by: Michael Barnes

Castle Ravenloft was one of my favorite games of 2010, an accessible and fun-to-play dungeoncrawl with a highly editorial, minimalist approach to rules and structure. It was refreshingly free of administration and logistics but it still managed to capture the essential elements of a hack-and-slash Dungeons and Dragons adventure. The follow-up, and the second game in what they’re calling a “cooperative adventure system” is Wrath of Ashardalon and it continues the strengths of its predecessor while making a couple of minor improvements. It’s also a more traditional D&D setting, eschewing the Castlevania-style gothic horror of last year’s model.

If you mistakenly thought Ravenloft was too simplistic, anti-thematic, or lacking in gameplay then you might as well stop reading at this point. Ashardalon runs on the same chassis, has some of the same components, and is systematically the same game. Similarities are such that my review of Ravenloft from last year almost completely meshes with anything I would write about the current game. Although it does feature new monsters, heroes, treasures, and scenarios, I doubt it’s enough to convince the heretics, but believers will appreciate the variety. The games are also mostly compatible so it’s entirely possible to field a party of Ravenloft vets with the newcomers and you can even mix their powers to boot. It should be noted too that both games completely stand alone and do not require the purchase of the other in any way.

Doors add another minor piece of theme and narrative. It may sound trivial, but a locked or trapped door barring a split-up party from reuniting can be a rather dramatic bit of game story. Additional statuses, a full deck of particularly awful encounters, new traps, and monsters that kindly explore the dungeon (thereby adding more monsters) add to the challenge while also increasing the level of detail, if only slightly. I found that the game is actually quite a bit tougher than Ravenloft due to the new adversaries and obstacles, something that experienced players will appreciate.

Scenario design is good, with some fun setups and special provisions for different storylines. There is a small suite of rules and components that support a sort of mini-campaign, but given the two-level scope of character development it isn’t particularly interesting. More significantly, anyone interested in this game as a toolkit to develop their own scenarios and adventures is going to find that this new set expands options in that area exponentially.

One substantial disappointment I have with the game is that its interface with Ravenloft isn’t exactly seamless. There are certain types of cards in one game but not the other and there are instances where mixing the cards can cause issues. In particular, the monster deck’s composition changes drastically so when you’re asked to draw cards until a certain monster type comes up, you may hit the draw limit without ever seeing an aberrant or whatever is requested. Powers between the sets are mostly unique, but the Clerics in particular have some minor redundancies. There is also a minor issue where the Human Ranger from Ravenloft is short one power, as she didn’t rate a racial ability. The human in Ashardalon has one.