonus dice. (GMs - feel free to use three extra dice on 
  your roll if a player pushes the meaning of one of his Magic Words 
  too far.)
  Next, decide the range of the spell’s effect. This is measured both in 
  the number of characters it will affect, and in the amount of time it 
  
  39
  leaving him six Spell Dice to use as 
  bonus dice.
  He names the spell “Undeniable Ra-
  cial Role Reversal” and casts it. Each 
  goblin gets a chance to resist: each rolls 
  his Discernment plus Save versus 
  Illusion and Confusion against 
  Azar’s Cerebrality plus “Casting 
  Spells” Ability plus six bonus dice.
  Example 3: a complicated spell, in-
  deed
  As the group of characters travels on, 
  they later run into a group of nasty 
  trolls. Ron, Robin, and Jonathan 
  realize their characters don’t have 
  much of a chance against these guys, 
  and Ron decides to have Azar cast a 
  spell to get rid of them all. Robin and Jonathan have Roland and Fiera 
  distract the trolls while Ron has Azar stand back and gather Magic 
  Power. In three actions, he’s built up 10 Spell Dice. He decides to use 
  four Words: fiery, cloud, madness, and gnawing (his newest Word.) That 
  takes three Spell Dice out of the mix. He’s also going to affect the entire 
  group of four trolls, so that takes another Spell Die, leaving him with 
  six. He casts “Hellish Fiery Cloud of Gnawing Madness,” and the 
  effects are:
  Fiery: He’s going to do damage to the trolls.
  Cloud: This should make an actual fiery cloud around the trolls, re-
  ducing their chances of seeing him.
  Gnawing: The cloud will inspire hunger in the trolls.
  Madness: Lastly, the spell should confuse the trolls into attacking and 
  eating the first thing the see (hopefully, each other.)
  Each troll will have to roll against each effect. They’ll first roll Where-
  withal in a Damage Test. (They would normally roll Wherewithal, plus 
  their “Regenerate” Main Ability, but they have a weakness against fire.) 
  They then roll Wherewithal plus Save versus Poison, Polymorph, and 
  Transmogrification in order to not be blinded; Wherewithal plus the 
  Saving Throw again in order to resist hunger; and then Discernment 
  plus Save versus Illusion and Confusion to not be driven mad.
  Ron will roll his Cerebrality plus “Casting Spells” Ability plus six bo-
  nus dice only once, and all the trolls’ rolls will be compared against that.
  
  40
  GM Tip: Figuring out what to roll in Spell Tests
  Figuring out what to roll in Spell Tests seems pretty difficult. The player can try anything with a spell, so you’ve got to think on your feet. Here’s 
  some good guidelines for different spells, though.
  If the player is having his character try to damage someone, it’s easy. The player’s roll is treated as a Damage Test against the opponent.
  If the player is having his character try to affect someone physically (make them weaker, shrink them, blind them, change them into a chicken), roll 
  the opponent’s Wherewithal plus Save versus Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification. 
  If the player is having his character try to affect someone mentally, roll the opponent’s Discernment plus Save versus Illusion and Confusion.
  If the player succeeds affecting someone with a spell, his successes are treated normally: he can use them to state facts, or apply penalties to the op-
  ponent. Unlike normal, though, these penalties last for as long as the spell lasts. Be harsh with these, though - if a player turns his opponent into a 
  chicken with a spell, the opponent will still have all of his normal statistics. Make the player spend the rest of his dice to apply penalties to the oppo-
  nent. In example 3 in this section, the player Ron has his character cast a spell to blind his opponents. If he succeeds, they are not automatically 
  blinded. Instead, they’ll have a number of penalties equal to the number of his successes to see anything. In that same example, the spell was meant 
  to make the opponents hungry. If that effect succeeds, the opponents will have a number of penalties equal to the number of his successes when-
  ever they try to do anything besides kill and eat.
  The above applies to unwilling targets. As for willing targets, or no target at all, the player will have to roll against an uncontested difficulty. As the 
  GM, you’ll have to set the difficulty. For something like making a floating light, the difficulty should be Easy. To do something harder, like teleport 
  100 miles, the difficulty should be Medium.
  You can feel free to use other statistics if you feel they are pertinent to the roll. For example, if the player is having his character heal someone, the 
  difficulty could be the amount of damage the character affected has taken so far. (So, if the character had lost four Flesh Wounds, and one point of 
  Virility, the GM would roll five dice, with the spell-caster’s successes healing damage on a one-for-one basis.)
  If a spell-caster was trying to summon a monster, the GM might roll a number of dice equal to the Level of the monster. (Of course, then the char-
  acter has to cast a spell to control the monster, which would be affecting it mentally.)
  If a player fails when casting a spell, you get to narrate what happens. You may use your successes as penalties against the player. (For example, if a 
  player tried to summon a monster and failed, I might, as a GM, have the monster appear, but use my successes as a bonus any time the player had 
  his character try and control the monster.) You do not have to use your successes, however. I emphasize this because it goes against the GM-versus-player 
  aspect that Donjon  normally has. Sometimes, with spells, it’s either too time-consuming to think of a way to get back at players, or just too nasty, 
  ruining the fun of everyone involved. Use your good sense here.
  
  41
  Magic items
  Any item in Donjon can be a magic item. Items, as mentioned in 
  Chapter 3: Money and Goods, are rated by their Worth. A magic 
  item’s Worth is measured by adding up all its mundane Abilities 
  (Damage Rating is a mundane Ability for these purposes), plus the 
  Worth of each of its magic Abilities, as shown on Table 6-2: Magic 
  Item Worth.
  There is literally no limit to what a magic item can do. GMs should 
  work with players, using the same guidelines as for creating Abili-
  ties, to make the neatest magic items possible. As you’ll see in 
  Chapter 7: Running Donjon, players will 
  get the chance to make up all sorts of 
  magic items for themselves.
  Whenever designing a magic item, you can 
  give it curse dice. Curse dice are exactly 
  what they sound like - dice that give a 
  penalty to some sort of action when carry-
  ing the magic item. They also lower the 
  Worth of the item, making it easier to 
  find, create, or buy. No matter who is de-
  signing a magic item, the curse granted by 
  curse dice is always decided by the GM. (I 
  mentioned earlier that players get to make 
  up magic items, and that you’ll see how in 
  Chapter 7. Basically, when looting a 
  monster’s corpse, you get to decide what 
  your character might find on it. You can 
  give the item curse dice to make it easier 
  to find - but the GM gets to decide what 
  the curse applies to, and doesn’t even 
  have to tell you until the curse actually applies.)
  Creating a magic item
  A character with an Ability to cast spells may try to create magic 
  items. To do so, he must have collected raw materials equal to the 
  Worth of the magic item he is trying to make. (Subtract a number 
  of dice from Wealth equal to the Worth of the item.) The item’s 
  qualities must fit within the scope the caster’s Magic Words, as well. 
  Magic items can only be created between adventures.
  Roll to gather Magic Power as normal, then roll the character’s Ce-
  rebrality plus spell-casting Ability plus Spell Dice versus the Worth 
  of the item. If successful, the character has made the magic item. 
  His successes are the raw materials left over, and can be added to 
  Wealth. (Wealth cannot rise above its previous level, obviously.) If 
  unsuccessful, the 
  raw materials 
  were not enough, 
  and the GM’s 
  successes show 
  how much more 
  Wealth must be 
  spent in order to 
  attempt to create 
  the item again.
  The player can 
  choose to add 
  curse dice to the 
  item, per normal, 
  to reduce its 
  Worth.
  Table 6-2: Magic Bonus Worth
  Type of bonus
  Worth
  Magic Attribute score bonus 
  (Ex. +1 to Cerebrality)
  4/bonus die
  General magic bonus
  (Ex. +2 to attack)
  2/bonus die
  Specific magic bonus
  (Ex. +2 to attack undead)
  1/bonus die
  One time magic bonus
  (Ex. Potion of Healing 5)
  1/bonus die
  Mundane Ability
  1/Ability die
  Magic curse
  (Ex. -2 to parry)
  -1/penalty die
  
  42
  In designing Donjon, I tried to make the game I’ve always wanted to play. 
  It holds tight to the trappings of first-generation fantasy role-playing 
  games by valuing the ideas of adventuring deep below the earth, killing 
  monsters, and amassing treasure. At the same time, it strips away long-
  standing ideas such as tabulation of gold coins, carefully planned adven-
  tures by one GM, and specific rules for each situation. That’s all well and 
  good, but when I finished the rules so far, I wondered, “How in the 
  world is someone supposed to run this thing? The players get to do what-
  ever they want - they even get to throw new situations into the adven-
  ture.”
  Here’s what I came up with. Running Donjon requires a different mindset 
  than running a lot of role-playing games, but I hope it’s as enjoyable for 
  you as it has been for me.
  The Gameplay Flowchart
  Every adventure in Donjon will consist of basically the same elements. 
  These pre-defined parts of each adventure help to bring order to the cha-
  otic action that will happen in a game of Donjon, and keep the game flow-
  ing, bringing fun to the players, and wealth and adventure to the 
  characters. Note that an adventure may take more than one game session, 
  so each of these elements may not occur every time you meet for a game.
  Town
  Each adventure should begin in some semblance of civilization. This 
  does not necessarily mean a town: it could be a large city, a barbarian 
  camp, a wilderness fort, a small village, a (friendly) wizard’s tower, or any-
  where else that people are gathered and the characters are marginally safe. 
  Chapter 7
  Running Donjon
  
  43
  For our purposes, we call this Town. When creating an adventure, 
  the starting Town must be defined in terms of its resources and 
  cost. Steps in creating a town are:
  1. Create a name and personality for the Town.
  This seems self-evident, but a good name goes a long way toward 
  evoking the sense of a Town. “Weilheim” sounds like a Germanic 
  stronghold, while “Snowleaf Pass” sounds like a wooded mountain 
  outpost. After deciding on a name for the Town, decide the types 
  of people (and races) that live there, the size of the town, and its 
  personality towards strangers.
  2. Determine the Town’s resources.
  Resources are broken down into weapons and armor, Provisions, 
  and hospitality (inn rooms, food, and travel.) As discussed in Chap-
  ter 3: Money and Goods, normal Provisions are not bought piece-
  by-piece as in most role-playing games, but the ability to purchase 
  Provisions must still be quantified. Decide on a cap to the Worth of 
  weapons and armor that can be bought in the Town (this can be 
  split into two separate caps), a cap for Provisions, and a cap for 
  hospitality. Feel free to make separate caps for other goods if the 
  Town has a resource it is particularly wealthy or poor in. As a gen-
  eral rule, large cities should have higher caps, and small or remote 
  villages should have lower caps.
  These caps are used when buying goods. A player cannot have his 
  character attempt to purchase anything of a Worth higher than its 
  associated cap. He also cannot spend more of his character’s Wealth 
  to increase Provisions than the Provisions cap.
  3. Determine Markups.
  Prices will differ in Towns depending on attitudes towards strangers 
  and amounts of resources. The Markup of a town is a number of 
  bonus dice that will be applied to the GM’s roll whenever a player 
  has his character buy anything in town, including Provisions. This 
  can be one set Markup, or can be different for each type of resourc-
  es. (This is a good way to represent a particularly irascible shop-
  keeper.) The average Markup is three dice.
  4. Determine adventure hook(s).
  The characters will embark on their adventure from the Town, so 
  you should have one or more adventure hooks for the Town. Cre-
  ate events or persons that will introduce the characters to the ad-
  venture.
  Example Town 1: Weilheim
  Weilheim is a walled fortress-city on the eastern reaches of the Empire, 
  made to halt the intrusions of orc-kind. The population is mostly hu-
  man, and somewhat xenophobic.
  Resources:
  Weapons and Armor: 4 (Markup 3) - Good solid weapons are to be 
  had here.
  Provisions: 7 (Markup 5) - Everything an adventure could need can be 
  had here, as excursions into orc-land are common. However, the local 
  merchants will charge you sorely for their goods.
  Hospitality: 10 (Markup 7) - The city’s wealth and opulance have pro-
  duced some of the highest quality living. However, this has caused exorbi-
  tant rates.
  Example Town 2: Snowleaf Pass
  Snowleaf Pass is a beautiful little village nestled in the Highland Moun-
  tains, surrounded by pine and cedar forests. The village contains as many 
  
  44
  elfs as humans. Travelers are commonplace, as the village lies along the 
  best road through the mountains.
  Weapons: 3 (Markup 4) The weapon quality is good here, and supplies 
  are to be had for merchant caravans, but steel is uncommon.
  Armor: 3 (Markup 5) Rarer than weapons is armor, as it needs even 
  more steel. The local elfs make a great Damage Rating 2 wooden armor 
  that has a Weight of only 1, though. (Worth 3)
  Provisions: 6 (Markup 1) The amount of merchants that come through 
  has saturated the market with a supply of cheap but sturdy goods.
  Hospitality: 5 (Markup 3) The nicest inn in town (there’s only two) has 
  only four separate rooms, but a large, nice, rowdy common room. Their 
  ales are exquisite, made from the purest mountain water.
  Town is a time for players to relax and characters to shop and so-
  cialize. All goods they will need for their adventure should be 
  bought at this time. This part is under rather strict GM control - the 
  only real actions should be shopping and getting the adventure 
  hook. (There’s something to be said for the occasional bar brawl. 
  However, Tests outside of shopping should be kept to a minimum, 
  and the GM has the power to revoke the Law of Successes at any 
  time in Town.)
  The GM should provide the players with the adventure hook soon 
  into the time in Town, so their characters may get the supplies they 
  think they will need for the adventure. This part can and should be 
  railroaded. Do not let the characters avoid the adventure by laying 
  about and spending their money on ale - bring the adventure hook 
  to them.
  The adventure hook should always provide the characters (and play-
  ers) with something that will appeal to their natures. As most char-
  acters are selfish bastards, this is pretty easy. Protecting a town from 
  goblins is not a very good adventure hook - it’s much too easy to 
  turn down for most characters. Protecting a town from goblins be-
  cause the mayor will give the characters the contents of the coffers 
  is a good hook - it grabs both selfish and altruistic characters. The 
  main points in a hook are to provide enticement and a clear end 
  goal. Because Donjon is so player-driven, there should always be 
  what we call a Big Bad, or a problem that the characters must over-
  come to complete the adventure. Once adventuring, the players can 
  create and narrate to their hearts’ content, but the adventure will 
  not be complete until the Big Bad is defeated. The Big Bad is often 
  a powerful monster, but could be the destruction of a cursed item, 
  the taking of a magical stone, or the aversion of a nasty curse.
  Once the characters have the hook, give them a further chance to 
  buy goods, then push them on their way.
  The Adventure Revealed
  Creating an adventure, and its hook, is not a very hard process in 
  Donjon. Each hook is made up of the following parts:
  1. Goal
  This is one sentence that describes what the adventure is about. 
  Good examples are “stop the incursion of goblins into the town,” 
  or “recover the lost sceptre of the King,” or something simple like, 
  “clean out a treasure-filled donjon.”
  2. Environment
  You should create an environment for your adventure. This is often 
  a dungeon or cave structure, but need not be limited to that. An 
  adventure can take place in any closed environment. To clarify, the 
  environment the characters adventure in needs to have a limited 
  scope. An adventure cannot take place on the wide-open plains. It 
  could take place in one forest, or in a cave, or in the sewers. There 
  
  45
  needs to be defined limits to where the adventure will take place. 
  Good examples of environments for adventures are: under the city, 
  inside a ruined temple, inside a hollowed-out titan-sized tree, in the 
  broken ruins of an ancient city, or in a dragon’s cave.
  The environment specified helps you and your players know what 
  sort of encounters the characters will have.
  3. Chapters
  Chapters are a measure of the length and difficulty of an adventure. 
  Some adventures may be simple one-chapter adventures: cleaning 
  out a small cave, for example. A dungeon that is 5 levels deep 
  would be a five-chapter adventure, one at each level. These chapters 
  can even be split over different environments: if the road to a cave 
  is fraught with bandits, the trip to the cave could be the first chapter 
  of the adventure.
  Decide how many chapters you want the adventure to have, and set 
  the Donjon Level for each - the average Level of encounters to be 
  found there. Make notes about the types of encounters that should 
  happen in each chapter.
  Chapter 1: Road to the temple (Donjon Level 3) - Bandits, wolves, for-
  est goblins 
  Chapter 2: First floor of the temple (Donjon Level 5) - Minor undead, 
  scavenging orcs 
  Chapter 3: Second floor of the temple (Donjon Level 6) - Worse undead 
  - mummies and the like 
  Chapter 4: Third floor of the temple (Donjon Level 7) - Mummy and 
  vampire priests
  The Donjon Level represents not only the average Level of encoun-
  ters to be found in a chapter, but a measure of how difficult the 
  chapter should be for the characters. Level 5 characters should have 
  an easy time on the road above (Chapter 1), a moderately hard time 
  in Chapter 2, and increasing difficulty in the following chapters. Re-
  member that difficulties for uncontested actions are based off of 
  Donjon Level - characters will be capable of feats on lower Donjon 
  Levels that will become much more difficult as Donjon Levels rise.
  4. Big Bad 
  The Big Bad will be the climatic encounter of the adventure. As 
  mentioned above, this will often be a powerful opponent, but could 
  be anything from a puzzle to be solved, to a curse to be lifted, to a 
  relic that must be retrieved. The Big Bad is the embodiment of the 
  adventure, and defeating it will solve the problem: if the adventure 
  goal is “stop the incursion of goblins into the town,” the Big Bad 
  would be the goblin chieftain.
  The Big Bad should be of a higher Level than the last chapter of the 
  adventure if it is an opponent. This opponent should be fully cre-
  ated before the adventure using the rules below for creating NPCs.
  5. Enticement 
  This is what the characters will get for completing the adventure. 
  This could be a promised reward, or something to be found by de-
  feating the Big Bad. This could be money, or a magic item, or 
  something more ephemeral like the respect of an entire town. This 
  could be a title, a piece of land, or a position, and can be quantified 
  in any way. (For example, the respect of an entire town could re-
  duce all Markups in the town by a die.)
  An example of a sketched-out adventure:
  Goal: steal the Heart of Nok from a temple full of evil dead 
  Environment: a submerged temple in the middle of a dark swamp 
  
  46
  Chapters:
  Chapter 1: Through the swamp (Level 
  5) - A dark, wet, nasty swamp. Op-
  ponents: big-ass snakes, crocodiles, 
  carnivorous fish, and a swamp hag. 
  Chapter 2: Into the temple (Level 6) - 
  The above-ground level of the temple. 
  Opponents: undead crocodiles, wet 
  zombie hordes, and nasty oozes. 
  Chapter 3: Down in the temple (Level 
  8) - The first level below ground, this 
  place is wet, drippy, and dank. Oppo-
  nents: horrible swampy demons, brutal 
  zombies (including undead swamp 
  animals), crazed cultists, some dead 
  and some alive. 
  Chapter 4: The temple's heart (Level 
  10) - A smaller level further below, 
  the very center of evil. Opponents: the 
  priests of Nok, and the Big Bad, their 
  undead archbishop. 
  Big Bad: The Archbishop of Nok, 
  an undead nightmare of a man, powerful in sorcery. The Heart of Nok 
  is in his chest, and sustains his undeath. (Level 12) He will have a 
  number of Priests of Nok equaling the number of the player characters 
  with him (Level 10). 
  Enticement: The Temple of Celestia will reward the characters with 
  powerful blessed items for stealing the Heart of Nok and returning it to 
  them to destroy. (Alternately, there's plenty of evil cultists in the world 
  that would pay fortunes for the Heart.)
  Into the Deeps!
  Once you've gotten your players out of town, the game will shift 
  into dungeon-crawling mode. In this section of the adventure, the 
  game should move from strict DM control to more player control. 
  As the DM, your job is to set goals and plan encounters, but the 
  players will tend to narrate the flow of other events heavily.
  Chapters
  For each chapter, you should have several scenes pre-made, ready 
  to use. Using the example of “stealing the Heart of Nok” above, 
  here's a few scenes for the first chapter of the adventure:
  The characters run across a deep muddy current about 20 feet deep and 
  50 feet across. The water is filled with carnivorous fish and water 
  snakes, but there is a rotting tree that has fallen across the water, provid-
  ing a rough bridge. Crossing the log requires an Adroitness Test versus 
  Medium difficulty. The log is very slippery, though, so the characters get a 
  penalty to their roll equal to the Damage Rating of any armor they are 
  wearing. The log is also quite rotten - if more than one character gets on 
  the log at one time, roll a Test in reverse. The GM rolls the characters’ 
  combined Wherewithal and the characters roll six dice. If the GM gets 
  any successes, the log breaks; with no successes, it merely begins to crack. 
  The characters find an old hut in the swamp. If they enter it, a wizened 
  swamp hag (Level 6) will attack them, using magic to animate vines to 
  shoot through the windows and grab them (treat as Level 4 creatures). 
  Another adventurer is near his end on a patch of land. He's on the 
  ground and has only one Flesh Wound left, and is surrounded by Level 
  5 crocodiles - twice as many as there are party members. Do the charac-
  ters try to save him or not? 
  
  47
  An example of working players’ facts into an encounter.
  Robin: (trying to move on to chapter 2 of the adventure early) Roland’s 
  looking around for a secret door. 
  As the characters move 
  through the adventure, 
  the players will be making 
  up their own encounters. 
  Make sure to improvise 
  new scenes from the facts 
  the players state. Howev-
  er, a set of five to ten 
  scenes written up will fo-
  cus the adventure. As the 
  GM, use the players’ facts 
  to work your way to these 
  pre-written scenes. (It’s 
  easier than it sounds. I 
  invented this method for 
  creating Donjon adventures 
  while running them. It 
  became simple to work 
  my own encounters into 
  the adventure. In addition, 
  sometimes the players run 
  out of ideas. You have to 
  be ready to use your own, 
  or the adventure will slow 
  down unnecessarily.)
  For each chapter, you will 
  want to decide on a num-
  ber of scenes the charac-
  ters must move through 
  before moving to the next chapter. While the players may try to 
  state facts to move to the next chapter, you’ll need to work in en-
  counters to keep them in place until you are ready to move on.
  
  48
  GM: In the middle of the swamp? 
  Robin: Well, the temple door might be hidden in the ground or under 
  moss or something. 
  GM: Well, ok. 
  Robin: I got 2 successes. I'm using them both for facts: 
  - Roland finds a slab of marble in the ground. 
  - It has ancient runes of Nok on it. 
  GM: Alright. He finds this slab of marble with runes in it. Do you 
  want him to try to move it aside? 
  Robin: Yep. 
  GM: It moves easily, and you see a hole underneath filled with water. A 
  skull bobs to the top. (Nikola, the GM, starts a pre-planned scene 
  here.)
  There will be times where this might be hard to do - keeping char-
  acters in one chapter. Part of this is just the contract between the 
  GM and players - that they’re all dedicated to maximizing 
  everyone’s fun - but the other part of it is that it actually is a contest 
  for the GM to keep the players where he wants them. The players 
  have the power to manipulate stuff, so she has to stay on her guard. 
  Monsters and NPCs
  While the characters, by the players’ own design, may encounter all 
  sorts of friendly and not-so-friendly NPCs during an adventure, it is 
  wise to have the most common NPCs made up before-hand. As 
  you create more NPCs, you’ll build a library of friends and oppo-
  nents that your players’ characters can encounter. The process to 
  create NPCs is designed to be easy, so you can make new ones on 
  the fly if need be.
  Unlike some role-playing games, monsters - that is, very unfriendly 
  and often stupid NPCs - of the same type are not always of the 
  same Level. It is easy to create a monster of a certain Level, and 
  scale that monster for new adventures. If you are creating a com-
  monly-found monster, you should create the a monster of the low-
  est Level that it is normally found at, and then file it away to scale 
  up for later adventures.
  To create an NPC, use the following steps:
  First, decide on its Level. NPCs in a chapter of the adventure may 
  be one Level above or below the Donjon Level of the chapter. As a 
  rule of thumb, opponents - NPCs that the characters will fight - of 
  one Level below the Donjon Level come in groups anywhere from 
  the number of player characters up to three times the number of 
  player characters. Opponents of the same Level usually come in 
  groups ranging from half the number of PCs up to twice the num-
  ber of PCs, and opponents of a Level above the Donjon Level 
  come in groups ranging from one up to the number of PCs.
  After deciding on the Level of the NPC, create its Attributes. Dis-
  tribute 18 points, plus one for every three levels of the opponent, 
  among the six Attributes. Monsters can have Attributes of zero if 
  they have no capability with an Attribute. (No monster can have a 
  Wherewithal of zero, however.)
  Create five Abilities for the NPC. If you become stymied thinking 
  of Abilities, add seemingly non-useful Abilities (Carpentry, or Racial 
  Lore, for example.) The point is to come up with these quickly, and 
  Abilities that were previously thought of as useless sometimes cre-
  ate fun stories of their own. Distribute 15 + (5 x NPC’s Level) dice 
  between these Abilities, and the NPC’s Saving Throws and Flesh 
  Wounds. Remember that Abilities, Saving Throws, and Flesh 
  Wounds may not be higher than the NPC’s Level + 3.
  
  49
  Make a description 
  for the NPC, and 
  you should be done.
  An example monster 
  for the above exam-
  ple adventure:
  Name: Undead 
  Crocodile
  Level: 6
  Attributes:
  Virility 7
  Cerebrality 1
  Discernment 2
  Adroitness 3
  Wherewithal 6
  Sociality 1
  Save vs. Illusion and Confusion: 2
  Save vs. Poison, Paralysis, and Transmogrification: 6
  Flesh Wounds: 9
  Abilities:
  Bite Through Anything (add to Damage Tests): 8
  Chomp on Prey: 5
  Swim in Lakes and Swamps: 6
  Move Quietly in Water: 6
  Undead Flesh (resist damage from non-magic weapons): 3
  (This monster is made to maximize its damage. It only has 8 dice to 
  attack - not a lot for a Level 6 monster - but if it lands a hit, it’s rolling 
  GM Tip: Monsters and special abilities
  NPC’s, monsters especially, may have special abilities that you want to 
  use. This is often the case when importing monsters from another 
  fantasy role-playing game. Do not underestimate the flexibility of the 
  Ability system. If you have a creature you want to import from an-
  other game that has, for example, immunity to non-magic weapons, 
  this can be easily made into a Supporting Ability, as it is specific to 
  one type of damage. Make a “Resistant to Non-Magic Weapons” 
  Ability, and add dice into it. Note that the creature is not actually im-
  mune to damage from non-magic weapons now, but has an Ability 
  that it can use in Damage Tests against all non-magic weapons. This is 
  not a flaw, but part of the Donjon design philosophy.
  On the other hand, a monster may have a special weakness that you 
  wish to incorporate. If a creature has an Ability that works under all 
  but very specific circumstances, you may add a weakness to it. When 
  this weakness is used in the game, the creature cannot use its Ability. 
  If you add a weakness to a creature’s Ability, add one die to the 
  Ability’s score. A creature cannot have more than two weaknesses at-
  tached to an Ability - the Ability should be rewritten if it is weakened 
  by so many things.
  When making a troll - with regenerative powers, as seen in other fan-
  tasy role-playing games - you might assign it the Main Ability 
  “Regenerate from Anything” as an Ability it can add in all Damage 
  Tests. However, if you wanted it to not be able to regenerate from 
  fire, you could add one die to its Main Ability and write it as 
  “Regenerate from Anything (except Fire).”
  Players may actually introduce weaknesses to monsters when fighting 
  them. If so, it’s easy to add the weakness right then, and increase the 
  monster’s Ability by one.
  15 dice, plus bonus dice from its successes to hit, in the Damage Test. 
  Thoroughly nasty.)
  
  50
  Experience
  Once the characters have overcome an encounter, there's two 
  things on the players’ minds: experience and treasure.
  Experience can come from three sources in Donjon: winning com-
  bat, goal awards, and entertaining everyone. The first method, win-
  ning combat, is familiar to anyone who has played a fantasy 
  role-playing game before. After an encounter involving combat is 
  over, the GM should total the Levels of every opponent the charac-
  ters overcame. This does not necessarily mean that they killed or 
  knocked out the opponents, although it normally does. If they used 
  strategy to get rid of the opponents, they can be considered to have 
  overcome the opponents. If the opponents run away to fight an-
  other day, though - no experience for the characters. 
  Take this total and divide it by the number of characters in the par-
  ty, rounding like normal people with an elementary school educa-
  tion are taught to round numbers. (I don’t understand why 
  role-playing games have this fetish with telling you how to round 
  numbers. It’s as if every role-playing game designer, by weird 
  chance, hates his third grade teacher, and so decides to buck the 
  system by saying “round down,” or “round up,” or “round sideways 
  on Thursday.” Round like you’re supposed to, and if you don’t 
  know how, seek some adult education. Stay in school. Don’t do 
  drugs. Drink milk.) Give this many experience points to each player.
  Goal awards are given when the players achieve a goal that does not 
  involve combat. This might be finding a hidden entrance to a tem-
  ple, getting a relic they're searching for, or overcoming an obstacle. 
  For each goal award, set the difficulty of the goal to achieve. (This is 
  normally the exact same as the difficulty for whatever the player had 
  to roll against - if the character has to cross a river, and swimming 
  across it is an Medium task, then the goal difficulty would be Medi-
  um.) When the characters complete the goal, give each player a 
  number of experience points equal to the Donjon Level, modified 
  by the difficulty of the task. (This is the same as the number of dice 
  a GM rolls for an uncontested task - 0 for Easy, 3 for Medium, 6 
  for Hard, 9 for Very Hard, and 12 for Crazy.)
  In any and all actions, the GM may allocate one to three experience 
  points to a player for entertaining everyone. If the player phrases an 
  action, inside combat or out, in a manner that evokes emotional 
  response among the GM and other players, be it laughter, tears, 
  mirth, pithiness, nausea, or otherwise, the GM may give that player 
  experience points relative to the amount of response. In other 
  words, if a player makes the GM chuckle, he gets an extra experi-
  ence point. If he makes the GM shed a tear and call his mom after 
  the game, he gets two. If he makes the GM beat his chest and bel-
  low, cursing God, he gets three.
  Treasure
  Treasure in Donjon comes in two forms: treasure looted from oppo-
  nents and treasure caches.
  When a combat is over, all opponents that are knocked out or dead 
  can be looted. The players must decide which character gets to loot 
  each body. The player who rolls decides whether he is looking for 
  money or items. If he is looking for money, he rolls the opponent’s 
  Level in a Test against his own current Wealth. (Note the reversal - 
  we are looking for successes in the roll representing the opponent’s 
  Level.) Any successes are added to the character’s Wealth score. If 
  there are no successes, the money found was not sufficient to raise 
  the character’s Wealth.
  If the player is looking for items, he must decide exactly what he 
  wants his character to find. In most role-playing games, the GM 
  would tell the players what is on the opponent’s body, or would roll 
  randomly. In Donjon, the player decides what he wants his character 
  
  51
  Robin wants a new broadsword for his character, Roland. The party has 
  killed a level 8 Undead Orc Chieftain. He decides Roland's looking for 
  a broadsword with Magic Abilities of Attack 2 and Defend 1. (The 
  broadsword has a mundane Damage Rating of 3.) The total Worth of 
  to find and then rolls to see if the 
  item was there. The higher the 
  Worth of an item, the less of a 
  chance that the item will be found. 
  Items have a Worth as noted in 
  Chapter 3: Money and Goods, and 
  again in Chapter 6: Magic. Normal-
  ly, when a player has his character 
  loot a body for items, he’s looking 
  for a magic item, although he can 
  look for a mundane item. 
  A few examples:
  A potion of Leaping 5 (Total Worth 
  5)
  A magic dagger that glows in the dark 
  - Attack 2 (Worth +4), Make Light 
  3 (Worth +6), Damage Rating 1 
  (Total Worth 11)
  A wand that shoots flame from it - 
  Burn with Flame 5 (Total Worth 10)
  Fish-scale armor that helps you swim - 
  Swim like a Fish 4 (Worth +8), 
  Breathe Underwater 3 (Worth +6), 
  Damage Rating 3 (Total Worth 17) 
  The player rolls the opponent’s 
  Level in a Test against the item’s 
  Worth. If successful, the character gets the item; if unsuccessful, 
  nothing was found on the body. Successes for the player or GM in 
  this Test cannot be used per the Law of Successes.
  
  52
  the sword is (2 x 2) + (1 x 2) + 3 = 9. Robin rolls eight dice for the 
  Orc’s Level, while the GM rolls nine dice for the item’s Worth. Robin 
  ends up with two successes, and Roland finds the item.
  Treasure caches use all the rules above, and are treasures that the 
  party happens to find adventuring. The GM sets the Level of the 
  cache. However, each character gets a chance to search through a 
  treasure cache once, 
  with all players rolling 
  the same Level.
  Players should remem-
  ber that they can add 
  curse dice to an item in 
  order to lower its 
  Worth, and increase 
  their chances of finding 
  it. For each curse die 
  you give an item, the 
  GM gives it one penalty 
  die when doing some 
  activity. The GM does 
  not have to let you 
  know what the curse is 
  until it takes effect.
  Climax
  Potential Donjon GM’s 
  may be scratching their 
  head by this point. “So, 
  my players can make 
  their own encounters, 
  establish weaknesses for 
  monsters, and find 
  whatever treasure they want. How in the world do I get them to the 
  end of an adventure?” The answer is, “You don’t.” Rather, you and 
  your players work together to get them to the end of the adventure. 
  They will know from their adventure hook what they are looking 
  for. They will create the path by which they find it. When you reach 
  a point in the adventure where they have chewed up all the encoun-
  ters you planned for them, and they have enough clues to find the 
  Big Bad, set them at it.
  If the climatic encounter of an adventure is a fight with an oppo-
  nent, feel free to make this opponent of any Level. It is not recom-
  mended, however, that you make the opponent of a level higher 
  than the last chapter’s Donjon Level + 3. If you examine the math 
  behind resolution in this game, you will find that characters will 
  have an extremely hard time fighting an opponent three or more 
  levels above them - even a large party will have little hope. It is a 
  good idea, in order to make the scene climatic, but not intensely 
  deadly, to use one really Big Bad Guy, and then have his henchmen 
  or retainers, opponents of roughly the same level as the party. Cre-
  ate the Big Bad Guy as you would create any other NPC.
  If you want the players to defeat the Big Bad Guy outright, then use 
  all rules for other NPCs. If, on the other hand, you want to give the 
  Big Bad a chance to escape and be a reoccurring villain, treat him as 
  a PC in regards to damage. (PCs must be knocked to zero Flesh 
  Wounds and slammed in order to be knocked out.) If you decide to 
  treat the Big Bad like a PC, it’s often not a good idea to tell the play-
  ers. If you have him fall to his death, or be blasted by electrical 
  bolts, or whatever, they’ll think he’s dead - which makes it all the 
  more fun when he shows back up. Definitely give the players full 
  experience for thwarting a Big Bad, even if you plan on re-using 
  him.
  GM Tip: Pre-defined treasure
  One might ask (if one were prone to ask-
  ing all sorts of questions) when a player 
  pulls a Sword of Killing Little Elf-People 
  off of an opponent, “Why wasn’t he using 
  that the whole time?”
  Unfortunately for the GM, Donjon at least 
  attempts to balance the power between 
  the GM and player. You can give your 
  NPCs equipment and allow them to use it 
  in combat. However, that means the play-
  ers will be able to get their grubby little 
  hands on it afterwards. It does give you 
  the satisfaction that you made up the 
  equipment, however.
  There is one nasty caveat to giving your 
  NPCs equipment: if the total Worth of a 
  NPC’s equipment is not equal to or 
  greater than his Level, the player charac-
  ters still get to loot the body for player-
  created equipment on top of the pre-de-
  fined equipment the NPC had. The mor-
  al: as long as you’re giving the Orc 
  Chieftain a magic axe, you might as well 
  make it a bad-ass one.
  
  53
  Back to Town
  After the Big Bad is defeated, the players 
  will probably want to get back to town as 
  soon as possible in order to cash in their 
  experience and perhaps go up a Level. The 
  method by which they get back to town is 
  up to the GM - she may require them to 
  explore the entire way out and back to 
  town, she may make it a quick part of the 
  adventure with minimal encounters, or she 
  may just frame into Town with the next 
  scene, assuming they made it back fine.
  The recommended method is to make the 
  travel back quick with no encounters of 
  any importance. One random encounter 
  per chapter of the adventure is probably 
  enough, and makes sure the players don’t 
  wear their characters to the bone before 
  deciding to leave the donjon, but doesn’t 
  get in the way too much.
  Advancement
  Once back in town, the players add up all 
  the experience they’ve gained to see if 
  their characters can go up a Level. The 
  amount of experience needed to attain a 
  level is shown in Table 7-1: Experience 
  Chart. 
  Upon reaching a new Level, a character 
  receives five Leveling Dice. These dice can 
  be applied to any Ability or Saving Throw, 
  Table 7-1: Experience Chart
  Level
  Exp.
  New character qualities
  1
  0
  2
  30
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  3
  90
  +1 to any Attribute score or a new Supporting Ability
  4
  180
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  5
  300
  6
  450
  +1 possession or Magic Word, +1 to any Attribute score or a new Supporting Ability
  7
  630
  8
  840
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  9
  1080
  +1 to any Attribute score or a new Supporting Ability
  10
  1350
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  11
  1650
  12
  1980
  +1 possession or Magic Word, +1 to any Attribute score or a new Supporting Ability
  13
  2340
  14
  2730
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  15
  3150
  +1 to any Attribute score or a new Supporting Ability
  16
  3600
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  17
  4080
  18
  4590
  +1 possession or Magic Word, +1 to any Attribute score or a new Supporting Ability
  19
  5130
  20
  5700
  +1 possession or Magic Word
  
  54
  Dial: Advancement
  You’ll notice that the advancement 
  chart is built on a base of 30 points. 
  In order to gain a Level, a character 
  must have a number of experience 
  points using the following formula:
  If the character’s current Level is n, 
  he needs (n x 30) + ((n-1) x 30) + ((n - 
  2 x 30) + ... (1 x 30) experience points 
  to get to the next level. You can use 
  this to figure out the experience 
  points needed to achieve levels be-
  yond 20.
  If characters progress too fast or too 
  slow for your tastes, you can change 
  this chart easily. Make a new rate of 
  experience (called r) equal to any 
  number between 10 (incredibly fast) 
  and 100 (very slow). The new formula 
  is:
  (n x r) + ((n - 1) x r) + ((n - 2) x r) + ... 
  (1 x r)
  or to Flesh Wounds. Remember that none of these scores may be 
  higher than the character’s new Level + 3.
  In addition, as shown on Table 7-1, a character gains a die in one 
  Attribute every third level. A player may increase one of his 
  character’s Attributes over 6 with this. Anything over six is super-
  natural, though, and will be noticable as such. It’s a good idea to 
  make the player explain, for example, why he has a Virility of 8. Al-
  ternatively, a player can add a new Supporting Ability to his charac-
  ter instead of gaining a die 
  to an Attribute. This Sup-
  porting Ability starts at a 
  score of 1, and can then be 
  increased like any other 
  Ability.
  Lastly, a character can gain 
  a new permanent posses-
  sion or Magic Word - the 
  choice is up to the player - 
  every other level. The per-
  manent possession can be a 
  slot for a weapon, armor, or 
  other item, as shown on the 
  character sheet. 
  
  55
  For this sample adventure, I’ve tried to create an environment that 
  will fit as many styles of play as possible. The humor level in this 
  adventure can be jacked way up, or the horror pushed to the fore-
  front. In doing so, I’ve created a pretty generic donjon crawling ad-
  venture, which I suggest Game Masters modify for their group. The 
  setting is very fanciful, with sentient plants, tiny rock elementals, 
  and magic gems. Further adventures will be distributed as “Donjon 
  Paks.” According to this scheme, this adventure is known as 
  “Donjon Pak A1: A Fungus Among Us.”
  Adventure synopsis
  In “A Fungus Among Us,” the adventurers find themselves in a 
  farming village called Amerla on the edge of the Crimson Forest, a 
  dark, frightening place that most people avoid. The town’s prize 
  possession, the Emerald of Cissila, has been stolen in the night, and 
  it’s up to the adventurers to retrieve it. To do so, they’ll have to find 
  their way into the forest, spelunk in a dark cavern, and go up against 
  the Mushroom King himself.
  Town
  The village of Amerla is a quaint little farming village on the river 
  Nylo, near the edge of the dreaded Crimson Forest, a wood filled 
  with red wolves and blood goblins. The village is surrounded by a 
  10-foot wooden wall, but is friendly to strangers. The gates are left 
  open during the day, but at night, the village is protected from gob-
  lin attacks by a local archers’ militia that mans the walls. The mayor 
  of the village, Grizzold, is a nature wizard who uses his powers to 
  Chapter 8
  Your First Adventure
  make sure that the village’s fields are always plentiful with crops. 
  His powers are expanded by the Emerald of Cissila, a fist-sized gem 
  that gives two extra Spell Dice when casting spells that affect plant 
  life. (Worth 10 - 4 for magic properties, and 6 for the gem itself.) 
  The gem was stolen in the night, though, and tracks lead into the 
  Crimson Forest.
  The characters can find out about the theft from most people in 
  Amerla. Planting season has just passed and now is the time when 
  the mayor’s power is most needed, so the farmers are in a panic. 
  When the characters question locals, they’ll be redirected to the 
  mayor, a kindly older man. Mayor Grizzold tells them that he found 
  spores all over the room where the Emerald was kept, leading him 
  to believe that the gem was stolen by servants of the Mushroom 
  King, a sentient fungus that lives deep within a cave in the middle 
  of the Crimson Forest. He offers to give the characters Potions of 
  Toughness 2 (adds 2 dice to all defensive Damage Tests for a 
  scene), and will have the local blacksmith and tanner make each of 
  them a weapon or piece of armor up to Damage Rating 3 if they 
  find and return the Emerald. (There’s the secondary enticement of 
  the gem itself. Evil or greedy characters may want to steal the Em-
  erald and run.) 
  One thing that the characters may notice in Amerla is other groups 
  of adventurers milling around. If you want to introduce the idea 
  that they may be racing against other adventurers in order to get to 
  the gem first, go right ahead.
  
  56
  Resources and Markups
  Weapons and Armor 3 (Markup 
  3)  - The local blacksmith and 
  tanner are a married couple, and 
  have good, well-priced goods. 
  (When I ran this adventure, I had 
  the blacksmith and tanner both 
  be male. The characters were sur-
  prised that such a small little 
  farming village was so progres-
  sive in allowing same-sex mar-
  riage.)
  Provisions 5 (Markup 2) - Only 
  a moderate amount of Provisions 
  are to be found here, but a cheap 
  prices.
  Hospitality 3 (Markup 1) - 
  There’s not a lot to do in Amerla, 
  but it’s dirt-cheap.
  Adventure chapters
  The adventure has three chap-
  ters:
  Chapter 1: Through the Crimson Forest - (Donjon Level 1) This chapter 
  takes place in a dark forest not far from the town. Light is filtered 
  through the translucent leaves of the red oak, the most common 
  tree in this forest, painting everything the color of blood, and pro-
  viding camouflage for blood goblins, the most common antagonists 
  here. Other opponents: red wolves, other adventurers.
  Chapter 2: Into the Caves - (Donjon Level 1) The characters find a 
  rock cave and enter it, looking for the Mushroom King. In this 
  damp upper level of the cave, they have to deal with the local wild-
  life and an unwanted stalker. Opponents: snakes, living ooze, poi-
  son toads, daolites, and an orc hermit.
  Chapter 3: Spores Below -(Donjon Level 2) This lower section of the 
  cave is knee-deep in water, and full of fungus. Opponents: spore-
  gobs, spraycaps, and the Mushroom King.
  
  57
  Chapter 1: Through the Crimson Forest
  This chapter may well be the first chapter ever for your players in 
  Donjon. As such, let them warm up here. Provide a good mix of 
  combat and non-combat encounters, and don’t overwhelm them in 
  combat.
  The forest is lush and full of life, and casts a red hue on everything. 
  The ground is moist, and covered in translucent red leaves. Try and 
  punctuate all the players’ actions with comments about how the for-
  est sounds (full of birds and cracking branches), smells (like mulch 
  and life, sweet and rotting), and looks (bathed in red light.)
  Encounters
  I recommend five or more encounters before the characters are able 
  to find the cave entrance. (Remember, some of these encounters 
  will be made up by the players.) I always set it on the other side of 
  the river in the swamp (see the rock formation on the map.)
  • The characters come across a hollowed-out tree. It’s of Hard 
  difficulty to climb from the outside (Medium difficulty from 
  the inside, if the players think of that), but there’s a glint of 
  treasure in a giant bird’s nest above (a Level 4 treasure cache.) 
  This encounter is good for introducing combat (a giant bird 
  attacks them in the air) or for finding the way to the cave en-
  trance by scouting from above the forest canopy (7 experience 
  points goal award for scouting from the top of the tree.)
  • Another adventurer is heard yelling in the woods. When sight-
  ed, he’s surrounded by goblins, one for each player character, 
  and appears to be heavily wounded. Do the characters save 
  him? (4 experience points goal award for saving his life.)
  • A hunter’s rope trap is in the woods. Characters should roll a 
  Discernment Test versus Medium difficulty to notice it. If 
  caught in it, it’s an Adroitness plus any weapon Ability Test 
  versus Hard difficulty to get down. If a character cuts himself 
  down, make a Damage Test (players can use their previous suc-
  cesses as bonus dice) against six dice for the fall.
  • The characters find themselves surrounded by red wolves, 
  which ambush them.
  • Other adventurers are following the party, hoping the charac-
  ters will lead them to the cave. Have a character roll a Discern-
  ment Test to notice them.
  • A tree has fallen across the Nylo River in the Crimson Forest, 
  which seems to be the only way across without swimming 
  through the fast-moving water. The tree’s slippery, though, and 
  players have to make an Adroitness Test against Easy difficulty 
  to make it across without falling off. If more than one charac-
  ter gets on the log at a time, have them roll Discernment versus 
  Medium difficulty to get off the log before it breaks. There’s 
  snakes in the river, to top things off. (This is usually the last 
  encounter I run before the next chapter. It’s very fun, in that 
  most times I’ve ended up with a fight in the river. If players fall 
  in, swimming against the current is Hard. Give everyone 4 ex-
  perience points for making it across the river.)
  
  58
  Chapter 2: Into the Cave
  The interior of the cave is warm and moist, and stinks of mold. You 
  should emphasize the darkness and the cramped-ness of the cavern: 
  feel free to impose a 2-die penalty on all character actions when in a 
  cramped spot. The darkness is a problem - one of the characters is 
  going to have to pull out a torch from his Provisions.
  Encounters
  • A group of daolites set a cave-in trap. The trap is Hard to no-
  tice, and Hard to avoid. If a character is hit, make a Damage 
  Test against 3 dice (plus bonus dice from trap successes.) Play-
  ers get 7 experience points if no one is harmed, 4 if they notice 
  the trap before it falls on them, and only 1 if they merely get 
  through it alive.
  • The characters come across a well of water full of glowing 
  spores. If anyone drinks the water, have them roll a Save vs. 
  Poison, Paralyzation, and Transmogrification at Hard difficulty. 
  (6 dice, plus 2 for the Donjon Level.) If they succeed, they heal 
  one die or Flesh Wound per success. (No Law of Successes 
  applies here.) If you succeed, they lose one Flesh Wound per 
  success.
  • An orc hermit that lives in the cave is trailing the party. He 
  hates the Mushroom King, but can’t take him on alone. If 
  never noticed, he’ll attack the party as they return from fighting 
  the Mushroom King. If noticed - well, the characters will have 
  to figure out what to do. His real motivation is just a good con-
  versation, though, which he hasn’t had in years. If any of the 
  characters talk to him like a human, he’ll respond well. Allow 
  any character that talks to him a Medium Discernment Test to 
  figure this out.(1-7 experience points depending on the out-
  come.)
  • Poison toads ambush the characters from the walls.
  • The characters come across a chasm, which is Hard to jump. If 
  they fall in, they land in water, full of glowing spores. You have 
  a few options here - have them follow the spores to the well, 
  where they can swim out. (Make a Wherewithal Test at Me-
  dium difficulty for each action to not swallow water.) They 
  could also follow the underground river out of the cave, or you 
  could have it come up behind the Mushroom King in the level 
  below. Basically, the chasm and its underground river are your 
  machine to manipulate the party however you please.
  • A small tunnel streams light through it. To crawl through, a 
  character has to make an Adroitness Test at Easy difficulty. 
  What’s on the other side is up to you - maybe they’re above 
  ground, or maybe in a hidden cavern with a treasure cache, or 
  maybe in some blood goblin cave. (1 experience point goal 
  award for going up the tunnel.)
  • Treasure (a Level 4 cache) glints from the bottom of a pit. 
  However, the pit’s also full of snakes (2 x the number of party 
  members.) (When I ran this, I had a character in the party with 
  a “Find Trapdoors” Ability. After falling in the pit, he used it, 
  and I dumped him into the next Chapter.)
  
  59
  Chapter 3: Spores Below
  This final chapter to “A Fungus Among Us” should be short and 
  sweet. Descending into the deepest part of the cave, the characters 
  find themselves knee-deep in absolutely funky water, complete with 
  floating, glowing spores in it. The walls here glow with phospho-
  resce, so there’s no need for torches. (Although they might be use-
  ful, as I mention below.) I would use a minimum of encounters on 
  this level, as the main point is to defeat the Mushroom King.
  Encounters
  • Unless one of the players manages to narrate something else, 
  or the characters entered through a backwards route into here 
  (see the chasm encounter in Chapter 2), the very first encoun-
  ter should be with some sporegobs, typically one or two less 
  than the number of PCs. The sporegobs try to run away to re-
  port to the Mushroom King. If the players defeat them all, 
  they’ll be at an advantage later. Any sporegobs who get away 
  should be added to the Mushroom King’s guard.
  • If the Mushroom King has been alerted to the character’s pres-
  ence, he uses a spell to try and kill them early. The knee-deep 
  water moves, thrashing around and creating a current that tries 
  to throw the characters to the ground (Medium Virility Test) 
  and then dash them against a wall (Damage Test against 5 dice, 
  plus successes, if the previous Test was unsuccessful.) If any 
  character is knocked down, the Mushroom King keeps this up 
  - the key is for the players to help each other, using their suc-
  cesses to add to their friends’ rolls. As soon as they all stay up, 
  the current dies down. (4 experience point goal award for com-
  ing out alive.)
  • The characters find a mushroom-tending room, and see a 
  blood goblin stuck to the floor with goop. They can release 
  him or leave him to be mushroom food.
  The Big Bad
  The Mushroom King is a bad-ass. He has some serious magic, and 
  is tended by a number of sporegobs equal to half the number of 
  PCs (remember how I feel about rounding), plus any that escaped 
  before. In addition, he has two spraycaps that flame will work very 
  well against. The Mushroom King has the Emerald of Cissila em-
  bedded in his cap-head, and is at the top of a rocky incline that 
  takes an Easy Adroitness Test to get up in one action in the heat of 
  combat.
  If the Mushroom King is defeated, his sporegobs run, although the 
  spraycaps are immobile and will continue to spray fumes out.
  Going back to Town
  I don’t recommend too many encounters on the way home from 
  this adventure. The only important one is the Orc Hermit. If the 
  characters never noticed him, he’ll be waiting for them in the level 
  above. Even if they met, if he’s alive, he may try to attack the char-
  acters if he thinks he can get away 
  with it. 
  
  60
  Blood Goblin
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 4
  Discernment 3
  Adroitness 4
  Wherewithal 2
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 3
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and 
  Transmogrification 3
  Flesh Wounds 2
  Abilities
  Hunt 2
  Hide on Red Background 3
  Wicked Bite (adds to Damage Tests) 3
  Dodge in Combat 2
  Hear Noise 2
  Notes
  Blood Goblins are nasty little savages. They subsist on the blood of animals - 
  including humans - and have a wicked set of jagged teeth that allow for rip-
  ping and tearing of flesh. They tend to travel in packs, and rarely leave the 
  Crimson Forest’s natural camouflage. Their homes are built of fallen limbs 
  and leaves, normally covering a small hole in the ground. They are cowards, 
  and flee when outnumbered two-to-one.
  Human, Fighter
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 4
  Cerebrality 2
  Discernment 2
  Adroitness 3
  Wherewithal 4
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 2
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and 
  Transmogrification 3
  Flesh Wounds 3
  Abilities
  Beat People 3
  Run and Charge 2
  Knock Down Doors 3
  Intimidate through Muscles 2
  Take Damage in Combat 2
  Equipment
  Chain shirt (DR 2)
  Broadsword (DR 3)
  Notes
  These are your standard adventurer types, not that smart, and ready to kill 
  anything that moves for money and goods.
  
  61
  Human, Wizard
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 1
  Cerebrality 5
  Discernment 4
  Adroitness 2
  Wherewithal 3
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 3
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification 
  2
  Flesh Wounds 2
  Abilities
  Cast Spells 4
  Dodge in Combat 3
  Lie 3
  Avoid Damage from Magic 1
  Speak Elvish 2
  Equipment
  Dagger (DR 1)
  Potion of Speed (+2 to Adroitness for one scene)
  Magic Words
  fire, blind, heal, rat
  Notes
  These are your standard wizard types, scheming for power, and ready to hide 
  behind anyone long enough to stab them in the back.
  Human, Thief
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 3
  Discernment 3
  Adroitness 5
  Wherewithal 2
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 2
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrifi-
  cation 2
  Flesh Wounds 2
  Abilities
  Sneak 4
  Knife ‘Em in the Ribs 3
  Backstab (adds to damage when attacking from behind) 2
  Pick Pockets 3
  Hear Noise 2
  Equipment
  Short sword (DR 2)
  Shield (DR 1)
  Notes
  These are your standard thief types. Don’t turn your back on them, or they’ll 
  jam a sharp point between your ribs and strip your body before you can blink.
  
  62
  Snake
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 5
  Discernment 4
  Adroitness 4
  Wherewithal 2
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 4
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and 
  Transmogrification 2
  Flesh Wounds 2
  Abilities
  Bite 3
  Poison Prey 4
  Dodge in Combat 2
  Hide under Rocks 2
  Run Away 2
  Notes
  The Snake’s “Poison Prey” Ability adds to Damage Tests: however, the recip-
  ient gets to add his Saving Throw vs. Poison in the Damage Test, as well.
  Snakes always damage Adroitness and Discernment first because of their poi-
  son.
  Poison Toad
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 2
  Discernment 4
  Adroitness 6
  Wherewithal 3
  Sociality 1
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 1
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification 4
  Flesh Wounds 1
  Abilities
  Corrosive Poison (adds to bite or spit Damage Tests) 3
  Aim Spit 2
  Jump 3
  Stick to Walls 3
  Annoy with ‘Hrrmph’ Sound 3
  Notes
  Nobody likes a Poison Toad. They stick to everything, and have corrosive 
  saliva which hurts like hell, and can eat through wood, leather, metal, rock, 
  and anything else. In combat, the GM should use all of their abilities, with the 
  first action being a jump, the second sticking to a wall (rolling the successes 
  from the jump over), and the third being a leaping attack (with even more 
  successes rolled over.) Of course, they can just spit, too. Their sticking to 
  walls Ability is quite useful for ambushes, as well.
  
  63
  Daolites
  Level 2
  Attributes
  Virility 5
  Cerebrality 2
  Discernment 2
  Adroitness 2
  Wherewithal 6
  Sociality 1
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 1
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification 5
  Flesh Wounds 5
  Abilities
  Absorb Damage (except from air magic) 4
  Merge with Rock 3
  Paralyze with Touch 3
  Knock Down 2
  Stomp 3
  Notes
  Daolites are tiny (about 1-2 feet tall) earth elementals, or genies. They tend to 
  stay merged with local rocks, but when angered, they pop out to attack. Their 
  Abilities are a little odd when using them: “Paralyze with Touch” requires a 
  successful attack. Roll Cerebrality, plus the Ability, plus any bonus dice from 
  the attack against the opponent’s Wherewithal, plus Save vs. Poison, Paralysis 
  and Transmogrification. Success means the opponent is frozen for x actions, 
  where x equals your number of successes. “Knock Down” and “Stomp” are 
  attack and damage abilities, respectively.
  Red Wolf
  Level 2
  Attributes
  Virility 3
  Cerebrality 1
  Discernment 4
  Adroitness 3
  Wherewithal 3
  Sociality 4
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 2
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification 3
  Flesh Wounds 2
  Abilities
  Track Blood 4
  Hide on Red Background 3
  Tooth and Claw (attack) 4
  Howl 4
  Pack Attack 3
  Notes
  Red Wolves are one of the most common threats in the Crimson Forest. 
  Their combination of Abilities makes them frightening opponents. “Track 
  Blood” can be used to track any injured character, and can be used in a test of 
  Discernment plus “Track Blood” against Discernment plus a perception-
  based Ability to add bonus dice to an Initiative Test.
  “Howl” can be used to intimidate anyone, giving them penalties to their next 
  roll, and “Pack Attack” adds to damage whenever more than one Red Wolf is 
  attacking an opponent.
  
  64
  Living Ooze
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 0 
  Discernment 3
  Adroitness 2
  Wherewithal 6
  Sociality 0
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 4
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Trans-
  mogrification 1
  Flesh Wounds 3
  Abilities
  Acid Burn 4
  Take Damage from Cutting Weapons 3
  Look Like Slime 1
  Destroy Items 2
  Ooze Along 1
  Notes
  Living Ooze is theorized by many alchemists to be the building blocks of 
  modern life. It displays little intelligence, but has all the requisites of a living 
  being. It secretes a burning acid that can eat through almost anything. The 
  “Destroy Items” Ability can be used in Damage Tests, but the GM can only 
  use the successes to destroy a character’s equipment if used.
  Orc Hermit
  Level 3
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 3
  Discernment 6
  Adroitness 2
  Wherewithal 4
  Sociality 2
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 3
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrifica-
  tion 3
  Flesh Wounds 5
  Abilities
  Kill 6
  Hide in Shadows 3
  Dodge in Combat 2
  Intimidate 3
  Ruminate 5
  Notes
  Grakvar, the Orc Hermit, has been hiding in these caves for years after a 
  blood goblin attack wounded his leg, leaving him with a permanent limp. 
  He’d kill the Mushroom King if he could, but doesn’t think he’s powerful 
  enough to.
  More than anything, he’s lonely, although he acts that out in anger most of 
  the time.
  
  65
  Sporegobs
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 4
  Cerebrality 2
  Discernment 2
  Adroitness 3
  Wherewithal 5
  Sociality 2
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 2
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification 2
  Flesh Wounds 3
  Abilities
  Eat and Heal 3
  Punch 3
  Fungal Blast (adds to Damage Tests) 3
  Take Non-Cutting Damage 2
  Run 2
  Notes
  Sporegobs are anthropomorphic fungi about 4 feet in height. Their punches 
  release a choking blast of spores.
  To use the “Eat and Heal” Ability, they must bite an opponent (with no perti-
  nent Ability to bite.) The GM can then add Eat and Heal to the Damage Test. 
  For every point of damage they do with a Damage Test, they heal one Flesh 
  Wound. Their Flesh Wounds cannot exceed their maximum Flesh Wounds, 
  however.
  Snake, Big
  Level 2
  Attributes
  Virility 2
  Cerebrality 4
  Discernment 3
  Adroitness 4
  Wherewithal 2
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 5
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Trans-
  mogrification 2
  Flesh Wounds 3
  Abilities
  Hypnotize 5
  Bite 4
  Sharp Fangs 2
  Recoil Away from Blows 2
  Swim 2
  Notes
  Big Snakes range from about 6 up to 10 feet in length, and are intensely 
  smart. They often hypnotize foes (Cerebrality, plus Ability test versus Dis-
  cernment plus Save vs. Illusion and Confusion) before biting into them.
  
  66
  Spraycaps
  Level 1
  Attributes
  Virility 4
  Cerebrality 1
  Discernment 1
  Adroitness 0 (cannot move - all dice when 
  attacking with a cutting weapon are suc-
  cesses)
  Wherewithal 5
  Sociality 0
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 1
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and Transmogrification 1
  Flesh Wounds 3
  Abilities
  Fungal Bloom 4
  Take Non-Cutting Damage 3
  Retailatory Damage 3
  Notes
  Sporecaps are nothing more than big mushrooms. On each action, they re-
  lease a cloud of spores which chokes all non-fungi within one action of them. 
  (Fungal Bloom to hit, Virility in Damage Test.) This cloud is highly flamma-
  ble, though, and if any target has an open flame, all creatures, including the 
  Sporecap, within one action take damage as the cloud bursts into flame. If hit 
  themselves, they do spray out more spores at their attacker. The GM rolls 
  Retaliatory Damage, plus the amount of Damage the Spraycap took in a 
  Damage Test against the opponent.
  Mushroom King
  Level 4
  Attributes
  Virility 3
  Cerebrality 4
  Discernment 3
  Adroitness 2
  Wherewithal 4
  Sociality 3
  Saving Throws
  Vs. Illusion and Confusion 3
  Vs. Poison, Polymorph, and 
  Transmogrification 4
  Flesh Wounds 6
  Abilities
  Be Worshipped 6
  Fungal Blast (ranged attack) 4
  Powerful Spores (damage) 3
  Mushroom Magic 5
  Absorb Non-cutting Damage 4
  Magic Words
  grow, stench
  Notes
  The Mushroom King can add bonus dice to any of his subjects’ actions by 
  commanding them, and rolling Sociality, plus Be Worshipped against their 
  level. Add successes to the subject’s next action as bonus dice.
  
  67
  Appendixes
  These appendixes aren’t here just to fill pages, really. I was going to 
  charge you the same amount for this game with or without them. 
  The first appendix, “How to Make Your Own Role-Playing Game 
  (Cheap)” was originally published on The Forge (http://www.indie-
  rpgs.com) as “The Indie Publishing Primer; or, Making a (Web-
  Based) Game on Less than $100.” I’ve upped the amount from 
  $100, done some more research, and applied it to hard copy books 
  as well, so check it out even if you’ve read the original article. I’m 
  not going to tell you how to design a game, but I’ll tell you how to 
  get it printed.
  The second one, “Things I Like,” is just that - a list of games, web 
  sites, and other stuff you should take a look at. There’s a lot of neat 
  self-published games out there, many of which are even better than 
  Donjon, if you can believe it.
  How to Make Your Own Role-Playing 
  Game (Cheap)
  I've spent too much money on “justifiable” expenses for working 
  on games. I’ve bought art for $100; I’ve gone to CompUSA and 
  bought Adobe Acrobat; and I should have paid an incredible 
  amount on Adobe Pagemaker, Photoshop, and Microsoft Word. 
  (Luckily, I have a CD-R and flexible morals, but both of those 
  come with a cost, too.)
  And I’ve just made, at this point, enough to cover the costs. 
  (Hopefully, Donjon will change that.)
  How do you avoid this? How can you put a game online and make 
  some money without spending everything from your day job? 
  There’s a hundred options, but here's the ones I’ve found from my 
  research.
  Writing and Layout
  There's absolutely no need to have a $100 word processor, or worse 
  yet, an expensive desktop publishing program for a good game. For 
  those used to Microsoft Word, there's free software online that's 
  completely compatible and easy to use. OpenOffice (http://
  www.openoffice.org) is an office suite available for download, in-
  corporating nearly every feature found in Microsoft Office, with file 
  filters for compatibility, in case you need to exchange information 
  with other people working with you on your game. (OpenOffice is 
  available for Windows, Linux, and Solaris.)
  AbiWord (http://www.abiword.com) is another option, a free word 
  processor developed by the open-source community available for 
  Windows, Unix, Linux, and BeOS. AbiWord doesn’t have all the 
  features of Microsoft Word, but its simplicity may appeal to many 
  who tire from StarOffice's cluttered interface. (It's my word proces-
  sor of choice.)
  A last option is Gobe Productive (http://www.gobe.com), which 
  costs $75 for Windows. However, it integrates a complete office 
  suite into the software, allowing you to do word processing, illustra-
  tion, art touch-up, and simple layout all with the same program. (It 
  
  68
  also does spreadsheets - good for keeping track of how much you’re 
  spending on publishing your game.)
  Word processors are not necessary to publish a game, though: the 
  HTML format may fit the needs of many game authors. While it 
  may take a while to learn HTML, it is relatively easy, and allows for 
  freedom of layout. HTML may be written and edited in anything 
  from a text editor to advanced text-based editors such as Arachno-
  philia, 1st Page, Coffee Cup HTML Editor, to WYSIWYG editors 
  such as FrontPage Express (free from Microsoft) or Netscape 
  Composer (free with Netscape). All of the above editors can be 
  found with a search on Google (http://www.google.com).
  No matter what you choose to use, layout can be relatively complex 
  in HTML, with horizontal lines, nested tables to make columns and 
  boxes, included art, and more. HTML primers are a-plenty online, 
  with Webmonkey (http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/) being 
  one of the most well-known and respected, and W3Schools (http://
  www.w3schools.com) having the best I’ve seen. If you have to pick 
  up a book, I’d recommend HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide 
  by O’Reilly and Associates. It's pricey at $35, but is as cheap as com-
  puter books get these days, and is well worth it. You may well be 
  able to find an older edition (it's the fourth) at a used bookstore 
  cheaply. (I still use my first edition copy I bought for 23,000 won - 
  $11 at the time - from an underground bookstore in Seoul, Korea.)
  Art
  Art can be the most expensive part of your project, and often is for 
  big-press projects. For the independent author, though, there are 
  options. First - and I can't stress this enough - scam it from your 
  friends. There’s not a single person gaming today who doesn't have 
  that friend that draws like a professional and works at, usually, 
  Quick-E-Mart. You’re not cheating them - give them credit in your 
  work. If it does well, then they have a credential to show to other 
  companies, and if it does really well, companies may be calling 
  them. Almost every artist I know has been more than happy to do-
  nate art, and most of its been of higher quality than normal RPG 
  art. Drew Baker, who I've never met, gave me free art whenever I 
  asked for my incredibly short-lived online magazine, RPGevolution. 
  One day, walking through my local game store, I notice a cover 
  with a familiar style and open it up - it's Drew Baker. Promotion is 
  an amazing tool - which we’ll cover more on later - and should be 
  used and freely given by all independent artists.
  Even better is finding an artist to work with that actually is inter-
  ested in your game. The best example I can think of is John Wick 
  and Thomas Denmark. I can't imagine Orkworld without Thomas 
  Denmark, actually. While the majority of the text is written by John, 
  the game is an obvious joint effort and it shows in its quality. The 
  breadth and consistency of work Thomas brought to the game was 
  incredible, and moreso, it was personal. The love in Thomas’ art 
  was readily apparent, and by finding a collaborator with an artistic 
  streak, you can bring that sort of consistency, and hopefully, that 
  sort of enthusiasm to your work.
  Your other free option is web-based clip art. This can be extremely 
  spotty. Much of the clip art out there is garbage, but you can find 
  the occasional rare quality piece, especially - for some reason - in 
  medieval woodcuts. clipart.com and The Open Directory (http://
  www.dmoz.org) section on clip art are good places to start for free 
  clip art.
  On the paying side of clip art, I've never been disappointed at Art-
  Today (http://www.arttoday.com), a subscription service with over 
  1,900,000 clip art images, plus photographs and fonts (great for 
  making headers and the like).
  
  69
  The site, notably used by Grey Ghost Games for the Fudge RPG, 
  charges for the work of compiling and sorting out these public do-
  main images at the rate of $7.95 for one week, or $49.95 for 3 
  months, with rates going down per week after that. This ranges into 
  the expensive, but the fact that they offer one-week subscriptions 
  does help. By making a good list of images you’re looking for, you 
  could feasibly buy only a week’s worth of time and get everything 
  you need. In addition, buying an account with a few friends or other 
  game designers may be a good idea. As the images are public do-
  main, there’s no copyright laws being broken by sharing access. 
  (Note: the site does not smile on this idea. It may be a good idea for 
  one person to have an account and look for images for you. Multi-
  ple logins from different IP addresses all at the same time is not the 
  best thought. And the site’s run by good people, so try to obey their 
  rules.)
  Lastly, do think about paying for some art. Most artists will be will-
  ing to work with you, especially when you’re making a game for 
  such little profit. Look around on the web and find some artists that 
  you like and give them an offer. I got the idea long ago from Ron 
  Edwards (http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com) to basically lease art from 
  artists - I pay for the rights to use their art in one game, and they 
  retain all other rights. They can even sell the art again. By making a 
  deal like this, an artist might be willing to come down on his price.
  Layout
  Layout is where the money usually flies out of your wallet. Adobe 
  Pagemaker, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign, the big three lay-
  out programs, are hundreds of dollars each. If you want to offer 
  your game as anything but a web page, you’ll need to do some lay-
  out, though.
  Your first option is using the tools at your command. If you’re us-
  ing Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or AbiWord, you can do simple 
  layout. I laid out my first two games completely in word processors, 
  and they turned out alright. (I would have never tried to lay out 
  Donjon in a word processor, though.) If you’re using Gobe Produc-
  tive, you’re in even more luck - it is made to do simple layout.
  For heavy-duty layout, I can’t recommend Serif’s Page Plus 8 
  (http://www.serif.com - $85) enough. Donjon is completely laid out 
  in Page Plus, and it handled it beautifully. Features like a built-in 
  word processor help tremendously, and the price is below any other 
  layout program. If you plan to make more than one game, I suggest 
  getting this product.
  If you’re stuck on using one of the “big three,” find a college stu-
  dent. They get extreme discounts buying software from college 
  bookstores - you might be able to find PageMaker, InDesign, or 
  Quark for under $100. Most college students will do anything for 
  free beer, so this plan shouldn’t be too hard.
  Making a PDF
  If you’re not going to print your game, you’re going to need to dis-
  tribute online. You may decide you don’t want to distribute your 
  game as an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Web 
  pages may work well for you, and regardless of what others say, you 
  can sell a web page. By password protecting the “members only” 
  section of your site, you can sell access to your work on the web 
  that way. (This model has been highly successful with the Internet 
  adult industry.)
  The most common method of online distribution, though, is PDF. 
  (You’ll also have to make PDFs if you’re making a hard-copy book 
  and using a product that your printer doesn’t take files from - like 
  
  70
  Page Plus.) Unfortunately, Adobe Acrobat, the program most com-
  monly used to make PDFs is expensive - $250 in stores. This may 
  be a time to collaborate again: if one person is designated the “PDF 
  guy,” several people making games could pitch in for the cost and 
  utilize the program.
  A better idea, though, is Adobe's new Create PDF Online service 
  (https://createpdf.adobe.com/). Seemingly without regard for prof-
  it, Adobe’s created a website where you can upload an unlimited 
  amount of files (in a huge variety of formats including Microsoft 
  Office formats, image files, HTML, and other file formats, includ-
  ing Postscript) to convert to PDF for $10 a month. Testing out the 
  site myself, it seems easy for those with moderate computer experi-
  ence. The files are converted immediately and can either be down-
  loaded from the site or e-mailed to you. The one limitation is that 
  uploaded files cannot be bigger than 100MB and cannot have a pro-
  cessing time of more than 10 minutes. This isn’t a huge problem, 
  but if you’ve got a graphics-laden 256-page book you want to con-
  vert to PDF, you might be out of luck. The other downfall is that 
  you can not take advantage of all the features of the PDF format 
  with this tool - you do not have the ability to edit the PDF after-
  wards, change the file information, add bookmarks, or add hyper-
  links from the document. Still, it’s a cheap alternative to laying out 
  $250 or corrupting your immortal soul by pirating software.
  Web Hosting and Selling
  Web hosting is a big mess. Trying to decide where to put this thing 
  is - not can be, but is - a total pain in the arse. Here's what you have 
  to look at:
  • Do I want to pay for this thing?
  • How much to I want to pay?
  • Do I even know what I'm doing?
  • Will people shoot me for pop-up ads? (Yes.)
  • How long of a web site address are people willing to type to 
  buy my game? (Again, I have the answer - not very bloody 
  long.)
  There is the free web hosting option, a la Tripod.com, 
  Freeservers.com, and others. I don't want to say this - but these can 
  work for you. I chose the above two because they offer personal-
  ized domains like ‘http://yourgame.triservers.com,’ which is a big 
  bonus over the drug-addled madness that can occur such as ‘http://
  users.freecrap.com/BigApple/~game43a2/’. In addition, if you 
  don't understand the web, user interfaces are integrated with these 
  sites to ease uploading files and organizing your web site. So what’s 
  the downside? Ads, ads, and more ads. With these free web hosting 
  options, you're going to at least see banner ads, and recently, more 
  and more pop-up ads. (According to articles, the world of advertis-
  ing have discovered that people don’t click on banner ads - one rea-
  son not to get one to advertise your game, by the way. What they 
  didn’t undercover is that pop-up ads make people never want to 
  come back to your site.) Utilize these if you need to, but you will 
  eventually want to graduate from these free sites.
  Once you've decided that you don't want your readers clawing their 
  eyes out, you have to decide who to purchase your web hosting 
  from. There’s no way I can give you a list of all the hosts to consid-
  er, but you might check out the below sites:
  • The Open Directory listing of web host directories (http://
  dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/
  Web_Design_and_Development/Hosting/Directories/)
  
  71
  • Top Hosts (http://www.tophosts.com/)
  • Find A Host (http://www.smesource.com/Hosting/)
  • Web Hosts Online (http://www.webhostsonline.com/)
  I personally use Pair (http://www.pair.com) and Dreamhost (http:/
  /www.dreamhost.com) for different sites, and like them very much. 
  They’re a bit expensive, though. I recommend, more than anything, 
  to ask someone you know who they are hosting their web site with. 
  You’ll find out what they’ve been satisfied with and what they 
  haven’t. In the Internet economy, the owners of a web host can 
  change overnight - people who were good a year ago may have aw-
  ful service now.
  Lastly, do as I’ve mentioned with other things above, if you can: 
  scam from friends. They may already have a good host with a good 
  price that you can also use. Many hosts offer services where more 
  than one domain name can be connected to the same account, al-
  lowing several people to go into together on a web hosting account.
  As far as selling your game on your website goes, there’s a few 
  credit card processing companies out there to go with. PayPal 
  (http://www.paypal.com) is well-known, and charges less per sell 
  than most sites I’ve seen. There are other options, but I have to rec-
  ommend PayPal heartily, though, not because I have vested interest 
  in it, but because it is relatively well-known. People can be paranoid 
  about their credit cards, and name familiarity helps you sell. In addi-
  tion, PayPal has relatively nice web panels to see your transactions 
  and find out how your sales are.
  Printing
  The first thing I have to say is: you do not have to print your game. You 
  can sell PDFs online, or even give your game away if you want. 
  Printing your game is expensive, and ties you up in a way you may 
  not want. Printing does not make your game more valid.
  That said, how can you print on the cheap? If you’re interested in 
  printing large quantities to send to distributors and what-not, check 
  out the information at Wizard’s Attic (http://www.wizards-
  attic.com/Publishers.html). It’s great stuff, and will tell you all sorts 
  of things I don’t know.
  If you’re interested in printing 20 copies at a time to sell off your 
  website, here’s some ideas. I’m less experienced with this, I’ll admit, 
  but in the time I’ve done it, I’ve found one thing: Kinko’s is more 
  expensive than any place else. Look around - Office Depot has 
  great prices, and so does Costco, if you’re a member. I highly rec-
  ommend printing one master copy of your game, as well - printing 
  costs much more than copying. If you have a friend with a laser 
  printer, or a boss who doesn’t mind you using the office printer, try 
  to print your original copy for free - it can cost more than 10 times 
  the cost of copying.
  Conclusion
  There’s no one true way to publish your game. There’s no one way 
  to publish it cheaply, either. The traditional system of publishing 
  and distribution works for its members, and only marginally. It cer-
  tainly isn’t the easiest or always the best way. If some piece of ad-
  vice in here helps, I’m more than glad. The cardinal rule of 
  publishing your independent game is this: do it. Do not be cowed 
  by anything or anyone. Find others interested in independent pub-
  lishing, create a support circle, and absolutely go with it. 
  
  72
  Things I Like
  Websites
  The Forge (http://www.indie-rpgs.com) - The Forge supports two 
  things: creator-owned games (like this one), and innovation in role-
  playing games. I have to give the disclaimer: I run the technical side 
  of this site, so I’m a little biased.
  RPGnet (http://www.rpg.net) - RPGnet is the role-playing game 
  site on the Internet. There’s no better place to get buzz going about 
  your game, and their readership is tremendous. Their reviews matter
  - if you can get your game reviewed there, you’re going to see a lot 
  of people talking about your game.
  GamingReport (http://www.gamingreport.com) and RPGNews 
  (http://www.rpgnews.rpghost.com) - Great places to send press 
  releases to - they’ll publish any role-playing news they get.
  OpenRoleplaying.org (http://www.openroleplaying.org) - A web 
  site dedicated to “open source” and free role-playing games. This 
  site doesn’t have the traffic it deserves: you can help start a real 
  community here.
  Game Publishing FAQ (http://www.rpgpublishing.com) - A 
  great resource for information on publishing your role-playing game 
  through traditional routes.
  Elfwood (http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se) - An awesome place to look 
  for artists.
  Creator-Owned Role-Playing Games
  Sorcerer (http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com) - Sorcerer, by Ron Ed-
  wards, is not only a kick-ass game, but it is the standard for success 
  in creator-owned role-playing games. Ron’s taken his game from an 
  ASCII file, to a commercial PDF, to a beautiful book. Check out 
  the website for more information, and check out Adept Press 
  (http://www.adept-press.com),. Ron’s game company, for informa-
  tion on Elfs (irreverent fantasy role-playing that should appeal to 
  Donjon fans) and Trollbabe (kick-ass non-annoying feminist fantasy 
  role-playing.)
  octaNe (http://www.memento-mori.com/octane) - Cars, guns, 
  petrol, and psychotronia - octaNe is the post-apocalyptic role-playing 
  game that rocks all the time. Fans of Mad Max and Six-String Samu-
  rai will dig it.
  The Pool and The Questing Beast (http://
  www.randomordercreations.com) - James West’s The Pool is a mind-
  blowing little piece of game design. It’s like Go - a minute to learn, 
  a lifetime to master. It should be required reading for anyone writ-
  ing a role-playing game today.
  Dread (http://www.dread-rpg.com) - Dread’s like Call of Cthulhu - 
  you’re ordinary people faced with horrors from beyond, and will 
  probably die or go insane fighting them, except it’s like Buffy the 
  Vampire Slayer in that you better win, or the world is screwed, except 
  it’s full of angels and demons, neither of which are very nice. It’s 
  hard to explain in a sentence, but it’s a bad-ass horror game.
  Dust Devils (http://www.chimera.info/dustdevils/) - Dust Devils is 
  an Old West role-playing game, where players portray gunslingers, 
  gamblers, cowboys and outlaws who must not only survive in a rug-
  ged land, but conquer their inner Devil - those dark secrets that 
  keep folks from being honest and decent. I kind of stole this de-
  scription from the web site, but it’s on the money.
  Kayfabe (http://www.angelfire.com/games3/errantknight/) - Kay-
  fabe is, believe it or not, a wrestling role-playing game, and it’s pretty 
  
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  damn good, as well. Like real wrestling, players don’t compete to 
  have their characters win matches - it’s all planned out ahead of 
  time and orchestrated. Instead, you try to earn fame and fortune for 
  your character. I think it’s one of the coolest ideas for an RPG I’ve 
  ever seen.
  The Riddle of Steel (http://www.theriddleofsteel.com) - The Rid-
  dle of Steel doesn’t need my help selling it - it’s doing great. Still, if 
  you haven’t heard of it, run to the store and buy it now. It’s hard-
  edged fantasy role-playing, and gets me, at least, in two ways: it’s full 
  of the critical hit charts you remember from old-school games, 
  charts that let you drive the point of your sword through a 
  character’s eye and into his brain, or destroy his genitals, or remove 
  his intestine. I love those things. On top of that, though, it has this 
  Spiritual Attribute system which rocks for story-driven games - you 
  literally kick more ass when you care about something. It’s that sim-
  ple, but you wouldn’t believe how well it works.
  Harlekin-Maus Games (http://www.harlekin-maus.com) - Zak 
  Arntson, my cohort in designing this game, has a web site full of 
  little bizarre games that rock out. Fungeon is a brother to this game, 
  and fun as can be. Look for Cthonian, his upcoming game, which 
  should let you kick Lovecraftian ass in new and fun ways.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Donjon/Donjon Corebook.pdf