Dungeon Degenerates: RPG in a box?

[@GeekGamers01]

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[@ThePeyoteCoyote]

Fabulous and thorough review! Thanks for providing such a clear rundown of this game!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Oh yeah! Now we are talking! Hands down, the coolest game to be released in a decade or more. The art is absolutely out of this world. Totally speaks to my old outsider/punk/metal side. The world these guys have created is the most thoroughly fleshed out, living and breathing world the board game hobby has ever seen. The lore books they've created add so much to the experience. The character pack should be arriving soon, and I cannot wait for the Tarot deck. This is a game, and, more importantly, an astounding work of art.

[@GeekGamers01]

I could not agree more!

[@TheDungeonDive]

I thought it was just going to be a simple fantasy adventure game like Talisman, with different art. Nothing wrong with that. I love old Talisman. But what they ended up creating and delivering was something so much more. The campaign system, with its branching paths and different paths to victory, is really something else. The rules are really crunchy and old school, but also innovative. The dice system where you roll under, but take the highest single value is great! I don't think I have another game that does this.

[@GeekGamers01]

Yes, the campaign system in particular was very well done. The rolling under took me a while to remember and get my mind around but I do appreciate the fact that each round of combat (more or less) can be handled with one dice chuck.

[@StephanBeal]

Dungeon Degenerates pleasantly surprised me, in terms of expectations vs what was delivered.

[@GeekGamers01]

For a game that 'seems' freewheeling because of the art and aesthetic and tongue-in-cheek nature, this is a serious game design, obviously extremely well playtested, with excellent player's aids, a strong rulebook, and a great index to the rules. So well done.

[@StephanBeal]

32:00 just to add: every monster and loot card is unique. You will never encounter more than one of the same monster at a time.

[@StephanBeal]

35:30 (index) not only is the index great, but the table of contents is as well. 95% of the time, the ToC tells me right where to go.

[@GeekGamers01]

Yep, valid point. Overall the rules and foundational structure of the written support (player aids as well) is superb. It's amazing how rare that is but we all know this is the exception rather than the rule (at least in my experience)

[@williambertram7372]

I LOVE the artwork in this game!

[@GeekGamers01]

Me too!

[@StephanBeal]

7:15 Facepalm - all this time i've been targeting the whole party with Curse, not just the target adventurer. Most arrival abilities affect the whole party, but Curse is an exception. All the Luck points i've lost to that...

[@Retrofun69]

One of the best games ever made. Truly feels like an old school RPG.

[@cronopi]

39:44 You can add new characters middle game if some of your characters died early if the doom track has 2 or less spaces filled. Although sometimes I'm tweaking this rule and adding a new character bec it suits in the narrative (the void witch appears bec I triggered some void event) and I fo this following the instructions in the appendix which does not specify anything about the doom track. I'm playing my campaigns this way and adding a new character tied to the unrolling of the events allows to enhance the narrative in very joyful ways. This also works if some other player wants to join in middle game as stated in the aforementioned appendix. Great game, full of joy!

[@GeekGamers01]

Thanks for pointing that out and sharing how you play. Agree this game is a joy and also flexible for house ruing.

[@StephanBeal]

11:50 that skill is a Quick Action, which you already used with the Truncheon. You only get 1 Quick Action per turn.

[@GeekGamers01]

Thanks for correction!

[@patrickbonier327]

Great review, GG. Thanks for showing this game. Once I saw the artwork, I knew I had to have it. It looks like the bastard son of Gary Gygax and R. Crumb! Of course, now I'm a bunch of bucks poorer for the game, and another $25 or so for the card sleeves, but I have a feeling I'm gonna get a lot of play out of it.

[@GeekGamers01]

Patrick Bonier There is certainly a lot of play in the base game that’s for sure. I’ve spent many hours and not scratched the surface of the full campaign. Enjoy! And glad you enjoyed the vid and thanks for the comment.

[@patrickbonier327]

Took delivery on this a few days ago and spent the whole day playing the first scenario 3 times. Each time I played it, I realized that I screwed up a rule or two so kept doing it. Third time was the charm. I freakin' love this game. If you role play it a little, it comes to life in an almost rpg way. This will be in my top five for a long time. Thanks again for turning me on to it!

[@GeekGamers01]

Patrick Bonier So glad to hear it. I feel similarly about it. Whether it is the art, card text, monster/player concepts, or scenarios and goals (likely a mix of all), I found it so easy to identify with the characters and it really came to life. It stands out for me too among the many “similar” kinds of games I’ve played.

[@saviloic]

And 5 years later, finally came across this video, loved it, and just ordered the game 😀

[@euripidesghost2197]

Looks like a Fiend Folio feel with the artwork

[@StephanBeal]

Euripides' Ghost the artist (Sean Aaberg) did some of the AD&D 1E art (possibly for Fiend Folio - i don't recall). (Edit: correction: it was Labyrinth Lord, not D&D.)

[@GOBLINKOGOBLINKO]

I didn't - but I'll take this distortion for sure. I did stuff for Labyrinth Lord.

[@tomzebro1956]

Thanks for showing this. Now I am leaning towards backing the kickstarter for the next printing.

[@GeekGamers01]

Tom Zebro Cool. It’s unique!

[@davedogge2280]

anyone know if this is going to be released in Europe somehow ? I missed the KS and importing to Spain is no go as they have upped the importation handling fee to just a tad under $50 (yes that's right) and then on top of that it's 21% of the value of the item AND the value of the shipping cost.

[@GOBLINKOGOBLINKO]

We will be launching a second printing kickstarter.

[@kosterix123]

I miss an example of a trade. How does this compare to Heroes of the Mists? From their website shipping is incredibly expensive to import, ridiculously so (Europe) DHL Express Worldwide 2 to 3 business days $ 61.78 USPS Priority Mail International 6 to 10 business days $ 62.37 USPS Priority Mail Express International 3 to 5 business days $ 81.75

[@GeekGamers01]

Don't know Heroes of the Mists

[@akkvik]

Nice! Very interested in this game!

[@GOBLINKOGOBLINKO]

Second printing Kickstarter is live! www.kickstarter.com/projects/seanaaberg/tarot-goblinko-dark-fantasy-medieval-punk-tarot-de

[@mathiasvanbutsele8817]

You say "Power dice" as if you said "Paradise". Having the opportunity to roll more than one Power die in Dungeon Degenerates feels like Paradise hehe !

[@JPFalcononor]

This is a fun game and the artwork reminds me of my reading Crumb and Feds n Heads comics of bygone days. I already ordered the expansion. By the way, did you find using the character standees fiddly since you are using counters?

[@GeekGamers01]

JPFalcononor Yes definitely brings to mind Crumb. I should have mentioned the standees: they don’t film well overhead; these were particularly tall on the map and in general I don’t like standees. Given that I never ended up separating the party I didnt even need more than one token. In non-filming play I used one of my minis from my solo RPG vids

[@jonanjello]

I see a lot of S. Clay Wilson, too. Checkered Demon, Star Eyed Stella, and pirates

[@StephanBeal]

Standees: i only place the standee of the party leader (of each party) on the board. There's no benefit to having them all on the board - they just clutter it up and add fiddly.

[@GeekGamers01]

Stephan Beal Yeah that’s a good idea but even on is still so tall! I wish they had included some small circular tokens

[@StephanBeal]

Geek Gamers i made my own mini-standees by scanning the backs of the character sheets, clipping out the character image from there, and scaling them to about an inch tall :). The provided ones are simply way too big. If you'll email me (sgbeal at gmail) i can send you a copy. i asked the designer for permission to post them on BGG and got a carefully-worded response which boiled down to "we won't stop you but might ask you to take them offline if we decide to publish some", so i didn't bother posting them.

[@astralhexencounter8028]

Such a fantastic and fun game. Love the art so much. Great to see you cover this!

[@GeekGamers01]

AstralHexEncounter Thanks. It really is unique and in so being is making me think about how so many other games in our hobby seem generic by comparison. What other games out there have this kind of personality and take these kind of artistic risks?

[@astralhexencounter8028]

Geek Gamers Mushroom Eaters, Cave Evil/Warcults....hell, anything by Nate and his crew to be honest. But yeah, there aren’t too many who go all out with the art that’s for sure.

[@GeekGamers01]

Ah, yes. Been trying to gave Cave Evil/Warcults forever but it isn't meant to be. And I've never heard of Mushroom Eaters, which I will look up. For such a nice hobby I'd think it wouldn't be so conventional when you step back to think about it.

[@astralhexencounter8028]

Geek Gamers Mushroom Eaters is from the same group of people. More a euro than a Wargame though. They did recently release a war game called WWIII though. I have it but haven’t played it yet.

[@anonymouse8953]

Wonderful review, thank you!

[@sebastienvivas9319]

I'd never heard of Dungeon Degenerates before.... Oh boy, I'm already waiting on 10+ vanilla like fantasy campaign focused kickstarter games but I think I need this game in my life. It just seems so different and unique! Thank you for bringing this gem to my attention. Do you have any favorite characters out of the available cast?

[@GeekGamers01]

The Void Witch and the Bog Conjurer are among my favorites but it's very hard to choose. This game just does really put the whole genre to shame in terms of its conformity to fantasy tropes from the 60s and 70s.

[@thegimpygamer]

Another one I have had my eye on that you talked me into. I thank you but my wallet doesnt :)

[@GeekGamers01]

I am certain someday you will repay the favor to me. :)

[@soskoster]

I have yet to have friends play this but never thought about single player. By chance have you seen Ironsworn? Currently it's free while they do revisions.

[@GeekGamers01]

Great question. I have seen it and downloaded it and it looks fantastic. I'm just hesitant to print it all out. (I've got everything that was made available I think.) The rulebook alone is 269 pages. I know... I know... I can just read it on my computer but I don't do that when I'm playing games, as I like that to be a complete computer/tech free experience (filming equipment aside, of course). Have you played it? It looks just fantastic from what I've read.

[@soskoster]

Geek Gamers sadly I have very few people who rpg and have yet set it up for solo. I've listened to some live plays of it and it seems a nice blend of apocalypse world and a solo players Oracle.

[@StephanBeal]

Stephen L. i play this only solo, but with anywhere from 2 to 4 characters. You don't want to play with just 1 character because it's unbelievably difficult that way (you lose the game if monsters knock you out a single time with only 1 character).

[@michaelwardle7633]

Gotta love the Sex Dwarf.

[@xahpookx]

Nice review thanks! I really love the look of this game, but I haven't been able to talk myself into buying it. My wife and I already play and enjoy Talisman 2e and Runebound 2e when we are in the mood for wandering around fighting monsters and rolling dice. Those games already don't see the table all that often, and this looks like quite a similar thing but significantly more convoluted (with a way more awesome coat of paint, to be fair). Not sure if thats fair or not, but its been enough to keep me from dropping the $$$ thus far.

[@GeekGamers01]

xahpookx I love Runebound 2e but this is a far deeper and more unique game. Certainly more complex which could’ve a plus or minus depending on what you’re looking for.

[@TheDungeonDive]

I love Talisman and Runebound as well. But DD really does something different. The main difference is in the campaign book, and how the world changes (without legacy things) as you play. The campaign really is quite involved and complex, and goes a long way to separate DD from other overland crawl games.

[@psbauman]

This was my exact response to this game during the Kickstarter, but I took a stab at it once Goblinko had it available at retail. It absolutely fires Runebound 2e for me, and I never thought I'd say that considering all of the expansion material I have for it. The gameplay itself is actually *less* convoluted than something like Frozen Wastes or Sands of Al Khalim, it just sounds more complex when explained verbally because the simple decisions need to be framed for outsiders to understand the full context. It flips the script on Runebound a bit by removing traversal as a puzzle element (which Runebound wasn't great at) and making combat/encounters more of a focus (which Runebound also wasn't great at). I'm *very* close to getting rid of my Runebound collection, though I'm too lazy at the moment to deal with the logistics of auctioning off all of that material.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Runebound 3rd with the co-op expansion fired RB2e for me, but I'm keeping my RB2e stuff just because I have so much!

[@GeekGamers01]

Paul Bauman If you want to donate any expansion stuff give me a shout. I love the base game of 2e but that’s all I’ve played. Totally agree that the combat is way simpler than when it has to be explained.

[@Raddlesby]

This game oozes "Cool." And what's not to love about that? Well, what I ask?

[@StephanBeal]

Raddlesby the only sucky things are the price of the character expansion sets ($40 each) and international (non-US) shipping rates.

[@jonathana6298]

I want to buy this... but $277 is a lot for all-in. Maybe it's worth waiting for another sale. It looks like Goblinko has had multiple sales in the past. From the descriptions I've read, this seems like a better Eldritch Horror. Mechanically, this seems like a more cohesive Eldritch Horror. Instead of closing gates, you're making sure the numbers for each location stays below 6 so the Hand of Doom doesn't get activated. After 25+ games of EH, the player decisions are actually very limited. And while the overall theme is consistent, the actual story is just a random stream of random blurbs. Dungeon Degenerates feels like the "quests" are more cohesive to an on-going narrative?

[@GeekGamers01]

I have actually not played Eldritch Horror so cannot comment on that. I have, however, played many games of Arkham Horror and I can say that DD is quite different. The fact of the gates and the mechanics of keeping them at bay are superficially similar but not carried through in terms of the feel of the game, as far as I’m concerned.

[@usapatriot4163]

Where did you pick up this game? If you mentioned in the vid, I apologize. I must have missed it.

[@GeekGamers01]

usapatriot4163 I mentioned at the beginning that I received a copy from the publisher.

[@greysky1252]

I'm sorry but I can't stand to see you break the spines on all those poor books!

[@GeekGamers01]

Grey Sky What books? You mean the rules? Those aren’t books or spines but yeah to play the game you need to use the rules. They are probably online somewhere and often I do use copies of rules but I wanted to keep the consistency of the artistic experience so I didn’t here.

[@zakhoskins6404]

Looks like degenerate art to me.

[@MelvLee]

Finally did a lets play video on Dungeon Degenerates as RPG. For anyone interested, you can find it in my channel (going to be a series). I hope this game gets more recognition and hope the geek gamers will revisit it in the future.

[@MelvLee]

Very late to the party but finally bought this game. I am thinking of using this as a solo RPG system. I wonder if you have tried it? I think the non generic theme of the game actually makes it somewhat difficult as most Random tables I have are for basic fantasy and will not be thematically consistent here. The only way out seems to be creating my own rolling tables but that will be a lot of work. Do you know of any good resources for these kind of game?

[@GeekGamers01]

Not sure what you're asking about whether I've tried as an RPG system: do you mean taking the characters, cards, events and porting them onto an RPG ruleset? No, I haven' tried that (but do think it would work).

[@MelvLee]

​@@GeekGamers01 Correct! What I am thinking is to play Dungeon Degenerates as an RPG rather than a board game by adding random NPC / Event encounter, Detailed location / town exploration, solving problems thematically etc rather than just combat / bribing. Kinda like what you did with Warhammer Quest. THe reason is that I love the world of Dungeon Degenerates and I think the base game is already quite suitable to be used as an RPG (the character stats, the double dice challenge system, the travelling mechanics etc) The issue is I don’t think my generic Fantasy RPG random tables will fit this world as majority of the characters / locations / events in this world are weird in one way or another to say the very least. Imagine rolling on a table and generates a “ A Farmer named Howard requests you to help exterminate a beast”. Doesn’t seem to fit this world where sex dwarfs and tooth extractors roam the land very much... I guess it is all up to personal interpretation / imagination at the end but I still want to know if you know of any RPG resources that fits the theme of Dungeon Degenerates. Maybe some of the Horror RPG random tables will do?

[@GeekGamers01]

@@MelvLee Ah I see what you are asking. Well. I do think it's a good idea... off the top of my head I can't think of RPG resources that would work but there are bound to be some! Perhaps The Mutant Epoch RPG, I remember it has some random "wasteland treasures" tables and other things that could work (maybe)

[@MelvLee]

@@GeekGamers01 thanks! That is good suggestion! I will definitely check it out! It also reminded me that physical or mental mutation tables or Landscape tables from all kinds of post apocalyptic RPG resources will probably work. Maybe adding a fetish trait table for npc encounter as well!

[@GeekGamers01]

@@MelvLee Yes, post-apocalypic is the way to go most likely and a fetish trait NPC table is also a good idea. Good luck with this. It's a great idea!