Donjon, by Clinton R. Nixon, is an homage to the early days of role-playing, back when the game you were playing was determined by the color of the box it came in. Those heady days when everything was new and exciting and violent and maybe a little silly (most of us where teenaged boys at the time after all). Some might also consider it a "heartbreaker", an attempt to make a game like D&D as it "ought to be", but this is one that works, in my opinion.
I've only played Donjon in a forum setting at this point, though I intend to try it live in the nearish future. Things didn't work great in the forums, but I think that say more about the medium than the game.
The game starts with everybody making a character if they don't already have one. You start with attributes. You have six, and they are rated at a range of one to six. They have painfully convoluted names as if struggling to not use the same attributes as D&D, even though that's what they are. "Virility" (Strength), "Adroitness" (Dexterity), "Wherewithal" (Constitution), "Cerebrality" (Intelligence), "Discernment" (Wisdom) and "Sociality" (Charisma). Still, it's kind of funny in its own way. The rules default to random attribute generation, but other options are offered as well.
Next, everyone chooses a class OR a race (old-school!), although "choose" might be a bit of a misnomer. Technically everyone "makes up" a class or a race. It could be "fighter" or "purple robe sorcerer" or "rock troll" or "hairfoot halfling" or whatever. If you choose a race then that's your race, otherwise everybody is human. Nobody can share the same race (unless they're human) or class.
Next, everybody gets "abilities". They get one, broad ability that is representative of their race or class and four "supporting" abilities that are more narrowly focused. These can be things like "Cast Spells" or "Hit People With Weapons" on the broad end and "Use Bows" or "Lie Convincingly" on the narrow end.
Once your abilities are defined, points are distributed between those abilities, flesh wounds (a form of "hit points") and a couple saving throws. Provisions and Wealth are also set at starting values. Wealth is an abstraction of how much money the character has. Provisions is an abstraction of how well equipped the character is for dungeon-crawling.
So, the DM ("Donjon Master") sets up a town for the characters to use as a base (which determines how hard it is to find lodging and equipment and such) and the skeleton of an adventure. The reason it's just a "skeleton" is that the players have alot of input, based on how the dice work. Let me explain.
The players can try to do stuff, just like most RPGs, and they use their most appropriate abilities and attributes to do so. In Donjon they roll pools of d20s. Yes, that's alot of d20s, but there you go. You could used d10s or d6s if you wanted, but d20s are best and use of other dice will get you mocked by "real" Donjon players. The dice are compared to an opposing pool, and a number of "successes" are the result. Those successes can be turned into bonus dice, or they can be used to state indvidual "facts" about the result. But first let's make one thing clear. There are no "wasted" rolls. If you search for a secret door succesfully, then there will be one there to find. If you listen for a goblin ambush, then there will be goblins waiting to get you. Now, on top of that, you can use your successes either as bonus dice to your attempt to, say, sneak up on the ambushers, or you can use those dice to state facts like "The goblins seems sickly" and "Half of them are asleep" or something like that.
I almost forgot the magic system. The magic-using characters have a list of "Magic Words". They can take an action to summon "magic energy" and then spend that energy to power their spells, which are created using the Magic Words, which are used to name the spell. Each Magic Word will have one effect on the target(s).
That's mostly how it goes. The DM provides challenges for the player characters, and the player look for advantages. There's definitely a competitive aspect to the game, especially when the players choose to state "facts" about the encounters as the DM takes on an "evil genie" role and attempts to bend the players words to make things difficult for them. That sound unfair, but when the players can search a foe's fallen body for a +5 Holy Avenger, and if successful, automatically find one, the DM has to be on his toes.
There are several of what the book calls "dials" posted in sidebars throughout. These are options that the group must choose before play, to make sure that everybody is on the same page. While the game, for instance, defaults to a sort of "tongue-in-cheek" attitude, the "dial" for the seriousness level can run from "Monty Python and the Geeks" to grim "Rust-and-Blood".
So, if the players have so much power, what keeps them from going totally nuts on the game and ruining the balance? Well, in a given adventure, not much, except that such is expected and taken into account in the way the game is played. Between adventures, the players can only keep so much of their loot, based on their level. The rest either gets broken, lost, used up, stolen or traded for ale and whores, so it's probably a good idea to try selling anything you don't think you're going to need again.
And that's it. The game is fun and light-hearted, even when it's serious, because that's the feeling that it's going for. You don't have to think too hard, monster are there to be killed and looted, snacks and frosty beverages should frow freely and everyone should have a great time. Wow, having written this review, I'm totally going to have to push for playing this game again.
The book is 80 pages in PDF format for just $8.75 US. The author's website says that you can also buy the actual book from Indie Press Revolution, but I don't see it listed. However, it looks like Lulu has it in paperback for just $15.00 US.