Red Dragon Inn (I &II)

For those who don’t know, Red Dragon Inn II is a recent expansion to the first game, published by Slugfest games. The theme of the game involves adventurers sitting around a tavern after a recent haul telling tales and sharing drink. The expansion itself contains decks for 4 new adventurers, plus a new deck full of drinks and the mats and markers necessary to keep track of who is how weakened and how drunk.

A bit of the mundane: The cards are a very solid cardstock, the mats are thick cardboard and the beads are typical glass beads, nothing special or not too cheap. Basically the components you get are of sufficient quality. The components aren’t where the game really shines, although they aren’t bad.

The gameplay basically consists of each player in turn discarding as many cards as they like, drawing to a full hand of seven, playing one action per turn, and then as many cards as they like that can be played “sometimes” or “anytime.” To play these cards the conditions have to be right. Then you buy a drink for one of your opponents, then drink the top card of your own drink pile. Then it’s the next player’s turn.

The cards you can play can either cause you to injure your opponents, get them drunker, or heal or sober yourself up. Or, what else would there be to do other than your new found wealth than gamble? You can start a round of gambling with the appropriate action. Once a round starts, players take control until one player holds it while the others pass, then that player wins.

A player is eliminated in one of two ways. Either they can’t pay any more gold when required, or they pass out. Players have to pay gold when they play poker, use certain cards, or if the drink deck gets emptied and needs to be shuffled. They pass out when their fortitude and alcohol content pass one another.

The first edition of the game gave us Deidre the Priestess, Fiona the Volatile (fighter), Zot the Wizard (and pooky), and Gerki the Thief. The recent expansion gives us Gog the Half-Ogre, Dimli the Dwarf, Eve the Illusionist, and Fleck the Bard. Each of the first four and each of these new four characters have certain skills they’re good at and others they aren’t so good at. The Dwarf isn’t the greatest gambler. The half-ogre really has no way to heal himself. The illusionist can’t do that either, but she can hurt you. You get the idea.

There is no reason you can’t mix and match the original and the expansion character decks. You could even combine the 2 for an 8 player game, though I feel it bogs down once you get past six players honestly. Plus, if you get too many players in the game, those who don’t excel at gambling are likely to be early casualties and end up waiting while the others continue.

The whole game plays in a maximum of about 45 minutes to an hour. Then you can move on to other games, switch decks and play as a different character, or try again with the ones you’ve played and like.

Ovedall I’d rate the game a solid 8. It’s a lot of fun, is heavily influenced by theme (the quotes on the cards will make you recall your RPG days), and has an incredible amount of replay value. I’ll almost never turn down a game of RDI (I or II), and I’d recommend you check it out if you want a good laugh while you’re having more fun than you might expect.