Ravenloft delayed to August 31

[MerricB]

For those that played - is it the kind of game you'd like to play again and again or is it the type that once you've played it, the mystery is gone?

Well, there are quite a few scenarios (and more posted on the Wizards website). And those scenarios aren't "mystery" ones at all.

Given Erik Mona's reaction to the game... I'd say it has tremendous replayability.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

According to the instructions, leveling is as easy as rolling a 20, among other things. I expect that there will be opportunity to advance beyond 2nd level, but we'll be limited by the rules. A play time of 1 hour is also pretty short for this kind of game, but I wonder if that isn't underestimated to attract people..

To level up, you need to roll a natural 20 and spend 5 XP worth of monsters from the group pile. (There is also a "Level Up" treasure card).

XP can also be spent to cancel Encounter cards.

Based on the free adventures...

Zombie Guards of Castle Ravenloft... you need to explore 9-12 tiles before you find the staircase out. Then everyone needs to escape by it to win.

Search for the Sunsword... You need to explore 9-12 tiles to find the crypt, then get back to the starting square. Oh, and when someone spends a healing surge, the Young Bad turns up.

Neither of those seem like they'd take too long to play. (Search seems pretty interesting: do you split up, or do you stay together?)

Cheers!

 

[malraux]

Well, keep in mind that if you have too much levelling possible, that makes it a lot harder to balance the difficulty of the game. A group that levels fast overwhelms things; if you adjust enemies to compensate, a group with a few bad rolls will get wiped out. Plus, more to keep track of, as you need extra character cards, etc.

Having one bonus level seems a good approach - it retains the thrill of going up in level, without them needing to overhaul the entire game to adapt to it.

A couple of other reasons to keep it to 2 levels. First, since paper is 2 sided, its really convenient to level by flipping the paper over. Adding an extra card for each character increases stuff to track. In addition, for just a single level, the power cards don't need to be adjusted; with multiple levels, you'd want the attacks to increase in efficacy. Then you end up with either more card or more confusing cards.

Leveling xp is a shared resource; if you have multiple levels, then you'll have someone leveling to 3rd level and ending up stealing the XP from a 1st level character. That's not a good dynamic for a co-op game.