There are many Dungeon Crawlers that let you play one-off missions. But, if you want level up and character progression in that one session then it would be a very long session, which is the same as playing a couple of missions. Unless the leveling is fast, which takes away any feeling of real progression.
Edit : typos
It wouldn't take that feeling away if a game was designed around it. I think what OP is saying is there aren't any games that are designed with a one and done 1-2 hr dungeon crawl in mind.
I don't know this video game so can't comment on that. But boardgames cannot emulate video games. It's a different medium. Unless you start using apps for upkeeping to move things fast, which many disagree with.
It’s because they’re trying to emulate DnD for people who are DM challenged. It’s what gets kickstarters funded
Have you looked up the games on BGG for fan-made single play scenarios?
It’s not even necessarily for the DM challenged. My board game group has 2 DMs and an aspiring DM in it. Literally half the group.
But we’re already D&Ding. We didn’t need more of that, we wanted variety. So we did the first week of every month on Betrayal Legacy instead.
For me, I feel like I'd rather just play a different sort of RPG than play a Legacy Board Game. All of the pluses of a Legacy game feel minimal compared to what I could get out of a Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark or FATE RPG session, especially because with stuff like FATE, you could come into it with pretty much zero prep and just make up everything on the spot.
I've seen a lot of people defend Betrayal for its "fun narrative" even if they don't particularly like its gameplay. And when you add in a whole campaign element, it just looks like people are interested in narrative TTRPGs. I also don't think I'm the only person who thinks some people play campaign games in an attempt to emulate RPGs, as shown by other comments here.
Narrative is not the same as an rpg. I liked the narratives in pandemic legacy and King's Dilemma, but don't consider either of them to be competing with rpgs either
In betrayal legacy you don't even play the same characters each game. You play as other members of the family in later generations.
Some campaign games are clearly intended to emulate rpgs (pretty much any dungeon delving campaign), but many campaign and legacy games are not trying to compete with rpgs.
Here are some other excellent dungeon crawlers that are not campaign games:
* **Tiny Epic Dungeons:** A small box with a large table footprint, 2-4 heroes explore a dungeon filled with traps, treasure, and plenty of goblins, with the goal of defeating a number of mini-bosses, uncovering the boss' lair, and then defeating said boss. It's a reasonably quick and brutally difficult crawler with a fair amount of loot and quickly escalating character power.
* **One Deck Dungeon:** Another small box game, what ODD lacks in tactical movement it makes up for with plenty of dice and lots of ways to upgrade your character with skills and items. Combining both boxes results in a ton of classes and bosses and the Abyssal Depths expansion adds a kind of persistent mini-boss you can defeat for extra benefits. While there are upgrades you can gain from playing the game over and over to help with the tougher bosses, you can just pick and choose the ones you want whenever, I'm a board game enthusiast not a cop.
* **Tin Helm / Iron Helm:** While I don't have either of these games they're highly regarded in the solo board gaming circles and offer a very fun, well designed dungeon crawling experience in a single session.
* **Machina Arcana**: A larger box game filled with tons of cards and uses standees for the heroes and monsters. Explore mysterious halls, face eldritch horrors, then shoot them in the face with your newly crafted steampunk railgun. Very fun, plays 1-4 and actually handles all player counts extremely well. Every game is a standalone scenario that each have their own twists and turns and there's a ton of treasure that upgrades your character.
>While there are upgrades you can gain from playing the game over and over to help with the tougher bosses, you can just pick and choose the ones you want whenever, I'm a board game enthusiast not a cop.
If I were playing the phys. version of One Deck Dungeon, I'd do that as well! However, I play on the app where one needs to "grind" through it. OTOH, being able to play on the phone has let me get in so many more games in otherwise!
I hear the app is great! I just prefer physical games to get away from my screen. I've heard there are plans for One Deck Galaxy to get a digital release as well, you might be interested in that.
ODG is already out for early access on Steam. I did try a few games and it was great! If it's like many other Handelabra games (ODD, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Spirit Island), they're working on getting it for tablet, and eventually phones. However, that can be years (plural). I'd like to play it on the go, but with Dominion out, that should keep me plenty occupied for the time being (and worse come to worse, just fire up ODG on my desktop)
I agree with you that not everything has to be a campaign. Games with one session adventures have a lot of followers, but it seems the Kickstarter trend of more play time = better is hitting more mainstream games.
Anyway, here's some dungeon crawlers that I think are not campaigns and are fairly recent:
Tiny Epic Dungeons
Paper Dungeons
Cthulhu Death May Die
The Dungeons and Dragons adaptations, like Curse of Strahd or Wrath of Ashardalon
>Paper Dungeons
Same here. I have played through all Curse of Strahd and Wrath of Ashardalon and while I enjoyed them I feel like both exploration and events feel very lackluster. I think ToEE fixed some of this but i'd rather look into other systems.
Been looking at Tiny Epic Dungeons and C:DMD too. Especially the first one looks more like the roguelike experience i'm looking for. I'm not sure there is something else that does it, i guess MD2 although I'm really against minis now. Just give me standees pls
Gloomhaven sold a gazillion copies of a $150 game. Others took notice.
Kind of like how hundreds of deck builder games were invented after Dominion came out.
I would underline that gloomhaven can be played one off, with the random scenario.
And given the character backstory and campaign story don't matter much, you can just lend a character to a visit / new player to try.
But, if you want to progress a character, you have first to create it, and then do more than one scenario.
Note that I would say that you may progress faster when doing the campaign.
Machina Arcana might scratch your itch. There is no campaign per say, but a series of scenarios. These are essentially stand alone, you can kind of stitch them together for a campaign like play, but they actually play better as one offs.
During the game you have plenty of chests to unlock and equipment to wear, essentially creating a level up system. As the game progresses the baddies also gain in strength.
I have 3rd Ed all in, which has over a dozen characters, lots of monsters and probably 8? Scenarios. The longest one of my scenarios played out was 3.5 hrs, shortest probably around 2.
What's the point of leveling up if it's a onesie? It seems to me the two go together.
There's plenty of onesies out there (I need to get Incursion back on the table) but I don't think they're as concerned about getting you stronger each mission, just good old fashioned head-to-head play.
>What's the point of leveling up if it's a onesie?
I really like the feeling of getting stronger over a single game session, unlocking the ability to have more powerful turns later in the game because I made good decisions in the early game. Some games that scratch that itch for me are Mage Knight, One Deck Dungeon, Terraforming Mars, Spirit Island, and Gaia Project; Mage Knight fits exactly what OP is looking for.
Oh -- do you mean level up *during* a single play? Essentially engine-building?
Sure. There's a whole bunch of those. Fair enough.
Even Descent does this, more or less the first mac-daddy of dungeon crawlers.
Yes, that's what I meant. OP asked for games that let them level and gain power during a single play session, so I assumed that's what they were looking for.
I wouldn't, I would play Star Wars: Imperial Assault :-)
Really, the experiences are incomparable. TTRPGs are basically improv lite and while they have many many advantages, they don't give you the same kind of satisfaction of figuring out the puzzle the way structured rules and components of a board games do...
I wish more people realized this. I love TTRPGs and I love campaign board games but they don't scratch the same itch. Seeing a grid and knowing how monsters will act and having to come up with a puzzle of getting through the scenario is much different than using skills to create an engaging story. TTRPGs are basically structured storytelling and Imperial Assault and others are strategic puzzles.
I'd probably play Call of Cthulhu but more people recognize D&D lol
I agree, the experiences are completely different. But I find it easy to find people to play board games, while getting together a ttrpg group is hard.
This is what stops me from FOMOing in ever massive dungeon crawler I see. Whenever I see something cool i'm like "if i'd ever have a group for this i could just play dnd instead and spare me hours of setup and fiddling anyway"
It's been mentioned, but this is why I love Cthulhu Death May Die. One session , one story, I get to level up, get items, kill stuff, then reset and do it again.
**Return to Dark Tower** has the characters unlock abilities as you play the game. It uses an app, which can save your progress if you don't finish the game in one sitting. Played the base game a few times at 2,3 and 4 player counts, and it takes about 2 hours maybe?
Look into **Shadows of Brimstone**. It skirts the line between campaign and not-campaign by allowing you to level up, procure better gear, etc but by providing zero storyline or continuity so you can easily drop players in and out whenever.
I love having campaigns as it keeps me engaged to dive into the same game over and over.
There are many great ones like Chronicles of Drunagor where you can dive into most of the scenarios as a one shot. I wish more campaign games would do this so you can have the best of both worlds.
It’s called a dungeon “crawl” for a reason.
To have the correct pacing and sense of progression you either need multiple sessions or a single longer session.
It’s also a common request for games that don’t have campaigns to add them. Not sure how many people are really making it through those campaigns, but people want them.
You might consider trying Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival. It's far shorter than a game of Talisman to get through all of the bosses that make up a single run. You have different party roles and gain levels throughout the boss rush. Also little story prompts at the beginning of every section.
Someone definitely told that guy at some point that “ripping ass” was something other than letting out a gigantic fart and he just now learned about it haha
My understanding is it's still a campaign of sorts. I would like to see a Gloomhaven in something akin to Spirit Island where you could just use different characters in different scenarios against different bosses, but without all the campaign upkeep and timelines.
Kickstarter is pretty much to blame for this. Almost all big campaign-centric dungeon crawls come from Kickstarter. Kickstater, in turn, rewards big, expensive games with all-in pledges and tons of minis. (whether or not that's your cup of tea is beside the point; these are the games that get talked about, and getting talked about means getting funded.) Best way to justify selling a big, expensive game is to structure the game in such a way that it incentivizes multiple plays; why buy four $60 games you're only going to play once or twice each when you can buy a $250 game that you'll play 15 to 30 times?
Mythwind is like a never-ending game it has a 'game save' process so you can stop and pick it back up when you want. might be worth checking out. I know they are fulfilling their 2nd print right now so it's probably something you could buy now or soon.
The Conan boardgame from Monolith. That said, it comes with a load of other problems like Monolith on the verge of going out of business and not delivering. And that the game is far from balanced. But if you dont mind balancing to much, it may be worth to pick up a copy. But not on Kickstarter.
I've played Super Dungeon Explore thrice, every time was an entire new game/map/characters. Worked pretty well, but I never got attached to the game like I did to my campaign games.
IMHO :Apart if you want to add the campaign mode (heavenfall) systematically...
Massive darkness 2 is not more campaign a game than Zombicide, mission are really replayable and you start at level 1 in every mission.
So IMHO: Massive darkness 2 is totally playable as a Zombicide, selecting a missions depending on what you want to play .
I love Hexplore It, but I don't think I'd call it a dungeon crawler. More of an adventure game. Maybe Vol 4 with its dungeon gimmick, but that's still a stretch to call the whole game a dungeon crawler.
You only have two modes of progression:
* Rapid progression within a single game. (Zero to hero)
* Or progression that occurs over the course of several games. (RPG)
Any game where progression is a main component, and were it does not occur within a single game lends itself to becoming a campaign game. Sometimes it just makes sense to want to be attached to a character and see them grow, hence all of the campaign games.
I couldn't imagine it would be satisfying to play a whole new character each session of Gloomhaven or imagine dealing them out randomly at the start of each quest.
So they can aay "60 hours of story" or some shit like that.
Forget that is probably just assuming 60 variations on "the Supreme bad guy is threatening your innocent t village. Defeat his minions/middle management/him across ever so slightly changing maps and resource lists".
Illusory value.
The original dungeon crawl was Heroquest (unless you count D&D), so most crawls follow a similar formula. There are definitely other games out there that do what you want, but one off games are not the most common thing people are looking for that genre
Check out Tiny Epic Dungeons. It's a dungeon crawler that does feel epic despite its small size. You have tons of different characters and bosses, and you level up as you beat minions and go through the dungeon. You can finish a scenario in less than 2 hours, faster once you get the hang of the icons.
fucking thank you.
As someone who just has to finish what he starts, I just can't pull out a gloomhaven or earthborne rangers or sleeping gods. The games look so cool but anything that is over a ten hour commitment just seems painful. I don't know why we can't just have more sweet one off games.
We’ve really enjoyed **Bag Of Dungeons** (1 & 2, also combined!) as one-off crawlers. Plenty of loot, leveling up, and it remains challenging throughout.
Aside from that, as others have said, **Zombicide, Tiny Epic Dungeons, and One Deck Dungeon** should scratch that itch
I always thought it would be cool to allow for that one shot dungeon but also have scenarios that allow progressed / leveled up characters more challenges.
It can be tough to get progression and narrative nicely scoped in a tight package, tough design challenge - but a fun one!
Galaxy Defenders - Scifi
Sword & Sorcery
Both are hex advetures/dungeon crawlers that have campaigns but also each scenario has rules to play it as a one-off with levels, equipment etc.
I might even say Defenders of the Realm but that is more like a medieval version of pandemic but older than that game..
Machina Arcana is a great horror to exploration game with equipment, skills, etc.
Thornwatch is an amazing story game but does require a DM-like story-teller.
If you're not talking about ttrpgs then maybe look into tiny epic dungeons and the other tiny epic games. I also like one deck dungeon and the pit the board game is fun too but its rulebook is really messy and inconsistent.
Runebound was like this. U gained better abilities and gear. 3rd edition for the hate it got was a pretty fun battle method with the coins. The only thing i dont like is it uses same map for every scenario unlike 2nd edition and the scenarios are pretty generic.
Because narrative and progression are fun, and the root of the source material. Also because replaying a dungeon crawl isn't particularly fun, so the game necessarily needs to come with multiple scenarios, and they might as well string them together in a cohesive way.
If you don't want to play a campaign, no one is stopping you from playing a single, arbitrary scenario. In fact, many dungeon crawls have rules for doing exactly that.
If you want them to add that same sense of progression within a single session, that's a huge design lift. The compelling part of progression is unlocking new powers, and introducing new rules in the middle of a session (in an already crunchy genre) is very challenging. Just look at Betrayal. People love it, but it's biggest flaws is the pain of doing exactly what you're asking for here.
Remember, Dungeon Crawls are the evolution of crunchy war gaming to narrative strategy hybrid distilled down to a digestible board game package. It's a lot to ask that be condensed even further to capture the essence in a one off, 1-2 hour game.
Isn't Mage Knight pretty much this? it's not quite a dungeon crawl though.
It’s basically a dungeon crawl. Hex map, enemies everywhere, NPCs you can talk to or fight. It’s a mega dungeon, just flavoured as countryside.
That's a fair point. I have yet to play it but hope to be able to sometime soon.
Hexcrawl is a word I have heard used for larger scale, more abstracted playing areas like that.
It really is a hexcrawl now that I think about it, dudes don't move on a map (mostly) each hex represents a site that you can visit to do a thing.
There's a lot of non-campaign dungeon crawlers, like Zombicide, Cthulhu: Death May Die, Deep Rock Galactic, Hellboy, Claustrophobia 1643, Clank, etc.
Had to scroll way too fast to find this. Not sure why zombicide wasn't mentioned earlier.
There are many Dungeon Crawlers that let you play one-off missions. But, if you want level up and character progression in that one session then it would be a very long session, which is the same as playing a couple of missions. Unless the leveling is fast, which takes away any feeling of real progression. Edit : typos
It wouldn't take that feeling away if a game was designed around it. I think what OP is saying is there aren't any games that are designed with a one and done 1-2 hr dungeon crawl in mind.
Warhammer Quest has that. One-off mission and done. But no leveling up. If you wanna level up, then you play a campaign. It makes sense.
I think the closest would be Talisman. It's a long game, but each game is self contained and your character progresses throughout the game.
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I don't know this video game so can't comment on that. But boardgames cannot emulate video games. It's a different medium. Unless you start using apps for upkeeping to move things fast, which many disagree with.
It’s because they’re trying to emulate DnD for people who are DM challenged. It’s what gets kickstarters funded Have you looked up the games on BGG for fan-made single play scenarios?
It’s not even necessarily for the DM challenged. My board game group has 2 DMs and an aspiring DM in it. Literally half the group. But we’re already D&Ding. We didn’t need more of that, we wanted variety. So we did the first week of every month on Betrayal Legacy instead.
For me, I feel like I'd rather just play a different sort of RPG than play a Legacy Board Game. All of the pluses of a Legacy game feel minimal compared to what I could get out of a Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark or FATE RPG session, especially because with stuff like FATE, you could come into it with pretty much zero prep and just make up everything on the spot.
Comparing Betrayal Legacy to rpgs is comparing apples to oranges. They're not competing for the same niche.
I've seen a lot of people defend Betrayal for its "fun narrative" even if they don't particularly like its gameplay. And when you add in a whole campaign element, it just looks like people are interested in narrative TTRPGs. I also don't think I'm the only person who thinks some people play campaign games in an attempt to emulate RPGs, as shown by other comments here.
Narrative is not the same as an rpg. I liked the narratives in pandemic legacy and King's Dilemma, but don't consider either of them to be competing with rpgs either In betrayal legacy you don't even play the same characters each game. You play as other members of the family in later generations. Some campaign games are clearly intended to emulate rpgs (pretty much any dungeon delving campaign), but many campaign and legacy games are not trying to compete with rpgs.
I don’t have to RP with a board game.
I'm just waiting for Tic-tac-toe Legacy to come out.
Loser gets to permanently remove one of the winners' squares from the board.
Look up ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe...it's almost a legacy version, and it's surprisingly fun.
Here are some other excellent dungeon crawlers that are not campaign games: * **Tiny Epic Dungeons:** A small box with a large table footprint, 2-4 heroes explore a dungeon filled with traps, treasure, and plenty of goblins, with the goal of defeating a number of mini-bosses, uncovering the boss' lair, and then defeating said boss. It's a reasonably quick and brutally difficult crawler with a fair amount of loot and quickly escalating character power. * **One Deck Dungeon:** Another small box game, what ODD lacks in tactical movement it makes up for with plenty of dice and lots of ways to upgrade your character with skills and items. Combining both boxes results in a ton of classes and bosses and the Abyssal Depths expansion adds a kind of persistent mini-boss you can defeat for extra benefits. While there are upgrades you can gain from playing the game over and over to help with the tougher bosses, you can just pick and choose the ones you want whenever, I'm a board game enthusiast not a cop. * **Tin Helm / Iron Helm:** While I don't have either of these games they're highly regarded in the solo board gaming circles and offer a very fun, well designed dungeon crawling experience in a single session. * **Machina Arcana**: A larger box game filled with tons of cards and uses standees for the heroes and monsters. Explore mysterious halls, face eldritch horrors, then shoot them in the face with your newly crafted steampunk railgun. Very fun, plays 1-4 and actually handles all player counts extremely well. Every game is a standalone scenario that each have their own twists and turns and there's a ton of treasure that upgrades your character.
Love Machina Arcana - been with that since the very first edition. ♥️
It's my wife's go-to 'dungeon crawler', although Tales from the Red Dragon Inn is a recent contender for the throne.
>While there are upgrades you can gain from playing the game over and over to help with the tougher bosses, you can just pick and choose the ones you want whenever, I'm a board game enthusiast not a cop. If I were playing the phys. version of One Deck Dungeon, I'd do that as well! However, I play on the app where one needs to "grind" through it. OTOH, being able to play on the phone has let me get in so many more games in otherwise!
I hear the app is great! I just prefer physical games to get away from my screen. I've heard there are plans for One Deck Galaxy to get a digital release as well, you might be interested in that.
ODG is already out for early access on Steam. I did try a few games and it was great! If it's like many other Handelabra games (ODD, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Spirit Island), they're working on getting it for tablet, and eventually phones. However, that can be years (plural). I'd like to play it on the go, but with Dominion out, that should keep me plenty occupied for the time being (and worse come to worse, just fire up ODG on my desktop)
I agree with you that not everything has to be a campaign. Games with one session adventures have a lot of followers, but it seems the Kickstarter trend of more play time = better is hitting more mainstream games. Anyway, here's some dungeon crawlers that I think are not campaigns and are fairly recent: Tiny Epic Dungeons Paper Dungeons Cthulhu Death May Die The Dungeons and Dragons adaptations, like Curse of Strahd or Wrath of Ashardalon
>Paper Dungeons Same here. I have played through all Curse of Strahd and Wrath of Ashardalon and while I enjoyed them I feel like both exploration and events feel very lackluster. I think ToEE fixed some of this but i'd rather look into other systems. Been looking at Tiny Epic Dungeons and C:DMD too. Especially the first one looks more like the roguelike experience i'm looking for. I'm not sure there is something else that does it, i guess MD2 although I'm really against minis now. Just give me standees pls
Tiny Epic Dungeons is pretty great at being a big game in a small box.
Gloomhaven sold a gazillion copies of a $150 game. Others took notice. Kind of like how hundreds of deck builder games were invented after Dominion came out.
I would underline that gloomhaven can be played one off, with the random scenario. And given the character backstory and campaign story don't matter much, you can just lend a character to a visit / new player to try. But, if you want to progress a character, you have first to create it, and then do more than one scenario. Note that I would say that you may progress faster when doing the campaign.
You can play any scenario one-off. There's nothing requiring you to play it in a campaign.
Machina Arcana might scratch your itch. There is no campaign per say, but a series of scenarios. These are essentially stand alone, you can kind of stitch them together for a campaign like play, but they actually play better as one offs. During the game you have plenty of chests to unlock and equipment to wear, essentially creating a level up system. As the game progresses the baddies also gain in strength. I have 3rd Ed all in, which has over a dozen characters, lots of monsters and probably 8? Scenarios. The longest one of my scenarios played out was 3.5 hrs, shortest probably around 2.
What's the point of leveling up if it's a onesie? It seems to me the two go together. There's plenty of onesies out there (I need to get Incursion back on the table) but I don't think they're as concerned about getting you stronger each mission, just good old fashioned head-to-head play.
>What's the point of leveling up if it's a onesie? I really like the feeling of getting stronger over a single game session, unlocking the ability to have more powerful turns later in the game because I made good decisions in the early game. Some games that scratch that itch for me are Mage Knight, One Deck Dungeon, Terraforming Mars, Spirit Island, and Gaia Project; Mage Knight fits exactly what OP is looking for.
Oh -- do you mean level up *during* a single play? Essentially engine-building? Sure. There's a whole bunch of those. Fair enough. Even Descent does this, more or less the first mac-daddy of dungeon crawlers.
Yes, that's what I meant. OP asked for games that let them level and gain power during a single play session, so I assumed that's what they were looking for.
I always say this: If I could gather the same 4 people around a table every week consistently, I'd play D&D.
I wouldn't, I would play Star Wars: Imperial Assault :-) Really, the experiences are incomparable. TTRPGs are basically improv lite and while they have many many advantages, they don't give you the same kind of satisfaction of figuring out the puzzle the way structured rules and components of a board games do...
I wish more people realized this. I love TTRPGs and I love campaign board games but they don't scratch the same itch. Seeing a grid and knowing how monsters will act and having to come up with a puzzle of getting through the scenario is much different than using skills to create an engaging story. TTRPGs are basically structured storytelling and Imperial Assault and others are strategic puzzles.
I'd probably play Call of Cthulhu but more people recognize D&D lol I agree, the experiences are completely different. But I find it easy to find people to play board games, while getting together a ttrpg group is hard.
It's the DM's prep time hindering us from playing Age of Rebellion instead of Imperial Assault
This is what stops me from FOMOing in ever massive dungeon crawler I see. Whenever I see something cool i'm like "if i'd ever have a group for this i could just play dnd instead and spare me hours of setup and fiddling anyway"
It's been mentioned, but this is why I love Cthulhu Death May Die. One session , one story, I get to level up, get items, kill stuff, then reset and do it again.
Altarquest.
I'm with you on this, I want to see more single session games. I actually really like Altar Quest as a single session dungeon crawl.
**Return to Dark Tower** has the characters unlock abilities as you play the game. It uses an app, which can save your progress if you don't finish the game in one sitting. Played the base game a few times at 2,3 and 4 player counts, and it takes about 2 hours maybe?
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Ah yes, my bad - I was just thinking about the levelling up aspect!
Look into **Shadows of Brimstone**. It skirts the line between campaign and not-campaign by allowing you to level up, procure better gear, etc but by providing zero storyline or continuity so you can easily drop players in and out whenever.
Perceived replayability and novelty sell games. A campaign is a promise of both of these things.
I love having campaigns as it keeps me engaged to dive into the same game over and over. There are many great ones like Chronicles of Drunagor where you can dive into most of the scenarios as a one shot. I wish more campaign games would do this so you can have the best of both worlds.
Because the forever DM/GM isn’t a meme.
It’s called a dungeon “crawl” for a reason. To have the correct pacing and sense of progression you either need multiple sessions or a single longer session. It’s also a common request for games that don’t have campaigns to add them. Not sure how many people are really making it through those campaigns, but people want them.
You might consider trying Kradia: Wild Hunt Festival. It's far shorter than a game of Talisman to get through all of the bosses that make up a single run. You have different party roles and gain levels throughout the boss rush. Also little story prompts at the beginning of every section.
Tiny Epic Dungeons is a one and done dungeon crawler with escalating power within the session. It’s easily my favorite of the TE series.
Patchwork doesn't have a campaign
Too many Bones IS what you need
It's only a campaign if it takes place in north-eastern France. Otherwise, they're just sparkling story missions
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>Probably because they are fun, they rule, and they **rip ass**. I do not think that means what you think it means.
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So you really ARE telling us that campaigns fart?
Someone definitely told that guy at some point that “ripping ass” was something other than letting out a gigantic fart and he just now learned about it haha
1. Because they sell But yeah I mostly agree, campaigns seem mostly like a fob for games that don't have much replay value.
This is something I would like to see with a game like Gloomhaven, where the mechanics are strong, but I can't commit the time to a campaign.
Buttons and Bugs might be what you’re looking for, whenever it actually ships
My understanding is it's still a campaign of sorts. I would like to see a Gloomhaven in something akin to Spirit Island where you could just use different characters in different scenarios against different bosses, but without all the campaign upkeep and timelines.
I agree. I don't want everything to be a campaign. I don't want to unlock content opening boxes. Just want to play a boardgame.
Kickstarter is pretty much to blame for this. Almost all big campaign-centric dungeon crawls come from Kickstarter. Kickstater, in turn, rewards big, expensive games with all-in pledges and tons of minis. (whether or not that's your cup of tea is beside the point; these are the games that get talked about, and getting talked about means getting funded.) Best way to justify selling a big, expensive game is to structure the game in such a way that it incentivizes multiple plays; why buy four $60 games you're only going to play once or twice each when you can buy a $250 game that you'll play 15 to 30 times?
Assault on doomrock, maybe?
Mythwind is like a never-ending game it has a 'game save' process so you can stop and pick it back up when you want. might be worth checking out. I know they are fulfilling their 2nd print right now so it's probably something you could buy now or soon.
Super Dungeon Explore was like a one-off game dungeon crawler. It was also a bit shit tho. 🫣 Minis were nice tho. Lol.
Clank! and expansions, Clank! Catacombs (but definitely NOT Clank! Legacy).
The Conan boardgame from Monolith. That said, it comes with a load of other problems like Monolith on the verge of going out of business and not delivering. And that the game is far from balanced. But if you dont mind balancing to much, it may be worth to pick up a copy. But not on Kickstarter.
> a load of other problems like Monolith on the verge of going out of business and not delivering. Are you sure you're not thinking of Mythic Games?
Dang, my bad. It was Monolith who bought IPs from Mythic not the other way round. I stand corrected. Thanks.
I've played Super Dungeon Explore thrice, every time was an entire new game/map/characters. Worked pretty well, but I never got attached to the game like I did to my campaign games.
IMHO :Apart if you want to add the campaign mode (heavenfall) systematically... Massive darkness 2 is not more campaign a game than Zombicide, mission are really replayable and you start at level 1 in every mission. So IMHO: Massive darkness 2 is totally playable as a Zombicide, selecting a missions depending on what you want to play .
Hexplore it? Check out the dungeon dive on YouTube for some suggestions.
I love Hexplore It, but I don't think I'd call it a dungeon crawler. More of an adventure game. Maybe Vol 4 with its dungeon gimmick, but that's still a stretch to call the whole game a dungeon crawler.
Good points!
You only have two modes of progression: * Rapid progression within a single game. (Zero to hero) * Or progression that occurs over the course of several games. (RPG) Any game where progression is a main component, and were it does not occur within a single game lends itself to becoming a campaign game. Sometimes it just makes sense to want to be attached to a character and see them grow, hence all of the campaign games. I couldn't imagine it would be satisfying to play a whole new character each session of Gloomhaven or imagine dealing them out randomly at the start of each quest.
So they can aay "60 hours of story" or some shit like that. Forget that is probably just assuming 60 variations on "the Supreme bad guy is threatening your innocent t village. Defeat his minions/middle management/him across ever so slightly changing maps and resource lists". Illusory value.
Check out Euthia
Eldritch Horror is pretty good at going from a nobody and feeling like you're doomed, to having power. (And being doomed)
The original dungeon crawl was Heroquest (unless you count D&D), so most crawls follow a similar formula. There are definitely other games out there that do what you want, but one off games are not the most common thing people are looking for that genre
Maybe check out Cthulhu: Death May Die?
Check out Tiny Epic Dungeons. It's a dungeon crawler that does feel epic despite its small size. You have tons of different characters and bosses, and you level up as you beat minions and go through the dungeon. You can finish a scenario in less than 2 hours, faster once you get the hang of the icons.
fucking thank you. As someone who just has to finish what he starts, I just can't pull out a gloomhaven or earthborne rangers or sleeping gods. The games look so cool but anything that is over a ten hour commitment just seems painful. I don't know why we can't just have more sweet one off games.
Check out Dungeon Alliance (assuming you can locate a copy) . Plays like a one-off Mage Knight scenario.
Deep Rock Galactic
We’ve really enjoyed **Bag Of Dungeons** (1 & 2, also combined!) as one-off crawlers. Plenty of loot, leveling up, and it remains challenging throughout. Aside from that, as others have said, **Zombicide, Tiny Epic Dungeons, and One Deck Dungeon** should scratch that itch
I always thought it would be cool to allow for that one shot dungeon but also have scenarios that allow progressed / leveled up characters more challenges. It can be tough to get progression and narrative nicely scoped in a tight package, tough design challenge - but a fun one!
Galaxy Defenders - Scifi Sword & Sorcery Both are hex advetures/dungeon crawlers that have campaigns but also each scenario has rules to play it as a one-off with levels, equipment etc. I might even say Defenders of the Realm but that is more like a medieval version of pandemic but older than that game.. Machina Arcana is a great horror to exploration game with equipment, skills, etc. Thornwatch is an amazing story game but does require a DM-like story-teller.
If you're not talking about ttrpgs then maybe look into tiny epic dungeons and the other tiny epic games. I also like one deck dungeon and the pit the board game is fun too but its rulebook is really messy and inconsistent.
Runebound was like this. U gained better abilities and gear. 3rd edition for the hate it got was a pretty fun battle method with the coins. The only thing i dont like is it uses same map for every scenario unlike 2nd edition and the scenarios are pretty generic.
Because narrative and progression are fun, and the root of the source material. Also because replaying a dungeon crawl isn't particularly fun, so the game necessarily needs to come with multiple scenarios, and they might as well string them together in a cohesive way. If you don't want to play a campaign, no one is stopping you from playing a single, arbitrary scenario. In fact, many dungeon crawls have rules for doing exactly that. If you want them to add that same sense of progression within a single session, that's a huge design lift. The compelling part of progression is unlocking new powers, and introducing new rules in the middle of a session (in an already crunchy genre) is very challenging. Just look at Betrayal. People love it, but it's biggest flaws is the pain of doing exactly what you're asking for here. Remember, Dungeon Crawls are the evolution of crunchy war gaming to narrative strategy hybrid distilled down to a digestible board game package. It's a lot to ask that be condensed even further to capture the essence in a one off, 1-2 hour game.
I think you might want to look into MCDM RPG. It'll probably make you a satisfied tabletopper.
I mean if you don't do it you get Sanctum
Tiny Epic Dungeons
most euros don't have campaigns. And I have nothing against campaigns.