Castle Ravenloft/Wrath of Ashardalon Catch All

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I became rather intrigued by the Castle Ravenloft talk on the last Conference Call. What information I've found around the intarwebs seems positive. Has anyone here had first-hand experience they wouldn't mind sharing?

I read the rulebook provided on the game's site, and it seems like it would be very easy to get into. I like the idea of the random dungeon, but I have some other concerns. It appears that there's very little strategy or role-playing in the game. Other than which of your abilities you choose at a particular time, there's not much else to do other than roll the die. Perhaps this varies depending on the scenario, but the sample cards in the rulebook seem very generic. For instance, the monster cards all say, "If adjacent to a hero, attack. If within a tile of a hero, move adjacent and attack. If more than a tile away, move one tile closer to nearest hero."

While the random dungeon is a nice feature for quick romps, it seems too generic beyond that. No character customization at all, a few choices in abilities, lather-rinse-repeat combat, etc. I know the intent is for a D&D-lite experience, but is it so light that it becomes boring?

I hope I'm wrong. I was contemplating picking this up for a reunion of sorts I'm having with some old gaming buddies. None of us have played D&D in years (2nd edition years) and I thought this might be a nice sampling of some D&D goodness.

Appreciate any insight you fellows might have.

D-

Dreaded Gazebo had some words on it in another thread and on his blog: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/4...

Disclosure before we go into my thoughts: I've never played D&D, but I love a good board game, as my constantly expanding collection might indicate.

I picked this up a few weeks ago and played it a few times. I was really impressed with the components and models, especially considering I managed to find it for $50. The game is pure dungeon crawling combat, which was great for my group, but if you're looking for something with more plot and such, you won't find much here. The best thing about the game is that it moves. When I went to play it the first time in a group, I just had to hand out character cards, give a 5 minute explanation of the turn phases and then we were off to the races. We had a great time grinding through the monsters and planning team strategy and killed the big bad dragon in the end, all in about an hour and a half.

I was at PAX when Shawn (Certis) unpacked his copy of Ravenloft and got to play in the first game.

There isn't any customization, but the pool of abilities you get to use is pretty large. IIRC the set of abilities you take with you is determined by the scenario you play. The monsters are a lot more varied that they sound. Every card has the "AI" moves like move or attack. Those are basically automatic. But a lot of the monsters have varied abilities. The wolf for example does a pounce attack if he has to run towards you. But if he is already beside you he tried to cripple your feet instead. Burning skeletons have an area attack that forces you to spread out. Etc. I only played with the "basic" monsters but the variety was quite good. And there were a lot more monsters in the box we never got to see.

What kept the experience moving for me was the encounter cards. The very first round I was the last person to move. And right before I could take my turn someone pulled a card that said something like "frightening howls echo from the darkness". Everyone immediately ran back to the dungeon entrance. (because apparently were all cowards). A little further on our wizard pulled a card that teleported him to the other side of the map and spawned two monsters beside him. That was pretty fun. But later in the game it happened AGAIN. Only this time the card had a clause that said anyone who wanted to accompany the wizard could teleport with him to the new tile. So a few of us went to back him up. Only to find the room they teleported into was a crushing walls trap...

If you think of the game as 4th edition-lite that is exactly what it is. In fact Certis mentioned when we finished that we had basically just learned 3/4 of what you need to play 4th edition. So I'd say give it a go. It might get you and your buddies back into D&D.

Castle Ravenloft is a lot of fun so long as you go in with the right expectations. It's a very simple dungeon crawl experience with one-off scenarios. The game is designed to smack you around a bit so expect bad stuff happening to you every turn. There's a healthy mix of tactical decisions and random luck but the game does feel pretty well-balanced. Fun factor is driven pretty much by the scenario, some are more engaging than others.

What I've found most impressive is that you do end up with some pretty fun memorable moments coming out of such a random system. We had one mission where we had to hold a room while cleansing someone of vampirism. All was going well until a secret door opened up behind us, revealing a new room and some new monsters that pretty much destroyed us. Good times

My only real complaint is the encounters. Health is your currency and encounters and monsters are meant to whittle it away over time. Mechanically it works great and makes for lots of close finishes. Sometimes it does feel a bit much, though, especially with all the events and monsters that do a damage even when they miss. You always resolve an encounter when you don't reveal a new tile, so the end of a mission often involves you drawing lots of encounters once you find your goal. Monsters are fun to deal with because the party has tactical decisions to make; encounters generally aren't fun to resolve because stuff just happens.

If they can rework the encounter deck in future sets I think it could be a fantastic system. At it stands the game is a lot of fun but at times the constant oppression of the encounter deck can be a bit much.

Tamren wrote:

If you think of the game as 4th edition-lite that is exactly what it is. In fact Certis mentioned when we finished that we had basically just learned 3/4 of what you need to play 4th edition. So I'd say give it a go. It might get you and your buddies back into D&D.

I would not go into it thinking of it at all like D&D. It really isn't. Yes, it pulls some concepts from 4th edition with the hero powers but beyond that the two bear no resemblance. It could serve as a launchpad into 4th edition, I suppose, but the board game is extremely limited in scope. I think folks going into it expecting a RPG-like experience will be extremely disappointed.

Certainly a great first attempt by Wizards. I'm looking forward to Ashardalon and whatever else they have in the works. With a little bit more work I think Wizards could have a seriously cool dungeon crawler series on their hands.

The great thing about Castle Ravenloft is that any rules can be modified through scenarios. I have no doubt the community will put out all sorts of interesting scenarios that will tweak all aspects of the game. It'd be pretty easy to come up with your own, too. The designers said one of their measures of success for the game will be the extent that people modify and customize the game; they've build a great base system and there's tons of room to play.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

I would not go into it thinking of it at all like D&D. It really isn't. Yes, it pulls some concepts from 4th edition with the hero powers but beyond that the two bear no resemblance. It could serve as a launchpad into 4th edition, I suppose, but the board game is extremely limited in scope. I think folks going into it expecting a RPG-like experience will be extremely disappointed.

Well... I've never played a minute of pen and paper DnD. So I'll take his word for it. Mechanically it gives you a good idea of what to expect. Explore, spot monsters, fight.

This has become my new favorite board-game. While it's not exactly 4e-lite, it is a good primer for many of the basic concepts of playing 4e. AC, hit points, etc.

Like some of my other favorite games, this game has lots of forward thinking strategy where you are weighing options and having to cooperatively think through your actions as a team. Not unlike Pandemic, for example.

I played this game once, with BadMojo and Aetius. I like it; I'd like to play the other scenarios.

My general impression is that this is a game that has to stand on the strength of its combat system, so it's good that the combat system is so well designed. The mechanics are all fairly straightforward, but you have to make some tactical choices based on which enemies you're facing and how they're positioned. You also *really* have to work together.

The various scenarios and the random tile system means that each playthrough will be slightly different. Outside of combat it reminds me very much of Betrayal at the House on the Hill, another "dungeon crawl" where revealing tiles causes events to happen.

I'm thinking about springing for this, I just want read some BGG impressions tomorrow. Is this something I can use to introduce my 8 year-old to D&D?

LiquidMantis wrote:

I'm thinking about springing for this, I just want read some BGG impressions tomorrow. Is this something I can use to introduce my 8 year-old to D&D?

I played Castle Ravenloft with a friend's seven (I think?) year old daughter and she was able to pick it up pretty well. We resolved all the event cards for her but she could follow the general flow of things, decide what to attack, where to move, etc. She had quite a bit of fun.

So yeah, it could work as an introduction to D&D. It has the concepts of classes, AC, skills, tactical combat, etc. Honestly, though, it wouldn't be too hard to just play D&D, especially since 4th edition is so streamlined. Print out cards for skills (and simplify them a bit), make a really basic character sheet and start playing! I played one session with my 9 year old nephew and we had tons of fun. Kids have such great imaginations they pretty much come up with everything for you.

The advantage to just playing D&D is that you don't have to worry about winning or losing, just having fun. It's quite likely you'll lose when playing Castle Ravenloft - sometimes a bit unexpectedly. Yeah you can adjust the difficulty by adding more healing surges but when you run a session of D&D you can pull punches and fudge dice all night long

LiquidMantis wrote:

I'm thinking about springing for this, I just want read some BGG impressions tomorrow. Is this something I can use to introduce my 8 year-old to D&D?

There are other games that might work better for introducing young people to RPGs. Games where the specific crunchy rules are less important than saying what you want to do. Things like Mousegaurd.

Thanks guys. I've actually picked up some 4e D&D stuff with the plan to run him through and I need/want to check out the red box stuff to see what it's about too but I was worried about just running him through stuff solo that I'd be mostly being an NPC puppetmaster. I'll check out Mouseguard too.

After a great night of boardgaming at the S&T last night, I'm going to go ahead and spring for Raveloft. I think this may be my last, best chance to convert some of my less game-y friends into P&P RPG folks

Sounds like I'm going to have to shell out for this. Thanks for all the opinions, guys. Keep it up.

I'm really interested in this but I don't know if I'll have anybody to play this with...

Norfair wrote:

I'm really interested in this but I don't know if I'll have anybody to play this with...

Yeah, same here. How many players do you need. I might be able to wrangle up a couple others but if you need 4 or 5 people then this would be one of those games I may end up using once.

It's playable by 1 even, although I don't how well D&D Solitaire plays.

There was this series of books called Lone Wolf that were a mixture of choose your own adventures and D&D. The entire series was online once playable in web browser. Might want look into it for a solitaire like D&D.

Kehama wrote:
Norfair wrote:

I'm really interested in this but I don't know if I'll have anybody to play this with...

Yeah, same here. How many players do you need. I might be able to wrangle up a couple others but if you need 4 or 5 people then this would be one of those games I may end up using once.

It plays 1 to 5 and scales relatively well. There are only two scenarios designed specifically for solo play but you could certainly play the others by controlling multiple heroes. There's no secret information and not much to track per player so controlling multiple heroes at once isn't a big deal. My initial guess is that the sweet spot is three heroes but I haven't played enough to know for sure.

I played it, but you probably already knew that.

If I have a complaint about the game, it's that there isn't enough Ravenloft to it. I said on the podcast that I like the way the event cards and rules hint at the malevolent rule and psychological uneasiness inherent in Strahd's realm. But in my mind, Ravenloft is more about the threat of what might be there than the observation of what is there. Ravenloft and Dark Sun are the two settings where exploring beyond the necessary seemed like a real risk. Take away the Ravenloft expectations, though, and it's a quality hack & slash game in the traditions of Hero Quest and the original Dragon Strike.

Does anyone else think this would be a great way to convert Castlevania or Dead Space into a boardgame? It could be massive.

Edwin wrote:

Does anyone else think this would be a great way to convert Castlevania or Dead Space into a boardgame? It could be massive.

Dead Space = Space Hulk

No one escapes Ravenloft. Well except Lord Soth.

drdoak wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Does anyone else think this would be a great way to convert Castlevania or Dead Space into a boardgame? It could be massive.

Dead Space = Space Hulk :)

Ish. Space Hulk doesn't have the 1 vs. 1000 feel. I always think of it more like Aliens.

wordsmythe wrote:
drdoak wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Does anyone else think this would be a great way to convert Castlevania or Dead Space into a boardgame? It could be massive.

Dead Space = Space Hulk :)

Ish. Space Hulk doesn't have the 1 vs. 1000 feel. I always think of it more like Aliens.

What about the Doom boardgame?

I've been looking at this with interest ever since I heard about it and will probably pick it up once the budget allows.

Mine arrived yesterday. Hint for the german readers in here: Amazon.de offers it for 50 Euros (free shipping), and it took them only two weeks to deliver, though it was scheduled to arrived next friday earliest.

Back to the game:
I have very very limited PnP RPG experience, and zero D&D background. My main reason for buying it, was that I liked the overall idea of coop play that was presented in the podcast.

I managed to unpack all the stuff, and set up the first solo mission last night. Had to stop playing though after 5 or 6 rounds as it was already getting late. Anyway, I already took a heavy beating by some of the monsters - but I also took out some of them.

Though I still lack real play experience I can already confirm what others have posted: The rulebook is not that much to digest. It took me overall like an hour of reading and sorting stuff for the first adventure. What might help, is to bookmark some of the important parts of the rules, as some important specials are hidden in the text. You will find them eventually, but searching for them is a bit cumbersome.

The sequence you run through on every turn is very stream lined and there's some "cheat sheet" style cards that every player gets, where the steps for your turn are shown for reference. In fact, I believe that I could introduce someone into the game now in like 10-15 minutes tops. It is not very hard to get started.

Since I lack experience in table top area, I cannot really tell if this is a highlight for this genre, but I like that there are really lots and lots of cool figurines. At least a lot more, than your typical board game comes with. Probably somewhere around 30-40 I think. The large dragon obviously being the highlight, but other "villains" also look very cool. Also important to note: The figures are made out of some kind of "soft plastic", which leads me to the assumption that they wont break easily. As some of the details on the figures (like blades) are very filigrane, I think that is a bonus for long-livety.

I will have a session with my wife tonight. I will let you know how it went.

Grimmi Meloni wrote:

I already took a heavy beating by some of the monsters - but I also took out some of them. :-)

This is where the game's staying power comes from. It starts as a gauntlet to survive, and it evolves into a system that you learn to master.

Does anyone have experience with playing Descent? I've been looking at some of these dungeon crawl games, and that one looks pretty neat, but fairly long lasting and complicated. Or I could get one of these D&D games, or Runebound, or Talisman, or just keep my D&D stuff for my every-other-week RPG sessions. Decisions, decisions.

Poppinfresh wrote:

Does anyone have experience with playing Descent? I've been looking at some of these dungeon crawl games, and that one looks pretty neat, but fairly long lasting and complicated. Or I could get one of these D&D games, or Runebound, or Talisman, or just keep my D&D stuff for my every-other-week RPG sessions. Decisions, decisions.

Dreaded Gazebo has been doing some blog entries about this type of game on his excellent blog.

I'll whore it for him.

For my taste, both Talisman and Descent are flawed as dungeon crawler games. Talisman primarily because it is not a dungeon crawler and more an RPG exercise with a lot of dull rolling and Descent because it requires a Dungeon Master character. And if one player is just DMing, why not do it with a more flexible ruleset and roleplaying like in D&D.

Poppinfresh wrote:

Does anyone have experience with playing Descent? I've been looking at some of these dungeon crawl games, and that one looks pretty neat, but fairly long lasting and complicated. Or I could get one of these D&D games, or Runebound, or Talisman, or just keep my D&D stuff for my every-other-week RPG sessions. Decisions, decisions.

Descent is long and complex; it's a serious time investment. With the right group of people it's also lots of fun. If you do go that route I'd highly recommending checking out the Road to Legend or Sea of Blood expansions that add in campaign play. They let you play the game in smaller chunks and address some of the scaling issues I feel the game has (monster strength does not scale well against number of heroes or as heroes get better gear). You also really need five players (four heroes and the overlord) for the game to work well, particularly if you are playing the campaign.

I haven't played Talisman but have played other adventure style games like Runebound, Return of the Heroes and World of Warcraft: The Board Game. They all offer somewhat similar experiences of racing around killing monsters, completing quests and leveling up to try and beat the final big bad guy. My main complaint with the ones I've played is that they generally offer up little in the way of meaningful choices for the players. There's a level of fun to be had from running around the map doing stuff but it's more about the experience than the actual game mechanics. Runebound has a ton of expansions that help make things more interesting but these are certainly not games for everyone.

Unless you are really looking for a hack-and-slash experience without the prep required for D&D I'd just stick with the D&D sessions. Not that these games aren't fun, they just offer up a very different experience. Even with its issues Descent is my favorite of the bunch, it's just really hard to table up due to the time investment and getting a group of guys that want to play it on a regular basis. Castle Ravenloft is the best pick if you want a dungeon crawler without the time requirement.

We played CR last night, a 3 person game against Klack, crazed kobold wizard. It got hairy in some spots, but we won without even using a healing surge.

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