Nice work! I haven't checked out the second volume yet. Have you thought of doing split tracks? Like rolling a die to see where you go or allowing players to choose shortcuts that have greater dangers?
Viewing post in Dungeon Hero Volume 1: Starter Set comments
Yes, I've thought of that; these adventures are quite linear! Problem is that entirely split tracks through the adventure would also shorten the adventure, and we're pretty tight on space as it is with just one printed page.
I am exploring some branching mechanics in the later volumes. For instance, the vampire adventure in Volume Three has a fortune-telling mechanic that can expose new weapons you can use to take down the vampire, but they come at an increased threat cost. It's not something you choose, but it does have some branching narrative.
One thing I'm thinking for Volume four are one-entry decisions you can make, that are either/or decisions that may have repercussions later for plot point later.
I've also thought briefly about a larger, "folio" size adventure resembling a hex crawl type adventure that has a truly branching narrative with a mini-adventure (a series of traits) on each page with a decision at the bottom of the page to take you to another page (basically, hex to hex). Those sorts of things will be much harder to playtest thoroughly, so they'd be slower to produce, though.
Okay. I dig that. Yeah, I was thinking that the branching narrative would be something like, say 1-22, you're climbing a mountain. But then at 23 you have a lock icon and if you' can beat, let's say a d8 or d10 hidden rock trait with your Elf Eyes or something, you can instead advance to A1. A1 is 4 sections long and has strong monster traits. It spits back out at 32. Otherwise you continue down the main line, taking longer but facing less dangerous adversaries.
These alternate tracks could be in text boxes on the right-side margin.
Oh, and do you have a random treasure generator or anything? Man, I'm loving this system.
EDIT: Oh, I see what you mean about size. Yeah, the pocketmod thing. I was reading them on the regular PDF thinking you could just add more pages.
Well, if you're looking for a more fulsome Dungeon Hero experience, you might check out my Fable on Your Table game. It's got some mechanics that are very similar to Dungeon Hero, but it has printable miniatures, a deeper combat system, and a companion web app that procedurally generates dungeons. Dungeon Hero was created as a distillation of that game, so if you're looking to go the other way and get something more detailed and expansive, that's a good pick!
Also, I suppose there's nothing preventing a PDF that has more pages. I just felt that the 'zine size made it nice and portable and kept the play time to nice, enjoyable sessions that never go on too long. But there are people who have expressed interest in making their own Dungeon Hero adventures, so maybe we'll see some new adventures with these kinds of mechanics. (Or maybe you will write some?)