D&D's Dungeon! Fantasy Board Game

[Killer Joe]

Dungeon!

This is a remake of TSR's 1975 game of the same name. Wiz Co remade this in 2012 and again this year. I bought a copy of it at a local gaming store at the mall, it cost about $20 and I am having a blast playing it.

This is the kind of simple board game I've been looking for where non-RPGers can play and get a "feel" for D&D but without being intimidated with all the cool stuff we all like about playing REAL D&D, lol.

It has four heroes; Halfling Rogue, Dwarven Cleric, Human Fighter and Elvish Wizard. There are actually 8 heroes, a male and female version of each type so up to 8 can play. It's basically a dice chucking (2d6) dungeon crawl. To win you get Gold Pieces as treasure each time you defeat a monster and there are six levels of monsters, the higher the level the more the GPs the treasure is worth. Each monster has a different defense number depending on the hero, a rogue has to roll very high to defeat a higher level monster and a fighter not so much BUT, rogues and clerics only need 10,000 GP to win whereas the Fighter needs 20,000 and the wizard needs 30,000 to win.

This game is really easy for children to play but enough cool D&D elements to keep adults entertained, in my opinion.

I played this last night with my fiance', three of her adult kids and two Magic buddies of mine (Warry & Old Bill).

fun, Fun, FUN!!!!

 

[rokapoke]

I'd be all over something like this if you can convince my wife that it would be "fun, Fun, FUN!!!!"

 

[Killer Joe]

Seriously simple rules. My fiancé is NOT a gamer type and thinks these kind of games are hard to play but she likes this one because it IS simple......and we have fun playing it.

 

[turgy22]

I got Dungeon! for Christmas last year from my mother-in-law, by recommendation of my wife. I was actually pretty dissatisfied with the game.

Here's my review:

First of all, I would agree with KJ that it's probably a good choice for beginners to get a taste of D&D style dungeon crawl games. It's incredibly simple and straightforward and games don't last that long.

What makes it simple makes it not-so-fun for me. There is almost no strategy involved in the game. You roll dice. You move around. You see monsters. You roll dice to see if you defeat the monsters. You get quasi-random treasures for defeating said monsters. Basically, the only decision you make is where to go. Everything else depends entirely on the roll of the dice and draw of the card.

The biggest thing that bothered me, though, is that I found the game incredibly unbalanced. The elves and humans are good. The dwarves and halflings are not. In the rules, it's recommended that each class of hero stick to certain levels. (Halflings: Level 1 to 3; Dwarves: Level 2 to 4; Humans: Level 3 to 5; Elves: Level 4 to 6). But even with these distinctions, it's really freaking hard for any class to defeat monsters on the high side of those numbers. Halflings will struggle with level 3 monsters, dwarves with level 4, etc. (And by "struggle" I mean, like a 50/50 chance of victory.) So it's really easy for someone to pick a higher class, and then wander the lower levels defeating every monster that a lower-level hero struggles to defeat. I think the creators intended to balance the game by making the high-level goals harder to achieve, but it didn't really work, in my opinion. I wish they had designed the game such that it was equally difficult for an elf to defeat a level 1 monster as it is for a halfling to defeat a level 5 or 6 monster, but that's not how the game is.

The other thing that bothered me about the game is that it's kind of a pain to set up and keep track of everything. There are 12 individual sets of cards that all need to be shuffled and piled separately (6 levels each of monsters and treasures). I found it annoying to deal with.


Not to derail this thread and get off-topic, but I did recently discover a game that is seriously fun, incredibly simple, well-balanced, easy to learn, easy to set up and requires a fair amount of strategic thinking, too.

Last week, my wife and I went to a comic convention and, naturally, I was drawn to the gaming area. Only one dedicated gaming vendor was there, but they had a fairly decent selection of games (MTG, D&D, Risk, Dungeon, Settlers of Catan, and a whole variety of proto-typical geek games). Now I have been seeking for many months a game that I can play with my 6-year-old daughter and that is somewhat intellectually stimulating for me (no offense to Candyland, of which we've played some fairly intense matches). So I was looking specifically for a game that would be simple enough for her to pick up, but that I would enjoy playing repeatedly, as well. As you might expect from a typical gaming vendor, most of the games were marked for ages 14+. I considered a few that were listed as 10+, thinking maybe she could pick up on them, but then I spotted a single game that was actually labeled as 6+.

That game was Seven Dragons. I actually walked away the first time I looked at it, since it was self-described as "like Dominos", but then I decided to come back and buy it anyway, just to have something new to try at home. I am SO happy I did so. My wife is completely hooked, my daughter can play (the instruction sheet actually has a section marked "Playing Seven Dragons with Your Preschooler", which it turns out we didn't actually need), the games don't last that long and I'm a long way from getting bored with it myself.

The game itself is, actually, quite a bit like dominos. The basic gameplay revolves around five different-colored dragons that are printed on cards in various patterns and you play them by matching the colors to each other. Each player starts with a goal card, which depicts one of the five dragons, and that player's objective is to create a contiguous block of seven dragons of that color. There's also a silver dragon, which acts as the start card and can change color throughout the game, and a rainbow dragon, which is always every color. What really makes the game fun is that Action cards, which can do different things in the game like moving or removing a card that's been placed and switching goals between the players.

So what I like the most is the different strategies you can use to win the game. Depending on your hand, you can sometimes just plow your way ahead trying to connect all your dragons, which also trying to block your opponent's dragon. You can also focus on a different dragon, either to simply bluff your opponent or to set up for a future goal change. Or you can just play cards somewhat randomly in an attempt to create more options (you draw extra cards for matching multiple dragons in one play) and hope that you find a path to victory as the game goes on.

At any rate, I didn't want to rain on KJ's parade, but I highly recommend this game.

 

[Spiderman]

I think I have either the 89 or 92 version of the game and from what the wiki says vs what turgy22 says, I think there must have been more changes to the game than noted in the wiki. There's two modes of play: one where everyone is a "fighter" type (and use the same number to roll against) and need the same gold amount to win and one where you can have the different classes which each has their own advantages and disadvantages - different gold amounts, different numbers to roll against, different chances to find secret doors or ambush other players, etc. I've played all types and though I love dwarves, their slower movement costs them so I usually end up picking the Paladin for his Heal ability; but everyone has a chance to win. Yes, it's all dice-rolling and random picking from the cards but that's the beauty of it.

This Seven Dragons game sound imteresting, I'll have to check it out.

 

[Killer Joe]

Seven Dragons is a lot like Aquarius but instead of dragons they use elements. It's fun to play and yes, the action cards make the game totally fun to ruin someone else's strategy especially when you play the action card that makes everybody turn in their goal and then they get randomly passed out, lol!

Thanks for the tip!