Dungeons & Dragons vs Dungeons & Dustbunnies

Compare Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeons & Dustbunnies side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Dungeons & Dragons	Dungeons & Dustbunnies
Genre	Fantasy	Post-Apocalyptic, Fantasy
Tags	Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC	Rules-Light, Comedy, Gonzo, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Theater of the Mind, Improvisation, Survival
Core Mechanic	Make a D20 Test by rolling d20, adding relevant modifiers, and comparing the total to a target number. Ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls use this procedure. Advantage and disadvantage use two d20s and keep the higher or lower result.	Decrease Dice: each character has one die, starting at d20, that serves as both their health and their resolution roll. To attempt a risky action, roll the die against the Difficulty your class assigns that skill; meeting or beating it succeeds, while a normal failure costs only the attempt. The die steps down a size (d20 → d12 → d10 → d8 → d6 → d4) whenever you roll a 1, take major damage, or voluntarily force the scale to convert a failure into an automatic success. A character whose die would drop below d4 falls Exhausted or dies; sleeping in a safe shelter resets it to d20 and consuming a sugar ration steps it back up one size.
Dice	d20	d4–d20
Complexity	Medium	Very Low
Accessibility	Very High	Very High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary	Proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Open license	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Free	Free
Publisher	Wizards of the Coast	Castamar RPG Studio
Year	2024	2026
Best For	Groups who want heroic fantasy with configurable tactical combat, broad character options, and campaigns that span multiple levels.	Groups who want a quick, comedic one-shot or short campaign as thumb-sized survivors scavenging a household that has become a hostile wilderness, with a ruleset light enough to read in a few minutes before the first session.
Highlights	Advantage and disadvantage resolve common situational effects by selecting the higher or lower of two d20 rolls. Backgrounds, classes, subclasses, and feats distribute character choices across creation and advancement. Weapon Mastery gives qualifying weapon users distinct tactical effects without replacing the action economy.	The Decrease Dice mechanic collapses health and resolution into a single die, so every roll both tests the action and visibly wears the character down as the die shrinks toward d4. Forcing the scale lets a player turn any failure into a guaranteed success by stepping their die down a size, making each clutch moment a deliberate trade of long-term stamina for an immediate result. Monsters are rated by a Threat Die that attacks and spells whittle down, and several (the chitin-armored cockroach, the static-charged dustbunny) shrug off ordinary weapons until players expose a weak spot or switch to fire, water, or magic.
Considerations	Spell preparation, spell slots, class features, and conditions create several interacting resources for players to track. High-level characters combine many spells and features, increasing adjudication work for the DM. Bastions add a separate downtime procedure for campaigns that use the stronghold rules.	Combat has no initiative or turn order (the GM narrates enemy intent and players react with defensive rolls), so there is little structure for tactical positioning. Rolling a 1 on any skill check (including routine Stealth, Alertness, or social rolls) steps the die down the same as taking a hit in combat, so avoiding unnecessary rolls becomes a survival strategy rather than a purely narrative choice. There is no advancement system: skills are fixed at character creation and the Decrease Die only ever recovers to its starting size, so characters do not grow mechanically over a campaign.