Dungeons are the most iconic location for Dungeons & Dragons adventures. It’s right there in the name. Where else can adventurers find clever traps, menacing monsters and piles of treasure to crawl through in one classic place?
The burden of coming up with interesting places to explore often falls on the Dungeon Master. It’s up to them to draw on their imagination, pop culture and other sources for inspiration. Sometimes it’s very useful to have a pre-written dungeon or two on hand to steal ideas from or to drop in place whole cloth.
Bundle of Holding currently has a collection of fifty dungeons from Dungeon Crawl Classics full of ideas that can be dropped into any fantasy role playing game. Dungeon Masters picking up this electronic bundle will get stories useful at all levels. This collection offers everything from starter adventures, to full sized stories to campaigns.
What Are Dungeon Crawl Classics?
Goodman Games created Dungeon Crawl Classics in 2003. They are a tribute to the early modules of D&D that focused on strange locations and sketches of plot. Players explored the dungeon and pieced together the story at their own pace while dodging lethal traps and encounters.
This bundle includes the first run of Dungeon Crawl Classics which were build for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The modules look and feel like the older ones, often using artists from the original TSR era for new art. It’s similar to how shows about the 80s and 90s embrace the aesthetics of those eras in their presentation and marketing.
In 2012, Dungeon Crawl Classics released a stand alone role playing game that kept the feel of old school dungeon crawling with a fresh set of game mechanics. This version has spun off into different directions, such as a far future edition and books that explore the pulp fantasy settings that inspired this style of game. At Gen Con 2024, XCrawl Classics used the new system for a setting where dungeon crawls are America’s favorite death sport.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Collections
At the lower level, this offer includes several titles that are stand alone dungeons. These can be dropped into an ongoing campaign, used as one shots on nights where a regular campaign can’t meet or even have indvidual element pulled out and put into original storylines.
The higher level unlocks more adventures as well as campaigns and settings. The Saga of the Dragon Cult adds new scenes and information to pre-existing adventures to tell a longer story. Rather than wandering into these places by chance, they players are now on the trail of a cult seeking to resurrect a long dead dragon for their nefarious purposes.
This collection also includes Castle Whiterock which stands as Goodman Games’ signature megadungeon. Megadungeons are one dungeon that span an entire campaign. A new edition built for Fifth Edition and Dungeon Crawl Classics is coming soon.
Dungeon Masters using the current edition of D&D will have to spend a little time converting these adventures. Fifth Edition makes it easy and the pay off for an old school feel is worth it. The Dungeon Crawl Classics Bundle of Holding ends on Thursday, January 16th, 2024.