How To Host A Dungeon (Host) is game of dungeon creation that you play by yourself.
Armed only with the Host rules, a blank sheet of paper, some polyhedral dice, and a marker pen, you'll go from a blank page to something like this...
... in about an hour or so.
What's This Game About And What Do You Do In It?
Host gives you a procedure to create a dungeon with plenty of old-school D&D flavour. The game starts in the Primordial Age, where you toss dice onto your blank sheet of paper and draw caverns or rivers or veins of glittering gold at the places where the dice landed; the choice of caverns or rivers or whatnot is determined by looking up the result of each die roll on a simple table. And that is pretty much the central gameplay of Host.
Sure thing, there's more to it than that. You'll start in the Primordial Age, but then you'll progress through the Age of Civilisation - where you can choose to establish a Dwarven, Dark Elf, or Demonic civilisation; then to an Age of Monsters, where the dice that you roll on the map that's growing ever more detailed in front of you will result in great Trolls, or haughty Sphinxes, or gem-hungry Gnomes competing for the ancient treasures left behind by the fall of the civilisation in the previous age; finally, you'll enter the Age of Villainy, where a great Villain such as a Terrible Liche will rise from their ancient dungeon stronghold and seek to crush the nascent surface kingdom.
Bill wrote:
Excellent!
Ted wrote:
Bodacious!
Bill & Ted wrote:
:: play air guitars ::
The designer - Tony Dowler - doesn't have a licence from Wizards to the classic D&D properties, and so instead of Mind Flayers Host gives us the Thought Lords, and instead of Drow Host gives us the Dark Elves. In play I just mentally translated these rather uninspiring names into their D&D equivalent and cracked on with the old-school flavour. As I played I was powerfully reminded of the random dungeon generator from the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. Host is a different beast to that venerable tool though because Host presents a procedure for generating the history of the dungeon as it is being generated, rather than being just a room-by-room dungeon generator.
This additional axis makes Host a fine tool for creating a dungeon that you can drop into a fantasy RPG like D&D: the history of the dungeon is already there in broad brushstrokes, and you just need to fill in the finer details.
There ain't a lot of meaningful choices you can make during a play of Host: you choose which of the three provided civilisations that you'd like to use, but otherwise everything is determined by random number generation and table lookups. Creativity comes in crafting the backstory to the unfolding dungeon, and in the creative act of actually drawing the dungeon complex itself.
Presentation
I shelled out $5 for the PDF version, and that's the version I'm reviewing here; there's also a dead tree version that you can have for $19 plus shipping; if you're on a tight budget, or just wanna try before you buy, you can also download a free PDF version: the free version lacks the Demonic Civilisation and the Alpha Villain and doesn't sport any art. All of these versions can be had from the main website.
Host works great as a procedural text: there's a fair whack of text on each page, but the technical writing is crisp. I did struggle to find the first mention of the rule for Encounter Rolls - highlighting the first mention of terms would be helpful - but otherwise the text is pleasant to use. Every page also wholly encapsulates a distinct element of the game: forex, all of the rules for the Dark Elf Civilisation are presented on just one page; the rules for one element never spill across onto a following page. This is a good thing and helps keep everything organised, especially during the Age of Monsters when you've got 5-6 pages spread out in front of you.
The Hostwebsite is an excellent example of a product homepage. Dowler presents a whackload of material that's immediately useful to folk interested in the game right there on the landing page. He's aggregated supplementary content, a user-contributed Actual play video, and plenty of relevant links, and in so doing has created a great resource of information about his game: when I was investing the game, all my questions were answered from that page. Superb.
Further Reading
I found this old-school mapping tutorial by Dyson Logos to be helpful when creating my final map. Hatching really adds polish to a map, and it's simple enough to do if a tad time-consuming. Logos has also created some extra content that you can plug into the game: a Kuo-toa Civilisation, and some other civilisations such as Svirfneblin.
This video gives an insight into the fruits of playing Host: it skips all the process and just presents the fruit - the unfolding backstory, the map as it builds up over time - of one guy's play.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. --R.E.Howard
Great review Pete. I've been tempted to buy this game since it was first published, but haven't pulled the trigger on it, but this certainly helped firm up how cool it seems. Thanks.
Just from the name I thought it was going to be more like:
"The Ilithid in the Dismal Cavern with the Psychic Crush"
-or perhaps:
"Yes" It's true! I was the murderer all along! I lured you down here with false rumours of gold just so I could kill off that smirking Paladin. And I'm glad I did it!"
Thanks so much for a great review! I love your map, by the way! I'm also currently working on a new edition with somewhat improved and clearer text based on a lot of feedback from players over the last few years.
If I had young kids I think it'd be a fine activity to play with them though. Perhaps folk who have kids could comment on the suitability of Host for guided two-player play.
Thanks so much for a great review! I love your map, by the way! I'm also currently working on a new edition with somewhat improved and clearer text based on a lot of feedback from players over the last few years.
I've had my eye on this for a while but that video really makes it look like fun. I'm curious to hear what the new edition will contain!
I'm also thinking that this system could benefit from modular expansions or, better yet, a standardized and legit way for players to design and share their own expansions (e.g. Fiasco playset of the month).
I'm also thinking that this system could benefit from modular expansions or, better yet, a standardized and legit way for players to design and share their own expansions (e.g. Fiasco playset of the month).
That sounds like an excellent idea.
Tony's numbering scheme for the pages of the text, and that fact that the text is loose, makes incorporating supplementary content really neat: you can just slide your custom C5: Kuo-toa Civilisation right in after C4: Demon Civilisation.
Tony's put a lot of material up on that initial landing page, but I can't see anything that talks about the moving pieces of the design: forex, what bits and pieces have you got to work with when creating a new Civilisation?
It's more work for Tony, at least initially. How does a quick and cheerful contest on the 'geek to design another Civilisation or Arch Villain sound? It'd be in the style of the Fiasco Playset Design Contest that was held late in 2010.
Brofist
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
