Dungeon! - Tips & Strategies

After four incredibly frustrating games we had to employ a house rule for Dungeon! that basically locked people into their own zones. The problem we were facing is that the game essentially rewards characters that are tuned for higher level zones like Wizards and Warriors that just wipe out the Level 1/2 areas and essentially lock down the Thieves and Clerics from being able to amass any treasure. Every single time I played Cleric I found myself having to die repeatedly in the Level 3/4 areas just to hope for a chance to win.

Sometimes the dice hate you and you end up attacking a monster you should be able to defeat many times just to realize you aren’t going to win and he has half your treasure. I like the idea of putting a RIP counter on the monster card every time someone attacks him indicating that it is wounded and now takes one less on the die roll to defeat. This means that if you are willing to use the turns you will eventually win and get your treasure back.

Dungeon is a great introductory game for new and or young gamers. But, when using dice, randomness is guaranteed. When players engage a monster and lose the fight, they roll again to determine the damage their character suffers. A Roll of 12 means a player is killed and must restart the game. That can be a discouraging blow to a newbie, so we eliminate the “killed” status and use “wounded” as the maximum damage a player can receive.

Here’s a Co-op version to take your Adventuring Group on.

Adventuring Party

Cooperative Play Variant

The dungeon’s gotten very dangerous of late—with its wandering monsters threatening to overrun the nearby town! You’ve decided to set aside your differences for once, and created an adventuring company charter to aid your town in beating back the tide of evil. And this time, everyone gets an equal share of the loot… although you still have to watch the Rogue.

Variant Rule: Instead of playing the game against each other, you are all working together to defeat the Monsters and claim treasure. At the beginning of the game, add up the gp amounts of Treasure needed to win the game for all Heroes, and divide the total by 2. That number is the collective amount of winning Treasure for everyone. During the game, you can play with your Treasure cards face up. Once the Heroes have enough Treasure to win, each Hero must return to the Great Hall. The Heroes lose the game if one of the following things happen:

Two Heroes are killed during the game.
You have a number of revealed Monster cards in the numbered slots on the side of the board equal to the number of Heroes +2.