The original was lots of fun, and the only real criticism I had for it was that it could get a little repetitive if you weren't actively mixing it up with your own content (or cool ideas you saw at https://howtohostadungeon.fandom.com/wiki/How_to_Host_a_Dungeon_Wiki). The Dwarven Civilization and Dark Elf Civilization in particular tended to always produce very stock results with rules-as-written, and as a result the first third of the game could be a little dry after your third playthrough. (Click here for Index of all my How To Host A Dungeon articles.)
New content sounded great, so I picked it up and dove right in. Quite a bit has changed.
Right off the bat, one thing that's very different is the strata. The old version had you determine the location of landmarks in your primordial era by rolling dice onto your drawing. The number rolled determined what you were placing, and the spot the die stopped moving at set the location. This was a really fun system, but also felt kind of rigged. I played most of my maps digitally, so I had to kind of cludge a fix for it by numbering a grid onto my page. The new system gets rid of the "where the die lands" mechanic, and subdivides your map into geologic strata. You then roll up one primordial theme for each stratum. This is clean, and simple, and makes sure the resources and traps are evenly distributed across the map. So far, I think it's a pretty good system. With the old system is was possible to end up with all the interesting stuff packed into one little corner of the map sometimes, and that wasn't great. This seems like an improvement, and the lip-service to geology is a nice touch. The random strata structure I rolled was pretty simple and feels realistic enough.
For the primordial era of my first map of 2nd Ed, I only rolled things that could have come up in the 1st Edition as well. Likewise, my d20 roll for a nexus resulted in just the classic "fate" cave from 1st Ed. I was a little bummed at first, because I want to see the new stuff, like underground biomes. I guess that saves some surprises for my second play through. It also gives me an opportunity to really compare the mechanisms of the two editions instead of just geeking out over new content. That focus on mechanical differences eventually won me around to accepting the rolls I'd made for the purposes of review.
My dice got streaky, and 3 of my 7 underground strata had magma features. These then involved rolls on sub-tables that filled in details of what sort of magma or water features I should draw. I got a magma river, a large lava pool, and a huge chamber with multiple smaller magma pools in it for the hot layers. I purposefully downplayed the magma river because I was concerned that three strata full of lava might not leave me enough playable space. Since I took the step to minimize it in drawing, I will no doubt roll nothing but Fire Elementals and Dragons who could have happily set up condos on that lavafront property.
Likewise, due to streaky dice, 2 of the 7 had water features. One water layer had a single large underground lake, and the other had a huge underground sea that was supposed to fill most of the stratum. I split the later into two parts with a narrow channel and a waterful, partly because it seemed like a fun little thing to draw, and partly so that half my surface map wouldn't be cut off from all the underground fun.
I like the ore entry that I rolled, that placed it in scattered clumps across a single stratum. That seems way better than the single large triangle of ore you'd often see in 1st ed. For my caves entry I rolled a single long tunnel.
For the surface strata, I rolled up three distinct biomes. So I stamped in a forest on one side of the mountain, and grassland on the other.
I planted the lethal nexus Fate cave just south of center of the map. In the middle so there'd be a chance of it wiping out civilizations, but far enough from the surface that it wouldn't do so too early and spoil the fun. This definitely seemed far better than the old system where I sometimes got Fate caves in remote corners of the map. Being restricted only in which strata to put things, and not where within the stratum seems pretty great. For the moment, I like how it balances the randomness with some player agency. I could, however, see how it might lead to very... I don't think "abusable" is the right word... some situations where the random pressure fails to manifest at all and player authorship steers the game with a heavy hand. I guess we'll see how it turns out.
Speaking of seeing, here's the shape of my map just before the dawn of civilization. It's not much to look at just yet, but I'm sure there's fun stuff coming up.
Another obvious point of comparison to 1st Edition is the number of things on the map at the end of the Primordial Age. In the previous edition, at this stage your map would almost always have exactly 3 features on it. Now, it will have anywhere from 7 to 9, and that seems like a huge improvement to the interest and variety of the map.
One thing I didn't make much use of was the "Geographical Inspirations" page in the new rules. It comes after the other strata information, so I'd already drawn everything before I even noticed it. It may have but more flavor in my magma sites, and a different color and a bit of story to my ore. I kinda wish I'd done that, but I don't wish it enough to undo what I've already saved. It's technically possible to get nothing but boring generic rolls on that page, so I'm not technically diverting from the range of possible results for 2nd Ed. I don't think it's badly skewing my experience or review, but I kinda wish I hadn't missed it. (Note to self: read ahead next time.) Next map, I'll roll on that for each stratum before drawing anything, and see if it makes things more exciting.
Speaking of drawing, here's a few technical details of how I'm doing this. I've got Corel painter booted up because I don't do enough art to justify Adobe's pricetag.
I dropped in a background layer of light brown to be the barest, clearest dirt and rock in spots where caves and tunnels exist. I then copied that brown into a new layer directly on top of it, paint-bucketed it to a darker tone, and then set that darker layer down to 50% opacity. The plan is that each new age I'll drop in another layer on top, also at 30% to 50% opacity, and carve out with the eraser any tunnels or caves. This will preserve layered history, much the way the default rules assume you'd be doing with tracing paper. I'd used this method before (but with a different piece of software) and been happy with the results. The unmined areas should be much darker in the final layer.
To make the surface not quite so boring, especially in the early stages, I dropped in a rocky texture on the first half-opacity layer. I don't know if I'll preserve that through to the final version of the map or not, but at least for now it makes all the empty rock space more interesting than just a boring brown rectangle.
For the water and magma I hand painted in two or three tones. Scribbled, really, then did a glass distortion or marbling effect over it to mix the colors and create waves. Instant water! (Directions from the box: just add contents of this package of instant water to real water, and stir.)
It took me a little while to get things set up last night, so that's all I've got for now. I'll work on another layer or two tonight and report back in a few days when Dwarven Civilization has collapsed.
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