Castle Ravenloft

[Person_Man]

Has anyone (besides Gabe) played the new "basic" D&D game, Castle Ravenloft?

Thoughts?

[Fax Celestis]

I personally feel that Descent seems better for a quick and dirty sort of boardgame play. Matter of opinion, though. I haven't played it, but it looks nice.

[GardenKeeper]

I have, at least the simple 'here is how to play the game' scenario.

Its an even simpler Descent with no Overlord, monsters/events are played via turn and preset actions. The game is fast and seemed balanced, our group rarely got though a full game of Descent, and our OL was brutal, and he would usually win; this removes some of the antagonistic elements as your all working for the same goal. That said, it was still a close thing, and it came down to a suicide run by the wizard to grab the mission token, while the cleric+others nuked the room & guards to win. Had the ranger not made the last roll the game would have ended with the next player, who was about to die.

I thought it was fun as a quick evening one-shot, you dont need to learn anything at all, there is very little setup, and the game was done in 2 hours by people who never played it before.

[LibraryOgre]

We played last weekend, and aim to play again tonight. It's a fun game, and fairly quick to learn.

[Zaydos]

I haven't played it but it sounds exciting and fun.

I've only played Descent once, but I liked it (and we won ) and would like to play it again.

I also remember the old Dragonstrike board game which was D&D the boardgame version but I don't remember much about it other than that we lost some vital rules and stopped playing it and that while fun it was mildly disappointing.

[zaulsiin]

It sounds pretty interesting, but I'm extremely hesitant to spend the $80 CAD that it would cost to get a copy. Is it at all worth the exorbitant price? I have a feeling that I get as much or more enjoyment out of my copy of Game of Thrones (which cost 2/3 the price of this...) as I would out of this.

[Person_Man]

Hmmm, good to hear. I have several gamer friends who haven't played D&D. Hopefully it will be a good intro to them. Although other suggestions are more then welcome.

[Hzurr]

I played it with Mark Hall last weekend, and enjoyed it enough that I'm getting people together to play it again tonight.

It's great for a "hey, I want to play d&d but don't feel like sinking 5 hours into it this evening." The build quality of the board/pieces is fantastic, and each scenario has a very different feel to it (especially some of the later scenarios). There's also that sense, similar to "Shadows over Camelot" that things are getting progressively worse and worse, yet somehow the PCs are just strong enough to make it through.

If you're on the edge, I recommend picking it up. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, and am excited to get to play it again tonight.


--edit-- The main reason for the high $ is the quality of the game pieces. It doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart, and there's a lot of stuff in this game. I think it'd be better priced at $50 US, but I don't regret my purchase.

[Mordokai]

I'm looking out to buy this so I'd use this topic to ask the people that have already played it a question that bothers me. Hope OP won't mind too much and I appologize in advance.

How is with replayability? My biggest fear is that once you're over all the scenarios (I don't know how many of those there are in first place), does game have anything more to offer? Or is it just everything over again and again? Basically, is the game worth playing again once you've played over all the scenarios?

[Dust]

I've played Descent religiously for a year. I've played Ravenloft and enjoyed it a great deal, although it really is just a quick-and-dirty 4e-esque game. But when it comes to enjoyable board games that've come out in the last little while, DungeonQuest wins hands down.

Replayability does seem to be a problem with Ravenloft though, imho.

[Thurbane]

I'm not into 4E, but I am currently running the 3.5 adventure EtCR...I might just grab this game anyhow.

[Hzurr]

I'm looking out to buy this so I'd use this topic to ask the people that have already played it a question that bothers me. Hope OP won't mind too much and I appologize in advance.

How is with replayability? My biggest fear is that once you're over all the scenarios (I don't know how many of those there are in first place), does game have anything more to offer? Or is it just everything over again and again? Basically, is the game worth playing again once you've played over all the scenarios?

Well, including what has been posted online, you have 15 scenarios (13 group, 2 solo), each one taking 60-90 minutes; so that's a pretty good bang for your buck from the start. Every time you play, the layout of the dungeon is different, the monster selection is different, and encounters are different. For each class, there are a variety of different powers, so even playing the same class multiple times in a row can have a different feel.

So...yes, a lot of replayability. The randomness makes the game very dynamic.

-----

Quick play report from last night: Adventures 4 & 5

Adventure 4: Go into the castle, get 12 things of treasure, and get out. Once the sun sets (after 6 tiles are placed), everyone draws +1 encounter card. - FAILED - 4 players (no rogue)
- This was brutal. We had a horrible string of luck, and out of the first 14 treasure cards we got, 8 of them were instant use that we had to discard (so they didn't count towards our total). Once the sun sets, and we were getting 2 encounter cards most turns, things went from bad to worse (at one point I think we had 4 traps going off randomly throughout the dungeon). All said and done, I think we killed around 16 monsters before someone finally died.

Adventure 5: Escort Kraven through the castle until you find the Dark Fountain (between tiles 9-13). If a monster is on his square at the start of the villain phase, or if he's alone on a tile, he turns into the young vampire and tries to kill us. Once the Dark Fountain is found, everyone draws a monster card at the end of the heroic phase. - Success! - 4 players (no wizard)
- This one was tough, but went well. There were a ton of monsters, but with some clever tactics we made it through. The worst mistake was that we had split up and were exploring at opposite ends of the dungeon (we initially split off to keep monsters away from Kraven), and we ended up turning over the Dark Fountain at the opposite end of the map from where Kraven was; we we had about half a dozen or so rounds of monsters appearing every round before Kraven even got to the fountain. Luckily, some well-placed daily powers and a Cleric with a Holy Avenger made the difference, and we got out, barely.

[Thurbane]

Hmm, checked out my FLGS, and while it looks nice, it's nearly $100 AUD - a little too much for a boardgame for me. I might reconsider if they have a sale, or if it drops down in price...

[Dusk Eclipse]

I played it a few weeks ago, and I really enojyed it, though even after we found the emblem, one of my party mate insisted on killing all the monsters and we almost got TPK after finnishing the game.

For anyone who is a bit leery about buying it, remember you can use the tiles of the game for normal D&D

[Kislath]

All I wanna know is... why haven't they made a Ravenloft movie yet?

[Project_Mayhem]

Because it would be Dracula. Basically.

[Reis Tahlen]

Because it would be Dracula. Basically.

Yes, except it would be a Dracula movie where Dracula wins at the end.

[Hzurr]

All I wanna know is... why haven't they made a Ravenloft movie yet?

Because Hollywood would be hard-pressed at the moment to make a vampire movie where the vampire wasn't a brooding, angsty, but "OMG SO BEAUTIFUL!!!11! AND ROMANTIC!!!!11!"


Also, I got a chance to play a few more of the encounters. It's...pretty tough, but we had a blast.

[LibraryOgre]

Because Hollywood would be hard-pressed at the moment to make a vampire movie where the vampire wasn't a brooding, angsty, but "OMG SO BEAUTIFUL!!!11! AND ROMANTIC!!!!11!"


Also, I got a chance to play a few more of the encounters. It's...pretty tough, but we had a blast.

By "blast" he means "similar in effect to being adjacent to a firing shotgun"... such a thing isn't necessarily fatal, but oooh boy will it mess you up.

[Diarmuid]

So I know I can get this from Amazon, but are there any stores that actually carry this type of thing? BestBuy, Target, Walmart, etc, or will I need to go to a gaming/hobby store for something like this?

[Hzurr]

You might, might be able to find it at a Barnes & Nobles or Borders (some of them stock lots of boardgames), but your odds are slim. Target, Walmart or Bestbuy are a snowball's chance in hell.

[Diarmuid]

Tried every hobby/gaming/book store I could think of in my area and no one has thing in stock.....bleh.

Anyone who has it, how does it stack up with the Warcraft board game?

[Person_Man]

Gaming store. Although if you're willing to accept a used version of the game you could probably get it off Amazon or E-Bay for dirt cheap.

[Fax Celestis]

Friend of mine played it. He said that he'd prefer to just use our typical quick-play IBG (Instance-Based Gaming) rules.

[Diarmuid]

Gaming store. Although if you're willing to accept a used version of the game you could probably get it off Amazon or E-Bay for dirt cheap.

I can definitely get it online somewhere I just happened to have my gaming session cancelled tonight due to DM illness and the rest of the players and I were looking for something we could do tonight, this seemed like a neat new option.