Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons – Magnificent Monsters

Since Horrified came out in 2019 we’ve seen quite a few iterations on its well-established formula, including cryptids from American legend to Greek horrors and even other mythological creatures that transcend country borders.

Every new version brings a new map and new monsters for the players to reckon with in their mission to save the world. Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons is one of the latest editions. With this game we’ve seen the biggest departure from the standard map construction, all while visiting locations and fighting monsters familiar to those with experience with the world’s best known role playing game.

Like the other Horrified titles, Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons unites up to five players in a cooperative dice-rolling game. Players play characters working together to defeat monsters of yore and save the world. A game of Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons takes about an hour and a half and the game recommends players 10+, but we think you can scale down to 8+, if they’re precocious and have the patience to play.

Setup

Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons sets up similarly to the rest of the series. Each player gets a character with unique player powers, and the group selects two monsters to fight against. Each monster has specific setup instructions that may or may not slightly change the initial board setup.

Introduced with Horrified: Greek Monsters, this game also has lair tokens to set out if the Red Dragon is one of the monsters the players choose to fight against.

Set out twelve item tokens on the board, give each player a Perk card, and it’s time to save the world. Again.

Gameplay

Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t change anything about its well-hewn formula. What differentiates this game are the 20-sided die, the map, and the monsters.

Each player’s asymmetric abilities require them to roll the d20. This means every player actually has multiple special abilities, but they don’t entirely control the ability to execute them all.

Some of the monster abilities use the d20 as well. We’ll address those as they come up.

The Map

Unlike most of the Horrified games, Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons is a map in three layers. At the top, the city of Waterdeep offers protection from the Red Dragon, who cannot move there.

Two connections, in the form of the well under the Yawning Portal, and the corkscrew beneath Castle Waterdeep, connect the city to the Arcane Chambers and the sewers beneath.

Finally, two magical portals link this central layer with the subterranean criminal den of Skullport, and the magical forest of Wyllowwood.

This means the map is four separate areas connected by only a few spaces. The magical portals are universal – players can move from any portal to any other with a single move. But still, these points have a profound affect on movement across the board. If a player isn’t leaving the underground they’re never more than a few spaces away from a legendary beast.

The Monsters

Speaking of legendary beasts, Ravensburger is bringing it with the monsters in this set: The Beholder, The Mimic, The Displacer Beast, and, of course, the Red Dragon.

The Beholder

The Beholder comes to Horrified with its glowering look and ten eyestalks, each with a different special power. When the Beholder’s power fires during the Monster Phase, players roll the d20. Depending on the result, a specific eyestalk’s power goes off.

To defeat the beholder, players must attack each eyestalk by discarding items and rolling the d20. Once all ten eyestalks have been damaged, players must discard yellow items worth at least six to defeat the Beholder.

The Mimic

Everyone’s un-favorite fake chest, the Mimic bounces around on its own mat, raising the terror marker every time it hits a “bite” symbol – unless all of the players discard items matching the color of an item drawn from the haversack. Once this happens the Mimic appears on the game board.

The Mimic’s power makes the highest value items on the board disappear.

Finally, discarding items worth six or more defeats the Mimic.

Displacer Beast

The Displacer Beast, another terrifying creature from D&D lore, teleports around the map with its special power, appearing in the same space as the closest hero before attacking.

Players fight back against it by placing items of 1, 2, or 3 power on the Displacer Beast’s mat. Across nine spaces, numbers 2-19 are represented. Once more than half the spaces are covered, players may discard items worth at least 7 to roll the d20. If they roll a number that is covered by an item on the mat, the Displacer Beast is defeated!

The Red Dragon

Of course, a Dungeons and Dragons themed game wouldn’t be complete without featuring the iconic Red Dragon that first adorned the D&D rulebook over 40 years ago, in 1983.

The Red Dragon is powerful, with its Fire Breath special power that hits every Hero and Citizen in its space.

The Red Dragon is much more complex than the other monsters to defeat as well. First, players must discard items and solve a sliding puzzle to free the Orb of Dragonkind.

Once the orb is freed and the Dragon is lured back to its hoard, players place items of each color (plus the Orb) on pillars represented on the mat. Finally, a player rolls the d20, adding the powers of the three items. If they meet or exceed 20, they’ve defeated the Red Dragon!

Once the players have defeated all of the monsters, they’ve won!

Impressions

We’ve talked about Horrified a lot over the years. And although the formula remains the same, we’ve always felt like the boards were a little cluttered. Looking for locations to place items seemed to take forever.

That’s not quite as true with Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons because of the different layers of the map; although they could have done better. Items located in each part of the map could have had a different back color, for example. This would have been a small but helpful quality of life improvement.

That said, every Horrified game offers some twists in the different monsters. And we really felt like this version took the game to a new level. It’s far more thematic to have the city sit above the sewers and then the catacombs. And the inclusion of the d20 added a chance element to the game that went well beyond “hit or miss”. This ratcheted up our excitement, even if we still did everything we could to minimize risk in these rolls. The development team did a great job introducing some D&D type mechanics (namely the d20 and the setting) into the well-established game.

So, if its been a while since you’ve played a Horrified game, and especially if you are a fan (or at least familiar) with Dungeons and Dragons, Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons is a fantastic blend of the two intellectual properties – almost as if they were made for each other. (In fact, since we received Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons, Ravensburger has released another game in this series, Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons Ravenloft).

You can step into these monstrous battles by picking up your own copy of Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons. Get it directly from Ravensburger, on Amazon, or you can ask for it at your friendly local game store.

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Ravensburger provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Horrified: Dungeons and Dragons for this review.

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