Four Notes about Three-Dragon Ante: Legendary Edition

Wiz-Kids has released more info about the new edition of Three-Dragon Ante, so I can start explaining a bit more about what's in the box.

Little Bits: The new edition isn't just cards and a rulebook: it also includes enough gold and platinum pieces for up to six players, along with six 3DA Ability disks for to use for playing a 3DA game as your D&D characters.

100 Cards . . . : This Legendary Edition contains 100 cards. This includes 70 cards for the same ten colors of dragon that were in the original Three-Dragon Ante game, the five familiar chromatic and five traditional metallic dragons of D&D. Seven cards per dragon color is a bump up from the original game's six-per-color. I've noticed that people enjoy playing 3DA with big groups, and in the biggest groups it was possible to *almost* run out of cards and have to shuffle small discard piles too often. Adding a new intermediate-strength dragon card for each color means less shuffling for everyone.

. . . including 30 Special Cards: You don't play with just the seventy-card deck. The standard rule is that you play with 80 cards each game. The extra ten cards are selected from a pool of thirty special cards, split into two types. Half the special cards are Legendary Dragons, either powered-up versions of the ten familiar dragon colors or something special like Bahamut, Tiamat, and the Dracolich. As an example of what I mean by 'powered-up versions of the familiar dragons,' take the Legendary Dragon named the Red Destroyer. The Red Destroyer can be part of a color flight of Red Dragons. A normal Red Dragon steals a card and 1 gold from the strongest opponent; the Red Destroyer steals a card and 10 gold.

The other 15 special cards are Mortals. Yes, there are several new Mortals in this set, with new art by the original 3DA artist, Craig Phillips!

The standard way to play is to randomly select ten of the thirty special cards to add to a game, but the rulebook contains other sample deck configurations. You can customize or randomize each game.

Strengthening the Fun: There were a few cards in the original game that I thought were weak or not enough fun. I'm not going to detail all the changes, yet. But I will say that cards like the White Dragon and Black Dragon have stronger powers than they did in the original card set. Meanwhile, cards like The Priest and the Dracolich are no longer kind of meh; now they have  interesting powers that can be worth planning around.

Brutal Self-Promotion: As I'm posting this blog, the Kickstarter for my new game, Wrestlenomicon, designed with Shane Ivey & Dennis Detwiller of Arc Dream Publishing, has 18 hours to run. Check it out for fun whiskey-and-pretzel gameplay, wonderful art by Kurt Komoda, and grievous Lovecraft puns from Shane and Dennis.

Elder Rumble: Multiplayer Rules for Wrestlenomicon!

The Wrestlenomicon Kickstarter is in its final 25 hours. We've kicked, and now we're stretching towards the goal that will add the third elder god to the game, Nyarlathotep, who in Wrestlenomicon terms is less a crawling chaos and more the Chaos that performs an Elder Ollie On Your Head. 

To honor the many backers who are putting in an extra $15 to $30 *before* we've reached the Nyarlathotep stretch goal, pushing us towards the line, we thought we'd share some of the current multiplayer rules. (The Nyarlathotep deck will cost $15 plus shipping and handling, and people adding a full $30 are hoping to also add Yog-Sothoth.) 

These are the rules for three or four player games where it's every god for itself. This is the first draft, details may change as we playtest more and if Shane and Dennis decide they want to revise my placeholder names. 

These rules are fun, even just playing with multiple Cthulhu and Hastur decks. A couple of my friends who started by playing three-player games think of Wrestlenomicon mainly as a three-player game, they love the shifting priorities created by the attack arrow. 

Elder Rumble

Elder Rumble matches three or more combatants against each other, fighting until only the winner survives.

Set-Up: Each player uses their own track, meaning you’ll set up more than a single track of space cards. Add a line of space cards for each additional player. For example, for a three-player game, set up two sets of space cards so there are three columns. Cards are placed between the space cards, one column/track per player. 

First Turn: As usual, each player chooses a card simultaneously. High Momentum takes the first turn. Break ties with alphabetic order.As usual, the first attack to reach Ground Zero slams. But only that first attack. Even if a following attack lands before the target has a card on Ground Zero, that later attack does not slam.

Turns go clockwise: Once the first player has taken their turn, proceed clockwise around the table.

The Attack Arrow: Each player in an Elder Rumble has an attack arrow that sits down under their Ground Zero and flips between left and right. Each player's first attack goes against the foe whose track is on their left (or around the table to the player on the right if you’re the left-most player). As soon as a player attacks, and their attack is totally over, they flip their arrow to point at the enemy in the other direction. In other words, you’ll attack a different enemy with your next attack that reaches Ground Zero. Keep alternating attacks back and forth.

Important multiplayer rule: All card and rule references to “your enemy” or to effects that are meant to hurt a specific opponent refer only to the player you are presently aiming to attack!

Rumble Bonus: When your card is the card that take out an enemy’s last Guts card, you gain bonus Guts equal to the number of players who are left in the game. Draw the right number of cards off the top of your deck and place them on your Guts pile.

Remove the dead god’s track. If there are still three or more players in the game, keep using the attack arrows. When the game is down to two players, remove the attack arrows and bash each other like a regular two-player game.