“…a brilliant little game that uses candy as a mechanic! I love the look and feel of this one…” – Games on Board

“This was a fun game….I would recommend it to anyone.” – William Nabors, playtester

Tricks & Treats is a Halloween-themed tabletop RPG about trick-or-treaters out on Halloween who must overcome scary monsters to rescue a friend.

It's designed to be played in a single session of 2-3 hours, and it drives into each kid's psychology.

Oh, and the game uses candy to fight monsters. So get a bunch of candy (you can use a six-sided die instead, but what's the fun in that?).

Download now from DriveThruRPG and pay what you want

The game package includes:

• A 9-page PDF containing all the rules
• An .azw3 file containing the rules, for use on newer Kindles.
• A .mobi file containing the rules, for use on older Kindles.
• An .epub file containing the rules, for use on iPads and other eReaders.

Give your kid a positive value (courageous, hopeful, kind, loving, loyal, sincere, or smart), a fear (about other people), two words describing your kid's personality, and a name. Describe how your kid befriended the kid to your left; that kid is your kid's Guardian.

Take 5 Kid Points (coins), and grab 1 of each type of candy (values 1 through 6).

You will play 3 rounds in a haunted house, searching for a friend that was taken by the house. During each round, each kid will face a monster. The kid being faced by his or her monster cannot attack the monster directly; only the kid's Guardian (and the other kids) can. The monster is represented by a random piece of candy (that is, a number from 1 to 6). A kid can spend his or her own candy and Kid Points to defeat the monster.

At the end, you will face the villain, who combines traits that all the kids fear. If you don't defeat the villain, your friend will stay stuck in the haunted house forever!

Alice creates her kid, Randy. Randy is Courageous, and he fears looking indecisive. He is curious and outspoken, and he befriended Sarah (his Guardian) when he wanted to explore a creek near school and Sarah went with him.

Bo creates his kid, Sarah. Sarah is Sincere, and she fears being perceived as fat like her mother. She is mature and self-conscious. She befriended Tyler (her Guardian) when they were assigned to the same project in school.

Catherine creates her kid, Tyler. Tyler is Smart, and he fears losing his friends. He is moody and skeptical. He befriended Randy (his Garduian) when Randy saw him playing alone in the street and invited him over to play.

It's the first turn, and Alice goes first, so she's the spotlight, and Randy will face a monster.

Alice pulls a Pay Day from the bag, so the monster has a rank of 4.

Catherine suggests that since Randy values Courageousness and fears being indecisive, he should face a monster with many parts to represent how all his exploring kept the kids split up doing different things over the summer.

Alice agrees and describes a many-tentacled monster. She says that Randy, being Courageous, leaps forward and attacks it, but after cutting off one tentacle, two more grow in its place. She says that Randy is now frozen in fear.

Bo, whose kid Sarah is Randy's Guardian, says that Sarah leaps into the fray, telling Randy how much she enjoyed exploring. She eats her bag of Skittles (kid rank 4) to defeat the monster. She also gets to eat the monster's Pay Day.

Much later, on turn 3, Bo pulls a box of Junior Mints. Normally a rank 3 monster, now it's rank 5. The group decides that Sarah's mature, self-conscious personality caused her to shoot down fun project ideas the group had over the summer, so the monster is a mad scientist.

Catherine (who plays Sarah's Guardian) has a Twix (5), a lollipop (2), and a candy corn (1) left, but she has 4 Kid Points. She wants to save that Twix, so she eats the lollipop and the candy corn and spends 2 Kid Points to defeat the mad scientist.

Raisins, apples, pennies, trail mix, and Chick tracts are not candy. Discard and draw again.

If you have questions about Dungeon Delvers, please post them to the Google+ Community.

Thanks to Joe England for inspiring this game, to Brice Coolen, Mike Allen, and William Nabors for playtesting, and to Jim T.W. Wombat for his structural advice.

Tricks & Treats is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY-SA 3.0).