Return to Dark Tower Fantasy Roleplaying is a complete polymorph RPG set in the world of the “The Four Kingdoms.” At its heart is the idea that a “Great Evil” has taken up residence in the DARK TOWER at the Heart of the Four Kingdoms, and the players take on the roles of heroes and their companions to stop that adversary from their nefarious plot. The game itself is built as a campaign of linked adventures that plays out like an epic fantasy novel.
About the Game
Return to Dark Tower Fantasy Roleplaying is an ancillary product to the board game – but we are working closely with Restoration Games to ensure that the game is true to the board game. Everything that you love about the board game – from the Bane of Omens to the River of Fire, from Dungeons and Ruins, to Being pursued by Oreks is part of the roleplaying game. In fact, our PLAYER TOWER dice roller and reference screen can be placed on the center of
the board game board itself to give you the focus. You can use the board and minis from the board game as visual aids in the RPG as well – especially for the task of tracking the enemies’ movements across the year!
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I heard the pitch for the game and immediately wanted to play. It captures the feeling of Return to Dark Tower perfectly. Very excited to see this come to life.
– Rob Daviau, lead designer of Return to Dark Tower Board game
The System
Polymorph works differently than most game systems in a few ways, the most important is that you have a single die that represents your character – a d4, d6, d8, or a d10. The die that that you choose determines your “role” in the party, as well as what you “roll” to do things. Within a polymorph game you only ever roll your die; so if you’re the d8, whenever you roll you always only roll the d8. You usually are rolling against what we call the RESOLVER – a matrix that is literally printed on your character sheet – to determine if you succeed or fail at an action or a save.
Return to Dark Tower has a few twists and turns as its focus is on playing larger than life heroes. The core mechanics are the same, but the scope and scale of things are a little different. One of the biggest changes is that everyone makes two characters – a HERO and a COMPANION. The Hero is epic and has followers and henchmen; the companion is more of a traditional adventurer. Since our game is played out across a world map, against an epic foe, the players will take on different kinds of challenges where each hero can have a different spotlight. While one player is acting as the hero, the other players can play their companions. Most of the core changes are really on the GM side – where we are giving GMs tools to build and play this epic level of play.
Product Offering
The heart of the campaign is the hardcover rules for Return to Dark Tower Fantasy Roleplaying. The book will be styled like a throwback 1980s AD&D “orange spine” hardcover. I’m of the right age to be excited by Dark Tower nostalgia, and we wanted to celebrate that in a way that would make a subset of fans excited. In addition, we are going to be doing an exciting Accessory Set that will include a GM SCREEN and PLAYER TOWER. This will let you use your minis and game board from the return to Dark Tower board game as part of your setup for the RPG.
This is super exciting. We are offering all the Return to Dark Tower RPG Roll20 Module with every pledge level. Roll20 and 9th Level Games worked it out so that everyone pledge tier backer will receive this as part of their pledge – that’s a value of $50!
Interested in the Return to Dark Tower RPG? Check it out on Kickstarter.