Worst. Adventurers. Ever.

I recently picked up the reprint of the classic dungeon crawl game, Dungeon. 

Previously, I owned Dungeon Quest but gave up on it. After a certain number of turns, the main boss (a dragon) is released and kills all the characters still in the dungeon. Whenever we played, we all got slaughtered. With Dungeon, on the other hand, we always came to a conclusion with a clear winner. That is, until last night.

Last night, I played with my brother-in-law (cleric) and wife (wizard). I chose a rogue. Initially, I was doing well. Very early on I gathered some nice treasures to reach a wealth of 5,000 gold pieces, halfway to my goal. But then I suffered a series of defeats on the 3rd level, dropping my treasures in my hasty retreats. By the time we ended the game, I was broke.

The cleric did not fare well, either. About halfway through the night, he was killed. My brother-in-law then returned as a fighter. He found a nice treasure worth 5,000 gold pieces, only to lose it in the next room. Like me, he ended the night without a single gold piece to his name.

Which brings me to the wizard. She started her quest in level 4 but got frustrated after a couple of defeats. She also ran out of spells, so she switched strategy and moved to the lower levels, scooping up easy wins and easy treasures. She grabbed a lot of loot by following behind me and killing the monsters who had stolen my treasures. It looked like she would walk away with the game, as she had 24,000 gold pieces (she needed 30,000 gp to win).

The wizard's pile of loot

Unfortunately, the wizard ran into trouble on level 3. She was battling a monster but rolled extremely low. Defeated, she had to roll to determine the effect of her defeat. Double 6s – she was killed!

The wizard lies in a pool of blood (upper right)

After an hour and a half of playing, all three of us had as much gold as when we started - zilch. We called the game at this point, declaring us all losers. Last night we were the worst adventurers ever.