Ruins of the Undercity (Review?)

Ruins of the Undercity (I got it at Lulu, apparently it is available on Drive Thru RPG as well), has been out for a while but I just picked it up, so it's new to me.

It is a "Random DM-less dungeon generator" which is a pretty accurate description.  I picked it up at Lulu, honestly, because I had a great coupon code and wanted to add a bunch of books so I didn't feel like I was getting totally shafted on shipping.  I figured it would be good to hack a few random tables from.  I didn't think I would really be a fan of doing the random dungeon generator.

Boy, was I wrong!  I read the rules and liked the spin the author put on the random dungeon generator rules from the back of the 1e DMG.  It seemed like it would work so I decided to give it a try.  I rolled up a party of Labyrinth Lord characters and set to.  I explored the entire first level of the generated dungeon, setting off a few traps and losing my Fighter in the process.  I didn't find a single copper but it was a ton of fun.

I found a few shafts down to the third level and am currently exploring that environ.  I just narrowly won a fight with 23 Mites (gremlin like humanoids who are fond of traps) thanks to judicious use of Sleep spells!

I am really enjoying the surprise factor with this mini-game.  I didn't think it would work so smoothly, or that it would be so dangerous but still playable.  I'm not much for reviews, I just don't think people really care what I think, but I dig this product.  I am having fun with it and hopefully someone else will too.  The real reason for the blog post instead of just dropping a shout out in Google Plus is that I've created a spreadsheet for use with the game and thought someone might get some use out of it.

In addition to generating standard characters for your favorite OSR Retro-clone or original B/X, 1e AD&D or what have you, you need to keep an Adventure Log.  It tracks the meta information you need to play.  I couldn't find one online and the scanned copy I made lacked in clarity, so I made my own using Excel.  I also included mini-character sheets and hireling blocks with it so I could run the whole thing from one page.  It looks like this:

I found it pretty useful to keep all this stuff in one place.  I play at my desk so I just use the computer but you could easily print this out and use pencil.  I found it easier and less pieces of paper to track in addition to flipping through the book and the LL core book as well.

Here is a link for download:

Ruins of the Undercity Adventure Log and Tracker