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Red Dragon Inn II is more or less the same game as the original Red Dragon Inn. Two to four players take the roles of a rowdy group of adventurers, fresh from a successful adventure, as they retire to the tavern to drink, compare battle scars, drink, tell tales, drink, gamble, drink and try to rob one another blind.
If you're familiar with the original game, go ahead and skip the next paragraph since I'm going to be talking about the basics.
Each player gets a play mat and a deck of cards for their character. Each deck is customized to whichever character it represents. The goal of the game is to be the last person still sober, standing and holding at least one gold coin. To that end, each player's card has a track that shows they fortitude and alcohol content. Each stat starts at one end of the track, and if they ever pass then the character has been knocked out. Additionally, losing your last gold coin puts you out of the action as well. On his turn, a player can play a card, buy a drink for one or more other players, and finally take a swig of whatever drink is in front of him. The action cards are varied - each deck contains some unique cards tailored to the character's strengths and weaknesses as well as generic cards that all player have. These cards typically cause direct damage to other players, heal up damage they've taken, manipulate the coins of other players or the Inn, manipulate a drink to force another player to down it, or water it down to reduce the alcohol content hit. Players can also engage in high stakes gambling to attempt to increase the size of their loot while robbing the others of their coin.
Okay, with that out of the way, what does Red Dragon Inn II bring to the table? The most obvious change are the four new characters. You can take the role of a dwarven warrior, an illusionist, a bard or a half-ogre. Each specializes in different areas - for example the dwarf can mess with everyone's drink and of course hold his own better than just about anyone. The illusionist is good at sleight of hand, like making other players think that the cup of harmless water they're about to drink is actually potent dragon's breath ale. The half-ogre has a split personality that makes him sometimes wants to be everyone's pal and other times want to smash things. Lastly, the bard is a rogue-ish fellow who's good at grabbing and holding coins. Each of these new characters is on par with the four from the original game, and the level of humor displayed in the very nice illustrations and card names is high, especially for gamers with some knowledge of role-playing games.
Another nice feature of Red Dragon Inn II (and truthfully, the reason I bought it) is that it can be easily combined with the original game to allow for up to eight players. The game also brings new drink cards into the mix.
It's also apparent that Slugfest isn't done with the Red Dragon Inn - as with the original game, there are drink cards that give orcs and trolls special bonuses, and there aren't yet any orc or troll characters in the game. So we can expect either a full third game or some kind of character expansion in the future.
Red Dragon Inn II is a fun, humor-filled and very thematic light game. It plays quickly (less than an hour typically) and is very easy to teach and play. If your game group typically only consists of four players or less, I'd recommend picking one of the two Red Dragon Inns - go with whichever has characters you're most interested in. For those who have had to shelf the game due to more than four players, grabbing Red Dragon II is a no-brainer.
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I really enjoy the first Red Dragon Inn but I imagine that an 8 player game will have too much downtime. Have you tried a full 8 player game using both games yet? I'm most curious to see a review on this aspect of the sequel.
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I have not played with a full eight people yet. I kind of doubt that it'll happen, since five or six is usually as large as my gaming groups get.
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Fighting renegade robots since 2003
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Another reason I'm looking forward to it is that it gives you more choice. With 4 players, you have 8 characters to choose from.
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I've actually done a few massive games; a few with 6, 7, or 8 players.
What usually happens in an 8-player game is that after a round or so, half the players are eliminated due to losing all their gold gambling. So they take their characters aside and start a new game, while the other 4 players finish the first game! It works out fine.
I'm part of SlugFest (the accountant, really), and I'm currently tossing some ideas around for making 8-12 player games more interesting. (We don't have a formal plan yet for RDI3, but we'd be stupid not to consider it.) I'm working on team rules similar to More Kung Fu Fighting, and we'll see how those work - or we might just suggest some card-drawing or extra gold variants for massive-player games.
News to come, of course!
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Hooray! The only major fault I had with RDI was that it supported only four players. Whenever we set that game up, either at a convention or with friends, it attracted a lot of attention. We could easily have gotten another four players involved, if only the game had supported it.
RDI II is at the top of my "to buy" list at Pacificon in a week and a half.
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It's gonna be on your list a little longer, I'm afraid. We rush-shipped about 180 for GenCon, but the rest of the games are in the middle of shipping; they won't hit local stores and cons until a month or so from now.
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Argh! Well, perhaps Cliff will be there to run a demo of it, at least. Cliff gives really good demo.
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I shall continue shattering your dreams! I don't think Cliff is even going to be back in California by then. Pacificon has the disadvantage of being right after GenCon, which is a big hoopla for SlugFest, and a lot of us tie it into other vacations around the same time. It's a pretty chaotic time. It's possible we'll have some SlugCrew there, but I can't give you an answer for sure yet. But if all else fails, have patience - RDI2 is on its way, we promise!
Last edited on 2008-08-20 18:22:26 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
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Um, where is this game available at?
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Bataar wrote: Um, where is this game available at? It'll be available in game stores and online soon, probably around mid-late September.
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Is there anything that makes 2 better than 1? I am interested in buying this game and am curious why this receives a higher rating than the original. Probably just newgame fanboyism perhaps mixed with an appreciation for a stand-alone expnsion (well I think that idea is pretty cool).
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Well, we did clean up some language on the cards, so it's a little easier to learn. The Drink Deck is a little better, with a few cards that give interesting choices, and it keeps more drinks on players' Drink Me piles (which means more chasers that work!)
But the mechanics are all the same. If you dislike RDI, you're not going to suddenly love RDI2. But if you loved RDI, you're gonna love RDI2, and you'll double-love playin' them both together.
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beri wrote: I've actually done a few massive games; a few with 6, 7, or 8 players.
What usually happens in an 8-player game is that after a round or so, half the players are eliminated due to losing all their gold gambling. So they take their characters aside and start a new game, while the other 4 players finish the first game! It works out fine. Well, that's one way of looking at it. My feeling is that RD is a broken game for over 5 or so players - the mechanics simply do not allow for balanced or compelling gameplay with that many. As you mentione | |