It’s really no secret to those who know me or at least follow us on twitter that I’ve fallen pretty hard back into tabletop Dungeons and Dragons in the past year. Since then my senses have definitely been tuned to pick up any and all news of impending DnD product releases. So it was of no surprise when I got myself all excited the Castle Ravenloft board game was announced. It’s kinda/sorta based on the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition rules, but stripped down to the basics and runs without the need of a dungeon master.

If you’re a tabletop Dungeon Master then the idea of a DM-less game is at the minimum an interesting one. Sitting on different sides of the screen, spending time preparing the adventure, knowing for the most part what’s going to happen, playing the part of spoil, etc. feels a bit strange sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love DM’ing and plan to do it for a long time (players willing), but it’s nice to all play a game together against the game system itself. And in that Castle Raveloft provides the perfect backdrop to get your fix on.

Castle Ravenloft is one of those board games without a board. Rather, there is a stack of dungeon tiles that are flipped over and joined at random to build the play area while your characters explore the crypts underneath the castle. This is an excellent mechanic because tactics need to change from game to game and just because you’ve played a certain way before doesn’t mean that tactic will work again. It serves to keep the game fresh, and it works well. It also gives you a good feeling of adventure, wondering what horrors or treasure (but mostly horrors) the next tile holds.

The other random component is the objective of the game, which is selected at the beginning out of an adventure book. This can be chosen at random or just thumbing through and picking one you like. Each one has a different storyline (recover a relic, kill the dragolich, find Count Strahd or destroy X monsters before the sun sets. Most of them require a bit of setup since they incorporate unique items from the box like special tiles or items added to the treasure decks and that’s all handled up front. So for instance it may tell you to put a special tile 8-11 tiles down into the stack at random. While playing when that tile is flipped up it triggers an event of some kind.

There are 5 different characters to choose from of different races and classes, and different powers you can choose to arm your character with. So for instance if I choose the cleric I can pick which spells I take into the dungeon with me. These are separated into At-Wills, Encounters, Utilities and Dailies similar to regular 4e Dungeons and Dragons.

So you and fellow adventurers will brave the depths of Count Strahd’s castle dungeons trying to find success at your chosen task. Sadly, there seem to be monsters hell bent on not letting that happen at every turn. For every tile added to the map another monster appears (sometimes even more than one!). The person that added the tile and monster is also the one that controls it, so it will “activate” during their turn. Each monster has a card that comes with it that lists HP, AC and tactics so there’s little question on how they’re supposed to move.

Here’s the interesting part though and why you need to be extra careful and work together. Say player 1 draws a spider monster on their turn, placing the miniature on the map and the card in front of them. Player 2 draws a skeleton and does the same. Player 3 then draws another spider. When it gets to player 1 again and it’s his turn to move his spider he instead moves BOTH of them. That’s right, if there is more than one identical monster on the board they all get activated together. So both spiders will move on player 1 and player 3′s turn. It’s easy to see how you can get quickly overrun if you’re not careful.

The night we played we tried out a few different adventures and each felt different enough to be interesting but all based on the same ruleset to minimize confusion. I could tell that having the different adventures would go a long way towards keeping the game fresh and interesting, and I really look forward to playing as often as I can. Even if we get bored of those adventure there are already a bunch more online you can download, both official and fan made!

If I were introducing people who’ve never ever played an RPG before to the world of Dungeons and Dragons I might seriously consider playing Castle Ravenloft first. It’s a good introduction to the core basics of combat in 4e DnD but keeps it light. I also think it’s a great fit for nights where your DnD group wants to play something but the DM isn’t prepared or doesn’t feel like running anything. Complete thumbs up.