8-BIT DUNGEON

AN ADVENTURE GAME OF FUNNY-SHAPED DICE INTRODUCTION

This is an adventure game, which means that its a game which will let the players go on adventures as characters. These characters are pretty varied, and are described below. In a lot of ways, its like a video game that a group can play together, and which uses paper, pens, maps, and dice instead of a computer. You have to do the math yourself, but its pretty easy math, and its easier to change things and add things to the game.

WHAT YOU NEED

8-Bit Dungeon is a game for one to six players - yes, you can play it solo. Youll also need these rules (including the character sheets), some writing sticks of whatever sort, and a full set, or a bunch of sets, or a bucket, of funnyshaped dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12s). If there are less than four players, though, some of the players should play more than one character, so that there at least four characters being played.

ITS CHANGED?
Yes; 8-Bit dungeon has been revised to be less of a roleplaying game and more of an adventure game. It can still be run as a rules-light roleplaying game if you want to, but can also be played with no GM or even solo.

LEGALISMS
This game is a work of satire. It does not have a copyright or a patent, and you can do anything you like with it. A lot of people from all over helped write it. Levi formatted it and coordinated them, and pres@lrpsedm.com is his email.

CHARACTERS!
Everyone has a character or adventurer which, in this game, is like having a game piece that follows special rules. We sometimes call your character you. This really doesnt matter, in this game. So, some basics about you (the character). You are at The Inn with all the other characters, and you have no Gil (money). So, you have become an adventurer in order to get money to help your children, your sick father, or your insatiable greed. You can make up a story about that if you want, but nobody else will want to hear it unless its very short, very funny, or very good. There are three steps for you to follow. 1. PICK A JOB. The Jobs are: Black Belt, Black Mage, Blue Mage, Dragoon, Fighter, Red Mage, Thief, and White Mage. Each of them does different things, and its all right if more than one player has the same job. 2. WRITE STUFF DOWN: Grab a character sheet and write down all the stuff your Job has. All of that is in the list over to the right. Note that you are Level Zero, all your bonuses are zero, and you have no gear or skills. 3. FIND OUT HOW THINGS WORK: The rules are pretty simple, and there arent that many of them. So take a look through them, and figure out how it all works. JOB NAME
Black Belt

THE JOB LIST

HIT PTS
12

FIGHT RUN DIE DIE

1d10 1d8

THINK DIE
1d6

SPECIAL DIE
Fist of Fury 1d4

Black Mage

1d6

1d10

1d8

Black Magic 1d12

Blue Mage

10

1d6

1d4

1d8

Blue Magic 1d12

Dragoon

12

1d10

1d8

1d4

Dragon Jump 1d6

Fighter

10

1d12

1d8

1d4

Heroism 1d6

Red Mage

1d10

1d4

1d8

Red Magic 1d12

Thief

1d4

1d12

1d8

Sneaking 1d10

White Mage

1d8

1d4

1d10

White Magic 1d12

BASIC RULES AND ACTIVITIES

Listed here are some of the really basic rules for the kinds of things that adventurers will do, and things that will happen to them fairly often. While there are quite a few other things that can happen to the adventurers, most of those things happen less often, and are described wherever they come up in the text. MOVING AROUND: The whole group can, at any time, decide to move to another place - or, if they are in The Dungeon, they can decide to move from one room to another. They must stay together, and cant leave a fight unless they use Run. FIGHTING THINGS: When there are monsters, then there's a fight. In a fight, there are turns. Every turn, everybody (monsters included) gets to name one thing that they are hitting. Then everybody rolls a fighting dice, and whatever they are fighting loses that many hit points. If you lose all of your hit points, your character is knocked out - see the other rules. When a monster has zero hit points, it dies, and you can take it's loot, as described later on. RUNNING: Each session, roll this die, and mark down the number these are points you can spend to run away between now and the next time that you stay at the Inn. When youre in a fight, if you want to leave, you can escape the fight (but not the room) by spending one of these points. Monsters dont follow people in this game. If you run away after combat starts, you dont hit anything that turn, but monsters can still hit you before you leave. You cant re-enter a fight youve left (except with Thievery). THINKING: Each session, roll this die, and mark down the number these are points you can spend this session (or at least, until the next time you stay at the Inn) to realize stuff. When you set off a trap, you can spend one of these points to ignore it for yourself, or three points to cancel it entirely. Also, you may spend one at any time to find any secret doors in a dungeon room; when you do this, roll 1d4 (dont add anything); on a one put a door north; on a two, put it east, on a three, put it south, and on a four, put it west. If there was already a door there, you found nothing. If the door would lead to outside the dungeon, you gain 2d6 Gil instead, since youve found hidden treasure. TOWN STUFF: While the adventurers are in town, they will have the option to buy things, rest at the Inn, and so on. These things are described a little later on.
Urggghhh. My sweet, formerly-internal organs. The next time someone says We Quest!, Im going to kill them. Possibly more than once.

AM I DEAD?
If you are dropped to zero HP (theres no negative numbers, so zero is as low as you go) then you're knocked down and out, and cant act unless someone with White Magic heals you. If healed, you can act next on the next turn. At the end of the battle, after your surviving buddies have divvied up the loot, they'll give you some water and a bite of crumb cake, and you'll have 1 HP again. Some places where this changes: SOME DOWN, SOME RAN: If nobody is left in a fight, but some ran away, then the people that are down must roll to see who dies, as if everybody was down. EVERYBODY IS DOWN: If everybody gets knocked out then the monsters get bored and leave. Everybody has to make a d12 roll, the lowest roller is actually dead, and needs to be brought back to life at The Church. The other characters revive with 1 HP as usual. EVERYBODY IS DEAD: If everybody actually dies, then the whole group wakes up back at the last Inn they stayed at, but loses all of their Gil.

And now, we quest!

SPECIAL SKILLS
Each of the Jobs has one special Die. This represents a skill that people who have that job can do. Though other characters can learn the special skills of different Jobs later on by spending money, they will almost never be as good at those skills as the characters that start with them. Each of these abilities, much like Run and Think, are rolled at the start of the game, creating a number of points that the character can spend to use the skill. Once these points run out, they cant get more unless they go and rest at an Inn and reroll them - and when they are rerolled, just like fight and think points, the new points replace the old ones if any old ones are left. BLACK MAGIC: Every Black Mage rolls this at the beginning of every session. Instead of picking a monster to fight on any specific turn, they can spend one of the points they rolled, and roll 2d6. They then choose one of the dice as how many monsters it hits, and the other for how much damage it does to each of them. If they would hit more monsters than are actually around, then they have to choose adventurers to hit in order to make up the difference. Black Magic bonuses are added, hut only to the damage done, not the number of things hit. BLUE MAGIC: A Blue Mage rolls this die at the start of the session, to determine how many points of Blue Magic they have to use for that session. Blue Magic Points can be spent as if they were monster points (these points are Poison, Beatdown, Swarm, and Undead). As a special note, a Blue Mage that spends a point of Blue Magic as if it was a point of Undead cant be healed by White Magic for the rest of the fight, and takes damage just like the Undead do, if a White Mage uses their magic points to damage all the Undead in a fight. DRAGON JUMP: Dragoons roll this at the beginning of the session, to find out how many uses of this ability they have that session. To use this ability, they spend one point of it at the start of any fighting turn. Monsters cannot attack them that turn, and they cant attack either. At the start of the next turn, they choose one monster, and deal damage to it twice as for normal fighting. Each of these two hits must be blocked separately with Swarm or Undead points, if the monster has them. However, this ability cant be used more than once in any fight. FIST OF FURY: Black Belts roll this at the beginning of the session, to find out how many uses of this ability they have that session. Once per fight, at any time, they can spend one of their uses; for the rest of the fight, they roll two dice for fighting, and take the best one.
Im not saying I dont like swords. What Im saying is, two swords. And some chain.

HEROISM: Fighters roll this at the beginning of the session. In a fight, anytime they hit a monster, they can spend a point of this to do an extra fighting die of damage, plus fighting bonuses, to the monster; they cant spend more than one point per hit, though. WHITE MAGIC: Every White Mage rolls this at the beginning of a session to find how many magic they have that session. To use magic, instead of picking a monster to fight on any combat turn, they heal 1d10 Hit Points, plus White Magic bonuses, to an adventurer. White magic can also be used to heal adventurers in town and between fights. It can bring a character back from knockout, but not from death. RED MAGIC: Red Mages roll this at the beginning of a session to see how many times they can use their magic. To use magic, they spend a point of this instead of picking a monster to fight in a turn, and pick a target - adventurer or monster. That targets Fighting die improves or is reduced by one size (1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12) for the rest of the fight. Alternatively, a Red Mage (and only an actual Red Mage) can spend two points of Red Magic to get one point of White Magic or one point of Black Magic; however, when they use these points, their Red Magic bonuses and their level are not added to the effects. SNEAKING: Every Thief rolls this at the beginning of every session. This finds out the amount of times the Thief can effectively go invisible, and not be attacked until he attacks; while invisible, monsters cant attack the thief; the thief can attack, but doesnt have to. The first time he attacks, the Thief does damage equal to double their normal maximum damage (all bonuses are doubled as well), and then stops being invisible. A thief can go invisible as soon as monsters are discovered, but before anyone picks who they are fighting, but cant go invisible during a fight. However, as a special use, a thief can spend a point of thievery to invisibly return to a fight theyve run away from, as long as the fight is still going on.

WELCOME TO TOWN
The adventurers can move freely around town without worrying about monsters and traps. Everything on this page happens in town. Though the Adventurers can leave town at any time, and wander around in The Wilderness, they cant go to a Dungeon until they have been given an adventure by the Adventure Guy in town.
Level 4, Fighting Gear +3, Heroism Gear +2, Black Magic 1d4, Damn. Im good.

THE INN
Going to the Inn heals everyone completely except for people that are currently dead, and allows everyone to regain all lost Hit Points and reroll all of their session dice (such as Run and Think). Visiting the Inn costs 10 Gil for the whole group, plus another 10 Gil for each level that anyone in the group has - people with levels need more space. So, a group of five Level 5 adventurers would be paying 260 Gil on every visit to the Inn.

THE ADVENTURE GUY

Every town has an Adventure Guy. Its not always a guy. But this is a person who will give you Quests. When you go to this guy, they tell you what your next (or first, as may be) adventure will be, and the kinds of things that will happen if you go and do it. Quests always end up taking you across the wilderness to a Dungeon, where you must rescue somebody, kill someone, or get some special treasure that doesnt do anything for you. Sometimes, Quest rewards involve the Adventure Guy giving you money when you succeed. Other times, it just involves them telling you that they are the only one who knows where the Dungeons are, and if you dont accept their stupid quest, you wont get any more adventures at all. And sometimes, if you succeed, theyll tell you how to get to another town with all the same stuff, but with a different adventure guy, who will hopefully be less of a complete jerk. Why do you agree to this? Well Its just what adventurers do. History, tradition, that kind of thing.

THE STORE
The chart at the bottom of this column show you what you can buy with the Stuff you get from killing monsters. LEVELS: You must buy your levels one at a time. You start at level Zero, and then buy level one, then two, then three, and so on, until you get to five, which is the highest level there is. You can't skip levels, so don't try it. You get a bonus to all rolls that you have dice for, except skills, the same size as your Level - this bonus doesnt apply to things you dont have dice for, like gear does. Finally, whenever you gain a Level, add as many Hit Points to your maximum as you had at Level Zero. GEAR: You can buy equipment at The Shop. When you buy equipment, choose a kind of roll the equipment will give a bonus to, and decide how big the bonus will be. If you already have equipment for that roll, you must sell it first. You can get equipment that gives a bonus to a roll you cant make (like a Fighter buying gear for +1 White Magic); if you do, the bonus is treated as your roll. SKILLS: You can buy the special rolls that other adventurers get (Heroism, Black Magic, and so on); these are bought at 1d4, and your level doesnt add to them. They get more expensive the more you have. SELLING GEAR: You can sell gear. You get half as much Stuff as you paid for it when you sell it.

THE CHURCH
The Church is where you go when people are dead in a party and you want to revive them. Bringing someone back from the dead costs 50 Gil, plus another 50 Gil for each level that they have; if you cant afford to pay for all the levels that they have, they can be brought back at a lower level, but the lost levels are lost for good, and must be bought all over again at the store.

THIS PRICE 100 Gil 300 Gil 900 Gil 2,700 Gil 24,300 Gil

BUYS THIS... Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5

OR THIS... +1 Gear +2 Gear +3 Gear +4 Gear +5 Gear

OR THIS... 1st Skill 2nd Skill 3rd Skill 4th Skill 5th Skill

THE DANCING GIRL

Most towns have a dancing girl. There is no particular reason for this. In the same vein, there is no reason at all why most town guards, when you try to talk to them, repeat the phrase Welcome to Town! over and over and over. But these things are around. If any of them are particularly interesting or funny, they will be described in the adventure, where all the players can read about them.

GOING OUT AND ABOUT

THE DUNGEON
A Dungeon is basically a big grid made out of rooms. Each room is square, and you can go North, South, East, or West into the next room through doors. Not all walls have doors, so its kind of a maze. Adventurers move through a Dungeon one room at a time, determining (and sometimes fighting) what is in each room before going to the next. THE ENTRY ROOM: This is where adventurers can enter and leave The Wilderness. THE MAP: Every adventure has a dungeon map. It may be simple or complicated; it might even have a second floor or more. If any special rules apply, they will be described. Its usually a good idea to put a little token on it to show where the group is, and make little notes on it about the rooms as the group goes along. SPECIAL ROOMS: There are often special rooms in a Quest Dungeon. The Boss fight room, the Rescue-Me room, and so on. The Adventure will describe these. REGULAR ROOMS: A Regular room will contain one of the following: Monsters, a Trap, or a Puzzle. To find out which, someone has to roll 1d6; on a 1, 2, 3, or 4 its monsters. On a 5 its a trap. On a 6, its a puzzle. MONSTERS: The numbers and dice used for monsters are on the next page 2. Whenever the group meets monsters, just like in the Wilderness, someone must roll 1d6, and add the levels of everyone in the group to the roll. This is the total level of the fight; the adventure youre using will tell you what kind of fight that is. TRAPS: If the group enters a room with a trap, it will hurt everyone unless it is Noticed. Traps do 1d6 damage to everyone, plus the number of the Floor youre on. It costs one point of Thinking to avoid this damage for yourself, or three points to save the whole group. PUZZLES: If the group enters a room with a puzzle, you have a chance to get extra loot by solving it. To solve a puzzle, someone who has point of Thinking must spend it, and roll the same die they use for Thinking they dont get any bonuses. If their roll is, or beats four, everyone gets as many Gil as their level, plus one. GOING BACK: If you go back through a room youve been in and cleared out, someone must roll a 1d6. If it comes up 6, whatever was there before is replaced with monsters. If you come back to a room that you left in the middle of a fight, the monsters are always still there, and have fully healed.

THE WILDERNESS
Traveling around the world basically means that you are walking around outside, and will probably get attacked by monsters. This may be what you want, since killing monsters is the main way to get Gil. So, really, there are two kinds of world travel. WANDERING AROUND: Upon leaving town, the group can declare that they are wandering around. They will then get in a fight. After the fight, they can decide if theyre going to keep wandering around, or go back into town. This process repeats as long as the group wants it to, really. GOING SOMEWHERE: When you get a quest, you will learn just how far away the Dungeon for it is, measured in dice worth of fights. A basic adventure might put the dungeon 1d4 or 1d6 fights away. You get the idea. WILDERNESS FIGHTS: When a fight happens, someone must roll 1d6, and add the levels of everyone in the group to the roll. This is the total level of the fight; the adventure youre using will tell you what kind of fight that is.

LEVEL 0

LEVEL 1

LEVEL 2

LEVEL 3

LEVEL 4

LEVEL 5

MONSTERS!
Monsters dont Think or Run, but they do have a few other tricks that the adventurers dont have.

THE MONSTER LIST

LVL MONSTER NAME
Scorpion Imp Skeleton Bat Swarm Spider

MONSTER POINTS
Every monsters will have as many points as their level. All the standard monsters put all their points into the same thing, but special adventure and Boss monsters might have anything. BEATDOWN: This point is spent upon hitting an enemy, and adds one to the damage done by that hit. A monster with beatdown will use it each time they hit an adventurer until are out. UNDEAD: A point of undead is spent upon being hit, to ignore the damage from it entirely. However, if there are any undead in a room, a White Mage (and only a White Mage, not just someone with the skill) can spend one point of White Magic to deal 1d6 plus bonuses to every undead monster in the fight. POISON: This point is spent upon hitting an enemy. The enemy turns green, and takes an extra damage every time they are hit from then on, and every time a new fight starts, until they get healed by a White Mage or rest at an Inn. A monster with poison will use it the each time they hit an adventurer until they run out. SWARM: A monster with swarm points spends one each time it is hit, until it runs out. Each swarm point spent reduces the damage taken from that hit down to an amount equal to the monsters level. However, a swarm monster also doesnt roll dice to attack; instead, it does damage equal to its level.

HIT PTS
8 8 8 8 16

FIGHT ATTACK DIE PATTERN

1d4 1d4 1d4 1 1d6 Descent Descent Ascent Gangup Ascent

MONSTER POINTS
1 Poison 1 Beatdown 1 Undead 1 Swarm 2 Poison

PICTURE

1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 5

Wolf Shadow Arachnid Scum Thing Pirate Geist Villian

16 16

1d6 1d6 2 1d8 1d8 1d8 1d10 1d10 1d12

Ascent Decent Gangup Descent Descent Ascent Gangup Ascent Gangup

2 Beatdown 2 Undead 2 Swarm 3 Poison 3 Beatdown 3 Undead 4 Beatdown 4 Undead 5 Beatdown

16 24 24 24 32

ATTACK PATTERNS
There are three basic patterns of attack that monsters will follow. If a group made of mixed monsters attacks the group, and dont all have the same pattern, then they use Descent. DESCENT: The first monster attacks the adventurer with the highest Hit Points, they second one the next-most, and so on; once everyone has a monster of this type attacking them, start over with the highest and work down again until theyre all assigned. ASCENT: Ascending monsters work exactly the same was descending ones do, except that they start at whoever has the lowest hit points. GANGUP: Monsters that gang up all attack whichever adventurer has the most hit points, and keep attacking them every round, until that adventurer either falls down or runs away.

Mummy Green Ogre

32 40

TAKING THEIR STUFF!

Every time a group of monsters is killed completely, all adventurers gain as many Gil as the total levels of the monsters. If the whole group runs away in the middle of the fight, but kills some of the monsters, they get nothing - but if some characters run, and the monsters all die, all the adventurers still get the same amount of Gil. Even dead adventurers get a full share of the Gil from a fight, so long as somebody survives and manages to finish off the monsters.

ADVENTURE ONE: CORNERIA

AT THE CASTLE
Why, yes, as it happens, I do have a quest you can go on. And if you do it, Ill build you a bridge!

THE BASICS
The king of Corneria has lost his daughter. To be more specific, his daughter has been taken away in the middle of the night to be prepared for marriage to the dastardly Garland, whose castle is in the north. The only thing that he promises to give the adventurers is a bridge out of the area. Unfortunately, the King is the only Adventure guy around, and theres no other way out of the country. So the adventurers are pretty much backed into a corner on this one, unless they want to throw their cool new Job outfits down a well and take up sheep-herding. VICTORY: The adventurers complete this adventure if they defeat Garland in battle and rescue the princess. TRAVEL: The castle of Garland is 1d6 fights away; roll this number when the group declares that it is going to the castle. If the group doesnt like this number, they can get into one fight, and then go back to town, rolling again when they leave again. STORES: The store in town doesnt sell anything worth more than 100 Gil. The group will need to get to the next town before they can buy anything better than this.

The map on the next page shows how Castle Garnish (the dungeon) is laid out. The castle only has one floor, and the adventurers are all probably level zero. Thus, all monster encounters are made up of 1d6+1 levels of monsters, unless the adventurers decided to hunt monsters for levels before coming, or left to rest and came back with levels. THE PUZZLE ROOMS: These rooms are known to contain puzzles. Nothing fancy about them. THE BOSS, LORD GARNISH: Lord Garnish is standard Level 4 Villain, except that he also has a point of the Black Belt ability, Fists of Fury. When he is defeated, though, all the adventurers receive Gil as if they had defeated a Level 5 monster instead. THE PRINCESS: This room contains the Princess, and nothing else. If the adventurers enter the room, then the Princess is saved - getting to the princess in one piece is harder than actually saving her. THE TREASURE ROOM: This room doesnt have a door. To get into it, the group must get into a room that is on one of its four sides, and find it by spending think points. If they do get into it, the room contains 30 Gil for each adventurer.

MAP OF GARLANDS CASTLE

5 5

THE FIGHTS
Roll 1d6 +Levels If the group is in THE WILDERNESS 1 Imp 2 Scorpions 3 Imps 4 Scorpions 1 Green Ogre 6 Imps 7 Scorpions 8 Imps 9 Scorpions 2 Green Ogres If the group is in THE DUNGEON 1 Skeleton 2 Bats 3 Skeleton 4 Bats 5 Skeletons 6 Bats 7 Skeletons 4 Shadows 9 Bats 5 Shadows
5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

MAP NUMBERS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. ENTRY ROOM BOSS ROOM PRINCESS TREASURE ROOM PUZZLE ROOM

PRINT & CLIP CHARACTER SHEETS

BLACK BELT (12 HP/Lvl)
Level & Notes:

FIGHTER (10 HP/Lvl)

Level & Notes:

FIGHT ROLL NOW

1d10+__

RUN
1d8+__

THINK
1d6+__

FISTS
1d4+__

_______
1d__

HP ROLL NOW

FIGHT
1d12+__

RUN
1d8+__

THINK
1d4+__

HERO
1d6+__

_______
1d__

HP

N/A

N/A

BLACK MAGE (4 HP/Lvl)

Level & Notes:

RED MAGE (6 HP/Lvl)

Level & Notes:

FIGHT ROLL NOW

1d6+__

RUN
1d10+__

THINK BLACK
1d8+__ 1d12+__

_______
1d__

HP ROLL NOW

FIGHT
1d10+__

RUN
1d4+__

THINK
1d8+__

RED
1d12+__

_______
1d__

HP

N/A

N/A

BLUE MAGE (10 HP/Lvl)

Level & Notes:

THIEF (6 HP/Lvl)
Level & Notes:

FIGHT ROLL NOW

1d6+__

RUN
1d4+__

THINK
1d8+__

BLUE
1d12+__

_______
1d__

HP ROLL NOW

FIGHT
1d6+__

RUN
1d12+__

THINK SNEAK
1d8+__ 1d10+__

_______
1d__

HP

N/A

N/A

DRAGOON (12 HP/Lvl)

Level & Notes:

WHITE MAGE (6 HP/Lvl)

Level & Notes:

FIGHT ROLL NOW

1d10+__

RUN
1d8+__

THINK
1d4+__

JUMP
1d6+__

_______
1d__

HP ROLL NOW

FIGHT
1d8+__

RUN
1d4+__

THINK WHITE
1d10+__ 1d12+__

_______
1d__

HP

N/A

N/A