Here’s the thing I’ve been working on for seven months.

Download Twisted Tunnels: The Phoenix Apocryphon, Volume III – free PDF. Send feedback to john at beardedbaby dot net.

Twisted Tunnels is a dungeon-crawling RPG. It’s a love letter to Ken St. Andre’s original 1975 Tunnels & Trolls—with gusto and gratitude. It’s not a retro-clone: it’s something that grew from running and playing in that tradition for seventeeen years and refusing to leave it alone. Desperate, foolish, or simply mad, your delvers descend into the Twisted Tunnels for fun and profit—competing for higher levels and greater fortunes than everyone else at the table.

What it carries forward from classic T&T:

• Three types: Warrior, Magic-User, Rogue
• Six abilities generated on 3d6 each; ablative—they drop when you take damage, and hitting zero means sudden death
• Monster Ratings: one number defines how tough a monster is
• Side-vs-side combat (the Ruckus): both sides roll buckets, compare totals, loser eats the difference…
• …or Throwdowns for more intimate moments of violence
• Saving Rolls: 2d6 (DARO) + ability vs. a target set by the dungeon level
• Catching and taming monsters—like Ash!
• Spellcasting spends Strength
• Compatible with classic T&T solo dungeons (more or less)

What makes it its own thing:

The Terror Check.

Roughly every ten minutes of real time, the referee picks up a die and rolls it where everyone can see. Nothing happens? The pool grows—add another die. Eventually something claws its way in. The dungeon doesn’t wait for the players to be ready.

Roll a fistful, keep two (DARO).

Classic T&T’s DARO only applies to Saving Rolls—here it drives everything. You roll as many dice as the situation calls for, then pick the two you want. Doubles cascade—add them up and roll again. Big swings are possible; long addition is not.

Berserkers Revived and Streamlined.

Your fighter can go bananas and fly into frenzy. Going berserk is powerful, but you might turn on your allies. Snapping out costs Strength, but every body you drop while berserk burns through the fury and makes it cheaper.

The Pit of Ultimate Darkness.

Want to bend reality? Descend to the right dungeon level, brew the right ingredients, and make your petition. The Unseen Awful Powers will name their price. “Your shadow. It stays behind in the Pit.”

This game has appeared on this blog in rougher forms since around 2015. Those earlier versions were worth sharing at the time; they were not finished. This one is: complete, playtested, designed with intention from start to finish. What’s left is writing examples, art, and layout.

Seven months of steady work on this version. Playtesting was varied and rigorous: a weekly afterschool dungeon demolition club, solo runs, duo sessions, full-party one-shots, and now an ongoing campaign. Reviewers and playtesters from around the world weighed in. It works.

If any of that sounds like your kind of dungeon game, grab it: Download Twisted Tunnels: The Phoenix Apocryphon, Volume III – free PDF

Changelog

2026-03-27

Provide an optional procedure for monster morale checks.

2026-03-16

Add optional table of appetites for monsters, overlords, fiends, factions, lowlifes, and other miscreants.

2026-03-15

Remove unnecessary damage bonus for Heavy weapons (already accounted for by DARO).

Clarify roll and keep for Long Shots.

Simplify helms: replaced shattering mechanic with head-injury stun.

2026-03-13

Expand backgrounds under Specialty Skills to 216 entries, rename the section “Past”.

2026-03-12

Long Shots: A missed ranged attack no longer makes the target helpless.

Daring XP: You now earn XP for every Saving Roll you make, not just failures.

Infiltration Missions: Collapsed the separate Stealth Exposure and Subterfuge Exposure tracks into one unified rule with a short list of complications.

2026-03-04

New Twist: Count dice in the terror pool as the threat level rather than dungeon depth, expanding play beyond the dungeon. Named enemies unaffected.

2026-03-03

Remove fiddly Dexterity requirement for Elder spells: Ranged tag (and wand) already creates DEX dependency.

Simplify berserk procedure using terror check.

Pit of Ultimate Darkness now escalates terror pool when invoked recklessly.