Dungeon + Battle Quest | Review

Here’s my review of Dungeon + Battle Quest, an exciting masterless role-playing game (to play alone or together) that will catapult you into a world of adventure and fantasy.

The product was born from the work of Simone Giusti, with the participation of Teschio Nero, and published (only in Italian) by Laboratorio Giochi; we thank you both for sending us the material for this review. We recommend that you follow the author on his Facebook page.

The game is only available in Italian and you can find it on Amazon for 24.90 euros for the softcover version; otherwise, the hardcover version costs 39.90 euros and you can buy it here. We also point out that you can buy the Hero’s Diary for 5.90 euros here; at the same price, you can find the Adventure Book.

Now let’s start the real review, going to discover all these contents proposed for Dungeon + Battle Quest.

Review of the Structure and Aesthetics of Dungeon + Battle Quest

The game is divided into three sections:

Dungeon Quest: dedicated to the exploration of dungeons.
Battle Quest: linked to field battles and a career as a general.
Dungeon + Battle Quest: Fusion of previous sections that allows unparalleled freedom of play.

All three share the same basic regulation, but add exclusive mechanics.

From the point of view of writing, the manual is well organized and presents the information in an organic way, dividing it into chapters and paragraphs; all this facilitates reading also thanks to the colloquial and simple writing style, avoiding unnecessary complications.

From a graphical point of view, the manual is very beautiful; in the deluxe version, in colour, the use of bold, coloured and italic words allows excellent navigation. However, the standard black-and-white version loses these details, while still maintaining the good use of bold.

Rules and Character Creation

The Dungeon + Battle Quest rules are simple, fast and modular, adapting to a myriad of scenarios and adventures.

The manual opens with the creation of the character. There are no characteristics or abilities to assign numerical values to; our adventurer will only have a Base Weapon, such as a sword, machete or other. It will always carry with it also the Need for Travel and the Need for Weapon Maintenance, two sets of tools useful in any adventure. Finally we will have to give a Name and a Description.

Each time our hero has to perform a complex action, called a test, we must roll a d6 and match a difficulty, in order to achieve a Success. Each point above the difficulty will make us accumulate further Successes; the more Successes we will have the better the action will go and the more things we can do. In the same way, each point under the difficulty will cause us to accumulate failures and the more failures we will have, the worse our actions will go.

If we do not want to take advantage of the successes immediately, we can put them aside to earn Bonus Actions; these are +1s that we could take advantage of in the following rolls. In addition, for every 2 Successes gained we will obtain a Dice Raise that we can set aside to be able to repeat a test later.

We are therefore faced with a free and modular system, which takes a few minutes to learn.

Dungeon + Battle Quest Combat Review

Fighting is just as quick, but risky; in fact, as the manual says, “escape is always an option.”

Each opponent will have his Difficulty and his Wounds; the manual manages everything in a very narrative way, since even if we clash with a large number of opponents we will have to rely on the most powerful of the group for the difficulty of our tests.

Times are not divided into turns; our hero performs his action and, based on the Achievements, inflicts Wounds on the Enemies. If he accumulates Failures, he suffers Disadvantages and Wounds instead. Going below 0 Wounds you are defeated.

Obviously, we can always escape if the fight seems too complex; but if instead our Hero was defeated, we will have to draw up a table to find out what will happen.

The Dungeon Section

In this section, you play the old-school dungeon. There are various tables to create it, populate it with enemies and explore it.

At the beginning of each exploration, you will have to make a test to see if the adventurer is good at getting clues, gossip and rumours to find adventures. The successes obtained here will allow us to vary the result of the launches in the creation of the Dungeon; all this helps us not to be victims of the randomness of the die. For example, if you get 1 Success, you can change the result on the Dungeon Hazard table by +1 or -1.

There are also many tables to customize if we have a Client when the exploration takes place and much more. All these tables are well organized and inspired; each possibility brings very interesting narrative implications. Thanks to these we will be able to create stories that are all different and new every time. It is very interesting to be able to characterize the dungeon in depth without having a narrator who has to deal with it.

Once the Dungeon is over, we will receive a number of Experience Points and Loot Points based on its dangerousness and the tests we have faced; Loot Points represent the riches collected and we will obtain them in various ways during our expeditions.

Grow and Empower

Once this section of the game is over, we can take advantage of Loot Points and Experience Points to grow. In particular, we will need 32 experience points to move from the rank of Adventurer (the base) to that of Hero and another 84 to move from Hero to Legend. These points can be spent to earn Masterships, specializations that will allow us to roll an extra die during the associated tests.

Loot Points are instead the riches we own; we have the possibility to use them to buy Weapons, Armor, Upgrades and much more. Here too there are various tables to help us tell which merchants we will meet and how they will treat us.

In addition to all this, between one expedition and another, we may decide to live Events or Experiences. These are situations that will allow us to find allies or enemies and enrich our background and our history.

Advance and Pro Dungeon Quest

Once we have mastered the basic mode, we can switch to the Advance mode. With this, we will have to face several intermediate Dungeons before reaching the final Dungeon. We will be able to face increasingly difficult Dungeons, but at the same time, we will get many more rewards.

In addition, the author has a new mechanic: the Journey; it includes shots on new thematic tables. We will use them to tell what happens in the journey between the various Dungeons. This mechanic is useful to add pepper to the narrative and be able to upgrade between the various Dungeons before the final challenge.

If we want to play with our friends, we can use the Pro Dungeon Quest mode; this will allow us to have a multinarrative experience without the help of the master. We will simply follow the rules and the relevant tables, as always with extreme immediacy and simplicity.

La Sezione Battle

Momentarily setting aside the dark secrets, it’s time to move armies. In fact, the manual allows us to be a leader who leads his own army; new mechanics are then added such as: Glory, Infamy and Value Points.

Glory is a score that represents how famous we are; infamy indicates how infamous and feared we are. Finally, the Values Points are the military successes obtained. These stats will influence various actions such as Recruitment, Engagement and more; when we have to gather an army or find an engagement, having a high Gloria score can come in handy.

Also in this section, we find many tables to inspire us and give new ideas to the narration of our battles. For example, we can roll a die to understand who started the hostilities and the purpose of the war. A further point in favour is the presence of boxes that summarize the flow and dynamics of the game.

We also keep in mind that our army grows with us; when the leader strengthens, the same will happen to his troops, so that an increasingly formidable army has departed after the game.

Lead your own army into battle.

When the trumpets sound and the sky gets dark, it’s time to get down on the battlefield!

Before we lead our armies into battle, we must find the Enemy. The regulation allows us to create a custom Enemy at the moment, similar to how it happens with Dungeons. All the enemy’s tables are well-made and full of ideas, allowing you to create memorable and unique opponents.

Once this is done, we move on to weapons. By regulation everything is organized according to a rigid scheme to follow that best reproduces a real battlefield.

Before the clash, we can undertake various Preliminary Actions such as Subterfuges or Diplomatic actions, or make Guerrilla of Attrition. Alternatively, we can strengthen our army, but of course, we can’t do everything; a roll of the dice will help us understand how much time and what possibilities we will have. Everything we do at this stage will give us bonuses or maluses (depending on the outcome of the actions) for the next stages.

We will then have to deal with the Deployment, with which we will have to arrange our troops at their best through a Trial and any bonuses/malus. Then you go to the Battle and calculate who has the largest number of troops and who has trained them the most; having made these assessments, a dice roll will reveal the outcome of the fight.

The Cursus Honorum and Advance Battle Quest

Now let’s talk about the Cursus Honorum or our climb to political success. In fact, every time we complete a military campaign, we will be able to undertake our social climb. Always following a simple system of tables we can be the protagonists of Political Intrigues, Power Games and much more; for each event, we will have to face tests, based on Successes or Failures we will obtain advantages or disadvantages; all this, of course, through the usual functional random tables. This obviously could attract unwanted attention, to be managed before they degenerate with very unpleasant consequences.

Advance Battle Quest instead is a collection of advanced options to make our sessions more varied and have new ideas compared to the base game; also here it is (as in the first section) a deepening of the basic mechanics, useful to give depth and variety to our plays. For example, we find the possibility to play the Battles faster or to challenge the enemy’s champions to a duel to decree the winner without bloodshed. Another option is to lead our armies into dangerous dungeons to retrieve mythical artefacts to bring us into the legend.

The key words here are “freedom to the imagination”; with these mechanics, we can create great and unforgettable chronicles.

Dungeon + Battle Quest Section Review

The last section of the manual talks about how to merge together all the mechanics seen previously and be able to play freely with them. Obviously, there can also be no shortage of new tables with new game start or event options, since the variety is always well accepted.

I also really enjoyed various tips on how to create your own environments and how to play together with other people without having a master’s degree.

Some of the more interesting additional rules are the possibility of spending Failures to increase the overall difficulty, very useful to represent the aggravation of the situation and the possibility of randomly determining how long the adventure will last.

Dungeon + Battle Quest Additional Materials Review

In this review, I also want to introduce the three supplements: the Hero’s Diary, the Book of Adventures and the Book of Stories Vol. 1

The Hero’s Diary is a collection of character cards to tear and use when we want, very useful to avoid having to print too many cards.

The Adventure Book instead is a series of cards and tools to note what happens in our adventures, so as not to miss anything and have a final account of our deeds.

Finally, the Book of Stories Vol. 1 is a series of stories created using Dungeon + Battle Quest; they are pleasant to read and above all show the potential of the system. Each of them has a different setting and protagonist, and everyone wants to start the adventure.