Day 4 - Tales From The Red Dragon Inn

It's only Day 4 of Christmas but I think I can probably declare that Tales From The Red Dragon Inn will be the game that wins the title of Best Christmas Game in 2025.

Born from an unlikely source, Tales from the Red Dragon Inn is a surprisingly competent dungeon crawlers and an even more competent campaign game. Based on the characters from the very long lived card game Red Dragon Inn, which is basically a munchkin-esque, beer and pretzels D&D spoof, Tales from the Red Dragon Inn is so much more than what the source material would make you think.

The game comes packed with 5 chapters, each sealed and intended to be opened and played through in order. The first chapter is an extended tutorial and it employs 3 different books, a walkthrough, a scenario book and glossary. As you play through the first four missions the walkthrough will guide you through everything you need to know and each additional scenario will introduce new rules until eventually the training wheels come off and you're finally playing all by yourself.

While the three book system might feel a little verbose at times, it is a very accomplished training tool that should help most players get to grips with what is actually a very deep and tactical game. Your characters start out with just two ability cards, but through the tutorial missions you slowly unlock two more ability cards plus equipment and a power tree and then once you get out of the tutorial you can start actual character construction as you choose between more ability and equipment cards.

And while the game is not afraid of throwing an entire bucket load of tokens at you, the rest of the components are rather intelligently sparse. For example, rather than dungeon tiles, each mission is printed on a large map sheet with another map on the reverse. The enemies have cardboard standees, but their abilities are printed directly on the map, meaning the enemy can change from mission to mission without the need to sort through endless stat cards. Even the round structure is printed on the map, meaning the map can remind you of things specific to that scenario to help keep all the rules in your head.

And then there are the characters, each plays very differently, from Gog the barbarian who likes to smash things, to Zot the Wizard who has a bunny companion and delicious green fireballs. Each character levels up simultaneously and the game encourages you to switch between them as you undertake the different missions. Perhaps you'll need Eve and her illusions when you face off against the Crab King, while Deirdre and her healing capabilities might come in handy when you defend the Grey Market from endless waves of slimes.

If I have anything negative to say about Tales from the Red Dragon Inn, it would be that the story text pre and post mission is a little overwrought. While I like story games, I feel like there's too much over description that does nothing to further the narrative but instead just takes up space on the page. So, with that in mind, I will draw this mini review to a close.

If you like Dungeon Crawlers and very specifically campaign games with tactical combat, then you really owe it to yourself to give this one a whirl. And it manages to be a deep and tactical combat game without being grim and dark, which is a refreshing change for the genre.