12DR Explained: 1 of 4
Well… That may be a bit of a stretch. After all, I’m still struggling to understand the complexities of the game myself. I would rather talk about its origin—a subject far more interesting to me than its play mechanics—but I’ll tackle that Gordian knot later. Suffice to say, the ideas, supposedly true, behind the game have been around, if you believe the true believers, since the late 1940s and early 1950s. I became aware of them in 2001. A game incorporating these ideas occurred to me around 2008 and I have been obsessively pursuing its completion since. By that, I mean the game I originally set out to make: The Door That Wasn’t There Before. At first, I called it Portals and Chambers. It was a terrible game. Early play-testers, and very good friends, bravely slugged their way through one poorly made version after another. Finally, somewhat exasperated, they asked for a simple version to more easily learn the game’s mechanics. Disheartened, I tinkered and tinkered but came no nearer a breakthrough until my closest friend, and cousin, Stevo, asked, “Do we have to start by opening a door? Why can’t we start in a room?” BAM! Such a small shift and yet it was huge. It was like every element added for the previous year-and-a-half had been designed to work exactly right, if only play began in a specific room! It all fell into place. The whole became bigger than the sum of its parts. Mysteriously, the 'escape-version' of the game, newly renamed, NOX, began to write itself, drawing on my interests and research—and continues to do so some seven years later.
As of 2013, after NOX was passed around a career high school by bored seniors with nothing better to do, the game underwent some significant changes. Those seniors instrumental in the update are acknowledged with thanks on their first contribution: The Quick Start Guide.
To commemorate the changes and avoid confusion with another card game that came out that year, I changed the name to the most used phrase I overheard as new players received a quick overview of the escape-game: okay, it all happens in these twelve dark rooms…
The Rule Book description states: TWELVE DARK ROOMS is a horror game of wits and cards and dice for 2-6 mature players. Create the maze as you play by using two decks of tiles: Doors & Rooms. Open doors allow players to pass between rooms. Within rooms, players interact, search, hide and fight. Once all twelve rooms are played, any door that does not lead to another room is a way out. The first player out, wins! Roll six-sided dice to perform actions: OPEN, MOVE, SEARCH, HIDE, HELP or ATTACK. Search for HAND cards and avoid SKULL cards. HAND cards (Useful, Useless and Charmed items) help you defeat the maze, influence others or intimidate them. SKULL cards (Bad Scares, Devious Traps, Wicked Hexes & Dark Entities) await those who roll below 9. Skulls can kill you or drive you insane. In this game, you are YOU. Imagine yourself awakened in a dark room without knowing how or why you came to be there. Act as you might under those circumstances. Strike out on your own or explore as a group; it’s up to you. FAIR WARNING: few make it out of the maze alone. You must cooperate as you compete—tricky!
Actually, the only explanation players need is in the poem read aloud before each game:
You were sleeping
In your bed,
Then you woke
In utter dread.
In The Dark,
But not alone,
Fear has chilled
You to the bone.
Now you must
Escape this place,
A twisted, dark
And deadly race.
Find the door
That leads you out;
Be sure to take
The quickest route.
The first one through
Wins the game;
The rest will likely
Go insane.
No time for questions,
How or why,
Grab your dice;
Prepare to die.
In the Rule Book the eighth and final setup step states: Turn on a small table lamp. Turn out all the other lights. If you’re 'in the dark,' then you’re ready to play Twelve Dark Rooms. Good Luck! (You’re gonna need it.)
The Dark. The core idea behind the game is this: cooperative play against the game’s mechanisms—cards, dice, fellow players and the rules. These mechanisms are collectively called The Dark. Each player begins the game by drawing one of six ‘In The Dark’ cards from the Skull deck. As indicated on each card, players can only roll 2d6 (two six-sided dice) to move, search and/or interact with other players. Players cannot get rid of these cards because, “if you’re in the maze, you’re in the dark.” These ‘In The Dark’ cards can only be ‘masked’ by light producing Hand cards of which there are, not surprisingly, six. Four flashlights, a lantern and a candle (the latter two require matches in order to light them). Each, when lit, allows you to roll 3d6 (three six-sided dice) to move, search and interact. Because the number one rule of The Dark is: roll below 9, draw a Skull… rolling 3d6 is much better than rolling 2d6 for obvious reasons, but for further discussion, see The Dice and The Skulls sections in upcoming posts. For the most part, however, you and your ‘friends’ are trapped in The Dark and only one of you can escape alive. Who will it be?
Next time... A Maze of Rooms & Doors
