Finally played Wrath of Ashardalon and...

...very simply, it sucked.

So I've had Wrath of Ashardalon for a few years and never played it. My daughters and I had played and enjoyed Dungeon maybe a dozen times over the last couple years, and I wanted to up our game, possibly in preparation for eventually transitioning to D&D. I thought Wrath might be a good step up. But we were all underwhelmed...it was just...boring. Game play was monotonous, the monsters were mostly the same; there was really no story except as background dressing. Combat was repetitive, and we barely even used the magic items. Even when Ashardalon randomly showed up and my girls got excited, we were surprised at how easy he was to vanquish.

I was hoping that Wrath would be a good middle ground between Dungeon and D&D, that it would give inklings of what is to come. But what I found is that it took a lot of the worst elements of D&D without any of the good stuff - the lore, the story, the exploring imaginary environments.

On one hand it was disappointing. On the other it nudges me towards finally getting them started on D&D. I'll be headed off to Target later to pick up the Essentials Kit...

I hear you. A friend bought the Temple of Elemental Evil board game. We have played six or seven games of it; it's boring, simple, and repetitive.

I have (and have played) ToEE, Legend of Drizzt and Tomb of Annihilation, and I've enjoyed them. Of course they can't be compared to RPGs, but then they're completely different games. Play them for what they are: quick, relatively easy board games without much depth.

That said, I probably prefer other dungeon crawlers such as Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Conan, Star Saga and Doom.