The sixteen page rulebook is one of two information pamphlets you receive in the box. The introduction lets you know that you are invited for dinner (to be dinner) at Castle Ravenloft. You are the brave or foolish heroes that have arrived in Barovia and have found yourselves in Castle Ravenloft. For those who have never played Dungeons or Dragons before, or may not have encountered the powerful Count Strahd this page helps can understand who and what of the game. It prepares you to expect the traps, events, monsters and villians that you aim to defeat in your adventure.

The first few pages of the manual go over game setup and all of the game components that are inside of the box (which I appreciate to help take a quick inventory to see if anything is missing). The book goes in detail over the turns of the game, what to expect and how to use the dungeon tile stack, how movement works in the game, the three different attack abilities you can choose for your hero, and how combat works. Just like in a real ttrpg game of Dungeons and Dragons players have AC, Hit points, and will have the opportunity to level up their hero. I think that it is great that every piece of the game in explained in great detail in the rule book without being to overwhelming. I also appreciate that there are images to help players understand the explanations that go with them. The book also has some great art work such as the vampire bat on pg 10 and the werewolf on page 15.

Once you pick your hero and adventure the game gets to begin! Game play will vary in time depending on if your party each individually explores corners and engaging in their own personal monsters instead of working together in a group. Some adventures require more tiles than others where sometimes you get lucky on where the bbeg / adventure end tile is closer to the top of your stack. Some people continue to explore for as long as they can. There are also those evenings where your players get wiped out by the monsters and the game has to be started again if you are looking for a victory. The games that DM Bork and I have played have all lasted 30 (we got tpk'd 5 tiles in) to 2 hours (playing it like a ttrpg). There is quite a variety of game scenarios and when playing at your own table you can adjust based on your own gaming interests.

Not all of the pieces, tokens or tiles are used in every game. The manual does very well telling you the objective of each adventure along with the number of heroes, any suggested heroes from the available tiles and any of the special pieces that you will need from the box. Like a D&D adventure module there are pieces pre written for someone to read at the beginning of the adventure and when the objective tile is revealed just like a Dungeon Master would set the scene in a real D&D game. There is also a portion of each page that tells what happens with a victory or a defeat.

There are lots of different treasures in the cards from items to help your character or fortunes to give health back, discarding curse cards or allowing for other cards to be discarded to the benefit of the heroes. This game also has featured traps that may need to be disabled or do additional damage to those around it. There are great classic items such as a wooden stake, that you can use to attack vampires, silver daggers, and encounters such as "Blood Fog," sliding wall traps and bat swarms that you may draw from the various card piles.

Last Thoughts

I am a lover of horror and mystery when it comes to Dungeon and Dragons. This board game is a great way to introduce classic horror monsters and such a legendary setting as Castle Ravenloft. As an owner of two of these D&D Board games I can't type enough of how much I enjoy them. They are engaging, fun, and you never know what you are going to get. The amount of adventures you can play through can offer an entire evenings worth of fun if you want to play Adventure 2-13 with your friends (adventure 1 is solo) and even if you play the same adventure twice it will be vastly different.

Why am I such a big Fan?

One, I love playing horror themed games for Dungeons and Dragons. This game speaks to the spookiness that I absolutely love while still being a hero game. I am a big fan of these boxed D&D types of games because no matter how many times you play the same game/adventure it will always be a new and exciting game experience every time you play. The variety of map tiles, encounter and monster cards makes every play through unique. I also love that it gives me the chance to NOT be the DM for an evening dungeon crawl game. The characters each have their own stat card with the information on it just like a real character sheet. I have played though where we were TPK’d numerous times before the BBEG was revealed, along with successful playthroughs where the heroes won. Just like in D&D success is not guaranteed. This game reminds you how powerful Strahd and the monsters of his castle really are.

Another reason why I really enjoy the D&D boxed games is I reuse the minis and the dungeon tiles into my own campaigns as a way to get more use out of the pieces. Everything is to scale using the traditional 1 inch squares to map things out. Dm Bork, Mr. Meow and I usually bring and use our own D&D dice to keep track of hit points and use our own d20's. The box does come with one d20 for everyone at the table to share.