For the first adventure we will also build the group of adventurers, choosing 4 of the various classes in the compination we prefer, even with more characters in the same class (such as a magician escorted by 3 warriors) although differentiating helps to cover more situations. There are 8 classes available: barbarian, warrior, dwarf, elf, villain, magician, cleric and half-man... and some of the expansions further increase the rose.
Each class has its own special rules, and its own general equipment that we will customize by choosing for example the exact type of one-handed weapon (some enemies suffer more damage from impact, others from cutting) or in some cases whether to equip them with a weapon and shield or with a two-handed weapon. Surviving the adventures you can of course buy better equipment. Having all some starting coins you can also buy the group some minor items even before the first game.
Fill out the four cards we just have to launch the adventure ... the maximum explorable area is 20x28 boxes (just any sheet of paper checkered). Pulling 1d6 we will determine the entrance room, we will draw it and we will be ready.
From there we can send our adventurers through a corridor or a new door of our choice: in doing so we will say the d66 to determine the shape of the corridor/room we will find, then we will pull 2d6 to find out what will be inside (the result changes if it is a corridor or a room). Often we will encounter enemies but we may also run into special rooms or special encounters such as events or strange characters.
In case of enemies we will pull on the table indicated (there are 4 types of enemies) and we can choose whether to attack them frontally or wait for their reaction. This will always be determined by 1d6 but each of the 24 basic enemies will have different behaviors (listed in its description) depending on whether it is a more aggressive race, mild, peaceful, timorous, etc. ... may escape, be peaceful, offer us a mission, ask for money to let us pass, propose a riddle and more. Fighting isn't always in its infancy, and enemies will often run away.
When we find ourselves in an empty room (because we have killed, immobilized or fled the occupants) we can search the room: doing so there is a chance to find treasures, clues or secret doors ... but also a small risk of being reached by an enemy while we are distracted.
The clues collected are a very nice addition because once we have 3 we can get a discovery of choice from a list of 14 different secrets that could relate to the dungeon, its inhabitants or even one of us.
Winning the game.
The aim of the game is to reach the boss at the head of the dungeon, defeat him and get out alive. The most common enemies are monsters followers (orcs, gobies, etc..) but we could also icappare in monsters infesting (rats, bats, etc..) weak but numerous, or aberrations (rarer but dangerous) or, precisely, in a boss.
Every time we meet a boss we will pull 1d6: if the result will be equal to or less than the number of bosses encountered means that we will be in front of our target (if the space on the map is finished or we have explored all the doors that can be explored, the boss will automatically be in the last room explored, the same will happen, but it is optional, if 45 minutes of play have already passed). The final boss is an upgraded version of one of the six bosses.
THERE'S MUCH MORE TO IT THAN THAT.
The manual cares about a lot of details, making this game much richer in decisions and options and much more like a GdR (although missing the acting part) than a normal dungeon crawler. To give a few examples... if we find ourselves in difficulty we could retreat to a previous room blocking the door (if any) with nails, an object that can be bought at the market.
Or in case one of ours is petrified the regulation explains how to drag it out to treat him, or even that we can get out of the dungeon to seek help and return after hiring a cleric in the country that will heal him once back to where we left him (of course the rooms already freed will remain so except for the possibility of random meetings).
We can choose to stand in front of the rascal for the ability to defuse any traps but the marching order is important in case of ambushes or meetings. Or we can camp in a room to rest by blocking access. Missions also add further depth, as well as discoverable secrets and the ability to level up or find epic treasures and valuable items to sell in the city between adventures.
SOLITARY, COOP AND COMPETITIVE.
At Four Against Darkness you can play alone, carrying on a group of adventurers, or you can play it in cooperative mode with a friend, creating two adventurers each, sharing the loot, making group decisions together but pulling and acting each for their characters.
It's also possible to play against each other by creating both a group of four adventurers and exploring the same dungeon, alternating in turns and starting the different directions from the initial room. It's possible, for the form that the dungeon will take, to cover areas uncovered/released by the other and also cross but you can not attack each other. The first one who finds and defeats the boss wins. This can also be a way to compare the characters in your solo games with those of a friend.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS.
Of this game you can say everything but not that it is trivial because it is really difficult to frame it. Those of you who have played the old red D&D box in the past, or those of you who play Diablo or rogue-like procedural video games will find a familiar transposition ... and even a bit deeper and more consistent than some initial scenarios of D&D.
Of course comparing it with a classic tabletop dungeon crawler we are faced with a greater amount of rules (but not even too many because some recent products are no less ... consider that the rules of Four Against Darkness, if laid out as in a manual Fantasy Flight would stay in 10-12 pages about).
I think, however, that the biggest obstacle to overcome for some will be the fact that there are no thumbnails and dashboards and everything focuses on a sheet of paper and four squares character cards. I really like the thing and I think that in the future I will keep the maps played.
But this is also the great strength of this idea because, just like the role-playing games it is inspired by, this allows extreme freedom of mechanics and situations. For example, the various expansions released, always only in the form of manuals, add new classes, new environments (simply by changing the tables we can go into intricate forests or ancient temples) and often introduce real mini-campaigns of a few scenarios with dedicated tables (or specific maps) and narrative elements specially designed and much more in-depth, thus adding a strong narrative component.