RPGnet : The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Dragon’s Gold

“Killing a dragon is the easy part. Now you have to divide the loot!”

A quote like that, coupled with the box art and game description on the back of the box, hooked me into buying this game. The concept–divide the treasure in a limited amount of time–was intriguing, and two previous reviews of the game on the RPG.net site gave it complimentary remarks. (To be perfectly honest, I didn’t see the reviews until after I’d purchased the game.) So I shelled out the 20 bucks and took it home . . . .

Dragon’s Gold is a 3 - 6 player game, the object of which is to end the game with the highest treasure total. The gaming time is suggested at 30 minutes and is likely correct, once all the players are familiar with the rules. This little card game comes in a sturdy 9 by 5 inch box, part of Descartes Games’ Blue Games line. The cover art is the same image as that on the back of the character cards in the game: a comedic picture of a warrior and wizard fighting over the loot while a thief gazes lovingly at a gem, all this taking place over the body of a decapitated dragon. The colors are bright and rather cheerful-looking (even the black armor of the fighter). Inside the box you get a dice bag containing small, colored wooden disks representing the treasure in the game, a deck of dragon cards, a deck of character cards, a deck of magic item cards, 6 treasure screens, a market card, a sand-timer, and a 5 x 7 four-page rules sheet. The cards themselves are a heavy paper stock therefore should be fairly durable for repeated game play. Each deck has a different image on the back: the image described above adorns the character cards; the magic item cards have a dragon’s head surrounded by a sword, a club, a goblet, and a coin, and the artwork on both the back and face are in a similar “comedic” style as the character cards; the marketplace card depicts a medieval marketplace in a simple, little-more-than-stick-figure style; and the dragon backs show a large green dragon in a more realistic vein than the other artwork. The dragons themselves are of a similar design and cover the D&D standard evil dragons (white, black, blue, green, red) with a sixth dragon that looks bronze, or gold, or platinum and has red and green “whiskers.” Perhaps this is supposed to take the place of Tiamat, the five-headed evil dragon of D&D, and not step on any possible copyright infringements? That’s my guess.

Each player has the same set of characters: a wizard, a thief, and two fighters, ranked 1 - 4 in strength and differentiated by color (blue player, green player, and so on). The dragons are ranked 5 - 10 in strength, and the treasure available is roughly equal to the strength of the dragon, ranging from 5 treasure for the weakest to 11 treasure for the strongest. The magic items, which are used in the advanced version of the game, range in power and usefulness from the Market Bell, which allows the player to initiate a market phase at any time between player turns, to the more useful Powder of Levitation, which allows the user to swap any two dragons and their treasures, to the easily abusive Invisible Hand, which allows the user to steal treasure from dragon cards until caught. Magic item cards are all one-shot cards in the game. When the deck runs out, reshuffle the deck.

So you know game contents. But what about game play?

Players decide which color they will play and take the corresponding character cards (again, a wizard, thief, and two fighters). The dragon cards are shuffled, four placed face-up on the table, and the market card is placed after the seventh dragon in the deck (roughly halfway through). Treasure chits are taken at random from the bag and placed on the four face-up dragon cards. Some dragons will have no treasure visible; others will have all their treasure visible, but more are a mix of some visible treasure, some only found after the dragon is slain. Treasure placement is determined by the dragon card–the number in the lower left indicates the visible treasure placed when the dragon appears; the number in the lower right indicates the treasure placed after the dragon is slain. If you are playing the advanced rules, each player begins with a magic item card.

Play begins by choosing a starting player. He places a character on one of the dragons. That character’s strength is compared to that of the dragon; if the character equals or exceeds the dragon’s strength, the dragon is defeated. But no one character can defeat a dragon alone (without certain magic items), so play proceeds clockwise to the next player, who places a character on a dragon, either the one already being fought or another dragon. When the total character strength equals or exceeds a dragon’s, the dragon is dead, any “hidden” treasure is now placed on the dragon card, and treasure will be divided among the players who had characters involved in the kill. If one player manages to kill a dragon with no assistance from another player, he gets all the treasure (but this did not occur in any of the games I’ve played out). Most likely, at least two players will have been involved in the dragon’s death; thus, they will get to divvy the loot.

Dividing the treasure is the crux of the game (as made apparent in the write up on the back of the box). The sandtimer is turned over, and players have approximately one minute to split the treasure, with the following caveats: treasure must be divided to the satisfaction of all involved; treasure must not be divided by any random method such as dice, coin toss, and so on; no future promises can be made in the dividing of treasure; and none of the treasure may be left out of the division of loot. If this is done in the allotted time, good. Replace the dead dragon with fresh meat from the dragon deck, add new treasure, and proceed to the next player, who places one of his characters on one of the dragons . . . . If the division of loot is not carried out before the sand runs its course, the treasure disappears into the box lid, never to be seen again (at least for the remainder of the current game). Proceed to the next player as normal, replacing the dead dragon and placing treasure as previously indicated. Any magic items used are discarded. Character cards are returned face down to the controlling player. At the start of any turn in which a player finds himself with no face-up characters, he turns all his character cards face up so they may be used again to fight dragons. Play proceeds in this manner until all treasure tokens have been removed from the bag, and at this time any remaining dragons are slain and treasure divided as normal. End of game. All that remains is scoring to determine the winner, which I’ll cover in a moment.

First, though, the wizard and thief do play roles in the division of treasure, and their function depends on which rules are being played: basic or advanced. In the basic rules, if any wizards assist in the death of a dragon, each gets dibs on the red treasure disks (representing magic items) in the order the wizard was placed (ex., if blue plays a wizard followed by green, blue gets a magic item and if any remain, green gets one). In the advanced rules, wizards don’t get first pick of magic treasure. Instead, the red disks are divided with the remainder of the loot, and if a wizard gets a red disk, he can draw a magic item card. But keep in mind that the wizard is not guaranteed a red token; this really is a significant change in the wizard’s abilities from basic to advanced. Now the thief has the same ability for both versions: after treasure has been divided and is tucked behind player screens, the thief may pick a random treasure from any one of the players involved in the recent division of treasure. However, for the advanced version, if he happens to draw a red disk, it does not become a magic item card. Only wizards can draw magic item cards, which, I suppose, makes up for their puny strength of 1.

Wait a minute! I hear you say. What about the market card? Well, at the midpoint of the game, when the market card is drawn, all players have one minute (determined by the sandtimer) to trade treasure tokens if they so desire. (If this sounds like a throwaway phase in game play, that’s because it is. At least that was the consensus of my playtest group.)

Scoring the game is pretty simple and, for some reason, has two methods: basic and advanced as well. In the basic game, the gold, silver, and red (magic) tokens count 1 - 3 points apiece. Gems (which are colored blue, white, yellow, and so on) only count if the player has a majority of that gem, and the points scored depend on the number of players in the game (more points if fewer players are involved). The single black diamond counts 7 points in the basic game. For the advanced game, the “coins” and magic items are scored as in the basic, as are the gems. However, the player who has the black diamond scores 15 points for that gem and gains no points for other gems, even if he has the majority of any particular gem.

I’ve tried this game a small handful of times, solitaire-style to get a feel for game play, and one time with my regular gaming group. One production- side problem I noticed was that the wooden tokens tend to roll around a lot unless carefully placed flatside down, which is a problem if you’re as butter-fingered as I can be. As for play itself, while the game does allow for “strategic” thinking by way of memorizing which gems each player is trying to hoard, it quickly becomes a game of monotonous repetition. I felt this way both during solo play (acting as three players) and the one game I tried with my gaming group. And despite rather clear-cut rules there is one really grey area: in the advanced rules, which comes first, wizard drawing a magic item card or thief stealing a token? The rules seem to indicate the thief steals before cards are drawn, which is how my group played it, but this gets really frustrating for the wizard player if that hard-won red token gets snagged. This led one player in my group to stall during each treasure division thereafter, which caused several treasures to be sent to the box lid. This particular trick (stalling thus denying everyone the treasure) might work for you tactically in game play, but doesn’t win any friends. Of course, as the quote above indicates, dividing the treasure is the hard part of the game. My suggestion: if you normally don’t play Diplomacy with your friends, this game may not be one to play among friends either. But is the game worth $20? As is, I don’t believe so, but I haven’t done a close comparison with other card games in the same price range. With some rules tinkering (perhaps a means of building randomization into dragon combat or allowing for future bargains to be struck during division of treasure among other things) the game might be something I’d drag out of the closet again.

Dragon's Gold
Dragon's Gold Playtest Review by M. Darin Young on 12/12/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average) A fun idea, but is it worth $20? Maybe so . . . with a little tinkering. Product: Dragon's Gold Author: Bruno Faidutti Category: Card Game Company/Publisher: Descartes Line: Blue Games Cost: $20.00 Page count: Year published: ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by M. Darin Young on 12/12/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Comedy Diceless	Dragon’s Gold “Killing a dragon is the easy part. Now you have to divide the loot!” A quote like that, coupled with the box art and game description on the back of the box, hooked me into buying this game. The concept–divide the treasure in a limited amount of time–was intriguing, and two previous reviews of the game on the RPG.net site gave it complimentary remarks. (To be perfectly honest, I didn’t see the reviews until after I’d purchased the game.) So I shelled out the 20 bucks and took it home . . . . Dragon’s Gold is a 3 - 6 player game, the object of which is to end the game with the highest treasure total. The gaming time is suggested at 30 minutes and is likely correct, once all the players are familiar with the rules. This little card game comes in a sturdy 9 by 5 inch box, part of Descartes Games’ Blue Games line. The cover art is the same image as that on the back of the character cards in the game: a comedic picture of a warrior and wizard fighting over the loot while a thief gazes lovingly at a gem, all this taking place over the body of a decapitated dragon. The colors are bright and rather cheerful-looking (even the black armor of the fighter). Inside the box you get a dice bag containing small, colored wooden disks representing the treasure in the game, a deck of dragon cards, a deck of character cards, a deck of magic item cards, 6 treasure screens, a market card, a sand-timer, and a 5 x 7 four-page rules sheet. The cards themselves are a heavy paper stock therefore should be fairly durable for repeated game play. Each deck has a different image on the back: the image described above adorns the character cards; the magic item cards have a dragon’s head surrounded by a sword, a club, a goblet, and a coin, and the artwork on both the back and face are in a similar “comedic” style as the character cards; the marketplace card depicts a medieval marketplace in a simple, little-more-than-stick-figure style; and the dragon backs show a large green dragon in a more realistic vein than the other artwork. The dragons themselves are of a similar design and cover the D&D standard evil dragons (white, black, blue, green, red) with a sixth dragon that looks bronze, or gold, or platinum and has red and green “whiskers.” Perhaps this is supposed to take the place of Tiamat, the five-headed evil dragon of D&D, and not step on any possible copyright infringements? That’s my guess. Each player has the same set of characters: a wizard, a thief, and two fighters, ranked 1 - 4 in strength and differentiated by color (blue player, green player, and so on). The dragons are ranked 5 - 10 in strength, and the treasure available is roughly equal to the strength of the dragon, ranging from 5 treasure for the weakest to 11 treasure for the strongest. The magic items, which are used in the advanced version of the game, range in power and usefulness from the Market Bell, which allows the player to initiate a market phase at any time between player turns, to the more useful Powder of Levitation, which allows the user to swap any two dragons and their treasures, to the easily abusive Invisible Hand, which allows the user to steal treasure from dragon cards until caught. Magic item cards are all one-shot cards in the game. When the deck runs out, reshuffle the deck. So you know game contents. But what about game play? Players decide which color they will play and take the corresponding character cards (again, a wizard, thief, and two fighters). The dragon cards are shuffled, four placed face-up on the table, and the market card is placed after the seventh dragon in the deck (roughly halfway through). Treasure chits are taken at random from the bag and placed on the four face-up dragon cards. Some dragons will have no treasure visible; others will have all their treasure visible, but more are a mix of some visible treasure, some only found after the dragon is slain. Treasure placement is determined by the dragon card–the number in the lower left indicates the visible treasure placed when the dragon appears; the number in the lower right indicates the treasure placed after the dragon is slain. If you are playing the advanced rules, each player begins with a magic item card. Play begins by choosing a starting player. He places a character on one of the dragons. That character’s strength is compared to that of the dragon; if the character equals or exceeds the dragon’s strength, the dragon is defeated. But no one character can defeat a dragon alone (without certain magic items), so play proceeds clockwise to the next player, who places a character on a dragon, either the one already being fought or another dragon. When the total character strength equals or exceeds a dragon’s, the dragon is dead, any “hidden” treasure is now placed on the dragon card, and treasure will be divided among the players who had characters involved in the kill. If one player manages to kill a dragon with no assistance from another player, he gets all the treasure (but this did not occur in any of the games I’ve played out). Most likely, at least two players will have been involved in the dragon’s death; thus, they will get to divvy the loot. Dividing the treasure is the crux of the game (as made apparent in the write up on the back of the box). The sandtimer is turned over, and players have approximately one minute to split the treasure, with the following caveats: treasure must be divided to the satisfaction of all involved; treasure must not be divided by any random method such as dice, coin toss, and so on; no future promises can be made in the dividing of treasure; and none of the treasure may be left out of the division of loot. If this is done in the allotted time, good. Replace the dead dragon with fresh meat from the dragon deck, add new treasure, and proceed to the next player, who places one of his characters on one of the dragons . . . . If the division of loot is not carried out before the sand runs its course, the treasure disappears into the box lid, never to be seen again (at least for the remainder of the current game). Proceed to the next player as normal, replacing the dead dragon and placing treasure as previously indicated. Any magic items used are discarded. Character cards are returned face down to the controlling player. At the start of any turn in which a player finds himself with no face-up characters, he turns all his character cards face up so they may be used again to fight dragons. Play proceeds in this manner until all treasure tokens have been removed from the bag, and at this time any remaining dragons are slain and treasure divided as normal. End of game. All that remains is scoring to determine the winner, which I’ll cover in a moment. First, though, the wizard and thief do play roles in the division of treasure, and their function depends on which rules are being played: basic or advanced. In the basic rules, if any wizards assist in the death of a dragon, each gets dibs on the red treasure disks (representing magic items) in the order the wizard was placed (ex., if blue plays a wizard followed by green, blue gets a magic item and if any remain, green gets one). In the advanced rules, wizards don’t get first pick of magic treasure. Instead, the red disks are divided with the remainder of the loot, and if a wizard gets a red disk, he can draw a magic item card. But keep in mind that the wizard is not guaranteed a red token; this really is a significant change in the wizard’s abilities from basic to advanced. Now the thief has the same ability for both versions: after treasure has been divided and is tucked behind player screens, the thief may pick a random treasure from any one of the players involved in the recent division of treasure. However, for the advanced version, if he happens to draw a red disk, it does not become a magic item card. Only wizards can draw magic item cards, which, I suppose, makes up for their puny strength of 1. Wait a minute! I hear you say. What about the market card? Well, at the midpoint of the game, when the market card is drawn, all players have one minute (determined by the sandtimer) to trade treasure tokens if they so desire. (If this sounds like a throwaway phase in game play, that’s because it is. At least that was the consensus of my playtest group.) Scoring the game is pretty simple and, for some reason, has two methods: basic and advanced as well. In the basic game, the gold, silver, and red (magic) tokens count 1 - 3 points apiece. Gems (which are colored blue, white, yellow, and so on) only count if the player has a majority of that gem, and the points scored depend on the number of players in the game (more points if fewer players are involved). The single black diamond counts 7 points in the basic game. For the advanced game, the “coins” and magic items are scored as in the basic, as are the gems. However, the player who has the black diamond scores 15 points for that gem and gains no points for other gems, even if he has the majority of any particular gem. I’ve tried this game a small handful of times, solitaire-style to get a feel for game play, and one time with my regular gaming group. One production- side problem I noticed was that the wooden tokens tend to roll around a lot unless carefully placed flatside down, which is a problem if you’re as butter-fingered as I can be. As for play itself, while the game does allow for “strategic” thinking by way of memorizing which gems each player is trying to hoard, it quickly becomes a game of monotonous repetition. I felt this way both during solo play (acting as three players) and the one game I tried with my gaming group. And despite rather clear-cut rules there is one really grey area: in the advanced rules, which comes first, wizard drawing a magic item card or thief stealing a token? The rules seem to indicate the thief steals before cards are drawn, which is how my group played it, but this gets really frustrating for the wizard player if that hard-won red token gets snagged. This led one player in my group to stall during each treasure division thereafter, which caused several treasures to be sent to the box lid. This particular trick (stalling thus denying everyone the treasure) might work for you tactically in game play, but doesn’t win any friends. Of course, as the quote above indicates, dividing the treasure is the hard part of the game. My suggestion: if you normally don’t play Diplomacy with your friends, this game may not be one to play among friends either. But is the game worth $20? As is, I don’t believe so, but I haven’t done a close comparison with other card games in the same price range. With some rules tinkering (perhaps a means of building randomization into dragon combat or allowing for future bargains to be struck during division of treasure among other things) the game might be something I’d drag out of the closet again.

Dragon's Gold