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Why Pay to Play?™ |
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Complete content Copyright ©
2007-2013, Steigerwald EDV™ Verlag, all rights reserved. Dungeons
Daring™, Vintyri™ and Steigerwald
EDV™ are trademarks of Steigerwald EDV Verlag. LINUX®
is a registered trademark of the Linux Mark Institute. Dungeons
& Dragons®, D&D®, d20® and Forgotten Realms® are registered
trademarks of Wizards of the Coast® Inc. |
Current: September 15, 2013
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More Information? Menu: What's new in the 4th Edition? What are the Open Game Reference
Documents? What is the
Dungeons Daring Free Trademark License? What is
the Jörðgarð Campaign Setting? Dungeons Daring is a fantasy
roleplaying game that has been released as a free, open source gaming product
much in the same sense that LINUX®
is a free, open computer operating system.
The official guidelines and companion products are be
available for free downloading in
PDF form at this website. This describes a
part of what Dungeons Daring
is. To keep things clear, let us look
first at what Dungeons Daring isn't: ·
Dungeons Daring is not a Dungeons-and-Dragons®-lookalike. It is a different game from D&D®. ·
Dungeons Daring is not a d20® or OGL 3.5 product, although it does use some open game content from
the d20 Standard Reference Document. So, what is Dungeons Daring? It is a fantasy roleplaying game that has
the following goals: ·
To be relatively simple to learn and
play. ·
To strongly emphasize roleplaying rather than
detailed and complex rules structures.
Common dice-generated abilities like Intelligence, Wisdom, Comeliness
and Charisma are left totally to role-playing in Dungeons Daring. Instead,
abilities such as Magical Aptitude and Mechanical Aptitude are measured. ·
To focus upon the story and role-playing elements of
the adventure rather than being targeted toward hack-and-slash adventuring or
an RPG style that focuses upon strategies and rules. ·
To be a player-character-driven game rather than one
that is forced along its path by gods, deity-like icons or high-powered
non-player characters. Gods are
regional powers in Dungeons Daring,
and their clerics tend to be non-player characters with limited powers. ·
To be designed in a manner that allows game masters
to modify texts, dungeon plans and maps to suit their own campaign
goals. Texts are available in the
editable reference documents, and all maps, floor plans, dungeon plans and
encounter scenarios are available in editable form for use with the
cartographic program Fractal Mapper 8. ·
To provide a free and legal game foundation for game
masters and players who wish to publish their own adventures and fantasy RPG
inventions. Each of these
points has effects. In the interest of
simplicity, Dungeons Daring does
not have rules that tell you what happens to your character every time he or
she sneezes or moves a foot or 30 cm to the right or the left. In such situations, we leave the matter up
to common sense, with the game master having the final word. Dungeons Daring is an
ability-based game. There are no
character levels, experience points, skills, feats or saving throws. Dungeons
Daring does not decide whether a person is won over to a certain argument,
bluffed, etc. as a result of statistics and dice rolls. These are matters of role-playing in Dungeons Daring. The basic Dungeons Daring ability scores for strength, dexterity, stamina, magical
aptitude and mechanical aptitude and are extended through a wide variety of
additional abilities. The new 4E release package includes: ·
The Players
Guide, the Game Masters Guide
and the Creature Guide as open,
bookmarked PDF files. There are no
control inscriptions of your name or sections that are protected from copying
or editing. The three books have a
total of 880 pages, all in Letter Format (similar to European DIN A 4), with 10 point Arial as the predominant font. ·
Three reference documents in the .odt format of OpenOffice.org
and LibreOffice.org. These files also can be opened and edited
in modern versions of Microsoft® Word. The reference documents give you the
ability to edit and modify our texts in any way you choose. Under the terms of the Open Game License,
you also can cut and paste from our texts in the reference document and use
those in your own work, regardless of whether it's material for your own RPG
campaign or a new product of your own for the RPG market. With the help of cut-and-paste operations,
you also can "snag" JPG
versions of all of the maps, floor plans, dungeon plans and encounter
scenarios in our publication for your own use in terms of the OGL. This is one part of what our open source
system offers. ·
All of the maps, floor plans, dungeons plans and
scenarios from the Dungeons Daring
core books in their native Fractal
Mapper™ 8 format. You can download
these original maps free and modify or build upon them in any manner you
choose. This the
second element of our open source concept. We're excited about
4th Edition, because it was designed just as much by Dungeons Daring players and game
masters as by us, the members of the Vintyri
Project. 4E
is a huge departure from the first two versions and an improvement of 3rd
Edition. Our users have been telling
us that they want, above all, the following things from Dungeons Daring 3rd Edition: ·
An ability-based game. ·
A game that is simpler to run and play than the first
two editions or OGL 3.5 games. ·
An RPG that's just about the opposite of the market
leader, Pathfinder® or Dungeons & Dragons® in the current
4th edition and the D&D Next
test versions or OGL 3.5 games. ·
A role-playing game with its own published campaign
setting and adventures. On the first point,
you'll find that 4th Edition is completely ability-and-check
based. Characters are made by defining
abilities, and the result of actions is determined by ability checks against
opposing checks and difficulty levels.
Our playtesters are reporting that this system is working well,
running smoothly and producing good and credible results with far fewer dice
rolls and considerably less math than in most other RPGs that they know. Our test community
is divided on the question of professions, which are much the same thing as
character classes in OGL 3.5 games, Pathfinder
and Dungeons & Dragons. Our solution is to make the Dungeons Daring professions
optional. A player can build a fully
competent and extremely versatile PC in 4th Edition without ever
choosing a profession (or class). But
those who want the strictly defined scope of character classes with a few
goal-oriented bonuses added still are free to choose a profession. Interestingly, the
game masters who tested 4th Edition told us that many players were
reluctant to give up the traditional class system. They chose the optional 4th
Edition professions, but they also said that those who skipped the class
system and made PCs based upon ability selection alone had more fun and also
had the more successful PCs. On the second
point, our playtesters tell us that we've reached our goal of simplifying the
game. Almost everything in 4th
Edition from combat to the success of spellcasting to sneak attempts is decided
by a d20 roll plus the applicable ability
value. The other five dice usually are
used only to determine damage (2d4 points, for
example), time (4d6 hours), distance (2d8 spaces), number of targets affected (3d10 orcs), number of balls of fire (2d12)
etc. Playtesting game masters say they
seldom need to look up guidelines during game time. Magic users appear to be the only group
that regularly hits the books, still needing to look up information on spells
more often than we would like. In eliminating
character levels, experience points, skills, feats, saving throws and the
like, we also appear to be satisfying our users' desires for a game that's
the opposite of Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons and OGL 3.5
games, according to the input that we've received. As most of you
know, the first key products of the free Jörðgarð™
campaign setting are nearing completion.
The starting adventure in the 1E and 2E Dungeons Daring games
masters guides, The Last Mill, does
not appear in 3rd or 4th Edition. Instead, we'll soon be releasing the first
adventure in the Jörðgard Fallen Empire Adventure Trail as an
introductory adventure. Like all Vintyri Project products, Dungeons Daring 4th Edition
and the Jörðgarð series are being
released free in bookmarked PDF form as open source, open gaming products
under the Open Game License 1.0a. Free, fully editable versions of all texts,
maps, floor plans, dungeon plans and encounter scenarios also are available
for free downloading. The only costs
are the fees that you pay to your Internet provider. The Vintyri
Project sells nothing. Older Dungeons Daring Versions: Dungeons Daring 1E, 2E and 3E continue to
be available for free download. These are important points for those
playing in Dungeons Daring 1E or 2E campaigns. 3E and the
current 4E are both similar and compatible. ·
The 1st, 2nd Edition and 3rd
Edition books will continue to be available for those who don't want to
switch systems in the middle of a campaign as well as those who prefer 1E, 2E or 3E. However, these earlier editions will not be
further developed. ·
1E, 2E and 3E are not compatible
with one another, but 3E is compatible with 4E. The starter
adventure The Last Mill in the Game Masters Guide of 1E and 2E includes a large
number of maps, floor plans and dungeon plans. All were made with the commercial
cartographic program Fractal Mapper™ 8
from NBOS Software. Game masters who
wish to modify these original maps can download them free in FM8 format, which allows full
modification. These original maps also
have been released under the Open Game License. Dungeons Daring Free Trademark License The Dungeons Daring game system is Open
Game Content. However, the Dungeons Daring name trademark and graphical
logo trademark are identified as Product Identity and are not available as
Open Game Content. This is necessary
to: 1. Preserve the meaning of the Dungeons Daring trademarks. 2. To meet requirements of laws in the
European Union and the Federal Republic of Germany to prevent the publication
of illegal material with our trademarks. However, those who
wish to publish material with the official Dungeons Daring trademarks can do so under the Dungeons Daring Trademark License
Agreement. See the menu option at
the top of this page. Click here to read the
Trademark License. Click here to download the
trademark license. Jörðgarð™ - Free Open Source Campaign Setting for Dungeons Daring™ A relatively new
game like Dungeons Daring™ can
become valuable only after supporting material is available for it, material
like campaign settings and adventures.
The first core propducts of our new Jörðgarð campaign setting will be
released soon as a free, open game, open source product written for the Dungeons Daring™ game. We also are
planning a version for the OGL 3.5 system used by such games as the Pathfinder® RPG from Paizo®
Publishing, True20™ from Green Ronin and Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 from
Wizards of the Coast® Inc. So … what does this
mean to you? It means that you
not only will have a free RPG in Dungeons
Daring but also an open, free and highly detailed campaign setting and
adventures (modules) available for it.
All of this, of course, underlines the Vintyri Project slogan: Why pay to play?™ What do we mean by
that? We think it's great when people create
commercial RPG products, and we intend to support folks who want to do that
with the Dungeons Daring game
system. But we don't believe that
creative people who want to make RPG material should be hampered by license
fees, threats of suits over copyright violations or by more restrictions than
are necessary to see to it that misrepresentations aren't being made and the
law isn't being broken. With Dungeons Daring, anyone who wants to
develop material – free or commercial – is able to do so, and not only for
the game system but also for the Jörðgarð
campaign setting. Click here for more
information. |
