Play Journal #2: "Dungeons of Fortune" or, "How Margaret Atwood feels about dragon bi
As most of you know by now, I’m not a gamer. Nor am I a “gamer” that plays traditional board games. It’s not that I’m not interested—when someone is willing to teach me something new, I’m eager to try—but I don’t actively seek out these experiences myself. Luckily for me, I have a boyfriend who loves traditional and the titular "board games."
Tommy is good at games. Or, rather, Tommy is very lucky at games. There’s not a single game I’ve won against him yet. Whether Chess or Bananagrams, Phase 10 or Monopoly, Tommy is just good. He chalks it up to luck, and not getting invested. “The second you get invested, you’ve already lost.” Well boo.
Over the weekend Tommy and I visited Barnes & Noble, mostly because I like to wander around smelling that addicting books/coffee aroma. I picked up Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and I found Tommy in the board game section sorting through tabletops. He hefted one in his hand; a little gem called Dungeons of Fortune; and judged it satisfactory because it “weighed the most.”
We cast the pieces out on his bed and spent the next thirty minutes or so popping pieces out of their cardboard casing and trying to set up our game area. Though neither of us had played before, Tommy was good at reading directions, and between the two of us we managed to figure it out.
The game revolves around each player having a unique Player Card (I was an Alchemist, Tommy, a Bard) with unique abilities in-game. Dungeon cards were split by the level in each dudgeon (5 levels total) and there were monsters to fight and treasure to collect. A few cards were “dragon cards”, (you had to fight a dragon on the third dragon card drawn) and companion chips were used to cast spells and open chests, but could only be used once each round of play. It started out immensely complicated (I was ready to throw in the towel much faster than Tommy) but luckily I was caught up by his enthusiasm and my own desire to play something I would never choose to play on my own.
I appreciated the game’s simplistic design, (though some of the women represented were scantily clad, another social issue entirely) and the characters were divided nearly evenly by gender, and some non-gendered, such as a leprechaun. The tactile pieces such as gold and companion chips were fun, and the game card of each player sits in front of them, with no main board present, which gives it a more personal feel. This sense is furthered when you realize that each character sheet is unique, and so no two players (or play mechanic) will be the same. There is risk involved in not “stashing” treasure, (that is, stopping play to bank your coins) and equal risk stashing when the rest of the players are still in play. There is certaintly more luck necessary than skill, which we learned when I ended with an even 40 pieces of treasure, and Tommy ended with 43, though I was a higher-level character than had delved deeper than he had. It also furthers my theory that Tommy made a deal with some game devil to never lose any game of skill of chance. Though only two of us played, I can image that adding more players, (six in total can play) would enhance certain aspects, such as covering more ground with cards and getting more interaction with other players, such as stealing treasure. At around a 30-45 minute game play cycle, it’s a game that isn’t easy to learn, but would be decently easy to teach others.
Scanty women because of course.
Limitations in play exist I think in the initial complexities necessary to “set-up” the game. Because we were both new to the game, and I new to this genre of game, I had no prior knowledge of what was necessary to know. Not knowing what I didn’t know is certainly a limitation to learning. This is not a game that someone who isn’t at least somewhat familiar with tabletop or role-playing gaming would ever pick up. This also extends to genre, which exists heavily in the “fantasy” realm, which may turn off some players.
Having never played this genre before, I was interested in the mechanics, but the layer of “fantasy” was a bit difficult for me to swallow. I could feel myself rebelling against the perceived “white maleness” of the game, which I understand is more of a representation of my feelings towards the genre, and not necessarily the genre itself. This was the perfect game for me to have played during our Cycle 4 reading, merely because it does touch on issues such as race, representation, and certain aspects of “geek culture.”
If you are interested in this game, you can pick it up at your local B&N for some $24.95. If you’re more like me, you can find a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, a book of speculative fiction about a dystopian women-subjugated future and read that instead. Do both and you’ll be a feminist dungeon-delver.
The outfits will be silly either way.