In January 2023 we presented the sinister Wicked Ones Bundle featuring Ben Nielson’s Wicked Ones, the FRPG from Bandit Camp about building dungeons, making nefarious plans, and slaying adventurers who seek to stop you. Wicked Ones uses the Forged in the Dark rules, based on John Harper’s Blades in the Dark, to bring to your tabletop the experience of Dungeon Keeper, Dungeons, and similar video games. Construct your dungeon’s rooms, recruit hench-things, use Monster Science to craft traps and alchemical concoctions, cast summonings and rituals, discover underground treasures, and stave off an onslaught of greedy and powerful “heroic” invaders. Bah! Witless minions, attack!
Funded in a June 2019 Kickstarter campaign, Wicked Ones is a slick implementation of the Forged rules. Player characters – iconic bad-guy types like orcs, goblins, serpent folk, bugbears, et al, with Callings (playbooks) like Brute, Conniver, Marauder, Warlock, and Zealot – jointly build and manage a dungeon as part of a villainous master plan developed by the players. The rulebook advises against cartoonish evil. Maybe the monsters want to conquer a nearby town, or they’re collecting items to use for a summoning ritual. Maybe the players figure out their goal as they go.
The master plan centers around dungeon-building. The players collaborate in founding and expanding a hideout, stronghold, forge, or temple in a sandbox setting like a quiet valley, a warzone, or even a city’s sewers. Nonplayer factions control specific locations, and anything you do to improve your dungeon annoys one or another faction. The cycle of dungeon life proceeds in four fixed phases: lurking (downtime), calamity (random dungeon-related setbacks, including invasion by troublesome heroes), raiding (missions, similar to Blades heists), and blowback (consequences of the raid). As they carry out their malign plan, the players literally draw new parts of the dungeon, design its traps and defenses, supervise its monsters, and administer its hoard (resources). Over time, as characters arrive and depart (usually violently), the dungeon itself grows to become the campaign’s main character.
This detestable Wicked Ones Bundle presented the entire game line for a bargain price that won’t dent even a measly Tier 1 hoard. There were five titles in our devilish Wicked Collection (retail value $55) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Wicked Ones Deluxe Edition (plus the Toolkit Deck); the expansions Undead Awakening and War for the Overworld; and the Sandbox Map Pack.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this diabolical, unprincipled, depraved, and loathsome Wicked Ones offer’s designated charity, the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program. Each year, the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, amplifies the voices of up-and-coming game designers by featuring them during an expenses-paid visit to Gen Con. The global Emerging Designer Program focuses on creators from marginalized communities.
