I sometimes start posts on my own games with a bias alert that I'm the publisher, designer, what-have-you. In this case, the potential bias is that I like Slugfest games and particularly may main contact there, Cliff. I like their enjoyment of games, I like how they demo at cons and I want them to do well. Thus, I was thrilled to find out at KublaCon that the first 5,000-copy run of Red Dragon Inn had already sold out and that sales were running strong enough to justify not only a sequel but a reprint of the original.

Plus, Cliff gave me my own copy before I managed to buy one.

I've now played four games of Red Dragon Inn, which is probably enough to write a review but certainly not enough to claim that I'm an expert. My first game was actually with the prototype/mockup of Red Dragon Inn 2, but since that is basically the same game with four new characters it shouldn't matter.

Overview

Red Dragon Inn asks, "What happens after the adventuring party returns from the dungeon crawl?" The answer is, they drink, gamble and make mischief for each other until all but one adventurer has either gone broke or passed out drunk. The action is card-driven, with a Drinks deck simulating the various drinks that players quaff over the evening and player decks which represent what each player can do.

Red Dragon Inn sets an ambitious goal -- a game that can be quickly explained and begun in a matter of minutes (the entire rules are contained on two sides of a single sheet of paper) but that still has a lot of play. I think they've succeeded admirably.

Core Mechanics

Each player has a personal deck that represents what they can do. At the start of your turn you will discard any cards you wish and then draw until you have seven. (Since you will often play cards during other players' turns you will usually draw more cards than you discard.) Then you may play one Action card, which might initiate a round of gambling, hurt another player, help yourself or some mix of the above.

There are two ways you can be eliminated from the game: passing out drunk or going broke. We'll talk about going broke later; let's start with passing out drunk. Each player starts healthy (20 vitality) and sober (0 alcohol content). Drinks and player activities will gradually cause your alcohol content to rise and your vitality to fall; if they ever meet (or cross), you pass out in your chair and are eliminated from the game.

After playing an Action (if you choose to), you must buy another player a drink by dealing them the top card of the drinks deck face down. This doesn't actually cost you gold -- it's more like giving someone a drink from the big stash of drinks the party has already bought. (When the drinks deck is emptied everyone has to pay one gold to the Inn to restock it.) Then you take a drink, by turning up the top drinks card in your own pile and receiving its effects.

Most drinks simply add 1-4 to your alcohol content. Some damage your health (or damage your health and increase your alcohol content). A few are beneficial (e.g. holy water) or harmless. Some are chasers which require you to add your next drink card to your first (and treat it as a single drink) and some are events which may cause everyone to drink.

Each player has ways to avoid bad drinks, represented by cards. A warrior might decide that a particular drink is "just the thing" with which to clean her sword. The generous cleric might give her drink to another player. The wizard might find (to his dismay, no doubt) that his familiar drank his drink for him. Gradually, however, alcohol content will tend to rise.

While most players spend the game on an inevitable path towards drunkenness, money is a bit different. It can get drained away, whether by cards like "tip the wench" or the need to replenish the drinks deck, but the biggest way gold gets moved around is by gambling.

A round of gambling is started whenever a player chooses to play a "Gambling? I'm in!" card as his or her action. Each player must ante one gold and the player who started the round is currently winning. Play then moves clockwise, with each player in turn either passing or playing a card that beats the current "winning" card.

The gambling cards are as follows:
Gambling? I'm in! can start a round and beats any currently winning card other than "winning hand".
I Raise! makes everyone ante up another gold and beats any currently winning card other than "winning hand".
Winning Hand beats anything other than Winning Hand.
Cheating cards that beat anything.

A key concept here is that gambling cards aren't in a ranking -- they simply have the ability to beat other cards that are currently winning. Your "I'll Raise" beats my cheating card but my cheating card also beats your "I'll Raise". It's last-in-wins except that Winning Hand can only be beaten by cheating cards.

Other Cards

Cards are broken down into Actions (the one-on-your-turn plays), Sometimes (can be played at specific points of the game, often in response to another player's action) and Anytime (plus Gambling). This creates a simplified collectible-card-game feel to some of the play, with lots of interaction and surprise potential but without the massive complexity of a real CCG. As an overview:

Action cards, besides "Gambling? I'm in!" range from "take that" effects that deal damage to another player to theft, to forced extra drinking.

Sometimes cards are all over the place. Each player has some cards that damage someone who has just damaged them (making the take-that cards quite double-edged) as well as cards that let them dodge various bad things (drinks, having to pay money, taking damage). Each player has (at least) one copy of "I don't think so!" which can counter other people's Sometimes and Anytimes cards.

Anytime cards are relatively rare and tend to be minor in effect. "Tip the Wench" makes a player of your choice lose one gold, for example.

From a flavor perspective, one of the best things Slugfest Games has done with Red Dragon Inn is to give identical cards very different feeling based on their names. Instead of just, "Sit out a round of gambling and don't ante," you have a meditating wizard, a warrior who needs to polish her armor or a priestess who is too busy teaching her religion to some interested passers-by to gamble. A significant chunk of the decks are made up of common cards and finding out the flavor-spin varieties is a fun sub-game in and of itself.

Gameplay and strategy

For a game that looks like a massive "take that" slugfest (i.e. a festive event featuring lots of slugs), Red Dragon Inn actually has quite a bit of strategy for the serious gamer. A quick overview:

Play cards aggressively or hold key cards back? Every card you play is "free" in the sense that you'll replace it when you draw for your turn. That means if you draw "I don't think so!" in your opening hand you have to decide whether to thwart the first thing you don't like or else hold on for a better moment to play it.

Player strengths and weaknesses Each player is better than average at some things and worse at others. Fiona the Volatile, for example, is good at dishing out damage and keeping her vitality up but not so good at keeping her alcohol content down. The thief is very good with money; the Priestess is quite bad.

There are (at least) two facets to playing your strengths and weaknesses. The first is that equal cards are not actually equal. Your thief will often have the edge when gambling and is very unlikely to lose by going broke, so cards that protect your gold (e.g. from having to ante or tip the Wench) are relatively unimportant for him. A certain charming cleric, meanwhile, needs to treat those cards with respect.

Another thing is deciding how you're going to deal with your weaknesses. Darwin and I each (in different games, of course) had to form a strategy for gambling when playing the priestess. His approach was to hold on to his gambling cards (including losing a round or two rather than even trying to win) until he'd built up enough to win a round. My approach was quite the opposite -- every turn I would discard any gambling cards I'd drawn in order to find other useful cards, in particular cards that would either let me sit out a round or else pay my ante with something other than my own gold. (Given that the Priestess literally cannot ever beat a single Winning Hand card, I like my strategy better.)

You also have to think about how you're going to play against your opponents. It can make sense, for example, always to buy a drink for anyone whose 'drink me' pile is empty...but is it? Just as "Tip the Wench" isn't going to hurt the thief as much as it will the priestess, you're more likely to take the priestess out by draining her cash. If she's completely healthy and sober when she goes broke, who cares? You might do better to focus your attention on the thief. Bashing Fiona isn't going to do much either...but buying her some extra drinks might!

Of course, with any game full of "take that" there is the option to turn it into a massive diplomacy-fest, full of tit-for-tat, deal-making and other nonsense. I say nonsense because there are other games for that sort of thing (Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court, if I may be so bold). This is a drinking game, or at least a simulation of one. You don't use the dragon's gold to buy a plow so you can become a farmer even if your last trip to the town showed that food prices were way up, and you don't turn a game about drinking, boasting and gambling into a game theory exercise. Far better, in fact, to go in the other direction and role-play the entire time.

The Bad

There isn't much not to like about Red Dragon Inn...or at least, not anything that isn't going to be obvious (i.e. this isn't your kind of game). That said, there are a few cautionary notes.

It will play a lot better with the right group, so think about who you're playing with. That's true for any game, but I find it's easier for one person to ruin a game that requires a certain spirit than it is in a game like El Grande.

I'm also not sure quite how high the replay value is. I've enjoyed every game so far and am looking forward to playing a few more times, but after that I think I'll have a handle on the strategy and will know the flavor pretty much by heart. At that point I think it becomes a game that only comes out once in a while when someone is in the mood for it or when we have a couple of new players in the group that we think might like it. That's enough for me, but if you're looking for a game you're going to play over and over again, this may not be it.

Components

Small companies often have components that aren't quite as good as the big boys, in part because our print runs make that difficult. Slugfest, in my experience, strikes a pretty good balance between expense and quality. The cards aren't as thick as a CCG but they hold up very well and are good to handle. The art for the game is good and there is a LOT of it -- they clearly made a choice to spend heavily on the art budget and I think it was the right one. The components themselves aren't huge in number -- each player has a deck, a small board on which to put their cards and track their health and inebriation, plus some tokens to do so, but the overall feel is of a "real" game rather than a cheap one.

Overall Assessment

Red Dragon Inn presents itself as a fast-paced, easy to learn game with a lot of humor and a lot of action. It delivers. Go buy it.