Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft is a horror-themed game, unsurprisingly, but it’s also a little funny. There’s an inherent absurdity to going two layers deep on a board game spin-off (following last year’s first layer of Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons), and the jargon thrown around while strategizing can get downright silly. It’s also a great time, though, and I doubt you need to be a fan of either Horrified or Dungeons & Dragons to appreciate most of its strengths.

For the uninitiated, Horrified is a cooperative board game series that pits one to five players against monsters in a race against a rising Terror level. This time, everything plays out in the realm of Ravenloft, a D&D setting that borrows heavily from the gothic drapery of Dracula. In most regards, it’s a match made in heaven, especially while D&D is in the middle of promoting a “Season of Horror” focusing on the Ravenloft setting.

Ravenloft Brings Its Own Quirks To Horrified

Easing Into A New Dark Setting

If there’s any shortcoming to the pairing of Horrified and Ravenloft, it’s apparent before you even start a game. While Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons had no shortage of iconic D&D monsters to choose from, Ravenloft isn’t a monster-heavy setting, and Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft reaches a bit to fill out an appropriate roster.

The vampire Count Strahd makes for one iconic villain, and the witch Baba Lysaga is a solid second-stringer. The other two options, however, are spottier. The Gulthias Tree is, well, a tree, and the Carrionette doesn’t even appear in the D&D campaign that the board game is based on.

In play, this doesn’t matter all that much. My group went up against Baba Lysaga and the Carrionette in our first game, and both provided an engaging challenge. Tackling these monsters is dependent on a cycle of picking up items from around the board (which approximates D&D‘s traditional map of Ravenloft) and deploying them strategically. Every attack on a monster requires a risk calculation, as vaguely inadequate items can still work if the luck of the dice is in your favor.

While the instructions for Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft aren’t overlong, the gaminess of it all takes a minute to settle in. The first time you declare you’re going to use a hurdy-gurdy to reveal three Hut tokens standing between the Gem and the Door (all part of defeating Baba Lysaga, of course), you’ll likely feel a bit goofy. By the end of a game, it all eases into a natural flow, and the co-operative intensity of the struggle takes center stage.

Horrified & D&D Still Go Together Perfectly

It’s Like It Was Meant To Be

The theme of Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft has a fairly strong presence throughout, most notably through the emphasis on rolling a 20-sided die. Like in D&D, the D20 feels momentous, with life-or-death moments hinging on the outcome of a roll. It also feels intrinsic, despite not being present in most editions of Horrified, and the unfairness of luck never overwhelms the accompanying elements of strategy.

Following the standard set by Horrified‘s first D&D crossover, each player also takes on a different character class, each of which has their own set of roll-dependent abilities. It’s sometimes easy to ignore these in favor of regular actions that you can rely on, but they can be powerful assets, and they do a reasonable job of conveying the vibe of D&D classes. Things get even more interesting with Dark Gifts, which unlock additional class powers in exchange for drawbacks.

As for the set dressing, Ravenloft veterans will appreciate seeing some familiar locations and faces, but the game doesn’t dive too deep into the narrative that informs actual Ravenloft campaigns. The best part of the pairing is probably Horrified‘s reliance on villagers, which players struggle to protect from monsters to stop the Terror level from rising. It’s a perfect match for the typical tone of Ravenloft campaigns, which focus more on grim survival and the minimization of tragedies than traditional D&D heroics.

Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft Is A Great Time

The Series Takes Another Solid Step

Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft‘s true magic unfolds as the game reaches its climax. D&D is built around big moments, where a desperate strategy and a single roll could lead to either a moment of triumph or total defeat. One bad roll away from a loss, and our group felt the same tension. One good roll later, and we felt the same elation. Not every game will end up being that close, of course, but the balance that makes it possible feels well-tuned.

If you’ve never played Horrified or Dungeons & Dragons, you’d probably be better off starting with a different Horrified game. If you love either of the franchises, though, this feels like an easy recommendation. Horrified hasn’t reinvented itself with the latest addition, but it layers on enough new ideas to deliver another slate of fun game nights with a dash of frightful flavor.

Original Release Date

1974

Publisher

TSR Inc., Wizards of the Coast

Designer

E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson

Player Count

2-7 Players