Before starting this review, I want to thank the author Tommy Sunzenauer (Sunzenaut) for sending us a copy of Grotten: 1-Bit Deeper, a minimalist dark fantasy roleplaying game with dungeon crawling and board game elements.
If after reading this review you were interested in purchasing this product, you can find it on the author’s official website at the price of € 13.95 in a physical copy (including PDF); for the digital copy only the purchase page is the same and the price drops to € 6.95.
Review of the Aesthetics of Grotten
The manual is very compact: it has 21 pages of size 16×16 cm, enclosed on the flexible cover. Its text presents a small but well legible font; the layout is very simple, but integrates text and images perfectly.
The artistic side of this roleplaying game is perfectly enclosed in its subtitle: 1-Bit Deeper. All the illustrations are in black and white, in a delicious pixel-style that is very reminiscent of some video games of the 80s and 90s. Among them we can mention Castlevania and The Legend of Zelda, correctly reported at the beginning of the manual. This makes the internal consistency of the manual very appreciable, as well as transporting in a very effective way in the atmospheres that the TTRPG wants to recreate.
The Game Modes
The Grotten ruleset (as you can see from this paragraph of my review) is very light and immediate, allowing you to start playing in a few minutes. This is also possible thanks to the fact that many mechanics are strongly inspired by Mörk Borg, a point of reference of the old school genre. This allows both to feel at home if you know that roleplaying game, and to easily integrate mechanics and other elements from it. There is also the possibility of adapting the gaming experience to other OSR game systems, but below we will analyze the mechanics for how they were thought by the author. In any case, even these sources of inspiration are mentioned at the manual beginning with great correctness.
First of all, the game can be enjoyed in two ways. You can play alone, making the experience more similar to a board game, or with the participation of a narrator. In the latter case, a single player can manage multiple characters or, in the presence of a group of players, there are more classic sessions.
The manual offers two very practical tables that contain all the needs to generate the characters and understand how to send them to adventure.
The Characters Creation
We must therefore give life to a character suitable for the exploration of tunnels and dungeons that awaits us. There are no particular references to how many of them are required and how to adapt the challenges accordingly; after all, the gaming experience wants to be lethal, so these details do not interest us.
In any case, the first step to fill in the character sheet (in addition to choosing the name) is to establish the four abilities, launching 1d4 for each and subtracting another 1d4 from it (thus also considering negative results). They are:
- Strenght: brute power and melee combat.
- Agility: dodge and athletics.
- Presence: aim, cast spells and bargain.
- Toughness: fatigue, poisons and diseases resistance.
The HP (Hit Points) are then calculated by adding the value of Toughness and a further fixed value of 6 to the launch of a d6.
Then you randomly obtain a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, an armor and a scroll. The first two are used with a test of the relative ability, that is by launching a d20 to which the Strenght or Presence score must be added and trying to obtain a fixed value, usually 12. Instead the armor decreases the amount of damage taken, that you receive when you fail a test to avoid being hit. The scrolls require a Presence test with growing difficulty for each use, then becomes ash and injuries the user.
Finally you get a d4 Luck, which can be spent to reroll some tests or inflict maximized damage.
Every four enemies (or one boss) eliminated, you level up. But do not expect great improvements: some more HP, some abilities that rises, and we return to try not to die.
Review of Grotten Mechanics
So now we are ready to go down in a maze of eternal torment!
First of all you need to place the tile that represents the entrance of the dungeon, with a tile representing a door on all its exits. Then you choose one of them, turn the tile and find out what is on the back. The possibilities include corridors and rooms. By rolling a d20, you discover the type of encounter you have inside: nothing, a structure, a treasure, a NPC, monsters or a boss (the latter not in the corridors). Each of these categories has a dedicated random table and with by rolling of a d66 (double d6) you can establish the specific nature of the encounter. Obviously the exploration is free and you can also return to rooms already visited.
The options available are therefore many and I also appreciated their originality. In my wandering in the meanders of the dungeon, I passed a room full of mirrors, from which my evil clone emerged. After defeating it, I continued in a corridor in which there was an exotic prince, who asked me to protect him from the dangers of this place. I accepted, he followed me but in the next room we unfortunately found the end of our journey. A dark figure blocked the passage, slaying us with his swords and devouring our souls. This is what happens when you face the boss without the right tools.
There are particular cases and various surprises, but the fulcrum is this. It is a classic and ruthless dungeon crawler.
Conclusions of the Grotten Review
It can therefore be easily understood from what has been said in the previous paragraph of this review that Grotten does not have a deep lore. This, if required, is left in the hands of the narrator.
The strength of this roleplaying game is the intense dungeon crawling experience, which also has the advantage of not becoming easily repetitive. The encounters are varied and repeating them can be interesting, since getting there in different circumstances could change their outcome. Moreover any expansions (officials or homebrews) could easily improve this aspect further.
If you want to go down into a dark dungeon and hunt the boss on duty trying not to die, Grotten is for you!
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