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Player Rules
Your Role
Your job in Delvers in Dark Places (DiDP) is to take on the role of an adventurer in a fantastical world, deciding what actions they will take based on situations presented by the referee. As you continue to explore the fantasy world, your character will slowly become tougher and more skilled. Your character is mortal, and poor decisions or just plain bad luck could result in their demise. If this happens, simply make a new character and move on with the story.
Character Creation
Write down a short description of the type of character you will play (example: Elvish Knight). Then write down three skills that your character has. Start with 6 Hit Points (HP). Choose 6 pieces of starting equipment. Finally, name your character.
Skill Rolls
If there is a decent chance of failure, roll a six sided die (d6). The referee decides how high you must roll, usually a 4 or higher is sufficient. If you have a relevant skill, add 1. If the action seems especially difficult for your character type, subtract 1. It is up to the referee to decide what requires skill rolls and what doesn't, as well as what things are possible for characters to attempt.
Combat
A die is rolled for each participant in a combat. Those who roll higher go first, with players breaking ties. Skill rolls are made to attack. The difficulty to hit something is its Defense (DEF). Unarmored is DEF 3, light armor is 4, medium armor is 5, and heavy armor is 6. Weapons usually do 1d6 damage (DMG), subtracted from the target's HP. Heavy weapons add 1 to the roll. At 0 HP, characters are dead or unconscious. HP cannot go below 0. Resting for one hour recovers 1 HP.
Magic
Spellcasting characters must dedicate at least one of their skills at character creation to a specific kind of magic (example: Necromancy). If you don't have a skill devoted to a certain kind of magic, it will either be difficult or impossible for your character to perform spells of that type. Describe the spell you'd like your character to perform, and the referee decides how high of a skill roll is required, and how many hit points must be spent if the spell is successful. Very minor effects may not cost any hit points, powerful spells cost many.
Character Advancement
Characters gain more hit points and skills over time, though the exact rate at which is occurs is up to the referee. For example; 1 hit point could be added to one's total after an adventure to a maximum of 18, and every other adventure a character could learn a new skill.
Your Role
As the referee, you arguably have a much tougher job than the players. You must create a world for the player's characters to explore, keeping things dangerous enough to be exciting but not so punishing as to be discouraging to the players. Start small, with a village or two and a nearby adventuring site, and build up from there. Nobody expects you to have a whole world mapped out from day one.
Creating Monsters
Monsters have HP, DEF, and DMG values. Some monsters may have skills. A normal human armed with a simple weapon has 1d6 HP, DEF 3, and 1d6 DMG. Smaller monsters may have 1/2 a hit die (roll a die and divide by 2) and do less damage, while larger monsters have proportionally more hit dice and do more damage.
Creating an Adventuring Site
As a general rule, a small adventuring location will have 10 keyed areas. Of these, there will generally be 3 empty areas, 3 monster encounters, 2 traps/hazards, 1 weird thing to interact with, and 1 non-player character to talk to. There should be some treasure around, and generally one or two magical items should be present in said treasure. Note that empty areas are not literally empty, they just don't contain any traps, weird things, monsters, or non-player characters.
Creating Magic Items
Magic items in general should be useful tools with a wide range of applications. For example; a ring which turns the wearer invisible. They shouldn't be foolproof, and they shouldn't be simple "I win" buttons. Due to the relatively low amount of actual rules in DiDP, it is usually best to create magic items which do not provide a direct mechanical bonus.
The Most Important Rule
The referee makes any final decisions as to what is and isn't possible in their world. When in doubt, roll 1d6, higher rolls mean things are better for the players, lower means things are worse.
Converting Adventures
The main things that must be converted are monsters and magic items, most other things can be determined on the fly. For monsters, simply use your best judgment to determine HP, DEF, and DMG, using the original statistics as general guidelines. Most special abilities can be converted to the game by simplifying them and stripping them of irrelevant mechanics. Keep in mind that compared to many systems, DiDP has less powerful characters, so scaling things down is generally a good idea. Magic items should be simplified, and mechanical benefits should be left relatively minor. A +1 sword, +3 vs undead, would instead merely be a normal sword which deals an additional point of damage against the undead.
Your job in Delvers in Dark Places (DiDP) is to take on the role of an adventurer in a fantastical world, deciding what actions they will take based on situations presented by the referee. As you continue to explore the fantasy world, your character will slowly become tougher and more skilled. Your character is mortal, and poor decisions or just plain bad luck could result in their demise. If this happens, simply make a new character and move on with the story.
Character Creation
Write down a short description of the type of character you will play (example: Elvish Knight). Then write down three skills that your character has. Start with 6 Hit Points (HP). Choose 6 pieces of starting equipment. Finally, name your character.
Skill Rolls
If there is a decent chance of failure, roll a six sided die (d6). The referee decides how high you must roll, usually a 4 or higher is sufficient. If you have a relevant skill, add 1. If the action seems especially difficult for your character type, subtract 1. It is up to the referee to decide what requires skill rolls and what doesn't, as well as what things are possible for characters to attempt.
Combat
A die is rolled for each participant in a combat. Those who roll higher go first, with players breaking ties. Skill rolls are made to attack. The difficulty to hit something is its Defense (DEF). Unarmored is DEF 3, light armor is 4, medium armor is 5, and heavy armor is 6. Weapons usually do 1d6 damage (DMG), subtracted from the target's HP. Heavy weapons add 1 to the roll. At 0 HP, characters are dead or unconscious. HP cannot go below 0. Resting for one hour recovers 1 HP.
Magic
Spellcasting characters must dedicate at least one of their skills at character creation to a specific kind of magic (example: Necromancy). If you don't have a skill devoted to a certain kind of magic, it will either be difficult or impossible for your character to perform spells of that type. Describe the spell you'd like your character to perform, and the referee decides how high of a skill roll is required, and how many hit points must be spent if the spell is successful. Very minor effects may not cost any hit points, powerful spells cost many.
Character Advancement
Characters gain more hit points and skills over time, though the exact rate at which is occurs is up to the referee. For example; 1 hit point could be added to one's total after an adventure to a maximum of 18, and every other adventure a character could learn a new skill.
Referee Rules
Your Role
As the referee, you arguably have a much tougher job than the players. You must create a world for the player's characters to explore, keeping things dangerous enough to be exciting but not so punishing as to be discouraging to the players. Start small, with a village or two and a nearby adventuring site, and build up from there. Nobody expects you to have a whole world mapped out from day one.
Creating Monsters
Monsters have HP, DEF, and DMG values. Some monsters may have skills. A normal human armed with a simple weapon has 1d6 HP, DEF 3, and 1d6 DMG. Smaller monsters may have 1/2 a hit die (roll a die and divide by 2) and do less damage, while larger monsters have proportionally more hit dice and do more damage.
Creating an Adventuring Site
As a general rule, a small adventuring location will have 10 keyed areas. Of these, there will generally be 3 empty areas, 3 monster encounters, 2 traps/hazards, 1 weird thing to interact with, and 1 non-player character to talk to. There should be some treasure around, and generally one or two magical items should be present in said treasure. Note that empty areas are not literally empty, they just don't contain any traps, weird things, monsters, or non-player characters.
Creating Magic Items
Magic items in general should be useful tools with a wide range of applications. For example; a ring which turns the wearer invisible. They shouldn't be foolproof, and they shouldn't be simple "I win" buttons. Due to the relatively low amount of actual rules in DiDP, it is usually best to create magic items which do not provide a direct mechanical bonus.
The Most Important Rule
The referee makes any final decisions as to what is and isn't possible in their world. When in doubt, roll 1d6, higher rolls mean things are better for the players, lower means things are worse.
Converting Adventures
The main things that must be converted are monsters and magic items, most other things can be determined on the fly. For monsters, simply use your best judgment to determine HP, DEF, and DMG, using the original statistics as general guidelines. Most special abilities can be converted to the game by simplifying them and stripping them of irrelevant mechanics. Keep in mind that compared to many systems, DiDP has less powerful characters, so scaling things down is generally a good idea. Magic items should be simplified, and mechanical benefits should be left relatively minor. A +1 sword, +3 vs undead, would instead merely be a normal sword which deals an additional point of damage against the undead.
Licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0
Special thanks to Loki Oberon
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