TSR's DragonQuest Adventure Game

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Since I recently got hold a copy of DragonQuest (the D&D based adventure boardgame - not the shitty JRPG) I'd thought I'd write about for you guys like I did  DragonStrike  . Although I've written quite a bit I haven't played DragonQuest as much as DragonStrike so I won't be going into quite as much depth as I did for Dragon Strike. (although as I become more familiar with game I may make follow up posts and corrections)


 ^ Yes unfortunately some one has scrawled on the box in Biro, also some cards and components are missing from my set 


 ^ He looked confident, but Jim and Wendy began to suspect Todd hadn't read the rulebook at all ...

Released in 1992 DragonQuest was a contemporary of DragonStrike and the 'Easy to Master' D&D boxed game and shares much in common with the latter. Like both of it's 'siblings' DragonQuest is again intended to introduce new players to D&D. The game play is quite smooth and follows a simple 10 step turn sequence that is printed on the board. Step 1 is a Wandering Monster Check made on a D6, rolling 6 means a Wandering Monster turns up (rather like rolling a 1 in the Power Phase in WHQ). Step 2 deals with exploration and searching and Steps  3 to 8 deal with encounters and combat. While Step 9 deals with after encounter stuff like healing the wounded and looting the dead. And finally Step 10 tells you to return to step 1.
Unlike DragonStrike the Dragon Quest rules are the D&D rules (anyone who's played any of the D&D or AD&D rule-sets from this period will recognise them immediately).



At first glance the Dragon Quest Rule Book looks very thin but it's all in there and is a much more complete game than Dragon Strike. The main things make the DragonQuest rules stand out from regular D&D are as follows:
The combat rules work in the same way as the 'Easy to Master' game and the BECMI books and use the THAC0 method to work out the rolls, but rather than use the term THAC0 the DragonQuest rulebook uses the much more player-friendly term Fighting Score.
Movement is in Spaces rather than feet (by cross referencing Monster profiles with the Easy to Master set we can see that 1 Square = 10ft in DragonQuest)
There are no character generation rules, all the Heroes are 'pre-generated' and levelling is vastly simplified – characters gain an 'Experience Level' after each adventure, their Fighting Score goes down (making it easier to hit things) and they gain a chunk of 8 Hit Points in the case of Fighters and Dwarfs, 6 in the case of Rogues, Clerics, Elves and Halflings and 4 in the case of Wizards (rather than rolling D8, D6 or D4 respectively as you would in D&D for your Hit Dice ). Clerics and Wizards also get extra spell each time they level up. The Rule Book briefly uses the terms 1st, 2nd and 3rd level when it explains levelling but doesn't mention a limit on how high you can go.
In the same way as the PCs, the Monsters in DragonQuest also have set amounts of Hit Points rather than Hit Dice.

Also the basics of play are repeated on the inside of the Rule Book's removable cover, which (supposedly) doubles as the DM's screen

The Adventures Book however feels like a bit of a let down. Don't get me wrong the adventures themselves are pretty good and fairly well written, but the problem is that you only get 3 of them in the book and as far as I'm aware no expansions or campaign modules were ever released for DragonQuest. The game does include a blank map and encourage you to write your own adventures, but 3 adventures doesn't seem like enough, especially when you consider the kind of scope this game is capable of.



Everything in DragonQuest from the Heroes stats to the Monsters and the Items are all on cards, lots of cards, 180 cards according the box. The cards have full colour artwork but rather than it being especially made for the cards, they make use of snippets of artwork from various 2nd edition AD&D manual and modules (in fact DragonQuest doesn't appear to have any artwork of it's own and borrows it all from other TSR products from the same period). One really nice touch is that the game includes blank cards so you can add your own home-brew Monsters, Treasures and Traps, ect to the decks.



The board bears some resemblance to the HeroQuest board but is  much larger  and folds many times to fit into the game box. Although having empty rooms like HeroQuest gives the board more flexibility than the fixed features of ... say the DragonStrike board or Zanzer's Dungeon ... DragonQuest doesn't include and furniture or markers to fill the rooms (even though the 3rd adventure has lava streams and pools that would have made nice card overlays for the board)

The game contains 6 plastic Player Character Miniatures and the Special Edition of the game also contains 6 metal versions of the same characters (although I have never seen a copy of DragonQuest that wasn't Special Edition). The plastic miniatures are of about the same quality as the DragonStrike ones and the metal miniatures are fairly nice (if rather small) Ral Partha pieces.  



 ^ unfortunately my second-hand copy of DragonQuest had only 4 of the plastic miniatures and 5 of the metal ones, but I believe I may be able to get very similar replacement miniatures from Ral Partha Europe


 ^The rest of the “miniatures” in the DragonQuest box are the same shitty A-shaped 'stand-ups' as you get in the 'Easy to Master' Dungeons & Dragons set

Over all DragonQuest is a pretty good game, the rules are a little cut down compared to basic D&D rules, but the they are compatible and it wouldn't take any effort to house rule in as much added complexity from basic D&D as you feel you need. The game feels a little incomplete and could certainly have done with having a few more adventures included in the basic set, but the rules well written and borrowing a few bits from other games (for example HeroQuest) is an obvious step to cover it's flaws.  
IMHO DragonQuest is a much better introduction to D&D than DragonStrike because it uses actual D&D rules and  also a better introduction than the 'Easy to Master' set as the rules are worded much more simply and clearly (also no awkward Dragon-Card-Learning-Pack). I think if I'd have owned DragonQuest when I was young, I think I'd have understood the rules in my 'Easy to Master' a lot quicker.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

... I may be able to get very similar replacement miniatures from Ral Partha Europe ...

++UPDATE++

It seems that some of the Metal miniatures from DragonQuest are still available from Ral Partha Europe as part of their  Fantasy Adventurers Range   here's the ones I've tracked down already:

The Dwarf:

 ^ 03-025 Dwarf Fighter

The Cleric:

 ^ 03-031 Cleric

The Paladin:

 ^ 03-033 Templar

The Fighter:

 ^ 03-037 Fighter with Axe

[Billiam Babble]

A wonderful purchase!
A very comprehensive review.  It answered all of the questions that came to my mind - especially dice mechanics.
Limitless levels?  I can see this being okay for the fighting stats, but is there much room for expansion with spells?  Are the spells rules straightforward?
Nice find with the metal miniatures as well.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

It's not the limitlessness (yes that's a real word according to my spell-checker) of the levels that bothers me it's the fact there is no XP system and you just automatically Level-up after each adventure you survive. It wouldn't have been hard for the writers to include a basic XP system, all you'd need to do is have an XP value on each Monster card and an extra line on the Player Character Cards saying how much XP they need to go up a level. Going by the 'Easy to Master' D&D Rulebook I'd suggest 2000 for the Fighter, 1500 for the Cleric, 2500 for the Magic User, 1200 for the Thief, 2200 for the Dwarf, 4000 for the Elf and 2000 for the Halfling (actually on 2nd thought 2000 XP per a level for all classes would be a lot more simple!)

I suppose advancement for Clerics and Wizards is limited by ultimately running out of Spells to learn and spell cards to hold. And the game only having 3 adventures in it means that you can't advance past level 3 with the basic game (1 level per completed adventure) unless of course you write your own adventures.

Like HeroQuest and DragonStrike the spells in DragonQuest are all on cards and work on the 'cast and discard' system. The spells themselves are pretty similar to their D&D counterparts and have the same names and effects. Unlike Dragon-Strike the spells in DragonQuest are not given Spell Levels in the game rules, but a quick a  look at any D&D rulebook tell you they are all Level 1, 2 and 3. Expanding on the Spells would simply be a matter of copying Spells from the 'Easy to Master' D&D Rulebook (or any other contemporary D&D rulebook for that matter) to some of the extra blank cards and doing some minor rules conversion (Feet to Spaces, Minutes to Turns ect).

[Delves]

WOTC is releasing Castle Ravenloft, a D&D board game, this month, to be followed by a compatible game (forgot the name) in September I believe.  It will offer a modular dungeon and simple game mechanics ala-Descent.  From what I've learned it has no campaign concept or levelling.  It's intended to be played in one off games of about an hour each.  But it will be interested to see what they come up with.  Excellent review here, Mortis!

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Thanks man
I'll keep an eye out for the Ravenloft game, I think the dungeon-crawling genre has long been due a new game for a while now, lets hope they've made it a good one

[Marchomer]

Great review! I ignored the existence of this game! (In Italy and more in Sicily until '90s was very hard to find minor publications)

The use of cards for spells/treasures is interesting...
I think it could be interesting to use this concept to D&D 3,5 (70% of the spells and treasures in D&D 3,5 are in actually useless, selected spells and treasures decks could improve the speed of the gameplay)

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Marchomer wrote

The use of cards for spells/treasures is interesting...
I think it could be interesting to use this concept to D&D 3,5 (70% of the spells and treasures in D&D 3,5 are in actually useless, selected spells and treasures decks could improve the speed of the gameplay)

It's kinda surprising that WotC didn't/haven't done this in fact, after all these are the people who are constantly releasing new versions of MTG all the time ... they love making cards!

[Johann]

Is there anyone who could copy or get hold of a copy of the manual for the dragon quest adventure board game I would be for every grateful

[MortiS-the-Lost]

I shall see about it for you

[bschummer]

Great review!  I just picked this up on ebay for $20, free shipping.  I would like to use the board game approach to convert some 1e and 2e adventures to a more casual crowd.  Hoping that these simplified rules will give me some inspiration and direction.

[dbone2005]

i have the boardgame picked it up for a song at a flea market got home realised it didnt have 180 cards that come with it =/ would anyone help a poor lost soul and kindly scan the images for me? id be forever in your debt

[drowningalone]

I have a copy of the game that is in pretty good condition and im pretty sure i can scan the rule book and the adventure book for you.

[Johann]

That would be great thanks very much 

Sent from my iPhone

On 22 Jun 2014, at 23:44, "drowningalone [via The Lost and The Damned]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have a copy of the game that is in pretty good condition and im pretty sure i can scan the rule book and the adventure book for you.

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[bschummer]

I will be running the original I6 AD&D Ravenloft adventure using DragonQuest rules this Halloween.  I've used DragonQuest rules to level up the pregenerated characters to level 5, which gives them a slight edge over Stradh's minions (although it almost certainly still won't be enough), and I have added saving throws from basic D&D rules.  This allows me to run the module with almost no conversion.  We will not be using a board or minis, because they really don't serve a lot of tactical purpose in DragonQuest anyway.

Since DragonQuest is just a simpler version of basic D&D, it gives me a great resource for introducing a casual crowd to a rules-light version of D&D that still feels like a game of D&D should.