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Dungeoneer is the core rulebook for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy role-playing game system that was published in 1989 by Puffin. In addition to Dungeoneer, the other books in the Advanced Fighting Fantasy system are Blacksand!, Allansia, Out Of The Pit and Titan. Advanced Fighting Fantasy was marketed as an entry level role-playing game and it expanded on the same basic rules found in the hugely popular Fighting Fantasy series of solo fantasy game books that was also published by Puffin.

The setting for Advanced Fighting Fantasy is the world of Titan, a post apocalyptic world ravaged by the Powers of Chaos unleashed by the Wizard Wars. This is the same world that was described in 46 out of the the 59 books in the Fighting Fantasy series. As expected, Advanced Fighting Fantasy draws much of its rich content from these sources.

The rules in Advanced Fighting Fantasy are a simple extension of that in the Fighting Fantasy game books. In addition to SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, players have Special Skills that allow for weapon specialization, special abilities and magic use. Points equal to the initial SKILL are spread around the chosen Special Skills, the values of which are SKILL plus the allocated points. For example, a player with SKILL 8 can spend it on Sword(4), Awareness(2), Climbing(1), Swimming(1) (4+2+1+1=8) giving the following Special Skill values; Sword(8+4=12),Awareness(8+2=10),Climbing(8+1=9) and Swimming(8+1=9).

The mains problem with the Special Skills rule is that it introduces expanding returns on SKILL, making the game heavily biased in favor of the player. Furthermore, although spells are powered by Stamina, healing spells give better returns than their initial casting cost, which allow for unchecked magic use. These flaws in the rules make the original Advanced Fighting Fantasy system unplayable and the series has since gone out of print. Given its rich setting however, Advanced Fighting Fantasy continues to appeal to some players who have introduced various house rules to make the system playable.

One example of a quick fix to the overwhelming advantage introduced by Weapon Special Skills is to substitute the 2d6+SKILL (or Weapon Special Skill) roll used for combat resolution with a 2d6+SKILL Odds Modifier roll. Using this approach, the player's SKILL is compared to that of his opponent's with the resulting modifier applied to the side with the better odds, in a similar manner to other modifiers.

SKILL Odds	Modifier
1 to 1	0
3 to 2	+1
2 to 1	+2
5 to 2	+3
3 to 1	+4
7 to 2	+5
>4 to 1	+6

For example, using the above SKILL Odds Table, a player with Sword(12+4=16) would gain a +2 modifier (2 to 1 odds) against a SKILL 7 opponent.

Another suggestion to address the problem with unlimited magic use is to switch the Stamina cost for spells with Magic Skill. For example, a player who cast 3 Fire Bolts(cost:1) will have his Magic Skill reduced from 12 to 9. In this way, cumulative spell casting will reduce the chance of spell success, limiting spell use. Magic Skill can then be restored through activities as sufficient rest or meditation.

In such incarnations, Advanced Fighting Fantasy serves well as a gritty and evocative rules-lite role-playing game.

In consulting DriveThruRPG we've come up with a number of products which we think might be related, but some might be inaccurate because the name, Dungeoneer, is so short. Nonetheless, take a look, as purchasing through the RPGnet Store helps to support RPGnet.