Ravenloft D&d Bord Game Reviews

7/28/2019 Ravenloft D&d Bord Game Reviews

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For those who are unfamiliar, Castle Ravenloft is a D&D-based board game that drawsits inspiration from the original D&D module. The rules of the game incorporateelements of 4th Edition D&D, but the combat is streamlined and simplified so that it goes

quickly and keeps the game moving. The whole affair is more-or-less a dungeon crawl,albeit one that can have interesting and varied goals and mechanics depending on thescenario youre playing. It can be played in about an hour (though times can vary fromthat mean by about thirty minutes, depending on events within the game and the numberof players at the table), and it can be played with one to five players.

Overall, I like this game quite a bit. It scratches the D&D itch, it reinforces cooperativeplay, and it even plays well solo. There are thirteen scenarios in the game (two of themdesigned for solo play), plus two additional scenarios that Wizards of the Coast havereleased for free on their web site. Monsters, encounters, treasures, and even the dungeonitself are all randomized in the game, meaning that playing the same adventure twice in a

row elicits different play experiences. This leads to a lot of variability in play, which inturn leads to a high degree of replay value. In addition, the game is extremely modular; itwould be easy to build your own adventures, characters, monsters, villains, and so forthfor the game, leading to even more replay value. In time, I fully expect the online tocommunity to rally around this game and create some really cool stuff.

Its not all great, though; there are a few issues with the game. First and foremost, therules can be a little unclear at times. They dont always spell things out in acomprehensive and unambiguous fashion, and while most of the time this can bemitigated by interpreting rules as strictly as possible, sometimes that just isnt enough.Furthermore, some cards interact with each other, and with scenario rules, in strange

ways that require some interpretation. It would be nice of WotC would create andmaintain an official FAQ for the game, so that people can get official answers to some ofthe questions presented.

There have also been reports of people missing components from their boxes, or havingcomponents misprinted, or even having extra components. I didnt experience any ofthose problems personally, but the possibility exists (I even heard an account ofsomeones game missing all of the cards in the game, rendering it effectivelyunplayable). Luckily, WotC will replace any lost or damaged components, so if thisproblem troubles you, contact them.

Finally, there have been complaints about the quality of the components. Specifically,some people think that the cards and tiles are bland and uninteresting. I can definitely seewhere these people are coming from, even if I dont agree. The artwork on the monstercards is black and white line art, and there is no artwork aside from a simple design onany of the other cards. The tiles are mostly lacking in any kinds of features or dungeondressing, whit the exception of the named tiles. As I said, none of this bothers me.Artwork on treasure cards and encounter cards would be nice, but would likely drive upthe price, and at $65 the game is already expensive enough. Im also not convinced thatsuch artwork would really enhance the experience past the first few games; it wouldcause the game to make a better first impression, but after while youd probably stop


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noticing the artwork and paying attention to the rules. As for the artwork on the monstercards, I find it to be clear and communicative, as the depictions of the monsters exactlymatch their miniatures, leaving little room for guesswork. The tiles are similarly

functional; there have already been quite a few questions as to whether things like altarsand coffins block movement, and if there were more of these kinds of features on thetiles, those questions would be even more present (of course, this might have promptedWotC to address such a thing in the rulebook).

At this point Id like to talk about a few of the highlights in the adventure book. Iveplayed most of the adventures at this point, and enjoyed them all, but a few really standout and deserve specific mention.

The game features two introductory adventures, one for solo play and one for group play(Escape from the Tomb and Find the Icon of Ravenloft, respectively). These are

easily the two simplest adventures in the game, using straightforward goals and very fewmodifications to the core rules. They work well for their intended purpose: to introducenew players to the mechanics of the game. Once youve played them a few times, though,there are much more interesting (and complex) adventures to play, and youll likely onlyuse them to introduce more new players.

The Final Transformation is a fairly complex scenario that sees the players escorting atownsperson, Kavan, into the crypt to find the fountain that can cure his impendingvampirism. The catch is that, if hes left alone or if monsters get too close to him, heturns into a vampire and attacks (temporarily). Its a tense scenario, and probably one ofthe more difficult scenarios in the game. It is, however, extremely memorable, and even

has a finale sequence that sees a large number of monsters spawning and attacking theparty while they defend poor Kavan.

Perhaps my favorite scenario so far is Horror of the Howling Hag. This one stretchesthe mechanics of the game more than any other scenario, using an alternate setup for theboard, a specific subset of tiles, and different spawning rules for monsters. The playersstart the adventure apart, in opposite corners of the crypt, and must find each other andthe arcane circle that the hag is using to keep them there. Being isolated is a little scary,especially since the alternate spawning rules allow up to two monsters to spawn on asingle tile simultaneously. The hag, herself, is an interesting villain; she doesnt do a lotof damage, but she continues to keep the heroes separate by teleporting them around the

dungeon. Its a very interesting and challenging experience.

Finally, let me talk about the difficulty of the game. This is a hard game. Ive lost moregames than Ive won. That said, Im itching to play more. In Castle Ravenloft, when youlose youre usually on the verge of winning, which makes you want to try again and do itright. Further, when you win youre usually on the verge of losing, which makes yourvictory all the sweeter. I should mention, though, that there are some minor scaling issuesin the game. The game scales probably about as well as it can be expected to; monsters,encounters, and villain actions all scale with the number of players in an appropriate way,and keep a fairly consistent level of challenge across numbers of players. There is one


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thing that the game really cant account for in scaling, though: diversity of abilities. Withone player, you have only a single characters abilities to pull from, meaning that certainmonsters or types of encounters will always be very difficult for you to handle. With five,

you have everyones abilities to draw on, allowing you to react to events within thedungeon much more effectively. I think that the sweet spot for the game is probably threeor four players; theres enough diversity to allow you to react to a lot, but not so muchthat youre prepared for everything. That said, the game is still a lot of fun with one orfive, and it does scale much better than many other cooperative games that Ive played.The scenario that you choose will also affect the difficulty, so with five players, itsprobably best to choose one of the more complex and difficult scenarios.

What I Liked: Almost everything. The game is quick-playing and fun, scratches the D&Ditch, plays will with multiple players or in solo play, had a wide variety of adventures tochoose from, and has a high degree of modibility and replay value.

What I Didnt Like: The rules could be a little clearer in places. Hopefully WotC willpost a FAQ at some point to mitigate this problem.

The Bottom Line: If you like D&D, youll probably like Castle Ravenloft. Even if youhave no interest in playing D&D, Castle Ravenloft is a very well-designed cooperativedungeon crawl with a much shorter playing time than other cooperative games (likeArkham Horror) or dungeon crawls (like Descent). I highly recommend it.

A friend asked if a few of us would want to get together and spend an afternoon trying

this out. He had just gotten it and was excited. I have to admit, being used to roleplayinggames, I was not excited about playing a board game. I didn't think it would fill up awhole afternoon or really grab my attention like an RPG. I was wrong.

I love previous Ravenloft adventures and so I gave it a try, and I'm glad I did. We playedwith four players (the game can accommodate up to 5 and there is no GM), and ended upplaying 4 scenarios which took about 5 hours total. I estimate a full game, if you win, willtake about 60-90 minutes on average, however, it is a very lethal game and there is a widevariation on how long it takes to win or TPK. If you sit down for a session with a fewfriends, I would plan on playing for 2 hours at a minimum. This would give time for twoshorter games or one very satisfying long game.

The Board Game vs D&D

Castle Ravenloft Board Game (CRBG) is modeled on the 4e D&D rules, but veryloosely. The things you will recognize from 4e include "powers" (utility, at-will, anddaily; no "encounter" powers); the classes and races of the heroes; and the basicmechanic with an attack roll versus AC, hit points, and healing surges.

However these are in many ways superficial similarities. First off the only die you willever use in CRBG is a d20. Nothing else is ever rolled, it is only & always d20's. The


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game includes a d20, which handily always rolls 6 or lower for heroes and 19 or 20 formonsters, to make your life more interesting.

The other major difference is the nature of game play. This is a tile-based dungeon crawlgame, which uses turn phases to govern play and keep the action moving. In this way it istruly a tactical board game and the feel is decidedly different than D&D. Things changerapidly and there are more surprises than in an RPG.

I would say - and I really want to stress this - even if you hate 4th edition D&D youmight still love CRBG. Why? Because all the stuff about 4e that some people dislike -it's too much like a video game, etc. - makes for a GREAT tactical board game. The factthat you have limited, perfectly balanced resources of powers; tightly controlled magicitems; superpowers that change the battlefield, etc has a terrific impact on gameplay. It isalmost perfectly suited to this medium.

The Physical Thing

The game showcases typical high quality you'd expect of a contemporary D&D product.The pieces are printed in full color on a lush, heavy, super thick stock that I am confidentwill last a long time. This is true of every printed piece except of course the cards, whichare thinner to allow easy shuffling (still high quality).

Of the printed pieces, I particularly loved the tokens that represent hit points. One side isgold and the other black, so that you can flip them over as you lose health to show your"empty" hit points. This was such a natural visual cue that I found myself making Zelda-

esque sound effects as I flipped them, as if I was gaining or losing hearts in a video game.(Some of the others never seemed to get the hang of this, and would just discard theirpieces back into the box as they lost hit points, and then fish them back out when theyhealed.... but I think that's just because my friends are a little special.)

There are also a large number of plastic mini's that come with the set, so many that myfriend suggested it would be cheaper to buy the $65 board game than to buy an equivalentnumber of mini's. He's probably right, but the figures are all single-color. Most of themonsters are either bone white or raw beef red, and the heroes are all blue (I like toimagine this corresponds to the political parties of the heroes and the undead). Irecognized early on that this made it very easy for us to see what was what on the board,

but I still found it disappointing. The hero minis, which are individualized to match theart on the character card, should have at least been painted. They would have lookedawesome and still stood out on the board from the monochrome monsters. Of course youcould always swap out your own mini's to represent your hero, but it'd be nice if you gotsome beautiful new figs in your CRBG. Instead all you get are one-color dummies who,at best, can stand in as mooks in your normal D&D game and might just stay in the boxinstead.

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The game has awesome gameplay in which fortunes change quickly. A group has adecent chance of survival if they learn to stay near each other (spread over 2-3 adjacenttiles) and not to add new rooms until killing off the existing monsters (to avoid being

overwhelmed). We called this our "control the square" strategy and it worked well. Evenwith that, I'd say it's about a 50% survival rate. You'll lose as many games as you win.Players should go in knowing that and expecting it. To me, it added excitement. Since it'snot easy to get attached to the characters there is a lot more appeal to testing yourselfagainst an unpredictable meat grinder than there would be in an RPG.

Gameplay tends to move pretty quickly, metagaming is transparent and acceptable ("Howmany hit points does the skeleton have?"), and an Encounter card can suddenly teleportone of you 6 tiles away from the rest or cause the game to completely change.

Most importantly, I didn't find a way to "break" the game in 5 hours of playing. That's

good for a board game. Take Scrabble for example. If you save your Q or Z until you geta triple word score, and you always put something down on a double or triple word scoreno matter how bad your letters are, you will always win against someone who doesn't dothat. Always.

There is no win button in CRBG, at least not that I could find. There are strategies thegroup can use, as mentioned above, but the whole group has to stick to them and eventhen things can change rapidly. Our last game was our best game in terms of strategy butwe died with only 4 of our 12 items collected.

It's also fascinating playing without a GM. The usual rules lawyering seemed to vanish,

because there was no one to lawyer against, and if we let ourselves get away with stuffwe were essentially just letting ourselves win like a 5 year old. We just naturally fell intoa habit of not making ridiculous requests and not allowing weird interpretations.

For all those reasons, it's a solid 5 in Substance.

Because of the monochromatic heroes and monsters, and the fairly repetitive-lookingdungeon tiles, it's only a 4 in Style.

Castle Ravenloft: the 4th Edition D&D

horror board game of DOOM!

This is our third board game review here at Arswe've previously reviewed Elder Godsand Drakon, both by Fantasy Flightand we had originally planned to dive intoTannhauser, a WWI-era miniatures game, also by Fantasy Flight. But someone pointedout in the comments to our last review that the idea is to talk about board games ingeneral, not have a Fantasy Flight column. Hence, our decision to go with Wizards of theCoast's Castle Ravenloftin the third installment. Besides, Castle Ravenloft's claim to


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fame is offering bite-sized chunks of fourth-edition Dungeons and Dragonsand that'shard to pass up.

Dungeons and Dragons is a game that requires preparationtime to create charactersheets and plan a campaignand the sessions can be long if you're in the middle of anadventure. You can set up one of the 13 co-operative adventures in Castle Ravenloftin amatter of minutes, and a game will last between one hour and 90 minutes once youunderstand the rules. It's a great way to get your fix, or to bring a new player into thefold. Let's take a look at how the game plays, and what you get in the package.

What you get

If you're a fan of miniatures, this game offers some serious value. The box is large, andcomes with 40 plastic miniatures, dozens of dungeon tiles, stacks of cards for encounters,monsters, treasures and the like, as well as a rule- and adventure book. The miniatures arethe same sculpts as pastDungeons and Dragons releases, so you may be getting somedoubles if you already collect. If you're starting from scratch, though, the game's $65 listprice is much easier to swallow once you see the bags and bags and heroes and monsters,including some larger enemies. The color-coded nature of the minis means that findingthe particular enemy you're looking for is a snap, and every monster you'll encounter inthe game is included.

The miniatures look great and add character to the game


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The miniatures are all unpainted, and come with their own card with their stats andattacks. The tiles include adventure-specific areas for use with the adventures included inthe package.

The adventure book tells you exactly how to set up the board for each adventure's victoryand defeat conditions, and gameplay consists of three phases per turn: Movement,Exploration, and Villain. Movement is determined by your character's speed ratingyoulay down a new dungeon tile if you end your turn at the edge of an existing tile, and amonster spawns on each new tile. The villains move and attack according to the actionslisted on their card, and you gain treasures by playing through encounter cards or bykilling the monsters. It's all very streamlined, as the fourth-edition rules have been boileddown to their core.

This is a combat game, through and through, and winning is not assured. You'll have to

move as a group, saving your daily and utility powers until they're needed, and workingtowards each adventure's goal. The game comes with pre-rolled characters, and you pickyour powers and abilities at the beginning of the adventure (the rule book has suggestionsfor beginning players). You gain experience by destroying monsters, and you can gain alevel and slightly higher stats by rolling a natural 20 in the course of the game andspending 5XP to flip your card over. You can also spend experience to get out ofencounters.

In some adventures you'll be searching for loot, in others you'll be hunting downvampires, and in the most difficult scenario you'll be going after the lord of the castlehimself. Each adventure has some specific pieces that come into play, and there are

multiple strategies for winning each one; the replayability is vast. Since everything you'replaying is compatible with fourth-edition rules, adventurous DMs will soon be creatingtheir own adventures with the included pieces, or adding their own traps and monsters.


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The rules need some help

The rulebook is short, and the majority of the game's rules are easy to understand even ifyou've never playedDungeons and Dragons beforethis is not an intimidating game,even for new playersbut the rules can be frustratingly ambiguous in some specificinstances. There were multiple times our group was sent to the rule book for anexplanation of a rule, only to be presented with language that was too vague, or simplydidn't give all the details.

We dealt with the ambiguities by voting, or by coming up with house rules we all agreedon. In a few cases, we simply shrugged and did whatever was best for our party ofadventurers. When trying to determine if experience was communal or limited to theplayer who killed the monster, it finally came down to the placement of an apostrophe inthe rulebook (the "heroes'" experience) and that's a little scary when both the cards andthe rule book had typos.

This is a brand new game, so the rules are bound to be revised and updated, but it sucksto be an early adopter of a board game and find these issues. It's fun to create variants,but I like to have a rock-solid understanding of the basic rules and the way the game ismeant to be played before I modify it. In our group we have Rodney, who is ably DMing


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our main fourth-edition campaign; Aaron, who has been playingDungeons and Dragonsfor the past decade; and Bill, who is a major board game enthusiast. When, after checkingthe rules multiple times, we're all still talking about we think they might mean, it's clear

that they're not explained very well. This isn't our first rodeo, and it has to be worse fornew players who don't have that knowledge base to draw from. The rules are simplyincomplete, and that's a shame.

One of the pre-made characters, after taking some damage in battle

In conclusion

For those who like to fly solo, the game includes one single-player adventure. But youcan easily play through the later adventures for two or three players by yourself, justmoving all the pieces and battling the characters. Yes, it's a little lonely to play solo, butthe game makes it easy. I realized I needed to invite other people over to play when Iimagined the characters talking to each other.

For all the game's flaws, it comes to life with a rowdy group. For each encounter, we hada player read the card to the person it affected, and didn't tell them what was at stakebefore they made their decisions. We added our own flavor texts to attacks and rolls. Wecheered when we won, and we groaned when a powerful monster was placed on theboard. While I tend to enjoy a more talkative role-playing experience, where I can bustout some social skills and talk our way out of situations, this game moves so quickly and


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is so satisfying that I had a good time. I just wish the rules were firmer, but experiencedplayers will quickly find what works for their group anyway.

The game has the feel of something that still needs some refinement, which is a majordisappointment for a product coming from an already refined rule set. Things will getbetter as time goes on, but the $65 product is being sold now. If you're already intoDungeons and Dragons, then you can move around these rule issues with ease, but newplayers may feel lost. For a game that could have been such an easy portal intoDungeonsand Dragons, that's disappointing.

If you can feel me waffling on the game it's because I'm so torn. The package is great,and worth the price, and I would recommend this to fans of the setting. But for newerplayers, there are better choices at the moment.

The Good

40 high-quality plastic miniatures The included adventures change up the requirements for victory, and feel very

distinct The dungeon tiles and character cards feel great, easy to punch out and keep in the

box The rules are simple to play with a single 20-side die, making this an ideal game

for experienced players to bring those unfamiliar with the core rules into the fold The ability to modify the game rules or expand the adventures using your fourth-

edition rule books is a plus Pre-made adventures, characters, and rules mean each adventure can be set up in

minutes, and played in an hour. Great for those who love table-top gaming butdon't have much time to play

The random nature of the dungeon tiles means you're really exploring; there is noDM who knows what's coming next

The setting of Castle Ravenloft has serious draw for long-time fansThe Bad

The rules don't feel complete The artwork can feel a little bland in places There are some typographical errors in both the rules and the cards Some of the thinner miniatures feel like they will be easy to break or bend This is an all-combat game,Dungeons and Dragons fans who like social

adventures may become bored

The Ugly

Coming up with flavor dialog while playing the game solo, and then moving thecharacters to speak to each other... even when it has nothing to do with the quest


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Verdict: convince your favorite DM to add this into his stack of rulebooks

This might be the least timely review ever written. By this point, every other revieweralive has chimed in about Castle Ravenloft. It was one of last year's biggest releases, andeveryone had to talk about it and argue about it and disagree about it and either proclaimit the best game ever created, or call it a heaping pile of rabbit pellets. And while all thatwas happening, I found myself completely unable to get a copy, so that when I do finallyget around to reviewing the game, I might as well be reviewing checkers.

However, thanks to Noble Knight Games, I finally have a copy of the latest big hitter inthe dungeon crawl game category, and so I can now tell you why I will be playing it for agood long time, and why I am now even more upset that it will be several months beforeI can get a copy of Wrath of Ashardalon.

If you've been living somewhere outside a Tibetan monastery for the last six months orso, you've probably already read half a dozen reviews about Castle Ravenloft (in fact,you have probably already decided whether you want a copy). So you probably alreadyknow that it's a fully cooperative game where you go traipsing around inside CountStrahd's gloomy house, investigating corridors and rooms and being attacked by anincredible number of monsters while looking for loot. You have characters ripped rightout of Fourth Edition D&D, like a dragonborn fighter and dwarf cleric, as well as avariety of unfriendly inhabitants who will pop out and hurt you.

Given the wealth of knowledge available for Castle Ravenloft, I'm not going to bother

describing how everything works. You can't swing a dead lolcatz without hitting a reviewof the game, so I'm positive someone has told you how you draw cards and roll dice.Besides, that stuff is boring. Instead of being boring, let's just skip right to the good partsand the bad parts.

A fully cooperative dungeon crawl is hard to create. The problem is, a dungeon master isable to make monsters act tricky, and prescripted monster reactions make thempredictable. And that means that instead of a tactical game, it becomes almost a puzzlegame. You'll find yourself attacking less attractive targets just because they're on the righttile, or killing silly rat swarms because the treasure might let you level up.

But just because you know what the monsters are going to do, that doesn't mean the gameisn't tense. The game is not very hard to win, and that's why it isn't tense. I grant you thatI've only played three times so far, but we never had any trouble winning. We had fun,and wanted to play more, but we never really had a moment where we said, 'holy crap,we're all going to die!' Maybe future adventures get a little more difficult, but so far, wehave sailed through them.

Another problem with Castle Ravenloft that might make it less fun is that it lacks some ofthe feeling that you're playing out a story. It's a little too technical and dry, and justdoesn't ooze theme the way I want it to do. Every attempt has been made to pull a tale ofderring-do and dark adventure out of the randomized tiles and plastic miniatures, but that


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story is at odds with the game itself.

For instance, you're going to draw a monster on every tile. You know this. If you don't

draw a new tile, you're guaranteed to have to draw an encounter card, and then somethingbad will happen to you. Again, you know this. And so rather than a story or tactical battlewhere you're sneaking through a dungeon, you wind up with a game where you'repushing forward, trying to clear out one tile before you pull another, ignoring some trapsbecause you won't need to pass that tile again, or arranging your miniatures to bestexploit your various powers. It just doesn't create a cohesive story.

Another blow against the story is the fact that your characters cannot improve from onedungeon to the next. You start every adventure at first level, and maybe reach secondlevel before you're done, and then the next time you play, your ranger forgot all the crapshe learned last time. That shoots a hole right through the middle of the story. I like a

game where each adventure feels like another step on a path, where every villain Idestroy is just one step closer to the final confrontation. The scenarios build toward theeventual hunt for Strahd, but it feels like anyone could do any of them whenever theywant (mostly because they can).

Story or not, however, Castle Ravenloft is fun. It's fun to tromp through a dungeon,discovering room after room, hacking away at zombies and ghouls and giant spiders.Traps pop up and shoot spears at our heroes, and scary mists roll through the hallways,making us soil our trousers and cry for our mothers. It may be a tad academic, but it's alldungeon romp, all the time.

And unlike my favorite dungeon crawl game of all time (which would still beWarhammer Quest), there is more to do than just cut things. The first adventure had mescrambling to escape the castle, and the second had us searching for the lost icon ofRavenloft in an overrun chapel full of monsters. In the third, we battled a very unfriendlykobold sorcerer and destroyed his infernal device. Other adventures have still other goals,and the game is full of specialized markers and tokens that afford you the chance to dosomething besides maraud from room to room and kill things (not that there's anythingwrong with that).

Another strong point in Ravenloft's favor is that it is pretty darn sexy. The art is great,and the miniatures are straight out of the D&D miniatures game (though they don't have

paint). There's even a huge scary dracolich, which is a cross between a dead wizard andthat mean kid from Harry Potter. The tiles look neat, with piles of bones and altars andcoffins and stuff, and the game has a decidedly polished look. No rookie designer builtthis game, I'll tell you that.

Now, in my completely biased and unfair opinion, any dungeon crawl game that wants tocompete has to measure up against Warhammer Quest. And while Castle Ravenloft doessome things better than my favorite game, it has downsides. Where Warhammer Questreally feels like a tale about a group of warriors battling through a dank dungeon to defeatancient evil (or maybe just rat-people with bad hygiene), Castle Ravenloft lacks some of


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the flavor. The option to improve from game to game is one of the greatest things aboutWarhammer Quest - that, and the non-stop, fast-paced action. While Ravenloft movesvery quickly, and affords the players lots of choices to make, you're going to start every

adventure with a first-level guy, regardless of how long you've been playing.

There are a few other reasons that Warhammer Quest beats Ravenloft, but they're verysmall. I like Warhammer art, for example, and I've never been able to sign off on some ofthe silliness of D&D (dragonborn being one good example). On the other hand, Ravenloftoffers a much wider variety of game, with lots of different games coming out of just theone box. Combat is actually faster than Quest, and it's a tighter game with a lot lessaccounting and record-keeping. While I am not persuaded, I could definitely see where agamer might think Ravenloft is actually better than Warhammer Quest. I know which oneI prefer, but it's awfully close.

Finally, Castle Ravenloft has an incredible amount of staying power. Never mind thatthere's already an expansion (not really, of course - Ashardalon is a stand-alone game, butit provides a lot more toys to throw in the toybox). Once you play all the scenarios in thebox, Ravenloft provides enough doodads and widgets for an enterprising game nerd tocreate nearly any kind of adventure he wants, without having to buy anything beyond apen and a sheet of paper. When you can play the same game twenty times and still neverplay the same thing twice, you're getting your money out of your investment.

So now you know why I totally dig Castle Ravenloft, and why I will be playing it a lotmore, even though I still have Warhammer Quest regularly calling to me from the shelfwhere it is stored with reverence and pride. Sure, it took me a long time to get a copy and

write a review. Better late than never, I suppose.

Summary

1-5 players

Pros:Great adventure gameLots of options and tons of replayIncredibly slick productionFast and easy to play, with slick rules that are easy to resolve

Cons:A little dryCharacters don't get better between adventures

Castle Ravenloft is already priced to be a deal, considering how much awesome is in thebox, but if you want to save even more, Noble Knight Games has it right here:


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The first entry into the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System line of cooperativegames, Castle Ravenloft challenges gamers with twelve different scenarios to playthrough. Take control of the fighter, cleric, wizard, ranger, or rogue and see if you can

defeat Count Strahd Von Zarovich and his minions. How does Castle Ravenloft stack upagainst other dungeon crawling board games? Read on for our full review and find out!

Just the Facts:Players: 1-5Playing Time: 60 minutesAge: 12 to AdultPublisher: Wizards of the CoastMSRP: $64.95Release: August 31st, 2010

The Components:

40 plastic heroes and monsters 13 sheets of interlocking cardstock dungeon tiles 200 encounter and treasure cards Rulebook Scenario book 20-sided die.The miniatures are downright beautiful, and compare favorably to those included in otherpopular dungeon crawling games. One nice touch is the set of curved damage countersthat fit snugly up against a models base, which is the most elegant solution to keepingtrack of monster damage that Ive seen yet. For example, take a look at this example of


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the gargoyle figurine with an adjacent damage marker:

(Photography credit: Rich Chamberlain)When you look at Castle Ravenloft alongside the new Essentials line of products, itbecomes clear that Wizards of the Coast is really putting all of the tools to run asuccessful D&D campaign in players hands. Everything right down to the counters andfloor tiles can be used for future settings of a DMs design. Fourth Edition D&D reallyputs a focus on the components, as it greatly benefits from having nice miniatures and abattle mat, so its nice to see those pieces included here.

The packaging for this game, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. On the good side, the boxinsert works very well. As someone who usually throws out the plastic inserts in a boardgames box, I can say that this one is a keeper. It is well thought out and holds all of the

components perfectly. Unfortunately, its usefulness is negated for gamers who storeboxes on their sides because of a large gap between the top of the insert and the top of thebox. This gap, measuring just over an inch, was where the un-punched sheets ofcardboard counters were originally kept, but now it serves as a large void where all of theneatly-sorted components will spill out and shift to one side of the box. As a game thatbenefits from a short playtime, taking 10 minutes to sort all of the pieces out is definitelya burden.

Final Thoughts:What youre not getting with Castle Ravenloft is epic strategy and deep narratives, but intheir place you are presented with a streamlined game that still managed to provide a


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series of tactical choices. Knowing where to position your character and when to usespecial powers are small but meaningful decisions. Otherwise, the game does tend to playitself and rely a bit on the luck of the draw or the roll of the dice, but this is not a bad

thing considering this games target audience.

For those gamers who dont have the time to dedicate 4+ hours to a dungeon crawl,Castle Ravenloft is a terrific option. Even when compared to traditional RPGs, thisprovides an easy way for new players to get involved with D&D. To answer one commonquestion when people hear that statement, no, you dont have to role play to enjoy thisgame. Youre welcome to get into character and passionately read the cards flavor text ifyoud like, but it wont help you survive Count Strahd. Still, its enough of a D&Dexperience to provide hardcore players an easy way to get a quick fix.

Yes, there are some minor components issues, but those are completely outweighed by

the joy of the game. It is also worth noting that Wizards of the Coast seems dedicated tokeeping the game fresh by releasing several new scenarios through their website. If youtake away nothing else from this review, just know that you will have fun when playingthis game. That fact and all of the above adds up to make Castle Ravenloft a stronglyrecommended purchase.

Pros:- Rules are easy to teach- Streamlined 60 minute gameplay- Beautiful components that are useful in other D&D gamesCons:

- Outcomes heavily influenced by luck- Poor box design

Castle Ravenloft is the first in what promises to be a series of Dungeons & Dragons(D&D) themed boardgames which use a simplified version of the 4th edition D&D rules.Now, Ive played D&D off an on for over 25 years, but was still a little hesitant aboutwhether to pick this game up until I heard that it was actually a cooperative game, andthat it was playable solitaire. So, what got me to pony up my money was the idea of acooperative dungeon-crawl game with opportunity for solo play, a rather unique entity in

the larger genre of dungeon-crawl adventure games.

Ive played it several times since then, and I have some pretty strong feelings about thegame. But before I get to that, lets start off with a little discussion about how to play thedarn thing.

Game Basics (click here for complete game rules)

From a materials point of view, Castle Ravenloft is pretty impressive. It comes with a bigstack of dungeon tiles, a lot of cards, several types of tokens and counters, and a metriccrap-ton of plastic miniatures (42 of them, to be exact). Personally, Im pretty happy with


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the components, but a lot of people online complain about the bland art on the tiles, thelack of art and general low quality of the cards, and the uninspired art direction of thewhole game. I think that everyone agrees on how nice the minis are, though, even if I did

choose to replace most of mine with similar models from the pre-painted D&DMiniatures I already owned (which you'll see in most of the pictures included in thisreview).

The rules are 15 pages long and look verynice, but I found them to be far vaguer and at times confusing than they should havebeen. Part of my problem stemmed from assumptions that I brought with me from D&Dand other similar games, but the rulebook could have been written a lot better to head offa lot of the issues that I (and others) have had. I know that they were trying to make itultra simple for those with no D&D experience, but a little extra explanation would havegone a long way to make it clearer.

In order to set up the game, you have to first choose one of the 13 scenarios and do a littlebit of work to set up the dungeon tile stack and find the right tokens as indicated in thescenario. Each player gets to choose a unique character, make some choices about whichspecific powers it will use throughout the game, and place its miniature on the start tile(most of the time, anyway). Then you just shuffle up the three different decks of cards(monsters, encounters and treasure) and get started.

On each players turn, there are three different phases. In the Hero Phase, they get tomove and attack, attack and move, or move twice. Most of the time, players will use oneof their character powers to attack a monster or do something else thats pretty cool inthis phase. To attack, you usually roll the 20-sided die and add the modifier from yourattack power, and if you meet or exceed the monsters Armor Class, you deal damage toit. When a monster has received enough damage to kill it, its card is placed in anexperience point pile and you get to draw a Treasure card.

If the player is lucky enough to roll a natural 20 on the die, they may spend 5 experiencepoints from the common pool to level up their character to 2nd level, which gives them anew power and some slightly improved stats. Since its a short-form game with nocampaign play at this point, characters cant advance beyond 2nd level.


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Next is the Exploration Phase. If the character is next to an unexplored edge of thedungeon map, you draw the next dungeon tile from the stack and place it next to thecharacter. A new monster card is then drawn and its miniature is placed on the new tile.The monster card itself is placed in the play area of the player who drew it.

The final phase of each turn is the Villain Phase. The first step in this phase is to draw anEncounter card if the tile just placed contains a black triangle or if the player did notexplore a new tile this turn. Encounter cards are always bad (usually at least as bad as a

new monster, and they dont provide treasure or experience in most cases). The onlygood thing is that you can choose to discard 5 experience points (if you have enough) tocancel an Encounter card once its been revealed.

After possible drawing an Encounter card, any Villain (boss-level monsters defined bythe scenario) in play will activate, followed then by certain other monsters. One of thereally cool aspects of this game is how they programmed the monsters to act. On eachmonster card, there is a little algorithm that you read from bottom to top until you find acircumstance that applies. For instance, the first line on the Skeleton card reads If theskeleton is adjacent to a Hero, it attacks that Hero with a Scimitar, so you look to see ifthe skeleton is next to a hero, and carry out the attack (roll the die and compare it to the

heros AC). If its not next to a hero, then you read the next line, If the Skeleton iswithin 1 tile of a Hero, it moves adjacent to the nearest Hero and attacks that Hero with acharging slice and carry it out if it applies. The last line on the card is always the defaultaction for the monster (if nothing else applies), which is usually to move towards theclosest hero.

All monster cards in the current players area will activate in the order in which they wereplaced. The evil thing is that if any other player also has the same kind of monster in theirarea, it will activate at the same time as the active players monster. So, when theskeleton activates, every other skeleton in play will activate as well. Clearly, its always apriority to eliminate duplicate monsters.


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Players go around the table taking their turns until the game is won or lost. Winningconditions are always defined by the scenario, which occasionally also includes special

losing parameters as well. But the default way to lose is to have any player be at 0 hitpoints (dead, I presume) at the beginning of their turn and have no remaining HealingSurge token available to revive them. The entire group only has a total of 2 HealingSurge tokens to use throughout the game, which allow a hero to regain half of theirmaximum hit points if they are still dead at the beginning of their turn.

Most people who rave about Castle Ravenloft frequently tout that its always done in anhour. That may be true for some of the more straightforward scenarios, but most of mygames have probably lasted more in the 75-90 minute range, with some taking upwardsof 2 hours.

What Ive found is that while the simple scenarios are quick to play, they also fall into arut very quickly. Its almost always more efficient to explore a new tile every turn (sincemost of the scenario goals are tied to finding a certain tile), which means that you see anew monster every turn. And because of the order of the turn, it always means that thenew monster will have a chance to attack the exploring hero before they can do anythingabout it. Then the next hero attacks that monster and explores a new tile, revealing a newmonster, which attacks them, and so on and so on.

The more advanced scenarios mix things up a little bit with different layouts for thedungeon and by adding in additional rules for placing monsters, but what Ive found isthat adding in the cool twists to expand the play experience also tends to add more time

to the game. And since the game is still so simple at its core, it doesnt always hold upwell to longer play times.

What I Think...

Ill get to my final thoughts in just a minute, but let me start by discussing a few thingsthat have tripped up some of the people Ive played this with. First of all, CastleRavenloft is not really D&D Lite. Well, I guess it sort of is, but people who walk inwith the expectation that it will provide a very similar experience to real D&D willprobably be disappointed by how much it has been simplified and tweaked. Most of thetactical decision-making and miniature-combat elements that you get in recent versionsof D&D are totally lost here, and it can be confusing when powers have the same name aspowers in the RPG but do very different things.

Youve got to remember that Castle Ravenloft is, first and foremost, a cooperative game.


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Most of the confusion that I and others had when learning the game stemmed from tryingto make it be something that it isnt by adding in more tactical complexity or roleplayingaspects that simply arent there. If a player is allowed to make a choice (like where

exactly to place a monster when it moves, for example), then it should be made in thebest interests of the player, rather than in an attempt to bring more realism (i.e. what themonster would do) into the game (as long as youre still following the letter of the lawin regards to rules or text on the cards, of course).

Unfortunately, as a cooperative game, I dont know that its all that compelling. Mostly,thats because its too easy, with my experience being that a group with any experience atall will usually survive the average scenario with Healing Surges to spare.

And while I really like the customization that you have when you choose the powers foryour character, the structure of the game actually hinders character specialization quite a

bit. As I said earlier, the most efficient way to play in most cases is just to explore a newtile every turn, but the wizard character (with its AC, hit points and powers) wouldnormally be one to hang back and deal damage from a distance. So to play the wizard toits strengths and thematic nature is actually at odds with doing well in the game, whichkind of sucks.

There are, of course, still several opportunities for players to strategize about how tohandle situations, especially when it comes to the villain or main challenge of thescenario. And synergies still exist about when and how is best to use the characterspowers, but in my opinion, they are far more constrained than they should be.

It's much prettier with painted minis...

On its surface, Castle Ravenloft seems like it would have oodles of replayability, whatwith being modular, scenario based, and having some level of character individualization.But to me, every game feels pretty much the same as every other. Again, it goes back tothe rut of continually exploring and the rigidity of each turn. So you may say, Then dosomething different, stupid! But the problem there is that not falling into the rut meansthat youre probably not playing as well as you could, and that youre extending thegame, which isnt really that much fun either.

One of the main reasons that I picked up Castle Ravenloft was for the possibility of


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playing it solitaire, and for the most part, it does well on that count. The actual scenariosdesigned to be played solo (i.e. with one hero) dont seem to work all that well (I dontthink that the game is really balanced for just one character to be played), but as with

most any cooperative game, its very easy to just run multiple characters at the same timeand play the game as designed.

A lot of this review sounds mostly negative. And in the big picture of how I feel aboutCastle Ravenloft, Id have to say that overall Im a bit disappointed in it. But on the otherhand, most of the times when Ive played it, I and the others around the table have hadquite a bit of fun. I like the cooperative games as a whole, and the ease of setup makes itvery attractive when a longer or more involved adventure/dungeon-crawl game would bedifficult to pull off.

And while I dont think that experienced D&D players will really be satisfied with the

game, I do think that it could be an excellent tool to introduce the basics of the RPG andits setting to a new player. I could see lots of school-age boys just eating this up, whichcould then feed directly into an introduction to real roleplaying. And one of the coolestthings about cooperative games in general is how easy it is to bring in new players (sinceyou can help them play their turns until they get the hand of it), so Id definitely say thatthis would be a great game to introduce to new boardgamers who have any interest at allin its fantasy theme.


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The "real" Strahd mini (from the collectible minis game), which wasn't included in thisgame for some unknown reason

This review is based on the game as packaged by Wizards of the Coast, but I think that itwould be an oversight if I didnt mention the online community surrounding this game.There are already lots of unofficial scenarios, monsters, heroes, and rules variantsavailable on BoardGameGeek and other places throughout the internet, with more beingcreated all the time. Im very eager to try out some of these fan-created resources(especially the ones that address my issues with the game), and when you consider thepotential for all this wealth of creativity, the replayability of the game really skyrockets.

So to end, Ill go back to where I started. The thing that brings me back to CastleRavenloft is still the fact that it fills a niche almost completely untouched by other gamesin the genre. I especially like the Ravenloft setting, I love cooperative games, and I likethe option to play solo. So at least until something better comes along to meet theseneeds, I will continue to appreciate and enjoy this game for all the things it is, rather thanhate on it for all that it is not.

The Verdict!

Castle Ravenloft has a lot of potential to fill a very interesting niche in the cooperative


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and dungeon-crawling boardgame settings, but ultimately is a little too disappointing forme to recommend wholeheartedly.

Rules: Easy to pick up, once you get past your own assumptions and thehorrendous rulebook

Downtime: Very little, since it's coop and turns go so quickly Length: "About an hour", which usually turns more into 90 minutes for me. And

it does tend to wear out its welcome by the end a lot of times. Player Interaction: It's cooperative, and I'll agree that there are lots of ways to

actually cooperate and plan/help each other. Overall Weight: Medium Light GamerChris' Rating: 6 (on the BGG 10-point scale)

TheDungeons & Dragons role-playing game was the first hobby game I ever played, andthe first adventure module for that game that I ever saw and lusted after was the vampireromp Ravenloft. So in spite of not having touched a D&D line product in over a decade,when I saw that Wizards of the Coast were re-entering the boardgame market with a co-operative Ravenloft adventure game I was instantly intrigued. The kind folks at Wizardsof the Coast were good enough to whet my appetite further by indulging my request for areview copy which came a few days prior to release. So I've already been lucky enoughto play this ten times or so, plenty on which to form an opinion.

The very first time that I played this game, I was rapidly struck by two things. The first isthat this quite possibly does the best job ever of capturing the spirit of those old-fashioned role-playing game dungeon crawls that were so much fun in the days of myyouth. In spite of the fact that it has a decent amount of board game style strategic meaton its bones it really feels like a stripped down role-playing session: each turn the heroesmove and the dungeon unfurls slowly before them as they draw tiles from a stack and addthem to the board. They then draw a monster card, to represent what appears from out ofthe gloom and attacks, following a pre-set AI routine printed on the card, and often anencounter card representing such things as events and traps. The players must worktogether to use their mixed and complimentary abilities to defeat their foes and solve theirproblems, gaining treasure cards in return and the whole is wrapped in a loosely binding


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plot thanks to one of the thirteen different scenarios that come with the game. You cantell the designers were aiming for this sort of effect thanks to the old-school flavour textthats supplied for one of the players to read out at the start of each scenario and at certain

key events, just like the room descriptions that the dungeon master was supposed to readin adventure modules. And boy, did they ever succeed in that intention. Its partly thanksto the co-operative nature of the game that it gets this effect across, and here the co-operation feels like something natural and expected instead of the sense of forced jollityin what is normally a competitive medium that so pervades and spoils the majority of co-op board games.

The second is that the game is absolutely packed with really neat little mechanical twiststhat aim to get the most tactical and narrative mileage out of the simple rules. Theresnothing mold-breaking involved here, just a real sense that people worked hard to do asmuch as the could with relatively little. The best example of this is the tile-based

movement system that all monsters (and occasionally some of the heroes) use: rather thanplotting at path across squares, it involves simply moving to a different tile, and thisbeing a co-op game the players get to choose which square on the tile the piece getsmoved to. In a nutshell this sidesteps an array of potentially complex rules for plottingmonster movement square-by-square while at the same time providing the backbone oftactical choice in the game since the precise positioning of the target on a tile can result inthe powers of the monsters and the heroes having different results on the situation. Its abrilliantly stripped-down design that manages to simultaneously trim off all the excess fatthat has historically so plagued dungeon crawl games whilst at the same time actuallymaking use of that minimalism to improve the game experience.

Sadly the rules arent all a bed of roses. The process of slimming down the rules has,unfortunately, resulted in a slew of minor ambiguities. Its unclear, for example, whetherdungeon squares containing furniture like coffins or laboratory equipment are valid formovement or not. Theres nothing that will bring the game crashing down round yourears and, usefully, co-op games by their very nature can make light work of bypassingrules loopholes so long as all the players agree on how to interpret the writteninstructions, but its still a bit sad to see these sorts of problems in a game from such amajor publisher, who certainly have the resources to playtest and iron out rules issues.

The low rules weight also means that some of the gothic flavour of the game is almostinevitably lost. Wraiths in this game dont drain the life force of mortals, or need magic

weapons to hit them, theyre just tough to kill and hand out terrifying amounts ofdamage. I think this is whats behind some of the accusations of blandness that Ive seenlevelled at the design. However I think this is pretty unfair: the designers have clearlyworked hard to try and differentiate the monsters as much as possible from each otherand you can really see this in the AI routines printed on each monster card that governshow they behave. Almost every conceivable point of difference has been worked out andutlilised to make sure that a skeleton is not quite the same as a zombie and so on.Personally Im entirely comfortable with the level of detail thats been sacrificed in orderto make this as fast playing and as accessible as possible. And given that it plays inaround an hour, is simple enough for a primary-school age child to engage with (if not


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play effectively), and retains enough complexity to support thirteen scenarios, six bossmonsters, and ten or so normal monsters plus traps, events, items and other effects Idargue those sacrifices were well worth making.

The other thing that some commentators have described as bland is the artwork in thegame. I have a mixed response to this. The dungeon tiles do look a bit generic but on theupside this leaves them interchangeable with future releases. The cards are, it must besaid, a bit lacking. Only the monster cards have artwork on them and you really wouldhave thought a company with the resources of Wizards of the Coast could find somestock art to use on other cards. It would certainly help you to feel that youd found a coolitem to see it pictured instead of just a line of text telling you that it gives you +1 toattack rolls. But really, to suggest a game that has such great miniatures as this one doesas bland is just silly. Theyre the best sculpts Ive seen outside of a Games Workshoptitle and theres tons of them in the box, the majority of them being unique figures rather

than duplicates.

The light rules weight and the well-known nature of the license also leaves ample scopefor both official and fan-generated extra content to be squeezed in. There are already acouple of extra scenarios you can download from the Wizards of the Coast site as well asplans for another game based on the same framework with interchangeable componentscalled Wrath of Ashardalon which includes rules for campaigns, the only really majoromission in this title. The game feels like a toolbox in a good way, not by providing youwith lots of components that aren't covered by the rules, but by inviting the player to usetheir skill and imagination to expand the game in whatever direction they choose. Wantto add some rules for items heroes can carry into the dungeon? Go ahead. Want to add

some more monsters from your figure collection? Be my guest. I suspect there areexpansions planned for this, waiting, as yet unannounced.

But frankly there's already plenty in the box to provide plenty of replay value right off thebat. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that each character can pick four or five powersunique to them, and while suggested combinations are offered, there's actually abouttwice as many to choose from, providing lots of opportunity for exploring differentapproaches to different scenarios. The basic items in the treasure deck are supplementedby more powerful scenario specific items and by one-shot fortunes and blessings. And aswell as traps the encounter deck boasts all kinds of cool stuff like atmospheric cacklingskulls, to old-school dungeon favourites such as gray ooze all the way to bizarre effects

that teleport heroes and monsters all round the dungeon. As ever the simple rules aremade to work as hard as possible to provide one of the staple requirements of a gooddungeon crawler: plenty of variety.

After all the good stuff, I do have one major gripe about the game and that is its odd,unpredictable difficulty curve. This is a multi-faceted problem. For starters theres noguide as to how tough the various scenarios in the game are, and I can assure you thatsome are considerably more difficult than others. The characters are not balanced, withsome looking distinctly more powerful than others. I remain unconvinced that themechanics for increasing difficulty when more characters are in the game really works


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since its reliant on more than one player drawing the same monster card, and thatmonster type then acts twice per turn. Not only is it random, but its actually prettyunlikely to happen with ten-odd different monsters in the game and in any case I dont

think it really makes up for the synergy of abilities you get having more charactersplaying together. Theres also the fact that the game adds pressure to the players bymaking them get behind on their use of actions. Each player gets on action (an attack, forexample) each turn and usually theyll reveal a monster on their turn. As long as the nextplayer makes their attack roll and kills the monster the players stay in control: its whenthey start missing and the actions needed to deal with the backlog start to pile up thatthings become hard to handle. And all the action checks in the game are handled by atwenty-sided dice of course, so its quite possible to get a run of bad (or good) results in arow thanks to the flat probability curve of rolling a single dice, resulting in games that areridiculously difficult (or easy).

That flat probability curve and all those checks for action success also mean that,obviously, theres a fairly high level of randomness in the game generally because toaccomplish many actions in the game beyond moving, you need to roll the dice. Theresalso quite a lot to think about. Ive already mentioned the tile-based movement and thevariable character powers. Theres also a lot of risk-based decisions such as whether youwant to reveal a new tile - and a new monster - each turn or whether you care to risktaking an encounter instead, something you're forced to do if you fail to explore. If youdo take it, you have the option of spending some of your hard-earned monster kills tocancel it and if you let it happen it might be a question of whether to take damage orsuffer a different effect. The game is permeated with these sorts of "what-if" decisions.So, although there is meaningful choice in the game, those of you who came looking for a

level of detailed tactics like that found inDescentor anArkham Horrorlike level ofcontrol will be disappointed. I actually think the game hits a really sweet spot inbalancing skill and random elements, and it helps a lot that the game is so quick playingbecause it means that a trip into the dungeon plagued with ill luck feels more like a storywith a bad ending than a waste of gaming time.

In a nutshell then, this is a really impressive re-entry into the board game market for theDungeons & Dragons licence and one with a lot of mileage in front of it. Another majorpublisher in the business can't do anything but good for the hobby. My personal distastefor co-op games is well known but Castle Ravenlofthas joined the extremely smallshortlist of co-ops that have become regular visitors to my gaming table: no small feat in

itself. Yet I can imagine it, and its brethren, returning again and again in the months tocome.


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Dungeons & Dragons Castle Ravenloft

Well as some of you will know a fair few weeks ago I was musing on why I no longerplayed board games anymore, you can find that article here. Any way I decided I shouldreally try to put this right by picking myself up a couple of board games and giving thema damn fine go. Well I'm well on my way to having a nice little collection of board gamesnow, I started off with Dwarf Kings Hold from Mantic Games and will be hopefullygetting myself the second of those games Green Menace. I also have the Gears of War

game on pre-order from OG Games and Mansions of Madness should be arriving any daysoon hopefully.

However none of those games are really what I'd term true Dungeon Crawlers, yep DwarfKings Hold is set in a dungeon or should that be a 'hold' but its an adversarial game thatI've heard described as Space Hulk with Dwarfs and axes, now while I think that's not anentirely fair analogy its not a million miles off in terms of vibe, but the two games playvery differently. So I wanted a dungeon crawler. I'd had a few people suggest the D&DAdventure System Games of Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, so I picked bothup to see what they were like. First things first I've given Castle Ravenloft a thoroughgoing over, and I've enjoyed it, but in the words of the tax dodging Irishman Bono 'I still

haven't found what I'm looking for'.

Product Description


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Lets get this out of the way right now,the production quality on this product is very high indeed and its clear Wizards of thecoast have really gone to town with the components in this game. Even the box itself is ahigh quality product that will stand up quite nicely to the rough and tumble of dailygaming sessions. The card tiles and tokens are all on a very high quality card and havenice glossy surfaces, its all very slick. The miniatures although quite nice sculpts some ofthem are what lets this down. They aren't made of the nicest substance known to man andI actually think they'll be pretty naff to paint considering how bendy they all are. Its notgreat and its a shame, because I'd have liked to have painted them. There is however a lotof stuff in the box.

Gameplay 7 out of 10

I think its fair to suggest that I am less than enamoured with the kind of games the rulesthemselves seem to produce. Sure its all very slick and functions well enough and youwon't ever get to a point where you're not sure what should happen. However it doesn'tcreate the greatest atmosphere going, I've never once felt like an intrepid explorersearching through a dank, dark and dangerous dungeon. It has no atmosphere as a gameand the challenge is less than I'd hoped for too, so it doesn't tick many of my personalboxes but it does at least function well as a game mechanic.

Detail 7 out of 10

The detailing on pretty much everything is consistently good. The tile artwork is clearand crisp and well designed, if a little bit too bland for my tastes. The tokens are tokenlike and sturdy, they're clear to understand and easy to read... and a little bland. Call meold fashioned but I like a little bit of personality in the artwork that goes into these sortsof components, its all very Dungeon 101 and very generic and by the books. Theminiatures themselves are your typical generic beasties and adventurers, they're not badthemselves in terms of the detailing and sculpting, but the substance they're made out ofisn't for me. Sure I'm guessing its a nice and hardy substance for chucking back into thegame box but that's not what I'm going to do with them.


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The rules themselves are a very stripped down version of D&D I remember, its not reallya dungeon crawling RPG anymore but some kind of homage to that genre in the form ofan engaging enough board game. Have to be honest and say its not quite what I wasexpecting or indeed what I wanted. However it is fairly entertaining and with a goodgroup of friends its a riot and well worth playing. Just don't be expecting a deepexperience with character building and progression, there's none of that malarky, its just astraight up board game set in a dungeon.

Quality 8 out of 10

The quality of the card components within the box are undeniably good and quite franklyI think they'll happily take a good solid amount of gaming before they start to look dogeared or tatty. If this score was generated on those components alone I'd probably givethis score a 9 or 10 because they are very hardy indeed and the rulebook and missionbook are glossy enough and in full colour. What drags it all down a notch or two for mewould be the rubbery plastic used to make the miniatures. Sure I can understand whythey're made out of the horrid stuff, it's probably easier to pull out of the moulds and it'llnot break as easy in the box. However as I hope I've established, I'm a wargamer and Ilike to paint my mini's if I can. So what should have been a win for them actually dragsthe score down, if only it were a harder plastic.


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The rules are slick easy to understandand follow. The randomly generated dungeons that I've played though all seem quitesimilar in shape, so perhaps its not as random as first thought! Though the rules do createan engaging enough game it rapidly boils down to very basic stat team managementwork. Its not at all hard to rip through most dungeons in this game with a little bit ofnouse and 1 or two friends to help out along the way. As a co-operative board game itsquite good, as a dungeon crawler its not quite as cerebral as I'd hoped it would be.

Service 8 out of 10

Well the service I got for this particular little gem was from OG Games and I'd have tosay I'm more than happy with their service. I ordered this boxed set along with Wrath ofAshardalon one evening and plumped for the free postage at second class delivery and itturned up two days later in a nice grey plastic bag wrapped in bubble wrap with cornerprotectors. Castle Ravenloft was fine and so too was Wrath of Ashardalon so nocomplaints and it all went smoothly.

Price 8 out of 10

I paid 44.99 form OG Games and I think that's a fair enough price for the gameconsidering its RRP is 54.99. I have seen it slightly cheaper elsewhere but I trust OGGames and I know they deliver what they say they will so I'm more than happy to pay 1or 2 more than some other places, plus OG do free delivery, whereas those other placesdon't.


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Overall 7 out of 10

Its not bad. Its not what I was expecting and its not what I wanted. However that doesn'tmean its bad. I mean after playing Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon I'veactually decided to pre-order the third game in the range The Legend of Drizzt, whichmeans they can't be too bad can they? True it isn't and never will be the in depth dungeoncrawler I wanted. There isn't the leveling and there isn't the character generation, and Iknow for many people that will be a good thing, but for me I was hoping for a bit more ofa free reign with this game. However it has kept me and my friends entertained and theydo want to come back for more and its a nice diversion to Infinity and Dystopian Warsright now. Peace out!D&D Adventure System Board Games

With the recent addition ofLegend of Drizzt, the third in the Adventure System series ofboard games, Wizards of the Coast has presented a modular, easily played family ofgames with enough depth, components and scenarios to keep players interested for a longtime. The complete modularity of the sets, a few caveats about Legend of Drizzt aside(see my review), encourages the swapping and combining of parts from different sets tomake a completely new gaming experience. Wizards of the Coast has actually released anofficial three-adventure campaign featuring components of both Castle Ravenloft andWrath of Ashardalon. While the mixing and matching possibilities are all but endless, wewill consider just a few in each article in this series. In today's installment, we will take alook at heroes.

The heroes from both Ravenloft and Ashardalon are allowed in the official cross-overscenario. While the Legend of Drizzt heroes are a bit more powerful than those in the


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other two sets, there is no real harm in introducing them into any Ravenloft orAshardalon game. The heroes from the first two sets are capable enough that the additionof one more healing surge to the group should be enough to balance them out in Drizzt's

Underdark. One important point from the cross-over scenario rules is that heroes can useclass cards from either game, appropriate to their classes. For example, the RavenloftWizard can use Wrath of Ashardalon Wizard powers and vice versa. The only limitationthere is that if you use the Wizards from both sets in one game session, each player mustchoose different powers than the other. Ravenloft and Ashardalon each have a Cleric,Fighter, Rogue and Wizard. Those powers are just as easily interchangeable.

Legend of Drizzt has a Ranger (like Ravenloft), a Fighter and a Rogue (like bothRavenloft and Ashardalon). However, the somewhat different nature of the heroes fromLegend of Drizzt presents a few problems we will deal with later in this article. For now,it is enough to understand that the characters in Ravenloft and Ashardalon are sufficiently

generic that we can ignore their proper names and refer to them as 'Dwarf Fighter','Eladrin Wizard,' etc. By contrast, the heroes in Legend of Drizzt are special, as they allrepresent characters familiar to readers of R.A Salvatore's novels. This is reflected in thehighly personalized powers they generally have. Three of them - Bruenor, Catie-Brie andDrizzt - even have unique Stance Tokens, a mechanic introduced in this set.

Putting aside Legend of Drizzt class powers for the time being, we shall consider theracial powers from all three sets. The only Eladrin so far is the Wizard in Ravenloft. HisFey Step Utility power seems suitable for any future Eladrin character. The Drow Rangerand Drow Swashbuckler from Legend of Drizzt both have their own copy of the Cloud ofDarkness and Darkfire Utility Powers, so they are set. These powers are generic enough

that they, like Fey Step for Eladrin, could easily be used for any future or custom Drowcharacter. But what about the Dragonborn?

Ravenloft and Ashardalon each feature a Dragonborn character, each with a differentDragonborn Daily Power. The powers seem generic enough, but theme and game balanceseem to dictate that those powers should stay with their intended heroes. Why? Take alook at Dragon's Breath (the Dragonborn Fighter Power from Ravenloft). It allows thehero to attack all monsters on his tile at +4 to hit and 1 damage. Hurled Breath, theDragonborn Wizard Daily Power from Ashardalon, allows that hero to attack allmonsters on any tile within 2 tiles, (including his own tile), at +5 to hit and the same 1damage. The latter is better in terms of both range and accuracy; fitting for a Wizard who

has used magic to fully master his innate breath weapon ability, and powerful enough tomake up for a Wizard's lack of reliable damage potential. Dragon Breath does a better jobof showing the more physical Fighter who using what nature has given him. KeepingHurled Breath from the Dragonborn Fighter also prevents him from being overpowered.

Next, we come to the Dwarves. All three sets come with a Dwarf. The Dwarf Cleric fromRavenloft has no racial power. The Dwarf Fighter from Ashardalon has DwarvenResilience which allows for some major healing mojo. There is no harm in making thispower available to any of the Dwarves. So far, so good. But then we come to Bruenor.Bruenor has no racial powers per se, but he has a few that can be considered as such.


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Dwarven Ale and Legendary Knowledge seem to fit the bill. The Ancient Enemies UtilityPower, though, really has the feel of a DwarfFighterPower. It is based on the idea thatDwarves have been at war with Goblins for generations, and allows the player to place

any number of monsters within 1 tile of the hero adjacent to that hero. The flavor textabout Goblins doesn't really match the powers ability to affect all monsters, but the poweris nonetheless perfect for the Dwarven Defender concept, which first existed in name inThird Edition D&D. Ancient Enemies, then, should probably be made available only toother Dwarven Fighters. Dwarven Ale, on the other hand, being essentially a healingpower, seems suitable for Dwarves of any class. Legendary Knowledge relies upon thecharacteristically Dwarven knowledge of the Underdark and should likewise be availableto all Dwarven characters.

Lastly, we shall consider the system's lone Halfling, Regis. The Halfling Rogue has aUtility power called Hide which is based upon his small size. We may well consider this

power to be available only to other Halfling Rogues, or to any future Rogues of smallsize, such as Gnomes.

Now we shall consider the class powers. The powers from Ravenloft and Ashardalon arealready interchangeable between the four classes that they share, which are Cleric,Fighter, Rogue and Wizard. Most of the Legend of Drizzt classes - Archer, Assassin,Barbarian, Battlerager and Swashbuckler - are unique to that set. But Legend of Drizztdoes have a Fighter, a Ranger and a Rogue. Of Bruenor the Dwarven Fighter's powers,those that are suitable for any Fighter are Notched Axe (At-will), Lucky Hit (Utility), andPower Strike (Utility). The remaining powers either require Bruenor's Stance Token orhave already been deemed more suitable as de facto Dwarf Racial Powers.

Drizzt, the Drow Ranger, is next. The Drow Utility Powers he comes with are, of course,suitable only for Drow. Powers that require his Stance Token are also unique to him.Lone Drow can be fudged to be 'Lone Human,' 'Lone Elf,' etc. It represents a Ranger'sability to get around, and the flavor text and power name can always be consideredunimportant. Inspirational Strike and Twin Strike are likewise sufficiently generic.Figurine of Guenhwyvar is probably best reserved for Drizzt, just because of the themefrom the books. The At-will Powers associated with his two swords, Twinkle andIcingdeath, drip Drizzt theme as well, and thus should be saved for him and him alone.

At last we come once more to Regis the Halfling. His Magic Mace and Ruby Pendant At-

will Powers are too much a part of his character to be given to anyone else. Mass Charmalso requires the Ruby Pendant. All of his Daily Powers, however - Distracting Attack,Finish Off and Lone Wolf Strike - are suitable for any Rogue. Among the Utilities,Disarm, Sudden Escape and Tumble work as generic. We have already discussed theremaining power, Hide.

One final note. Many of the Legend of Drizzt heroes are given specific powers at the startof the game, particularly the At-wills. Therefore, the question of whether they wouldchoose certain powers from the other two sets is moot - they are simply not allowed suchflexibility. However, they nonetheless get to choose Daily and Utility Powers, and those


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should be made available to them from the other sets. This less flexible power assignmentbears a resemblance to the D&D Essentials rules, for fans of the RPG.

If any more sets in the Adventure System come out, we will take a look at them in thesame light when that time comes. Hopefully these rules will give you a framework forhaving fun - they certainly have for us!

Unlike the Villagers found in Wrath of Ashardalon, Allies, found in the Legend of Drizztset, can hold their own. Two of the Allies are simply Utlility Powers for Athrogate andDrizzt, representing magical icons that can turn into a magical boar named Snort forAthrogate and a magical panther named Guenhwyvar for Drizzt. The other five Allies arelesser versions of several of the Heroes included in the set. For reasons unknown, this listdoes not include Athrogate the Dwarf Battlerager, nor does it include Artemis or Jarlaxlewho can be played as Heroes or used as Villains according to the rules of the scenario.

The list of Allies is:

Bruenor Battlehammer (Dwarf Fighter) Cattie-Brie (Human Archer) Drizzt Do'Urden (Drow Ranger) Regis (Halfling Rogue) Wulfgar (Human Barbarian)

Of these Allies, only Wulfgar is used in any of the scenarios. Guenhwyvar and Snort areessentially Utility Powers for their respective heroes, but the Bruenor, Catti-Brie, Drizzt

Do'Urden and Regis ally cards were apparently included for custom purposes. This givesus carte blanche to do as we wish!

Of the Allies, the hardest to kill in terms of AC/HP combo would be Bruenor (15/5),withDrizzt (15/4) and Wulfgar (12/6) taking up the middle of the pack and Regis (14/3) andCatti-Brie (15/3) being the most fragile. Their attacks are modest and their tactics simple.It would be easy enough to make a custom scenario using them along the lines of the oneinvolving Wulfgar. However, taking Allies along on an adventure, especially if one isplaying solo, seems to offer the most enjoyment.

An Ally is not as useful as a full fledged Hero, and should not be treated as such. Healing

Surges should not apply to them; once they are dead, they're dead. Nor does the game endwhen one dies - only the death of a true Hero should cause the game to be lost. If youwish to give the Ally some survivability, then allow him or her to come back in the activeHero's tile if that Hero has the option flip over a previously used card, and uses it on theAlly instead.

To balance things, one can replace a Healing Surge with one strong or two weak Allies atthe start of the game. An alternative is to trade a Utility Power for an Ally, though itshould be mentioned that the actual Utility Power Allies - Guenhwyvar and Snort - have


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fewer hit points than all the other Allies except for Regis. If you want more balance, tradeout a Hero Ally for both a Utility Power andthe starting treasure that all characters get.

Activate Allies during the active Hero's Villain Phase, after Villains and before anymonsters or traps. Treasure can be gained as normal by the active Hero when a controlledAlly kills a monster, but only if the active Hero did not already kill a monster this turn.These guidelines can make for greater replayability in the game and allow a larger partyof adventurers with less fuss over controlling multiple characters.

This article would not be complete if we did not consider a few scenario uses for theAllies:

When the active Hero ends his or her turn adjacent to a Dwarven Statue on aDwarven Statue tile, if that hero is holding a designated item (perhaps Holy Water

from the Ravenloft set) the player may take Bruenor as an Ally for the rest of thegame.

A similar requirement could allow the active Hero to summon Drizzt from theDrow Circle, where he has been trapped in magical stasis. Guenhwyvar can comealong, too.

The Crystal Prison idea for Wulfgar's scenario can be reused in any context. The Chamber tiles from Wrath of Ashardalon can be used to represent a prison

where several Allies are being held. Heroes from the other sets could come torescue the Legend of Drizzt Heroes, perhaps having been recruited by Athrogate.

After a successful adventure in a campaign as per the last scenario in Wrath ofAshardalon, Allies can be hired as men-at-arms for an agreed-upon price

whenever the Dwarven Traders come around.

A perusal of the monster decks from Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon showsthat each has 12 monsters worth one experience, 12 monsters worth two experience and 6monsters worth three experience. Legend of Drizzt breaks that mold somewhat. It has 12monsters worth one experience, but only 9 worth two experience, and 5 worth three orfour experience. Drizzt also has two Hunting Party cards to bring in two monsters andtwo Stalagmite cards to show that the 'monster' was really just a shadow.

It would make sense, where possible, when modifying the deck of a given title in theseries to adhere to this spread, since this is how each game was designed. We will look at

each of the three titles in the series and see some ways in which each set might bemodified by swapping out monsters from one set for another to expand play possibilities.

Castle Ravenloft is already very tight on theme. The gothic Gargoyles and ghoulishUndead capture the essence of a haunted castle very well. The Rat Swarms seem tobelong perfectly well in such a setting, and what Dracula (Strahd) story would becomplete without Wolves? ('Children of the night. Hear how they sing?)"

One change that might be made is to swap out the Kobold Skirmisher (the least thematicmonster in the set, included only to support the villain Klak, the Kobold Sorcerer) for the


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Hypnotic Spirit from Legend of Drizzt. However, if you wish to feature Klak, you mightinstead want to keep the Kobold Skirmisher and even add in the Kobold Dragonshieldfrom Wrath of Ashardalon. In such a case, you are left to choose between the Rat Swarm

and Zombie to swap out. Since the game is already replete with Undead, the Zombiemight be the simplest to lose. Of course, you can always do a halfway measure and takeout two Rat Swarms and one Zombie, and bring in the three Kobold Dragonshields. Foradded flavor, you can import the Kobold Warren event Encounter Card and the KoboldTrappers environment Encounter Card from Ashardalon as well. Simply chooseEncounter Cards of the same subtype to remove from the deck.

Wrath of Ashardalon offers two primary themes: one Draconic, and one Aberrant. TheKobold Skirmisher from Ravenloft fits into the Draconic theme of Ashardalon quite well.Feel free to ditch the Human Cultist, Orc Archer or even the Snake to bring this Dragonworshipper in. While you're at it, you can also bring in the villain Klak, as he is also a

Kobold. Substituting him for the Kobold Dragonlord or even combining the two villainsin one scenario can be great, thematic fun.

The second primary theme of Aberrations does not really cry out for any specificmonsters from the other sets, though one could argue that the Drider Dinin Do'urden fromLegend of Drizzt represents a monstrous creature. Even the Feral Trolls from Drizzt workwell with the Gibbering Mouthers, Grells and Otyugh, especially if you want anadventure that is more about weird and dangerous monsters than about a specifichumanoid tribe.

A secondary theme to Ashardalon is the clan diversity. You have Kobolds and a Kobold

Villain, Orcs and an Orc Villain, and Duergar with a Duergar Villain. Add in a few moremonster clans and you have basically recreated The Keep on the Borderlands, and oldoriginal D&D module. There are several ways to treat this effect, and the first is to lookat certain Encounter Cards and Chamber Cards.

To focus on humanoid clans, you can remove the following Encounter Cards from theAshardalon deck: event-attacks Phalagar's Lair and Waking Dream, and event UnnaturalCorruption. These cards are more focused on Aberrations. The event cards DuergarOutpost, Hall of the Orcs and Kobold Warrens favor certain creature types. You canremove one or more of these to represent the dominance of one clan over another. Again,bringing in the Kobold Skirmisher and the Villain Klak can represent a Kobold dungeon,

while bringing in the Rat Swarm and Wolf, both Animals, really fills out the Orc ClanLair Chamber Card and the Hall of the Orcs Encounter Card that each call for Animalsand Orcs.

There are several more options that re

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