Daniel (@dungeondive) shares initial thoughts on Chronicles of Drunagor: Age of Darkness after a few learning games — full review reserved for his group’s campaign. The short version: he likes it more than expected, and it’s all down to the heroes. He’s never played a game where heroes feel more heroic — the moment-to-moment action plays like a 90s Hong Kong wuxia film, with characters leaping, flying, high-kicking foes off bridges into spike traps and blasting force from their swords.
The engine is a colour-coded action-cube system: spend cubes matching melee, ranged, agility or magic to trigger a deep, Gloomhaven-like web of skills, with curse and trauma cubes punishing overreach. Enemies never roll — they auto-hit for set damage, so the decisions shift to your turn: which ability mitigates the incoming blow. He’s mixed on the gimmicks (raised terrain trays that don’t quite line up, QR-coded fold-out doors, an organic and genuinely good darkness-spreading timer) and disappointed by the strictly scripted campaign — no character-arc mode, leveling dictated by the book, thin treasure, limited enemy variety. But minute to minute, it’s a blast.
Drunagor makes its heroes feel spectacular but locks progression to a strictly scripted campaign. Would you trade that cinematic hero feel for a freer, replayable character-arc mode, or is the scripted story worth it?