What does too much ale, boasting and dungeoneering have in common? Heroes that blindly storm into the gauntlet, with one hand tied behind their back, hopping on one leg while blindfolded, just to prove that they are the greatest amongst their peers.
This is the Gauntlet of Fools! Where Dungeons & Dragons meets a beer casket. And the result? Epic hangover!
Facts:
Published by Indie Board & Cards, designed by Donald X. Vaccarino, playes with: 2 – 6 players, playtime: 30 min aged: 13+
Objective of the game is to be the hero with the most gold coins before death, then the other players.
Wait a minute?! Before death?! Yeah, in this game…..you will die!
How to play:
Gauntlet of Fools in divided into two phases, the Boast phase and the Gauntlet phase. Now to give you the best idea of how this game is played let´s first look at the Boast phase.
The Boast phase: Imagen that you are all traveling heroes from across the land. Meeting up in a local tavern, with just a bit too much ale in the bloodstream. You sit at the bar, and as you get drunker and drunker, you start to boast about how big a hero you really are. Well this is where the Boast phase sets in.
Choose a character:
The Class, weapon and Encounter cards are shuffled into individual stacks. The Boast playmat is placed in the middle of the table. And deal as many Class cards as there are players face up. Next deal a face up Weapon card to each of the heroes.
The active player may preform only one of two options:
- Take a hero card from the middle of the table, add any number of boasts on to it, yet you are not required to do so.
- Steal a hero from another player, along with all the character’s boasts. You are required to add a minimum of one additional boast to the card.
The next player will now go through the same choice, and this will continue until every player have a hero card in front of them. A player who already have a hero card in front of them is skipped.
Prepare for the Gauntlet:
Each player takes any number of ability tokens from the class and the ability piles, matching the icons showing in the upper right corner of the cards. Now the players are ready to begin their adventure!
The Gauntlet phase:
This is the phase, where the mighty heroes must prove their honor fits their mouth. Every player enters the dungeon at the same time and thereby faces the same monsters in the dungeon at the same time.
The gauntlet phase consists of four steps:
- Turn the top card on the Encounter deck. This shows what the heroes will be fighting.
- Attack – will the hero defeat the monster?
- Defend – did the monster hit the hero?
- Death – did the hero did?
What the encounter deck adds to the game:
In the first step, where the top encounter card is turn face up, three different types of cards come into play.
- A monster card. This will be the current monster that EVERY hero must fight.
- A Special Encounter card. This, for instance, could be a Magic Pool where each hero receives an ability token. It could be a Gold Vein where the players might gain extra gold coins. Or it might be a Spear Trap dealing 1 damage to every hero.
- Modifier card. Either it´s a Side Passage, leaving the players with the choice of fighting one of two monsters. Or it might a modifier for the next round of combat.
How attacks and defends are resolved:
Attack: Every player forms a dice pool, equal to their combined attack value based upon the number of dice shown on the weapon card (Top left corner) and applies any penalties, bonuses and Boasts. The player rolls the dice and the combined number rolled is the attack power of the hero.
If the attack power is equal to or greater than the monsters defend (top right corner on the monster card), the monster is defeated. The players take the amount of gold indicated on the monster card and if any special instructions are indicated these are carried out.
Defend: As the heroes have an attack strength so does the monsters. The current monsters attack strength is listed on the top left corner of the encounter card. To figure out whether, or not, the monster has struck the hero, the player looks at the monster’s attack power and applies any modifiers to this number. Than adds together the character’s defense value and applies any modifiers from boasts, penalties and bonuses. If the monsters attack value is higher than the combined hero´s defense value, the monster has hit the hero, and the player takes the amount of damage as indicated on the monster’s lower right corner, applying any special options on top of the damage.
Death:
If by the end of the defend step, any player has four or more damage, the hero has passed away. The player is now skipped, if any hero´s is still alive. Any gold the player might have collected is kept for the end scoring.
Endgame:
When the last player loses their hero to the depths of the dungeon, the game ends. The player with the most gold wins the game. If by any chance the game ends in a tie, the spoils of victory is shared.
My impressions of the game:
Regarding Gauntlet of Fools I´m stuck in between a rock and a hard place. You see on one hand I really love this game! But on the other hand, I don’t care for it.
Why?
Well, let´s begin with what I really like about the game. The adventure into the depths of the dungeon is the pride and joy of the game. It has an excellent, fast paced, hack ´n slash gameplay. Giving the players the feeling of storming into a dungeon in World of Warcraft leaving piles of enemies behind them. The artwork is well-done, and quite resample the artwork in some of the first Dungeon & Dragons books, which always is a plus in my book. The tokes are made of cardboard, a bit thin, but do to the small size they don’t bend easily.
What negative is there to hold against the game? Well, the boasting part seems fun when reading the rule booklet, but the it comes to gameplay it halts quite a lot. Now this might depend on the players participating, but we found that too often players would just take the best character from the middle of the table, and not put any boast on them. So, we figured that a house rule was in order – If you do not add any boasts to your hero, the amount of gold you collect at the endgame is reduced by six coins. If you steal a hero from another player you MUST add a boast at random to that hero, but you will start the game with one extra gold coin per boast.
Another thing that some players might not like, is the fact that player elimination is a big part of the game. Now, a player being eliminated won’t have to wait for a long time before the other players join him, but some players might find this element a bit of a bore.
Altogether, the game plays very well, even without the mentioned house rules. It might not be the center of attention for the entire evening, but when it hits the table for just a round or two, most players would not mind a bit of Hack ´n Slash-jolly-good-fun.
Content:
- 20 Class cards
- 20 Weapon cards
- 50 Encounter cards
- 30 Dice
- 30 Boast tokens
- 20 Wound tokens
- 50 Gold tokens
- 41 Ability tokens
- 28 Penalty tokens
- 30 Bonus tokens
- and 1 playmat
Rating:
Midnight Meeple 