LogFAQs > #932971276

85. Welcome (Back) to the Dungeon (2013, 2016)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Push-your-luck, bluffing, bidding, player elimination
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 2
Game length: 20-30 minutes
Experience: 4-6 plays over 3-4 sessions (2016-2018) with 4 players
Previous ranks: NR (2016), 47/80 (2018)

Summary - Everyone essentially plays a giant game of chicken to see who will go into the dungeon (deck of monster cards). The stakes are raised with each bid: either a monster is added to the dungeon or a piece of equipment is removed from the hero. You can also pass instead of raising the stakes, and once everyone drops out, the "winner" of the bid has to go into the dungeon. If they survive, they get a point (and two points wins the game); if they lose, they get a negative point (and two negative points loses the game).

Experience - The first time I played this game, I enthusiastically went into the dungeon twice in around the first three goes and promptly found myself eliminated and watched for the rest of the game. That was really rough. Subsequent plays had me just the tiniest bit more cautious, and I've never failed to have fun since then.

Design - Welcome to the Dungeon is incredibly clever in so many aspects, starting with the theme and how it ties into the mechanics: Essentially, you're not necessarily heroic; rather, you're rowdy and drunk and bragging to your friends about how you're way more badass than they are. The "bidding" process is really just bravado and a game of oneupsmanship, and often you can't necessarily back up your talk and are just hoping someone else will bite on it to get you out of it. Getting to go can either elicit a "we got this" or (depending on how much you overbid) an "oh, crap."

Rounds are snappy and fast, which is key when the game can go a potential 11 rounds (for 4 people). If there is a downside to the game, it is obviously the player elimination alongside the variable game length; you could get hosed in the first two rounds and have to watch everyone else go eight full rounds without you, as I did in my first experience. But being eliminated is entirely within your control; you never once have to go into the dungeon if you don't want to (though always passing on your turn would make for an easy dungeon that it's likely your opponents(s) would succeed in).

I don't like direct confrontation much, and in many cases I don't require player interaction. But engagement is big. Bidding is a great mechanism for that: non-confrontational, interactive, and highly engaging. Only one person winds up going in the dungeon, and you've got everyone rooting against that person. Watching a failure in the dungeon is a wonderful case of schadenfreude.

Future - Would replay with the right crowd (i.e. most of my friends) in a heartbeat, which makes me think that I rated this game too low this time around (and indeed, it ranked quite high last time).
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness