DM-less rules

Here you can read my new rules to play “Dungeons & Dragons: The fantasy adventure board game” by Parker without a Dungeon Master.

I have only used original components from the basic box for the development of these rules.

Dungeon Master duties

1. Choose the adventure's target and the story behind the new mission.

2. Choose the level for the adventure.

3. Divide the Object and Monsters decks in 3 groups (normal objects, special objects, and monsters) and get ride of the higher level cards that are not going to be used for the adventure.

4. Set up the dungeon map and rooms.

5. Control the traps.

6. Control the monsters.
   

Choose the adventure's target and the story behind the new mission

Players must decide if they are going to play a campaign or stand alone adventures. Moreover, they should propose a mission like rescuing someone, killing all the monsters in the dungeon, recover and special object...

Choose the level for the adventure

Players must choose the level for the adventure but it must be at least the same level than the most experienced hero (if heroes will have different levels).
Divide the Object and Monsters decks in 3 groups (normal objects, special objects, and monsters) and get ride of the higher level cards that are not going to be used for the adventure

Players will get ride of all cards of higher level than the adventure they are going to play. It is not recommended to use special items but for level 3 adventures. Monsters will be divided in levels as follows:

1. Goblins, Skeletons and Gnolls

2. Bugbears, Ogres, Oozes and Carrion Crawlers.

3. Lich, Trolls, Wraiths and wights.

Monsters to be played will be divided in levels in order to choose to fight weak, normal or strong monsters.

Set up the dungeon map and rooms

Players will choose one tile at random, one side and one room or zone to set up the heroes to start the adventure. This room or zone must have a door which communicates to some other room or zone in the same tile.

Each time a hero decides to open a door which communicates to other yet to be explored room or zone the following procedure must be follow:

1. If this yet to be explored room or zone has common walls with other yet to be explored rooms or zones, the red die must be thrown and the number of spades in it will indicate the number of doors to be placed at random in those common walls. If this room or zone has common walls with the border of the tile in sides yet to be explored and new tiles can be added in those sides and the players choose to put at least a door in those walls, players will choose another tile at random to be added to the dungeon. New doors can not be placed in walls in common with already explored rooms or zones.
   
   It can happen to be impossible to place new doors because the new room or zone is surrounded by already explored rooms or zones, or maybe because no new tiles can be added to the dungeon.
   
   If players want a very strange dungeon map, they can subtract 1 to the number of spades in the red die so that the possibilities of placing no doors in a new room or zone are higher. Using this variant may lead to tiles where there are rooms without doors and that can not be explored at all.
   

2. Furnishing the new room or zone. Throw the "turn undead monsters" die. The number of skulls in it indicates how many trees or pillars will be placed at random in the room or zone. Trees must be placed in zones. Pillars in rooms and zones*.
   
   * Variant: Throw the "turn undead monsters" and the special dice. If a star is rolled and  there is at least on skull in the "turn undead monsters", players can place trees and pillars inside rooms. This room will be considered to have some kind of natural light source so that  Wraiths can not enter in this room.

3. Choose the level of visible threat of the new room or zone. After all not all the rooms of a dungeon have the same level of evilness. The bigger the room or zone, the higher the possibilities of facing more monsters in it.
   
   The level of visible threat is equal to the number of squares of the room or zone divided by 10 and rounded up.
   
   Example: Level of visible threat = 26/10 = 2,6 ≈ 3.
   
   This number decides how many monsters there are in the new room or zone. Moreover, throw the red die for each monster to be placed in the room or zone. The number of spades shown in the die will indicate the level of the monster. If the die shows the empty face, it counts as 1 spade. If one or more monster decks are finished, shuffle the discard pile of that level again.

5. Set up the chests. There will be as many chests as the number of squares of the new room or zone divided by 10 and rounded down. Place them at random.
   
   Example: Chests = 26/10 = 2,6 ≈ 2.

6. Deal the initiative cards. If there are 4 or less players, all 5 initiative cards will be dealt. The last one will show the turn order for the monsters. If there are more than 5 players (using the expansions' heroes for example), monsters will play at the end of all heroes' turns (for a medium difficulty adventure) or at the beginning of all players' turns (for a difficult  adventure)
   

Control the traps

Each player that decides to move throw a room or zone where there could be yet to discover traps must throw the "Disable Trap" die. If the explosion face is shown, the hero has sprung the trap. Throw the "Search for Traps" die and choose the consequence from the following rules:

• Empty face: Evil resurrection trap. Last monster killed reappears anywhere in its starting room.

• One eye: Pit trap. Hero losses 1 Hit Point.

• Two eyes: Fire trap. The hero that sprung the trap has to decide between losing 2 Hit Points or all heroes in the room or zone lose 1 Hit Point.

• Hand: Snarling roots trap. Hero misses next turn.

There will never be more traps than chests in a room or zone. If a hero with the ability of Searching for Traps manages to search out as many traps as chests or as many traps as chests have been sprung, heroes doesn't have to keep throwing the "Disable Trap" die in this room or zone.

Control the monsters

Monsters will always act in ascending order of level. This is: weak monsters go first. In case of some monsters of the same level in the same room or zone, players will choose at random what monsters acts first.

Monsters will act according to these rules:

• Monsters of level 1 will prefer to attack in groups if possible. They will always try to attack an already in close combat hero (a hero with another monster adjacent to him/her). Their second priority will be to run away if they seem to be outnumbered in order to form new groups to attack again.

• Monsters of level 2 will attack the nearest hero they can reach.

• Monsters of level 3 will always attack the hero with less Hit Points.