Disclosure: I Kickstarted this system and I built the Foundry module for playing it online.

This system is my introduction to OSR-style gaming, though not my first old school game; I've dabbled in AD&D 2e, but much of my gaming experience comes from games like D&D 5e, Call of Cthulhu, and Zweihander. I think I have a grasp of what a retroclone needs to do well to, and that is to present the a gaming style or aesthetic with updates for modern sensibilities. I feel that Chromatic Dungeons more than meets this bar.

Character creation is quick, easy, and expressive; a character is composed of, by default, the familiar six attributes of D&D-inspired games, an ancestry, two heritage options (things that make up your character's upbringing and background), an alignment (with options representing Law, Neutrality, and Chaos, rather than the good to evil spectrum), at least one class, and gear. This full process takes seven dice rolls, and forces players to make interesting decisions from the get-go.

Combat is no less quick; hewing close to its early D&D inspired roots, combat is fast and deadly, and necessitates planning and teamwork. There are minimal modifiers to crunch at the table, and what few occasions there are that require number crunching can be quickly resolved through the quick reference tables at the back of the book.

The game is mechanically very similar to older versions of D&D; you resolve actions (picking locks, tracking monsters, identifying creatures) by rolling a d20 and, after adding and/or subtracting relevant modifiers, aiming to roll under your attribute. Unless the GM has set a hidden modifier for a roll, you will know as soon as you've rolled your dice whether or not you are successful at your task. Attacks are similar to any d20 roll-over system; you roll a d20, add your attack modifiers, and if the attack meets or exceeds your target's armor class (this game uses ascending armor class, mind), you can roll damage. The last common type of roll is the saving throw, where you roll a d20 and hope to meet or exceed a value above a specific threshold, as determined by your character class and the type of effect you are saving against.

The game is quite hackable; ancestries and heritage options can be added with little fuss (the system even includes examples of monstrous ancestries like bugbears and goblins), and classes can be added by slotting your homebrewed class under one of the Class Groups (another concept brought over from AD&D), which will handle the allocation of saving throws and hit dice per level. I find this level of hackability quite elegant. The system even gives some examples of how to hack it, including multiple sets of optional rules for things like encumbrance, negative HP, and different methods of rolling for initiative.

I do have some minor quibbles about the game, however:

• While the character sheet that comes with the game has a strong, evocative style, I did feel that it left little room to record things like equipment, accumulated spells, and class abilities. I would have liked to have seen a two-sided character sheet that you could add that additional information to.
• A PDF form fillable character sheet option would have been cool.
• I couldn't find anywhere in the book that states the base damage of a character's unarmed attack, or what, if any, modifiers are applied to the damage of a non-thrown ranged weapon.
• Information about gear is somewhat sparse; the duration and amount of light cast by a lantern is quite far away from the page that tells you how much a lantern is worth, for example, and we're still not quite sure what, if any, mechanical difference there is between standard and iron rations. Also, does a breastplate count as plate armor for purposes of swimming and stealth penalties?
• Finally, and perhaps most crucially for a dungeon crawling adventure, the system does not provide weight values for gear other than nonmagical weapons and armor; though no GM in their right mind would allow it, you could hypothetically carry an infinite number of torches. I would have liked to have seen this added, as the optional encumbrance rules are sure to steer players toward making interesting decisions about what they bring into a dungeon and when to leave the dungeon for the day.

All in all, I've enjoyed my time getting to know this system's rules, and look forward to running further old-school style games with them. The publisher is making an effort to support the system post-launch with multiple zines that include additional character classes, spells, magic items, and more (see the Gnoll Sage zines by the publisher). My players came, they saw, they got smashed by the first trap on the first door... and they're eager to come back for more. :D