Share and Shared Alike

Dungeons & Dragons and its various iterations informed our fantasy and showed how explore new worlds, including the virtual ones we can view and interact with via our computer screens and our television screens. In turn the fantasy of those virtual worlds is having an influence upon the roleplaying games we bring to the table—even Dungeons & Dragons in the form of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. More recent entries in this computer fantasy game influenced genre have included the Fabula Ultima TTPG and BREAK!! In between, there is a smaller roleplaying called .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG. This is a fantasy roleplaying game inspired by computer games such as The Legend of Zelda series, the Final Fantasy series—especially the earlier ones, and even World of Warcraft. As much as it takes inspiration from the virtual world of these computer games and MMORPGs, .Dungeon is intended to be influenced by the real world around the World—as the Game Master is known in .Dungeon. What this means is that whilst there is a structure to the world of Annwn, as the setting of .Dungeon is known, and that structure is fundamentally an icosahedron, the World can literally look at the world around her and use it as inspiration. This can be from her bookshelf, her games shelf, newspapers, or even the computer games she is playing, and for each item she takes as inspiration, it is mapped onto one of the twenty faces of Annwn.

.Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG is both a virtual world and a shared world. This is perhaps the most important aspect of .Dungeon for there are actually three types of character in the roleplaying game, two of whom share the world. Here is where .Dungeon gets weird and straddles the virtual world and the real world. First, there are the players. They are roleplaying their own avatars in Annwn and are known as the Players. Essentially, they are sat round the table roleplaying a game called .Dungeon. Then there are players who are not sat round the table roleplaying a game called .Dungeon, but are playing a MMORPG set in the world of Annwn. They are the equal of the Players and have their own motivations which they bring with them from the real world. They also share the world of Annwn with the Players. Lastly, there are the traditional NPCs of such games, who are almost present with the exclamation and question marks over their heads. The world is also shared in that the Players game together and share the same pool of the equivalent of Hit Points. This is Connection, representing both their internet connection to the game, and ultimately the time they can devote to the game. As play progresses and any time a Player fails a roll, the Players collectively lose Connection, until they have no more Connection, have to stop playing and must go back to school, get a job, and the like…

A Player in .Dungeon is defined by six stats—RNG, Meta, System, Tilt, Charm, and Perception. RNG is a Player’s relationship with the programming of the virtual world and its will, covering reaction rolls, loot, and random chance; Meta is the Player’s knowledge of the world of Annwn; System is the Player’s skill over the game, including fighting and climbing; Tilt is the Player’s capacity to keep calm; Charm is the ability to invoke the player’s real-world presence in the virtual world of Annwn; and Perception the Player’s physical senses. These are rated by die type, from a four-sided to a twenty-sided die. To create a Player, a player assigns a single die to each stat, decides upon his screen name, and notes down the player’s actual job. If ever this comes up in game, it grants a second die to roll and choose from in a task. Depending upon the nature of the world created by the World, this can either be very useful or utterly useless. The players are often going to work hard to apply jobs such as editor or barista or bus driver to the fantasy of Annwn. A player also has to decide upon his Player’s hair, body type, outfit, and other details.

A Player in .Dungeon also has a Class. There are ten given. These are the Knight, the Hacker, the Beast, the Mage, the Witch, the Leader, the Artist, the Troll, the Dungeoneer, and the Bard. These are lightly drawn though highly specialised. These often play around with their archetypes as much they do the virtual nature of the world of Annwn. For example, the Dungeoneer builds on what he learns of dungeons and settlements, gaining an Understanding each time. These can be spent to add details to a settlement or dungeon, but also saved and exchanged for a Rest Die. The Troll can rage and so roll percentile dice for all physical Contests, whilst losing less Connection. The Troll is also encouraged to make exaggerated, if false statements about the world, obliging NPCs and Player Characters, and even other Players to correct him in a patronising manner. This can be played for the humour, but also played to learn information about the world, because after all, the Troll is being corrected. The Leader gives gifts, such as a sincere compliment, a trinket, a hug—consenting, and if accepted also gives that Player a die type to add to a Contest. The Leader can also roll a Meta Contest against anything Annwn. If the player wins, the Leader can find the information he seeks in the manual for the game (thus forcing him to do the one thing nobody does and that is read the manual!). There is the sense that a lot of the Classes are playing with aspects within the game and outside of it. A Player also has equipment, which simply adds flavour rather than mechanical benefit, and some gold. This can be spent on further gear, legendary gear if he has enough. Legendary gear can also come from quests. Gold can also be spent to fast travel across a world. Lastly, it is possible for the Players to have skills, but to learn a skill, a Player must find a teacher who willing to teach him.

Mechanically Player actions are handled through contests. Contests are opposed rolls, with the highest result winning the situation. In combat, this can be to deal damage to the opponent’s Connection, equal to difference between what the player rolled and the World rolled. Losing a Contest means two things. First, the action takes more time, and second, the loss of Connection in combat. Player can team up to achieve objectives and combine the rolls, but then so can the opposition! Reducing an opponent’s Connection removes them from the world, there are situations too, which might cause a Player to respawn. For example, this might be in a big boss fight or some other tasks, and is designed to complicate a situation rather than punish a player and his character. Every twenty points of Connection lost grants a Rest Die, which can be rolled to restore Connection.

Advice for the World is relatively light, but does suggest Contest difficulties and suggests ways in which scenarios for roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons can be incorporated into .Dungeon. It also details how to populate the twenty worlds of Annwn. However, the World populates the various faces, each has its own settlement, complete with common knowledge, history, and secrets, quests, and both a Princess and a Knight, each of whom is also a Player Character. Player Characters are other players in the game and do not have to act as supinely as NPCs do. They can act however they want and they have reasons to be playing which can influence their portrayal in game by the World. Further, each Player Character has hidden depths, represented in play by a mini-dungeon of shared moments and experiences that the player is not necessarily aware that he is exploring alongside his exploration of Annwn. This organises and elevates emotional interaction and exploration within the game as well as the virtual. Rounding out .Dungeon are notes for solo play, which feel more complex than the rest of the roleplaying game does.

Physically, .Dungeon is notably for being a small, slim book presented in landscape rather than portrait format. The cover has strong colours which are also used inside the book’s pages. The book uses a bitmapped style font for its titles which are often done in the style of a programming language.

.Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG is a storytelling game, but it hides this and its potential for emotional engagement under the familiarity of its double genre of a roleplaying game and a computer roleplaying game and virtual world format. However, the simplicity of .Dungeon in terms of mechanics and inspiration make running the roleplaying game not only easy to run, but also easy to run with a minimum of preparation. It requires knowledge of the language and play style of certain type computer or console fantasy games, but most players in coming to .Dungeon will have a familiarity with both, making itself easy to grasp. However, with that knowledge there is definitely a sense of a world shared, not just between the Players, but also the Player Characters. Every roleplaying game is a shared experience, but .Dungeon extends that by making us draw upon already shared references and experiences in the World’s creation of her Annwn and then not only share its exploration around the table, but literally share an exploration of the lives and emotions of others exploring the same world—just not at the table.