Hobbies And Interests
Equipment
DDM includes all of the pieces required for play. The playing board consists of a rectangular series of tiles that is 13 tiles wide and 20 tiles long. Players construct the dungeon by placing Tetris-piece shaped walls. Fifteen dice each contain a symbol on each side; these symbols represent crests. Ten figurines depict monsters and corresponding cards give the attack, life and defense point statistics of these monsters. A different figurine represents the Monster Lord. An abacus lets players note the number of crests they currently possess at the start of and after each turn and damage counters represent any harm inflicted on monsters or the Monster Lord.
Setup
Each player sets his Monster Lord on the corresponding white tile on his end of the board. These are the only pieces that sit on the board at the beginning of the game. Players start with no crests in their abacus crest counter. The dice remain in a shared pool from which either player can draw, and the monsters all start off the board, as no player has summoned them yet. The board starts without any dungeon walls. Players should flip a coin, roll dice or use some other method to determine who starts first.
Turns
At the start of each turn, a player picks three of the 15 dice to roll and rolls them. Combinations of these symbols can give the player the ability to summon a monster, attack her opponent's monster, move a monster, cast a monster's magical spell or use its special ability or trap an opponent's monster. Whatever crests the dice display determine what a player can do on that turn or subsequent turns, as players do not have to use crests immediately and can record unused crests on the abacus. If the player summons a monster, she must also set down a dungeon wall for it to stand and move on across the board.
Progression
The goal of DDM is to kill the opponent's Monster Lord. Once a player summons a monster, he can keep laying down walls for it to move on toward the enemy Monster Lord and use Advance crests to move it forward on the tile board. Each player can also use an Attack crest to have their monsters attack an opponent's monsters or Monster Lord. An attack results in damage to the monster based on the attacking monster's attack points minus the defending monster's defense points. Players keep track of a monster's health with the damage counter and certain spells can heal a monster.
Ending
Each Monster Lord possesses three Life Points. A monster must sit in a square adjacent to the opponent's Monster Lord to attack it. The Monster Lord has no defense points but can move one square at a time in any direction without requiring any Advance crests and can inflict 10 points of damage on a monster without using an Attack crest. Each successful attack on an opponent's Monster Lord removes one of its Life Points. After three successful attacks, the Monster Lord dies and the opposing player wins.