Gauntlet of Fools Card Game First Impressions

Gauntlet of Fools is a dungeon crawler, and I like the occasional Dungeon Crawl…

But what about doing it while blindfolded, one hand tied behind your back, hopping on one leg, juggling with a hangover AND without breakfast?

Gauntlet of Fools is an adventure game of skill and fortune for 2-6 that plays in under 30 minutes. Choose your hero from hundreds of possible combinations. You’ll make ridiculous boasts to get the best hero – but every boast comes at a cost. How awesome is your knight with a flaming sword after you boast that he’ll fight blindfolded with a hangover?

You’ll find out in the gauntlet: fifty encounters that will kill you. That’s right. You will die, fool! But even a fool wants his gold, and the monsters have it. Roll a handful of dice, slay a monster, get its treasure. Die with the most gold to win the game.

As far as odd crazy games go Gauntlet of Fools must be one of the oddest and craziest.

Random characters from a giant stack are put out, one per player. There are things from Barbarians and Wizards to Artificers and… a Jester! yay! (NOTE: Game Designers, games should have more Jesters!)

Each of those characters is given a weird and wonderful weapon, again, from a giant stack of weapons.

So you could see a Ninja with a Wizard’s Staff and a Wizard with Ninja stars.

This will give a few random characters that will be unique for every game you play. Each will have different health, armour, attack and special abilities.

Now each player picks a character but obviously, some will be better than others, depending on the character build.

Boasting

So players take turns to ‘Boast’ about how they can run the Gauntlet. So I may take the character you picked and say “He can do it with a Hangover!” and add the hangover token. (A Hangover reduces your attack dice by 1 and defence by 4)

You may then look at taking a different character or take mine back and say “I think he can do it with a Hangover and one hand tied behind his back”. This would that not only does this character have one fewer attack dice, but 1’s and 2’s rolled do not count! Plus the -4 defence penalty.

You can see how this can get weird.

Gauntlet

Now the Gauntlet begins.

The top card of the dungeon is turned over. You then must roll the dice equal to the number you get from your character + weapon – boasts and beat the defence score of the monster.

If you do you get the reward on the monster card.

In return, your defence needs to exceed the attack of the monster or you get the number of wounds as printed on the monster.

5 wounds and you’re out.
Most treasure at the end wins.

Gauntlet of Fools Final Summary

It’s fun. Having a large defence helps greatly, but then the tougher adventurers should have the most Boasts on them as the players bid to use them for this particular Gauntlet.

It’s quick, easy and provides a large number of laughs, looking to play this again.

Jesta ThaRogue