Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying

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Mazes is a return to the classic sword and sorcery dungeon crawler with award-winning, yet delightfully simple modern rules. The first TTRPG to use the polymorph system, Mazes is easy to learn and teach, and ready to play without a lot of prep.

Designed for episodic play, Mazes is ideal for one-shots and conventions. It's a distillation and modernization of the classic Dungeon Delve, making it a perfect introduction for those new to roleplaying, as well a great excuse for grognards to get back into the dungeon!

Make Characters Fast

At character creation, each player selects one polyhedral die to represent their character, and narrates actions to the Maze Controller (MC). The MC may then request rolls against a chart of moves. Players roll their one die, comparing the outcome against the success numbers listed for each move type (a BOOTS move, for example, succeeds on rolling a 2 or 3). Success numbers vary across move types, which means different die sizes are more likely to meet with different forms of success.

A Smash Hit

MAZES quietly hit the indie TTRPG scene over two years ago during the first Kickstarter Zinequest event. Fans and RPG industry leaders saw the elegant simplicity of this game's ruleset and nominated Mazes for an ENnie for Best Rules ENNIE and an IGDN Indie Groundbreaker Award for Best Rules. Mazes won the IGDN Indie Groundbreaker Award for Best Rules in 2020! Now we’ve brought together years of development work on this brilliant underlying game system and its pulpy, dark fantasy world to bring players this definitive edition of the modern Fantasy Role Playing experience.

Polymorph

Mazes is powered by polymorph – which is a compact yet comprehensive rules framework for roleplaying. It’s designed to provide the full experience of a crunchy RPG, but with minimal setup and prep – all without giving up the fun, mechanical depth of an exciting roleplaying system. Sorry, there isn’t any math – we did all that work for you!  In a polymorph game, each player only ever uses a specific polyhedral die – a d4, a d6, a d8, or a d10.  Each die represents a different “way to play” or a  different “role” that they have in the group. Whenever a player asks “can I do something”, they roll their die and with a quick glance at their character sheet to know if they succeed.

There is NEVER any math involved (no modifiers, no masters). Depending on the game world and what kind of character that you are playing – you may roll with advantage or disadvantage (or not need to roll at all); and the MC (the person running the game) never rolls dice. The MC has tools to control the flow of game, and resources like the players to ensure that game play is fast, fair, and fun - without needing to memorize a million rules.

Features 

• Everything you need to make characters and run games of Mazes
• Carefully crafted "gold edition" of the rules — 25% new content, 25% updated, 50% collated and collected from the previous 9 zines
• A Curious Grimoire & Book of Hazards — countless spells and monsters!
• Guide to GMing Polymorph games and using Darkness & Treasure to inspire outstanding storytelling
• Fiction "interludes" by Nat Mesnard to set the mood
• Updated rules to include campaign-style play

Award-Winning

Mazes won the 2020 IGDN Indie Groundbreaker Award for Best Rules, and was nominated for an ENnie for Best Rules in 2020 as well. More recently, Mazes received a 2022 IndieCade nomination, and is up for the festival's Jury Prix, Grand Jury, Developer’s Choice, Innovation in Interaction Design, and Innovation in Experience Design awards, as well as the award in Tabletop Design.