A dungeon designed specifically for tournament play, Dragons pits two or four players against one another in an attempt to conquer exotic monsters for treasure. The game's three distinct advantages are the lack of a DM to facilitate play, simplicity, and equitableness to players. The last is clearly the most important, since in Drsgons, there can be no subjective winner--one player will always emerge victorious, unquestionably. The disadvantage of the game lies in the same area namely that when one sacrifices subjectivity, he also sacrifices much of the role interplay that makes D&D ™ so phenomenally successful.

The game does not have the delightful flavor of role playing and comes across as something rather dry in nature, not unlike the simple Dungeon! by TSR. Since it is produced for competition, it must be regarded a successful enterprise, at least in idea. Overall, Dragons is a poor venture, as will be seen...

Evidently I obtained from the designer, Lee Harvey, a rough copy for review, so my statements concerning components may be a bit out of line; in fact, Don informs me that the game may not even be available, since he hasn't heard anything on it in some time. The production quality is graphically atrocious--about as appealing as being served an old football sock for breakfast. The counters are stick-on type, and may be mounted on unit counters purchased elsewhere, or mounted on cardboard. Mr. Harvey had already mounted the aet I have, so I was saved the trouble, yet the thick cardboard was cut very unevenly and caused some difficulty in handling units.

The playing board iB a massive 35" x 22" multi-folded paper affair, covered with rules that offend the aesthetic eye, but seem not to affect play. The rules themselves incorporate about one third of the map in fine print, then smear about half the actual playing area in bold print. Furthermore, there are a couple sheets of additional and miscellaneous rules on legal-aized paper. All of this combines to illustrate my initial impression of the game:

DISORGANIZED!!

The final component is a group of room and corridor cards about two inches square, subdivided into nine equisized boxes. White boxes indicate passages and black boxes indicate walls. These cards are destined to be fitted together during play to form the play-act-you-go dungeon, but often it is impossible to fit them together to afford continuous passage. The room cards are all white and designated by a single letter which can be used to determine the room's population, according to the level upon which the room occurs.

These levels are determined on the playing map. The map is a grid eleven boxes square, having two rows of first level boxes on either side, then two rows of second level boxes, and finally three rows of third level boxes in the center. When a room comes into play, level and programming occur according to where it falls on the map. A key in the rules shows just how to program each room, and should there be monsters present, one's opponent controls them.

The rules are as predictably unimaginative as the playing area. They tend to informality, are rather naive, and excessively verbose. For example, the author attempts to summarize the high points of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in a single paragraph. The rules seem to be more of a rough draft of a rough draft; they really do need a great deal of polish. They presume that the players entering the tournament will have little or no background in fantasy--I've never met anyone in any kind of tournament who didn't feel himself qualified to play.

If you're still reading this, you'll be happy to know that the game does flow rather nicely. One player moves and attacks, the next does so, and then surviving monsters follow the same procedure. A player's move consists of laying new corridor or rooms if he has reached the border of a played card, and continuing to do this as long as he has movement points remaining for any of his characters. Sometimes, one will find interesting things lying around the passages, i.e., gold, a magic sword, teleportation chambers, spells, or a magic crown. And after defeating the monsters in the rooms, he will usually find a treasure. The play is generally quite fluid, but the action lacks flair.

The rooms seem rather too well-populated for easy treasure acquisition, and the death rate among friendly characters in the two games I played was high. In the first, my fighting man was killed by three orcs, and my elf, in the process of fleeing, wandered into a room of allegiance and immediately became the property of the enemy. The game lasted all of fifteen minutes. In contrast, the second game appmached its third hour before we gave up in despair. All the treasure seemed to be on my side of the dungeon, but my best character lost in combat with a copper dragon on the fust level. I was in no position to win, but my opponent could not win either because he couldn't find any gold. It appears that the game needs to be playtested a great deal more before it is released.

Each player begins the game with 500 gold with which to purchase characters. He may buy hobbits, elves, dwarves, men, or a wizard, and if lucky, may acquire an ent as an ally while he is in the dungeon. Each character has a special ability to aid him. The monster counters include hobgoblins, goblins, orcs, mewlips, trolls, balrogs, a dragon, and barrow-wights. All counters have step-reduction replacements to reflect losses in combat.

Combat is handled rather simply, involving attack strength, facing, and a die roll compared to the enemy attack strength and a die roll. Due to simplicity, there are unelaborate tactics involved, and due to rather haphazardly explained rules, combat movement can be tricky at first. Examples of play are provided, but they show only how to compute combat in a single round, ignoring actual completion, which could occur several turns later.

The victory conditions are quite simple. There are three available, which character players agree upon prior to play. First, the winner can be determined by gold--2000 pieces taken from the dungeon. Second, one player wins by taking the "Ring of S'oblib" (it's "Bilbo's," spelled backwards) out of the dungeon tbrough his opponent's entry box. Third, the first to kill Smaug the dragon wins. In the second game I played, I succeeded in killing Smaug; unfortunately, we were not using that as a condition of victory.

I do have a compliment for the game, though. The IDEA is a good one, and with a great deal more polish, the game should prove to be a successful one in tournament play, or for relaxation with a friend. But as the game stands now, it is very immature for the fantasy gaming public. There are much better products to spend your money on. I strongly recommend that the designer sit back with this one and clean it up. Although it has a future, it would not appear to be an immediate one.

For a copy of Dragons, write an inquiry to Lee Harvey, Rt. 2, Box 316, Biloxi, Miss., 39532. Dragons has a suggested retail price of $8.00.

Prism Reviews

Introduction
Space Patrol
Dragons
The Book of Shamans
The Book of Treasure
Spacefarers Guide to Planets: Sector One