Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord

A competitive dungeon race where you build the labyrinth card by card and rivals throw monsters in your way.

Designer: Thomas Denmark
Published by: Atlas Games
Editions by: Hobby World, Edge Entertainment, Galakta, Raven Distribution, Ubik, Truant Spiele, Citizen Games

Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord, from 2003, is a card-based dungeon race with a Wiz-War attitude. You pick one of four heroes, each with different movement, fighting and magic values, and draw three quests you must complete before anyone else does. Meanwhile you build the labyrinth card by card, fight monsters, dodge traps and grab treasure, all while the gods hand out Boons and Banes that can help or ruin you. Your rivals can also drop monsters in your path, and the dice decide how fights turn out. It is a light, nasty dungeon crawl where everyone plays the hero and the dungeon master at once.

Four heroes with different strengthsDungeon builds itself from cards as you exploreBoons and Banes from fickle gods

Who it's for

You and three friends like fantasy adventures with a mean streak, and you prefer a race with sabotage to a cooperative crawl.

Not for you if…

You want a cooperative adventure, or you dislike luck and player-versus-player meanness. Dice and monster cards decide a lot.

Vibe's take

Nasty and chatty. You explore, you dodge traps, and then somebody drops an ogre on your head, which is exactly the point. Luck swings are common and everybody ends up laughing about them.