Run the Game You've Been Imagining

Picture this: It's Saturday. You download the Open Dungeons Core Guide - all ten pages - and in twenty minutes you've got the core rules read. Too easy. You decide to download the Character Builder, DN Guide, and Monster Trove: First Encounters. An hour passes, and you're feeling confident you can run your game tonight.

Your players show up. Character creation takes several minutes (use Character Generator) or kick it off with pencil and paper using a blank Character Sheet. Twenty minutes later, you're all in the dungeon, fighting goblins, making choices that matter.

No spreadsheets. Just adventure.

That's Open Dungeons.

This is a complete fantasy RPG that gets out of your way. Everything that traditionally bogs down game night - the stat inflation, the complicated action economy, the endless prep - has been redesigned from the ground up. You keep the d20, you keep the dungeon crawling, you keep the excitement. You lose the administrative burden.

Here's what makes it work.

Innovative rules from Magic Stacking to Magical Backlash, from DR to Monster Save Rolls. A multiverse that welcomes any campaign setting or adventure from any other fantasy TTRPG. Character design that progresses with narrative, not math. And solving metagaming with DN Monster Workbook.

The System Trusts You

You've been running games long enough to know what works at your table. Open Dungeons gets out of your way and lets you do that.

Other systems hand you 600 pages and say "learn this, then run it correctly." Open Dungeons hands you several small books and says "here's a framework - now make it yours."

Giving the Dungeon Narrator authority isn't a mechanic. It's the system trusting you. Trusting that you know when a roll should be hard or easy. Trusting that you can adjudicate a cliff shove without consulting a sidebar. Trusting that you've earned the right to run your game, not the game the designers imagined.

Armor doesn't inflate Armor Class or make monsters bloated with stats to stay relevant. Armor reduces damage. Magic stacks, but is limited so stats don't spiral out of control. Saving throws collapse into three clear types that cover everything dangerous in the game. The rules aren't something to be fought over - your judgment is final.

Because DN has agency and not bogged down in rules, the game is more immersive.

If you are uncertain if this free game isn't for you, consider reading "Introduction": Introduction