The Design Principles Behind White Box: Dungeon Bestiary

More classic monsters, some new monsters, a few twists

When ideas for more White Box: Dungeon Adventures began to flood into my mind, I approached any supplements with one rule: Add Nothing to the Character Sheet. I want this game to stay focused on the dungeon and focused on simplicity of play. Instead of new rules for this or new rules for that, I trust Referees to rely on The d6 Principle. If they want rules for exploring the wilderness, I want to leave that to Referees and players to develop that on their own terms in a way that suits their culture of play. Same thing for urban adventures, strongholds, new spells, new magic items, psionics, whatever. I wrote a game where, ironically, I didn’t want it to become my job to tell you how to handle that - just to tell the reader that they could handle it simply and quickly and keep the game rolling.

If there’s one area that I feel White Box: Dungeon Adventures is lacking, it’s in the monsters. There’s enough to keep you going and enough to handle the random encounter system, but not much else. It’s concise and to the point. While that is a strength in one sense, it’s also a limit. So, with that in mind, I’ve created White Box: Dungeon Bestiary. It takes the monsters in Dungeon Adventures and adds 84 new ones to give the Referee 20 monsters for each of the game’s six dungeon levels. It then provides new d20 tables for each of those levels. That way the Referee can crack open Dungeon Bestiary and have access to all the original monsters, all the new monsters, and determine random encounters with a single die roll - just like it worked before the Bestiary was written. The only difference is you’re rolling a d20 instead of a d6.

Another design principle was to keep the monster descriptions concise. No more than three lines of text and a stat block. That’s the rule. The only monster I couldn’t contain that to was the vampire - but other than that, every single monster in WB: DA is 3 lines of text - at most - and a 4 point stat block. Diversifying the pool of monsters didn’t mean I needed to complicate things. I never want to complicate things with this game.

With that in mind, it’s natural to just include all the classics and call it a day. And sure, this book has many OSR classic monsters, but it also has some new ones that I thought were fun and some twists on those classics to keep it fresh.

As an example of something classic, here’s the stat block for the Gorgon - a staple of OSR fantasy that’s been around since forever.

• Gorgon
  AC: 19 HD: 4 SV: 14 XP: 240
  Steel covered bull. Can breathe a cloud filling 20 ft three times per day. Those in the cloud must save or be turned to stone until targeted by a Dispel Magic.

When including new monsters, I tried to include something that felt like it’s always been in the game. Like it could have been in a book that came out in ‘75.

• Stone Spiker
  AC: 18 HD: 1 SV: 19 XP: 10
  Easily mistaken for small rocks. Sprouts stone spikes when stepped on. Surprises foes on 1-4 on 1d6. Wounded victims move at half movement until lost Hit Points are restored.

Finally, I wanted to - at least every once in a while - make boring tropes a little more exciting. So, here’s an example:

• Zombie
  AC: 9 HD: 2 SV: 18 XP: 35
  Shambling, undead corpses reanimated by a magical plague. Goes last in initiative. Those who die from a zombie attack rise as one in 3d6 rounds.

All in all, White Box: Dungeon Bestiary will clock in at around 32 pages, I suspect. I could have included something else. Monstrous heritages would’ve been easy. I could’ve done new magic items themed to some of the monsters. I could have really gone hog wild - but I didn’t.

That’s your job. It’s your game. I just wrote it.