Red Dragon Inn is the pinnacle of what a light hearted game of politics and classic dungeons and dragon’s mayhem can achieve. Both the original and the expansion games are masterfully done when you examine all the elements that come together to make them whole.
This game has immediately risen to the top 10 of my gaming favorites of all time and sees regular play at any gaming event I host. We have played a variety of match-ups consisting of several numbers of players from 2 to 8 and many character combinations.

When an 8 player game takes place, the game does introduce a few problem areas that need to be overcome to make sure all players have a good time.
The largest downside of an 8 player elimination game is that people who are knocked out early will be sitting around for in some cases a half hour or more as the other players continue to brawl and drink themselves into oblivion.

Red Dragon Inn has 3 primary factors to examine when you establish your strategy to survive in the all out slugfest that will ensue in this game.
Alcohol Content.
Life.
Money.

Every character is designed to have strengths and weaknesses in the above mentioned areas. Another great twist is that each character has a unique mix of being more offensive or defensive in those areas. While one character may be very good at dealing out the extra drinks, another character is good at avoiding them and staying sober.

In most of our 8 player match we have found that the characters who excel at gambling and accumulating wealth are the ones who quickly rise to the top, while the ones who focus more on beating people up tend to fall behind and run out of money before they get their second turn.
Since every characters deck has several “Gambling? I’m in!” cards to start a round of gambling, the odds of at least half the player’s turns involving gambling are pretty high.
The weakest gamblers; namely Fiona and Gog, are generally at an early disadvantage during high gambling games, but if they manage to survive by not losing all their gold they become a strong force to be reckoned with in the late game.

Another area to consider in an 8 player game is that the amount of drinking contests and big drinking events will be increased. So in addition to having to worry about having all your money gambled and stolen away before you even get a turn is to worry about getting too drunk to stand.
A few high drink cards and a few drink events can have many players slurring their speech before they know it.

Over all the game is still an immense amount of fun, but in an 8 player chaos match, you are invariably going to have many games that have people eliminated before they had a fair chance to play.
To combat this struggle, you may have to consider adding variant rules to the game, such as letting people start with a few extra gold coins or a couple more cards in their hands to allow them to survive those chaotic money swallowing, alcohol flowing first 2 turns.
The game is designed brilliantly; however I think the above mentioned issues definitely have to be considered when you have 8 people playing. The original concept was a 4 player game and the starting quantities of money and cards were made to reflect that fixed amount.

If you can survive after those two rounds, you should be in the home stretch to establish yourself as a threat and be able to make it into the last couple standing.

Have fun!