Hey all, Sam and David here.
We’re back to talk about board games some more…and yes, we’re still going on about the Dungeons & Dragons movie, because it is pretty darn great. Sam is going to try and talk her mom into going to see it while she’s in town to visit us. Oh, and we’ve decided that our spoiler filled review of “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” will be posted as our last Tabletop Tuesday post for the month of April. Don’t worry. We’ll give the Spoiler Warning when we actually get to that post.
Speaking of…we’re going to see the movie again tomorrow. We had talked about seeing it with several different friends, and none of them could see it on the same day…so whatever, we like the movie, and just decided to set up several movie dates, going to see it multiple times so we could hang out with our various friends. Plus, I don’t know if we’ve mentioned it before, but our local theater is kind of awesome. You can get your movie ticket, a medium drink, and a medium popcorn, all for just NINE DOLLARS (that’s US dollars), but that means that we’re getting all of it for the price that it would normally cost for just the movie. Drinks and popcorn are usually an additional cost that means spending something like $20-25 per person total to see the movie. So yeah, our theater is awesome…and we can walk to it.
For now…let’s talk about a classic board game, but with a D&D twist.
An Infernal Puzzle Box, delivered by a Hellrider of Elturel, has been stolen from the party of adventurers. Determined to reclaim their box of infernal secrets, one of Zariel’s minions has slain and secretly replaced an adventurer, unbeknownst to the rest of the members! In CLUE: Dungeons & Dragons, it’s up to you to determine WHO has been replaced by a devil in disguise, WHAT weapon was used in the execution, and WHERE in the Forgotten Realms the Infernal puzzle box could be hidden.
For the most part, this definitely plays like traditional “Clue,” but all of the rooms have become locales around Baldur’s Gate in the Forgotten Realms. Each of the characters are related to D&D lore, and the weapons have become items from the TTRPG as well.
One thing that is really cool with this particular set up is that there are actually rules included for if you want to play this with only two players, which is really fun.
But what really makes this game fun is that each player is given a personality card that goes along with whichever character token they’ve chosen for game play. The personality card gives each player a once-per-game ability, which adds some additional fun and intrigue to the game play.
The other aspect of this game that is different from standard “Clue” is the addition of Intrigue Cards. Basically if you land on a question mark or roll a question mark on the die, you get to draw an Intrigue Card. Either you get a Keeper, which is a card you get to keep and it has some special ability or feature to help you with solving the mystery. Or you’ll draw a Zariel card. The first seven of these cards do nothing, but if you draw the eighth Zariel card then Zariel and her minions capture you and you are removed from the game.
So, overall not too complicated. It just has some different aesthetics, which is fun. We actually own both traditional “Clue” and this “Clue: Dungeons & Dragons,” and we enjoy playing both versions. It really depends on who is around to play with us. Because this D&D version may not be as much fun for people who have no knowledge of D&D.
Yes, sure, even folks who are not fans of D&D can play this game; the mechanics aren’t difficult to understand or anything. But the characters that make up the game pieces and the locations on the board from around Baldur’s Gate will be more fun for people who do recognize who and where the game takes place.
But I really enjoy that the character tokens are pretty sturdy, and they actually have images of the characters on them, which is different from the original game character tokens that are only different because they are different colors.
Well, that is all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
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