Dungeobowl - anyone play it?

Colonel Fatlad · Post by **Colonel Fatlad** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 10:04 am

Back in my school-days (the 80's), my friends and I used to play more BB than anything else. We had leagues going regularly and set teams that we loved. When Dungeonbowl came out, we loved it and played it to death using floorplans and a host of house rules covering mine carts, lava pits and falling down bottomless pits.

At the time, dungeonbowl completely took over our BB sessions.

What I would like to know, is whether anyone plays the updated version, and is it as good as it used to be?

Fronko · Post by **Fronko** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 1:38 pm

We did play the dungeons for quite some time. Eventually, we stopped doing so, as all teams started to remain on their end zones until all players were on pitch and then the toughest of all teams won, as they just cracked any opposition. This led to disastrous losses among the soft (and even some not-so-soft) teams, who consecutively refused to play the dungeonbowl. That's when we quit playing it.

It's a shame though, I pretty much liked it. But as I prefer AG teams, I never even won a single DB match.

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 1:43 pm

Our league plays Dungeonbowl as the third of four championship tournaments every year. We solve the end zone huddling problem by making our dungeonbowl games three team competitions.

Devante · Post by **Devante** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 1:51 pm

I always found that fast teams in our league used to win, mainly because they could out-run power teams and manage to "lose" them in the dungeon. But then we did play "2 ball" dungeon bowl.

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 1:52 pm

Leap has proven to be a big factor in our dungeonbowl games, but movement is a big deal.

Fronko · Post by **Fronko** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 1:59 pm

Well, three teams in the dungeon might solve the problem.

As for leap: No, pal, if there are 4 players (2+2 in a row) blocking a two-spaces corridor, you can't leap over them. No place to land. And you can't attach the endzone with enough entry points, so that they can't block all entries with 4 players.

And even if you could, you just can't move the ball fast enough (even with wood elves) around several entrances, so your opponent always has the time to move his defense to the one entrance that is threatened.

Hmm, sounds quite confusing, I hope, I made myself clear, so you get, what I mean.

sean newboy · Post by **sean newboy** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 2:04 pm

Unless they have changed the rules u can put teleporters in the endzones.

Fronko · Post by **Fronko** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 2:22 pm

Hmm...

That definitely solves the problem, but wouldn't that completely screw some games? All you have to do now, is grab the ball and hope for some luck, so you land on the right teleport. Doesn't have much to do with coaching ability...

Still, we might try some test games with that option. Maybe not necessarily IN the endzone, but close by.

Didn't think of it before...

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 2:38 pm

Yeah, we allowed them in the end zones, and it became a big problem. We actually had one game that was won on turn 2, after an Ogre teleported in and found the ball in the first turn of the game.

(especially infuriating to me since it's still my Human team's only loss in 14 games

)

Next tourney we'll probably change it up and not allow that. Also, we use modular MasterMaze peices for our dungeon set up, so bottlenecks are less common, and we generally have an open area in the middle.

Milo · Post by **Milo** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 2:40 pm

We're playing Dungeonbowl for our finals tonight. I'll post tomorrow letting people know how it went. FWIW, it's a matchup between an Orc team and a Wood Elf team.

sean newboy · Post by **sean newboy** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 2:59 pm

We allowed it due to the preponderance of strength teams. They could close down the corridors leading to endzones too easily. 2 Sauri/longbeards with guard in front of 2 guys with standfirm completely close off a corridor.
One house ruleset we came up with is to just make a Quest type dungeon and put all the teams playing (we used dungeon bowl for quarterly tournaments) in one dungeon with multiple endzones.

Devante · Post by **Devante** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 5:21 pm

My money is on the Wood elves !!!

And, i didn't think it was allowed to take a ball onto a teleporter ? i thought the player teleports but the ball scatters away

sean newboy · Post by **sean newboy** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 5:55 pm

Nope, fully legal.

Milo · Post by **Milo** » Fri Mar 28, 2003 5:01 am

Well, it's over. The Orcs, powered by a flotilla of freebooters, simply overpowered the Wood Elves. It didn't hurt that Morg found the ball in a chest right in the middle of the dungeon. From there on, the Elves looked like they were mounting a desperate defense of the ring, just trying to keep the Orcs out of the endzone.

The Orcs brought Varag, Morg, and Ripper along with their homegrown Varag wannabe (Red the Skullhamma, Orc Blitzer: 7 4 3 9 Block, Mighty Blow, Shadowing). The Elves had Jordell along with two +1 ST Lineelves, but their Tree was late (not able to teleport in until turn 8.)

Total time: about 1:15

Colonel Fatlad · Post by **Colonel Fatlad** » Fri Mar 28, 2003 9:32 am

It's good to see people are still playing. I think I'll have to get the old floor plans out and give it another try.

The problem with strength teams that people are talking about was one that we never really had a problem with, maybe because we often played multiple teams at once, but probably mostly because we used to allow teleporters in endzones. This didn't used to make it too easy to score because we used to use twelve teleporters (and an addirional dice for "lost in space").

I remember it was always a better game with a big dungeon with some one-space corridors (an old maze floorplan set) and rooms that could only be reached by teleporter (very easy to guard - imagine an elf teleporting next to an ogre, getting pushed off it and knocked over

).