The Red Dragon Inn 3 Strategy Boxed Board Game Ages 13 & Up (SFG009)

RDI3 is my favorite complete deck set out of all the current RDIs (5 is not yet out). Each character is varied, possesses a secondary deck mechanic, and is well rounded. Unlike many of the other decks where one or more characters may feel underpowered, all four of these characters are fully flushed out. That said, I would not recommend this set for brand new players to RDI. The secondary decks may confuse users and blur core mechanics. Best for already-playing-RDI folks.Character reviews:Phrenk - Potions Master! He not only has a wide variety of potions, an interesting deck that has strong gambling abilities, heals and offense, his secondary Potions deck is as varied. It has heals, spikes, hit cards... and more than that, these cards can be sold to other players for Gold. Phrenk is fun, and a regular pick in our group.Wizgelle - One of my all time favorite RDI decks. Wizgelle is a Critical Hit/Critical Miss character. As long as you're not afraid of wild cards, she's enormously fun to play. The majority of her cards require the use of a "Gear" card, which will change the affect of the card played. This can be really good or really bad. But that's part of the fun for me.Kaylin - Probably the least super powered of this group, since she can have whole rounds (until her next turn) under the effect of a negative Wulfric card. Kaylin's secondary mechanic is a pet wolf deck, which gives a status buff for the duration of one round. Sometimes this is awesome, sometimes this is not awesome. She's also not super well versed in managing gold compared to the rest of the cast. But she is lots of fun, and has a card that lets her sit out an entire round (very strong when played at the right time).Now.... Serena.After playing with this deck for several years, my friends and I have a house rule--- we generally don't play Serena, because she is seriously overpowered. Serena players are generally ganged up on as a result (most often surviving anyway) which is a negative experience for everyone playing.Why is Serena OP? Her Piety mechanic allows her to gain a scale of increasing/decreasing benefits from her cards depending on which side of the meter you're on. Most of her cards affect her Piety, either gaining or decreasing it. The problem is, I quickly figured out that it was not only very easy, but very advantageous to simply stay at max (8) Piety. Staying at 8 lets you use an incredibly large number of healing cards at their substantial benefit of 3 or higher. A smart player can literally go from near death to almost full HP, and such moves are completely within the card rules. In fact, a new Ally that came out (Brother Bastian) makes for some seriously long game play when Serena and he are both on board, if Bastian has enough luck to have received all of his prayer heals. Another house rule we have--- Serena and Bastian are not allowed in the same game.To sum up everything.... If you're on the fence about RDI3, don't be. This is by far my favorite edition. The extra mechanics add a lot of value and fun for long time players. :)

I was looking for a new game to play with friends and family over the holidays and I came up with the first edition of Red Dragon Inn as my choice. It's now mid-January and I own all 3 versions! The game is very fun, pretty easy to learn and more durable than a lot of other card-based games I've played.This edition brings 4 new characters to play but each are quite different than in versions 1 and 2. 3 of the characters have a second deck added to the mix to add a new level of play for them. For example, the fairy character has a wolf deck that you flip each turn that shows the current mood of the wolf. Based on his mood, your game play can change in the form of bonuses or negatives - so each round has another random level of game play that can be humorous and interesting.I've seen comments on the game's forums where people thought this made these characters too powerful, but I disagree (so does the game creator, who commented back about the lengths they went through to game play these characters and the design works as equals to the others).I've played these games with 2 people and as many as 6 so far - and in all situations it played very well. I recommend this game to anyone, really, and if your kid can read and play other "regular" card games, they should have the capability to play along with you as well.This summer I plan on taking the full set on vacation with me and designing "drinking game" rules around it to see how that goes. I can't imagine that wouldn't go well, though. :)-Drake

This is a fun addition to The Red Dragon Inn games but can also be played on its own! Fun quirky characters with special abilities. It was a blast to play!

Ok

Adding new characters, a further enhanced drink deck and new drink event cards Red Dragon Inn 3 when played alone or with the first two open the game to 12 players. This game is a sure hit with friends. Adding on to the initial game mechanics this game adds individual rules for each character. While these new rules are simple it is suggested you have a few normal games under your belt before trying to learn new rules. If you do play 1, 2, and 3 together for a 12 person game I suggest you make rules on turn time, and pull out poker chips for your gold markers. While each board has gold tokens keeping them separate is not as easy as the other cards which are clearly marked. The poker chips will allow you to avoid counting the gold in each box at teh end of the night. Given the drinking theme this may be better suited for adults. This expansion can be played as a stand alone with the same rules and mechanics of RDI1. A great party game.

These characters have more involved than the previous 2 sets. This does make them more complex, and thus, I would not recommend this as your first set. That being said, I don't think they are too complex even if it is your first time playing this game.Out of the first 5 sets (and some of the solo packs) that I have played, this set includes my absolute favorite character of the gnomish tinkerer, while the other 3 characters are not far behind in quality of play.If the base game is getting stale for you, while all of the expansions are worth it, this expansion gets my highest recommendation!