Mazes FRP

In August 2024 we presented the Mazes FRP Bundle featuring Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying, the episodic FRPG of sword-and-sorcery dungeon delving from 9th Level Games. Mazes FRP recasts the classic dungeon crawl with modern rules. Mazes FRP isn’t about shining knights and political intrigue, wandering bards and chivalrous romance. It’s about exploring forgotten caverns and ruins while avoiding perilous traps. Designed for episodic play, Mazes FRP is easy to learn and teach, and ready to play with minimal prep, making it ideal for one-shots and conventions. Each maze is intended to be a simple dungeon crawl that can be resolved in a few hours.

In Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying your characters are adventurers living in a dark and troubled world. The world used to be more civilized, more powerful, but that golden age of Empire and Magic has fallen; none still living remember it. Society has broken apart and the world is a patchwork of petty kingdoms, trading ports, and blasted ruins. But your characters are swords against the darkness: wanderers and vagabonds who make their living raiding dungeons and ruins, fighting for glory, for greed, and for self – while fighting against hopelessness and the reign of evil.

Mazes FRP uses the 9th Level Games Polymorph system. At character creation, each player selects one polyhedral die to represent their character role (Paragon, Vanguard, Fighter, Sentinel), and narrates actions to the Maze Controller (MC). The MC may then request rolls against a chart of moves (Books, Boots, Blades, Bones, Key, Crown). Players roll their one die, comparing the outcome against the success numbers listed for each move type. A Boots move, for example, succeeds on a roll of 2 or 3. Success numbers vary across move types, which means different die sizes are more likely to meet with different forms of success. Depending on the game world and what kind of character you are playing, you may roll with advantage or disadvantage, or not need to roll at all. There is never any math involved.

The MC never rolls dice. The MC has tools to control the flow of game, and resources to ensure that game play is fast, fair, and fun – without needing to memorize a million rules.

Players can use flashbacks to “go to town for supplies,” “research the evil monster,” “accept a warrant for the arrest of the Bandit Lord,” and otherwise keep the story flowing. Each story can be self-contained, or you can string together your varied tales in an emergent narrative.

Mazes FRP won the 2020 IGDN Indie Groundbreaker Award for Best Rules, and was nominated for an ENnie for Best Rules in 2020 as well.

This all-new Mazes FRP Bundle presented almost the entire Mazes FRP line to date, including the core rulebook and 12 modules, for an unbeatable bargain price. There were fourteen titles in our Mazes Collection (retail value $102) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying corebook (plus the free introductory adventure Black Crypt of the Witch Lord), along with all 12 scenarios published in the first year of the Mazes Monthly Module program: