White Box Product Lines
Marketing and Minimalism
I really love White Box: Dungeon Adventures. Next to The Road Home, it’s probably my favorite game I’ve ever written. But writing games is my job and The Road Home occupies this strange place where it’s an original d20-based system for a game that sits somewhere between the OSR and a cozy game. Not exactly the easiest thing to market and find an audience for.
Which brings me White Box: Dungeon Adventures. I like it for a strange reason: It covers only dungeon crawling and for the rest of the game everything is based on narrative exchange. It means when it comes to world building, roleplaying, and everything outside the dungeon then I have total freedom to simply play with nothing but words. No rules, just an accord between myself, the players, and the dice. It’s a beautiful thing.
So what then to do with this wonderful minimalist game in the future? The Dungeon Bestiary is out. I already have a slightly expanded version of the rules set coming in White Box: Dungeon Adventures - Special Edition and I’ll be putting out a book of stand alone dungeons that’ll work for both Cyclopedia and Dungeon Adventures. I have other ideas. I could do a book of races and classes for DA, but is that going too far? Is it straying too far afield of the game’s simplicity? I know I don’t want to take mechanical play outside the dungeon.
What do you think, dear reader? New heritages? New classes? New spells? New magic items? Where should we go from here? What would you like to see in the future of White Box: Dungeon Adventures?
I'd do what might seem the hardest thing: leave it well alone! The biggest draw is it's straightforward simplicity and openness for referees to do what they want. Adventures are a different matter. Adventures using the rules and bestiary without too many new things can keep people going and attract new customers. Campaigns based purely underground can work really well. There's no reason why an Arden Vul type mega dungeon couldn't be done with WBDA.
You created rules for dungeon crawling.
Now we need dungeons to crawl in.
Also, a few optional classes would be cool, and as Ivo says, magic items.