The Red Dragon Inn: Allies – Pooky
Overview
Red Dragon Inn Allies: Pooky the Vicious adds Pooky; Zot’s little white rabbit as a character in the game with a deck of his own. With some new mechanics to handle Pooky’s… um… mood. Read on – but please try not to upset the bunny!
The Pooky expansion comes with tiny little player board, cute little Gold pieces, a cardboard Fortitude and Alcohol marker and two extra “Pooky’s Mood” reference cards. Pooky starts the game calm, but several things can trigger his mood getting worse: specifically:
- If another character plays a card that causes Pooky to Lose Fortitude
- A Drink card causes him to gain 3 or more Alcohol content
- He plays a round of gambling and doesn’t win
- A card effect says, “Pooky’s mood gets worse!”
Pooky’s mood is tracked on the card with a small token. Many cards have varying effects based on Pooky’s current mood. You don’t want to make Pooky angry – you wont like him when he’s angry.
It’s Pooky!
Pooky the Vicious: Yup. The little guy has a deck of his own! Pooky’s deck contains many of the cards that are common to other character decks. Dodging drinks, protecting his gold and being able to leave Gambling rounds. Yes, Pooky gambles and drinks and has to keep track of his Gold. Pooky’s deck plays the same as any other character’s with one horrifying exception… Pooky is moody! He has four moods: Calm, Manic, Crazy and Psychotic.
Pooky starts the game in a calm, warm and fuzzy state. And as you can see above certain things make his mood get worse. Pooky has cards that affect, or key off his current mood. Some of his more effective cards have an after effect of making him calm again. But the real teeth in this deck (literally) are with the cards that have an effect keyed to Pooky’s current mood. The worse the mood, the worse the effect… for your opponents. Here are a some examples:
Pooky wants to play darts!
- Pick another Player
- Calm, they lose 1 Fortitude
- Manic, They lose 2 Fortitude
- Crazy, they lose 3 Fortitude
- Psychotic, They lose 3 fortitude or Pooky can pick two players and each loses 2
- Fortitude. Then Pooky becomes calm
Pooky doesn’t like feeling cornered… Play this card immediately after a player makes you lose Fortitude. (Change Pooky’s mood.) If Pooky is manic, they also Lose 2 Fortitude. Crazy, They also lose 3 Fortitude. Psychotic, they also lose 4 Fortitude. Then Pooky becomes calm.
Best Card: Oh no! Not again! Pooky’s on a drunken rampage! Lose 1 Alcohol Content.
If Pooky is Manic: each other player loses 1 Fortitude. If Pooky is Crazy: each other player loses 2 Fortitude. If Pooky is Psychotic: Each other player loses 3 Fortitude.
Components
The components for this “Allies” expansion are equal in quality to the other boxed editions. However, of the characters in any of the Red Dragon Inn versions, the art for Pooky is the most endearing and humorous. Yes it’s a take on a famous vicious white rabbit, but Pooky has definitely come into his, (her?) own with this expansion.
Final Thoughts
Pooky offers a fresh and fun alternative to the standard character choices in the first two releases, but he (she?) doesn’t come without weaknesses. The cards that allow variable powers based on Pooky’s mood are formidable, but they rarely allow Pooky to stay in his current mood, so card combos are key, ramping up his mood with cards, or waiting for the right game play conditions to occur to set him off again. Usually, these game play conditions are detrimental, so you have to be careful not to fall into the trap of allowing bad things to happen in order to rile Pooky up, or you’ll be out of the game. Play a healthy mix of standard cards that ignore drinks or cause a small amount of fortitude damage to others. Waiting for the right combo in your hand will be key.
But wait, this is Red Dragon Inn not some strategy heavy, combo happy, LCG. This game is meant to be light hearted and fun – with a lot of fast random card play where just staying in the game is challenge enough. So, gamble with your little bunny paws and be as vicious as you want to your fellow adventurers. If you play the game with this mindset, Pooky may just be your new favorite RDI character!
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User Reviews (2)
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I’m a fan of Red Dragon Inn and I was excited when I heard that a Pooky deck was coming out.
The deck can’t be played without the original game, but it does allow an extra player, and it’s fairly easy to learn.
Pooky has cards that allow him to gamble, cheat, mess with drinks and hurt other players, just like all the characters in the game. Pooky also has a Mood Card that allows the player to change the amount of damage done by certain attack cards.
Pooky’s Mood gets worse and worse as the game goes along. He starts out happy and will do little damage, but as he loses at cards, drinks and gets hurt he gets angrier. A lot of his cards that attack other players have a note on them about how much damage they do depending on Pooky’s Mood and they’ll generally do 1-4 damage.
It’s often tempting to start a round of gambling just so you can get that extra hit of anger when you lose to do more damage on a later turn.
I think this is a fine expansion and the cards are the same quality as the base game. Pooky is well balanced and not too overly powerful even though his temper tends to get the best of him rather quickly.
If you’re a fan of the game you should probably pick this up, it’s very fun and adds an extra player without being too complicated.
Pooky is Zots familiar and in this expansion you can see why poor old Zot was kicked out of the wizards college. This fuzz ball is a monster. Pooky adds a great twist on the game because you must be aware of his mood. His mood makes the group as whole pay attention to how much hate they are throwing his way. Get him to psychotic and he does some of the greatest damage in the game and not just to one player but possibly all players.
Thankfully after every such explosion of anger Pooky will become calm. Giving you a change to pounce on him again. Get him drunk, hurt him, make him lose at gambling and the bunny goes crazier and crazier.
Long and short pooky is a great deal of fun and a must have for any Red Dragon Inn fan.