Dungeons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft review

Greetings fair readers!

Today I was feeling positive, so I wanted to share a positive review with you. I know, I know, usually I use this blog to vent my negativity, but whatever.

So, as mentioned in a previous post, I got Castle Ravenloft for my birthday this year. A lot of people had great things to say about this game, and it sounded like something I would like so I got it.

The premise of Castle Ravenloft (CR from now on) is that there is an evil vampire named Strahd attacking the village of Barovia, which is conveniently located near his castle. He unleashes annoying magic and terrorizes the villagers by jumping out and scaring them at night, or taking their laundry off of their laundry lines. Basically, he is a menace, but he isn't too much of a menace because if he killed all of the villagers he would have nothing to eat, and wouldn't have a board game to sell to nerds like me.

The players get to choose one of five heroes to venture forth into Strahd's dungeons. Each hero is unique and has special abilities like the Ranger can shoot a bow, the Rogue can disarm traps, the Fighter can... fight, etc. Now usually in these types of games one unlucky player has to play as the dungeon master, and his job is to control the monsters, spring the traps, and move the adventure along. In CR, the game itself controls the monsters so it ends up being a purely cooperative game.

On a player's turn, they can move and fight and explore. The dungeon is made up of individual tiles that the players place as they explore the dungeon. It is really a neat way to do it because it allows the dungeons to be different every time. When a new dungeon tile is placed, the active player (the player who is currently taking their turn) draws a monster card from a deck of cards and places that monster on the board. The monster card tells exactly what the monster does on that player's turn, every time that player takes a turn, until it is killed. For instance, the Gargoyle monster will move up to one tile away to attack a hero, but if there are no heroes in range, he stays still. A Swarm of Rats will attack all heroes on their tile, or move one tile and attack all heroes on their tile, or move one tile towards the closest hero if none are in range. It is quite clever how it works.

Finally, there is some type of objective for the heroes to accomplish to win. If any hero dies and cannot be revived, the heroes lose. It is that simple.

I love this game, and I'm really glad I got it. There is a sequel coming out in February called Wrath of Ashardalon. I am not planning on getting it at this time because I need to get my money's worth from CR.

If you think this game is for you and you have about $40 to drop on it, coolstuffinc.com has it here!

If you are in and around the Fort Wayne, IN area and would like to try out Castle Ravenloft, I'd love to play it with you!