DDM Dungeon crawl

Hello, All! This is my 1st post here, and I thought House Rules would be the perfect place to start. I tend to mod EVERYTHING, and have been doing so for 30 years (Grognard alert! Now where are my teeth?).

My group uses DDM in a randomly-generated Dungeon Crawl; nothin' new there, but I thought I'd blab about it anyway. This won't be a completely detailed description, but hopefully it will cover my basic changes.

To start, I print my own version of the stat cards; the main difference is I list the stats in a column (Move, Melee, Ranged, Spells, Save, Armour Class, Hit Points) then list any special abilities beside the stat it pertains to. I've also changed, renamed & consolidated the abilities (ie. DR is called Steadfast).

I use the spell attacks like they now do in DDM2.0 (Oddly enough, I started doing that 3 years ago), that is, a roll to hit rather than a save. Melee & Ranged roll against AC, Spells against Save.

I also simplified the 'base 5' HP & damage to 'base 1' (ie. 35 HP is 7 HP, 15 damage is 3 damage).


The cards are separated into Character & Encouter decks (1 card for each mini, no duplicates); the character cards are the classsic races (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling & Gnome) & the rest are the encounters.

I act as pseudo-DM, and run the monsters. The players randomly draw character cards to create a team of at least 4 heroes. I then determine the quest goal randomly on a chart, and away we go...

I randomly generate the dungeon as we play (the current medium is Descent tiles, before that is was DDM skirmish tiles), as well as the monsters, traps & treasures in the rooms. We roll initiative for each mini, and don't use morale.

We plan on playing various dungeons until each character or monster card has been used up. The 'winner' (not really important to us) will be the one who runs the other out of cards first. It's gonna take a while, since I'm only missing about 70 minis (more than half are GoL & back), and I'm always looking for the ones I'm missing.

Anyhoo, that's all for now.

Thanks for the post! You indeed give me some ideas.

I like the ideas you posted. You gave me a great idea for an article for my blog as well. I'll be sure to credit you in the article. I do have one question, the "descent" tiles you mentioned, what exactly are they?

I am also curious about the descent tiles...sounds fun!

The tiles are from Fantasty Flight's board game 'Descent: Journeys in the Dark'. They're thick cardstock rooms & corridors that fit together jig-saw style. It's not an economical way to get tiles, since the main game costs about $80 or so, but I'm quite impressed with 'em.