The Red Dragon Inn
Game Design: Geoff Bottone, Colleen Skadl, and Cliff Bohm
Published by: SlugFest Games, Inc.
Online Play: Vassal mod downloadable at www.talesofptolus.com

The Red Dragon Inn is a light-hearted card game for 2-4 players. It contains material that may be considered objectionable for kids. That is, it involves drinking alcohol, getting drunk, passing out, gambling and cheating. It is all done in a 'fun' manner and is not realistic, so some parents might not mind the theme.

The game takes place at the Red Dragon Inn, and consists of a group of adventurers loaded with gold from some local dungeon who simply want to drink, gamble, and basically get all the gold for themselves.

I purchased this game myself and while there are no current expansions, the text on several cards indicates that expansions may be in the cards (sorry...bad pun).

Components:

The game contains 5 decks of cards. The cards are done on a good card stock and have proven to be rather durable after several games of continuous handling/shuffling. At first, I thought the cards seemed flimsy, but after play I've changed my mind and they seem fine for the job.

Four of the decks are 'character' decks. Each deck represents 1 of the 4 available characters. The characters are as follows:

Fiona: A fighter/warrior.
Deirdre: A priestess.
Gerki: A thief/rogue.
Zot (and Pooky): A wizard and his insane familiar.

Each deck is different from the others and each has its own flavor. Gerki, for example, is really good at gambling and cheating. Deirdre is good at healing and is generally harder to hurt than the other characters.

The cards are illustrated in full color and are delightful. The art is done in a cartoonish/humorous fashion and really helps set the tone for the game. I have yet to play this with roleplayers where they didn't simply love the artwork and style of the cards.

Player cards are labeled in small text under the card name as either an Action, Sometimes, Anytime, Gambling, or Cheating card.

Action cards are cards that affect other players.
Sometimes cards can be played 'Sometimes'. Basically, they can be played when the context of the card is relevant. For example, if you have a sometimes card that allows you to ignore the effects of a drink, you can play that whenever you have to draw a drink card. Some of these can be played during other player's turns.
Anytime cards can be played anytime, even during other's turns.
Gambling cards all deal with gambling and come in three flavors, Start a Round of Gambling, I raise!, and Winning Hand.
Cheating cards come into play during a Round of Gambling and allow a player to take control of a round of gambling (be in the lead).

The 5th deck is a 'Drink' deck that contains several different drinks ranging from coffee (to sober you up) to Dragon's Breath Ale (which can get you drunk fast!). There are also Drink Event cards in this deck which start things like Drinking Contests and the like.

Also included in the box are 4 player mats that have places for each player's decks and their drink cards (referred to at their 'Drink Me!' pile). There is also a track from 0 to 20 and two glass counters which represent Fortitude and Alcohol Content.

There is also a pile of nice cardboard 'gold pieces' a bit smaller than poker chips. They are very attractive and the next best thing to actual poker chips I've seen in a game.

Gameplay:

The object of the game is to be the last person standing with all the gold. Basically, if you run out of gold or if your Fortitude and Alcohol Content markers are ever at the same level, you are out of the game. Last one in is the winner.

At the start of the game, each player sets their Fortitude to 20, and their alcohol content to 0. They shuffle their deck and draw 7 cards and place their deck in front of them. They also draw 1 drink card and place it on their 'Drink Me!' pile. Each player then has a turn in which they can do the following:

Discard and Draw
Action
Buy Drinks
Drink

The steps of each turn are conveniently written on each player's mat, so searching in the rules should be kept to a minimum.

Discard and Draw: The player may discard any number of cards from their hand and redraw cards into their hand until their hand contains 7 cards. No cards can be played until all 7 cards are in your hand. In playing with non-gamers, I've found this step to be the most confusing. No one is quite sure why or what they should discard. Once people started to gather the strategy, this became less of an issue.

Action: The player may play 1 Action card. This step is completely optional. This is where a Round of Gambling can begin.

Buy Drinks: The player draws the top card from the Drink deck and places it on another player's Drink Me! pile. This is all done without the player or the card recipient looking at the card.

Drink: The player draws the top card from their Drink Me! pile and follows the card text. Besides drinks there can be drink events (Drinks on the House!, Drinking contest!, etc.) and also drinks with chasers. If you draw a drink with a chaser, you must draw the next card in your Drink Me! pile and take the effects of that card is well. If that card has a chaser, you keep drawing and so-on and so-on.

Play then passes onto the next player.

Gambling: Gambling in this game is simple, yet fun. Basically there are 3 types of gambling cards: Start a Round of Gambling, I raise!, and Winning Hand. There are also several cheating cards that each player has in their decks. Basically, when you play a gambling card you take control of a round of gambling, which means you are in the lead. A round is started when someone plays a 'Start a Round of Gambling' card and all players must ante. That player has control of the round of gambling. The next player can play a Start a Round of Gambling I raise!, or Winning Hand, all of which allow a player to take control of a round of gambling. Winning Hand cards can only be beaten by another Winning Hand card. This continues until everyone passes in which case the person who has control of the round wins all the gold in the pot.

But wait...there are gambling cards...Oh yeah. These beat ALL other gambling and cheating cards. Fortunately all the gambling cards beat all cheating cards.

This continues until everyone passes.

There are also other cards in the player hands that allow you to ante with gold from the Inn instead of your own gold, cards to accuse a cheater, cards to leave the round of gambling, etc.

While this sounds confusing, once it is in play it is really rather simple and intuitive.

Conclusion:

I've had the pleasure to play this game several times, a couple with only 2 players and a few with 4 players. I must admit that as a 2-player game this game is lacking. While not a bad game, by any means, it pales in comparison to a 4-player game. The 4-player game gets very cutthroat and is really, really fun.

If you have any roleplayers in your gaming group, get this on the table! There are in-jokes for RPGers and the art and text are humorous enough to get them interested in the game, and the gameplay will keep them involved.

I did have a chance to play this once with a non-gamer and the experience was not as pleasant. They were confused and disheartened, and eventually were eliminated from the game which didn't sit well with them either. This is not a flaw of the game, but something to be aware of when you pull this off your shelf.

Overall, this is a fun game as a light filler. Games are fast and go great between bigger, deeper games. My group likes to play this while I set up our next Descent dungeon, for example.

As I stated earlier, several cards seem to refer to characters that don't currently exist in the game, leading you to think that maybe expansions with new characters may be introduced. If so, I think that would be wonderful...I think an 8-player version of this would be great.

My score: 8/10

Dave