Monster Keep - New direction

Hi :)

how to implement "storytelling" depends on your definition of it: Do you really want your Lord of the Keep "tell a story" as in "kicking the doors in, you notice two orcs harassing an elf. While the orcs scowl at you, the elf rather appears to be reliefed."

Or is saying "you enter the room and find ... two skeletons" while placing a room tile and putting 2 skellies on it sufficient?

If the latter, you might want to look at dungeoneer (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/31/dungeoneer)
The dungeon is laid out by placing cards next to each other.
Each card revealed represents either a corridor or a room and comes with a certain threat value.
The character exploring the card raises his threat level by the according value.
The Dungeon Master uses those threat levels to buy encounters (traps and monsters alike).
Each encounter mastered successfully gives a certain amount of experience which in turn can be used to boost the character.

You could make your crawler a complete cardgame, too (even a XTG, if you want to):

One deck is for the Keep along with the "LOTK" and his generals.
Some Keep-Cards bear a special mark indicating that a general or even the LOTK may be found here.

Each player uses his own deck for his class:
- Fighters
- Archers
- Mages
- Rogues
And what else

A player deck consists of:

1.) The setup-part:
- Selection of race cards (such as Elf, Dwarf, Human, Hobbit, Gnome, or the "unseen-in-any-other-game" Qwrr'zztks) with each race contributing 1 or more skills and determining basic combat statistics
- The class card contributing 1 or more skills plus more combat statistics
- Some equipment cards to start with (selection of weapos and armours, each contributing to combat statistics, or maybe more skills or spells)

2.) The ingame-part:
- Traps
- Monsters
- Treasures to be found

Preparation:

Each player sets up his hero by selecting a race card, his class card and some equipment cards (so each game he might try a different combination)
Additionally he draws a hand of soandsomany cards from his remaining deck.

Separate the Keep-cards from the Generals and set the LOTK aside, too.

On his turn a player may explore a new section of the dungeon by drawing a card from the dungeon deck and placing it next to the card his character stands on. Moving to this section, he picks one card at random from another player's hand and plays out that encounter.

If the player runs into a specially marked card instead (see above), a general or the LOTK is played there.

Defeating the encounter, the player receives XP to trade in for bonuses, losing at an encounter the player loses life.

The game is won, as soon as the LOTK gets defeated.

Just some thoughts :)
Hope, you like them!

Kind regards,
Kai