Hey guys.

This is the first post on my new blog. This blog is more general than my other ones (Peregriadoc's adventures; Joshuan Gallidox's adventures, stories and reviews).

My friend Rodrigo, from the Brazilian Mystara group on WhatsApp, encouraged me to jot down on paper (aham… blog) my ideas. I think he realized there were many ideas and that they needed to be organized, hehe. Thank you so much for the encouragement and support, Rodrigo!

I asked him what kind of content he wanted to see. I gave him half a dozen options and he replied, "Everything!"

That's the attitude!

Okay, I'll start then. Let's go!

The subject of this post is "Why I like the Dark Dungeons books so much?

To answer this, first, we must answer another question: "What is Dark Dungeons?"

DD (Dark Dungeons) is a book, which is already in its 4th edition. More specifically, it is a BECMI-RC retroclone.

I will explain those terms bit by bit.

"BECMI” is an edition of the beloved "Basic D&D," and stands for "Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal." Those are 5 books, released in the sequence I just mentioned them. The first, Basic, came out in 1983. The following ones didn't come out much later.

"RC" is our beloved "book of the person stranded on an island," as many grognards call it. Why? They say,  "If I had to be stranded on an island with only one D&D (or AD&D) book, I would choose the Rules Cyclopedia.” That's what the nickname means. And why is that? Because the RC is a DMG (Dungeon Masters Guide), a PHB (Players Handbook), an MM (Monstrous Manual), aaaaaand… even a little bit of a Campaign Setting! Our beloved Mystara! All in just one book!

However, the RC, despite being a beautiful compilation, “only” includes BECM (that is, it doesn't include the last book of the series, the "Immortal" set). This, I imagine, happened because TSR already had planned to release the “WotI” ("Wrath of the Immortals"), which brings a... sort of... "new Immortal set". Some people prefer the original Immortal set; some people prefer "WotI;" some people love both (why not, right? The more, the merrier!).

Well, that's where Dark Dungeons shines (among many other points)! It's a retroclone not only of BECMI, not only of RC, but of all of that (since it also includes content from Immortals).

In the book's introduction, the excellent author states that his RC fell apart (from so much use). Of course, a "desert island" book seems to be destined to be super used.   ;-)

So he decided to make a retroclone. Just like that... as if it were an easy undertaking... ;-)

He thus created Dark Dungeons, then started using it (and I believe he still uses it), and published it. Thank you for that!

But why, why is DD so much less popular than OSE? Note that OSE is a retroclone of B/X - which was Basic D&D in its version prior to BECMI. B/X, as the name suggests, had "only" 2 books: (B)asic and e(X)pert. The Basic book (the first of the 2 B/X books) was published in 1981, only 2 years before the (B)asic book (the first of the 5 BECMI books). But I digress...

The point is: why is the B/X clone so much more (and I mean MUCH more!) popular than the BECMI-RC clone?

They say it's because OSE is so well-made, well-written, with such a clear layout, such a well-executed book (content and visuals) that "there was no need" for Dark Dungeon to exist. In other words, there wasn't "a void to be filled." Hum… is that so? I challenge that.

I challenge that explanation because I like BECMI more than I like B/X - although B/X is great. The thing is I started my D&D journey with the RC (which is, remember, the BECMI compilation, but without the last book, so a "BECM"), and you never forget your first love, right? And there are so many other folks who also like the BECMI-RC better than they like B/X. My point is even if B/X is more popular nowadays than BECMI-RC, let’s say it is… twice as popular. The “twice as popular” doesn’t translate to their retroclones. I bet OSE is… say, 50 times more popular than DD. Those are just made-up numbers, but you get the idea.

But let's get to the point: why do I like Dark Dungeons so much?

Well, you've already seen that I really like the system that DD (Dark Dungeons) emulates (BECMI-RC). That's the first reason. A really valid reason, right?

Question: Are there other reasons Dark Dungeons can be an excellent asset to your collection? Yes, you, who are an OSR, retroclone enthusiast, maybe a groganard, perhaps a younger hobbyist (who is looking for an old-school flavour).

Answer: Oh, yes! You bet!

What are those reasons, precious?

I'll tell you in the next posts!

See you soon,

vinimagus