Dungeon Roll Board Game First Impressions

Dungeon Roll is a dice game and I’ve mentioned a few times that I don’t like dice games…

…but this is ANOTHER one I like.

The Dungeon lies before you; you’ve assembled your party of hearty adventurers and have a few tricks up your sleeve. How far will you go to seek glory and fame? Will you risk losing everything?

In Dungeon Roll the player’s goal is to collect the most experience points by defeating monsters, battling the dragon, and amassing treasure. Each player selects a Hero avatar, such as a Mercenary, Half-Goblin, or Enchantress, which provides them with unique powers. Then players take turns being the Adventurer, who boldly enters the dungeon seeking glory.

The Adventurer assembles their party by rolling seven Party Dice, while another player serves as the Dungeon Lord and rolls a number of Dungeon Dice based on how far the Adventurer has progressed through the dungeon. Then uses Champion, Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief, and Scroll faces on the Party Dice to defeat monsters such as oozes and skeletons, to claim treasure inside chests, and to revive downed companions with potions. The Adventurer claims treasure by taking a token at random from inside the treasure chest-shaped game box.

All this fighting in the dungeon is certain to attract the attention of the boss: The Dragon!

When three or more Dragon faces appear on the Dungeon Dice, the Adventurer must battle the Dragon. Defeating the dragon is a team effort, requiring three different companion types. After three rounds, the players add up their experience points and retire to the inn to celebrate their exploits and to plan their next foray into the next deadly dungeon!

Dungeon Roll Summary

Although that small quote from the manufacturer pretty much sums it up, there is a lot to this game. It’s much more than a roll and hope game. You can strategise and use the odds to your advantage.

When forming your party, meaning rolling your party dice, you can have a ‘bad’ roll. But there are plenty of ways to make it work for you so you don’t feel ‘screwed’. You have abilities you can use to get around a lot of things.

The game is so simple to play too. Warriors kill all Goblins. Can’t remember that? Well, the green symbol on your dice kills all the green symbols on the Dungeon Dice. Same for the other classes and their respective colours.

This is one that I can’t really say much about because it sounds really boring. The fun comes from the risk and gaining the reward, the big chance rolls that pay off. Also, watching other players try and fail 😉 Just go and play it and see what you think yourself. Push your luck games should have tension AND fun, and this one has both.

Update September 2022

There is something more fun about random dice games over random card games. Having said that I would rather play Firefly Fluxx over this because it’s a better game. But rolling dice and accepting what you get is more fun than card drawing.

I think this is because card games are so much cheaper they can be pumped out and a lot, like Exploding Kittens for example, are ‘self-balancing’ so they probably don’t playtest as much either.

Dungeon Roll and similar games have custom-made dice which really bumps up the price. You also need to test it to make sure it’s balanced as much as possible.

Of course, you could always get a game that isn’t random and silly at all and just get something like Qwixx.

Jesta ThaRogue