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Hart, harder, dead!
DungeonQuest
Only pertinent for very courageous heroes!
Be warned in advance! You only may go on reading if you are one of the most gallant warriors, on of the most courageous amazons or one of the most gifted mages. If you enter the Dragonfire Dungeon you must be prepared not to come out again. Ah, bah! If you are in the Dragonfire Dungeon, you will most probably die there. And probably really, really fast. Maybe even already on the first tile that has been laid out. Kaboom and there you are! Dead! But let‘s start slowly and at the beginning.
DungeonQuest was first published in 1985 under the title of Drakborgen in Sweden. A few months later it came out in Denmark and Norway. In 1987 a very pretty version was published for the English-speaking market by Games Workshop and in 1990 a less pretty version was done by Schmidt Spiele under the title of Drachenhort in German. In the meantime, a good 20 years later, Fantasy Flight Games has taken this classic game that was one of the cofounders and cornerstones of the genre of dungeon crawl games, has completely overhauled its graphics and design, revised the contents and has republished the game. And, as it were, on the go, they have transferred the stage to the Fantasy Universe of Terrinoth, where the games Runebound, Runewars and Descent from the same publisher take place, too. Advantage for the publisher: A successful topic and therefore reuseable illustrations. Advantage for the players: Fantasy Flight Games has been so kind as to pack the necessary additional component into the box so that you can use the characters featured in DungeonQuest also in the other Terrinoth-Games. Of course, some really evil-minded person could now say that DungeonQuest is the most expensive character expansion of all times. It is strongly recommended not to do so, because otherwise you could incur the penalty of a forced holiday in the Dragonfire Dungeon.
The game itself is surprisingly and likeably simple, despite the copious rules that are typical for the publisher and let you suppose the contrary. You draw a tile or a card – implement the instructions – that’s it! One could conceive of the idea that we play a kind of underground Talisman. That is, a kind of game in which simple rules combined with coherent components and harmonious texts result in a very lively game on the table; a game where you are concerned less with the mechanics and mechanisms but with enacting a story. And that is true for this game too, as long as we play along. If our hero sticks his spoon into the wall too early, we as his players are damned to watch and maybe now and then play a card for a monster in combat. As an alternative we could use a rule variant and could revive our hero. But somehow we are in the middle of the game, again, so back again to square 1:
We start in one of the four corners of the board comprising 10 x 13 squares. Those corners are the entrance gates into the dungeon, belonging to a Dragon by the name of Kallandra. And as befits a big and fire-spouting aurian, the middle of the board features a big and well-filled treasure vault covering two squares. This treasure vault we want to reach at any cost, because we are lured there by gold, jewels and magical potions. By the way, the dragon is still asleep. Always supposing that we managed to reach the treasure vaults alive, have grabbed enough and gotten out again without damage and without waking the dragon we should hurry to get back. Only if we manage to reach one of the exits (formerly entrances) alive before dusk is falling we have survived the game! The winner will be who has secured the most valuable booty. In many of the games that won’t be anybody, the chance to survive is rumored to be somewhere in the 20% range and that is at least higher than in the first edition of the game. That should put us at ease!
Whoever among us has enough courage and on top of that is the active player, too, can choose one of two possibilities: You can either search the square where we are at the moment by looking at a SEARCH card or you can move to an adjacent square. If we do that, we draw a dungeon tile, place it next to the square we stand on, move our hero to the new tile and implement the instruction on the tile. And here a huge amount of diversification comes into play: There are – well-fitted to the topic – tiles with cobwebs, tiles with falling grids, tiles with revolving rooms, tiles with crumbled walls, tiles with deep caverns, tiles with traps and so on and so on. Besides rolling dice for several attributes using a six-sided die we must draw a card after entering the room. And there are lots of these cards. We have already encountered the SEARCH card. Furthermore, there are cards for dungeons, cards for dragons, cards for treasures, cards for traps, for doors, for graves, for bones and for catacombs as well as so called power and combat cards for use in combat. On the cards themselves you can find items (Gold), monsters (combat), attribute tests (nasty) or traps (nasty to deadly), an order to draw a card or nothing. If you have lost track now, it doesn’t matter, basically, as stated above, you place a new tile, implement its instructions, maybe draw a card and follow the card instructions.
Unless there is combat: in this case the game drastically and unexpectedly changes its rhythm. Fantasy Flight Games has thrown out the combat system of the original and replaced it with a cute card-combat mechanism. We can counter-attack and use deadly shoves, or one of our special abilities can turn around the combat the we already have lust! The decision on win or lose is not decided by our abilities, but by the amount of luck that comes to our assistance when drawing a card. This is a pity, because especially when playing a 3- or 4-player game the combat system takes out a lot of momentum from the rather amusing dungeon explorations. Meanwhile, Fantasy Flight Games has recognized this as well, and is offering two new and one old version for download from the website.
Should we have reached Kallandras vault despite all the opposition we met then we may draw treasure cards in each turn, but should take care not to be too greedy. First, because the probability of Kallandra waking up gets stronger with each draw (yes, correct, you might draw a dragon card) and might be rather grumpy. And second, because we should try to get out of the dungeon on time.
DungeonQuest doesn’t make it easy for us. If you are unlucky you draw a trap on the first tile which kills you when you do a bad roll. If you are unlucky you encounter a monster and have bad cards in combat. If you are unlucky you wake up Kallandra immediately and loose life points continuously. If you are unlucky you do not manage to light your torch. If you are unlucky you die because you do not find a secret door and remain locked in. And this exactly is the appeal of the game. If we know what expects us it is rather fun to challenge chance! You curse, you laugh. One man’s bad luck is another man’s good luck. If one of us, heavily laden with gold and jewels, springs a deadly trap shortly before the exit this might cause the other players to smile. In DungeonQuest threats and failure are the main principles and the core of the game.
DungeonQuest could have been a rather nice and entertaining dungeon crawl. If you do not mind house rules you can defuse the game. Maybe traps that are deadly according to their text could only be half-deadly, maybe dead adventures could be resurrected for a penalty of 500 gold. Maybe you need not fight a monster to the bitter end, but can turn heels after one round. Maybe the attributes of the heroes could be a little bit higher as not to incur such frequent failures in the dice-tests.
But maybe then it would be a game among many. In its normal guise it is a cruelly malicious experience in the right group of players.
Klemens Franz
Spieler: 1-4
Alter : ages 13 and up
Dauer : ca. 30 min
Autor : Jakob Bonds
Grafik : Team
Titel : Ident
Preis : ca. 50,00 Euro
Verlag : Fantasy Flight /Heidelberger
Genre : Dungeon Crawl with card combat
Zielgruppe : With friends
Mechanismen : move, roll dice, fight
Kommentar:
Excellent components and art
Very high chance element
Early demise from the game is possible
House rules are recommended
Bonus components for other games
Rules for solo play
Vergleichbar mit:
Drakon, Hero Quest, Descent
Meine Bewertung: 4
Klemens Franz:
DungeonQuest is charming, because it totally encompasses chance and catches the unpredictability of dark dungeons very well. Using the original rules can only be recommended to hardened, frustration-proof gamers.
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