Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Four Against Darkness is a solitaire dungeon-delving game. No miniatures are needed.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Four Against Darkness is a solitaire dungeon-delving game. No miniatures are needed. All you need is the book, a pencil, two six sided dice, and grid paper. You choose four character types from the classic classes (warrior, wizard, rogue, halfling, dwarf, barbarian, cleric, elf), equip them, and start adventuring in dungeons created by dice rolls and by your choices. When you enter a room, you generate its content on a series of random tables. You will meet monsters, fight them, hopefully defeat them (or decide that discretion is the better part of valor!), you'll manage your resources (healing, spells, life points, equipment), grab treasure, dodge traps, find clues, and even accept quests from the monsters you meet. Your characters can level up and become better at what they do, but it will not be easy. What the game is not: It is NOT a miniature game. You may use miniatures to remember your characters' marching order if you wish, but that's it. It is NOT a roleplaying game. You may run it as a simple cooperative, GM-less game if you want. It is not a game-book or a choose-your-own-adventure book. There is no prose to read or numbered sections to go to, even if we could do something like that in a supplement. Everybody at Ganesha is having great fun with 4AD. A couple of supplements are almost ready and will be available soon. The PDF is 90 pages with plenty of black and white illustration, plus a color cover and a flowchart.