Flashback Friday - DungeonQuest - Love it or Hate It? Do You Still Play It?

Definitely Dungeon! for a 4 year old. DQ gets more into 7-8 year old range. My little girl was playing Dungeon around 5.

I'm fine with luck in games, but games that really have no meaningful decisions or ways to play smart and mitigate some bad luck have no place in our group. If the game plays itself why not just watch a good movie instead?

RabidWookie wrote: I'm fine with luck in games, but games that really have no meaningful decisions or ways to play smart and mitigate some bad luck have no place in our group. If the game plays itself why not just watch a good movie instead?

Because a movie is predictable, whereas Dungeonquest has a new and thrilling plot every time you play.

I do have some sympathy with the idea it would work better as a video game. But part of charm of DQ is the glee of watching to see what horrible ways everyone else ends up dying. And, on rare occasion, cheering when a wild swing of luck lets them get out alive with some treasure.

I remember one game when I had. in fact, got out alive with a small haul while my daughter had been trapped near the center by a revolving room. She was determined to go fishing in the dragon's lair before the timer ran out. She got there on the first possible end turn, the game didn't end, she didn't wake the dragon and drew the Forbidden Tome which gives you a 1/36 chance of teleporting out if you risk another turn in the chamber. Sensing fate was with her she chanced another turn, rolled for game end and got away with it, didn't wake the dragon and then rolled two sixes to get two free treasures and escape.

Every roll, every draw of that sequence was a rollercoaster thrill-ride in itself and I can still remember it clearly years after it happened. It's still the highest treasure haul we've got on our scroll. There simply is no other game which can deliver that kind of experience.

HiveGod wrote: The DQ Combat Die — The quick fix that bumps the game to a 10 for me.

Get an original FFG version and do this and you are now playing with power.

There is a neat thing about this game, shared with few others. It's almost a coop, in the sense that it's SO lethal, all the players cheer when someone actually does it. You want someone, anyone, to triumph over this meat grinder.

Rambling response coming up ...

First of all: the GW version with the funny shaped cards is not the original. The original is the Swedish Drakborgen (Drageborgen in Danish) which translates to Dragon's Castle. I believe it's pretty much the same as the GW edition, but in this you fight mountain trolls, black elfs, skeletons and monsters. Yes, they're called monsters. And holy shit I just realized there's an expansion available in Swedish which is mostly likely compatible with my Danish edition.

Anyways, we played this a lot when I was a kid, and I've since played both the real original and the FFG edition with my kids. The 6-year-old loves it and we've been playing it for at least a couple of years. It always delivers. We played it again just today, and while his viking twice in a row encountered the dragon, I managed to slip in, get the giant ruby and even made it out with a few turns to spare. Based on this thread I had luckily just suggested to add a hall of fame list, and with 5200 gold pieces I'll be hard to beat.

There is not much game in it, and in some ways I like the new combat system from the FFG version. It's pretty solid, and it's not something FFG pasted on - the edition was made in collaboration with the original designer. If I played with gamers and not with kids, I think I would add it. And the new hero abilities are also pretty neat.

As has been mentioned the original combat system has one important thing making it more than RPS. One hero card in each pile deals two damage which gives the heroes an important edge. We usually just draw randomly, but if you choose your own card, that extra point of damage can make it more of a brain burner.

Finally I just want to mention a game of the FFG version I played years ago with a friend. I managed to die early on, started a new character and then died once more in combat against a demon. My opponent on the other hand made it into the centre, walked to a tower and literally on the very last space before exiting drew a swinging blade and promptly died. It. Was. Awesome.

There are a lot of people posting here about how their kids really love it. If so, that's great. But don't expect me to turn cartwheels over the fact that it's a great kid's game. I don't have kids. I'm not particularly interested in playing kids' games, so that argument doesn't hold a lot of water for me. As mads notes "There is not much game in it" and if people have to house rule an essential aspect of the game (i.e. you can die at any moment) by essentially obviating it by letting people start over when they die... then, yeah, it's still not very good, IMO.

People talk about how it creates stories, which is the same argument I used for an old RPGer friend of mine who didn't want to play Talisman many years ago. He soon became a diehard fan because adventure games like Talisman do create stories by creating lengthy games where a lot of things happen. Sometimes stories come out of just a few turns of action, too, and DQ is suited for that. But playing the actual game by the actual rules also means that it's frequently a poor experience for people and that's just not my thing.

I played with the GF and one of the spawnlings today.

As usual, it's super swingy in the entertainment department. Today was the time for wanting to flip the table, instead of enjoyable as we were all punished more than usual. None of us were very happy by the end of it.

It happens.

Oh, I absolutely love the memory of it--although of course my copy of the original still graces some shelving or a tub somewhere unseen in this house. I believe I stopped playing it at roughly the same time my wife decided she never wanted to play it again. That might have been between play 1 and play 2.