Hand Management

Go down in the dungeon. Kill everything you meet. Backstab your friends and steal their stuff. Grab the treasure and run.

Admit it. You love it.

This award-winning card game, designed by Steve Jackson, captures the essence of the dungeon experience... with none of that stupid roleplaying stuff. You and your friends compete to kill monsters and grab magic items. And what magic items! Don the Horny Helmet and the Boots of Butt-Kicking. Wield the Staff of Napalm... or maybe the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment. Start by slaughtering the Potted Plant and the Drooling Slime, and work your way up to the Plutonium Dragon...

And it's illustrated by John Kovalic! Fast-playing and silly, Munchkin can reduce any roleplaying group to hysteria. And, while they're laughing, you can steal their stuff.

Other

Part of the Munchkin series.

Munchkin is a satirical card game based on the clichés and oddities of Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games. Each player starts at level 1 and the winner is the first player to reach level 10. Players can acquire familiar D&D style character classes during the game which determine to some extent the cards they can play.

There are two types of cards - treasure and encounters. Each turn the current players 'kicks down the door' - drawing an encounter card from the deck. Usually this will involve battling a monster. Monsters have their own levels and players must try and overcome it using the levels, weapons and powers they have acquired during the game or run away. Other players can chose to help the player or hinder by adding extra monsters to the encounter. Defeating a monster will usually result in drawing treasure cards and acquiring levels. Being defeated by a monster results in "bad stuff" which usually involves losing levels and treasure.

In May 2010, Steve Jackson Games made the "big announcement." Many rules and cards were changed. See The Great 2010 Munchkin Changeover for details. Of note to Munchkin fans, the Kneepads of Allure card, which had been removed in the 14th printing, was added back to the game but modified to be less powerful.

Sequels:

The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin
Munchkin Apocalypse
Munchkin Axe Cop
Munchkin Bites!
Munchkin Booty
Munchkin Conan
Munchkin Cthulhu
Munchkin Fu
Munchkin Impossible
Munchkin Legends
Munchkin Pathfinder
Munchkin Zombies
Star Munchkin
Super Munchkin

"Join the Convocation of Wizards in battle against the ancient enemy - The Fallen! Do you have what it takes to become the next Grand Siege Magus?"

In Wizard’s Gambit, players become wizards who take turns placing Magical Components on Spells in a common Spell Pool in the center of the play area.

When all of the required Magical Components have been placed on a given Spell, the wizard who completed that Spell claims it as their own, creating a Spell Book face up in front of them. Once the Spell is added to their Spell Book, a wizard may immediately apply the effects of the Spell, giving him more power to defeat his competitors.

Wizards can further affect the course of play by casting Incantation cards during their turn, which can provide advantages in playing the game. Additionally, wizards can invoke the highest power, the Wizard’s Gambit, to thwart other wizard competitors and increase their chance of claiming powerful Spells for their own.

Each Spell has a point value, which adds up cumulatively to represent their Spell Book’s score. The first wizard to reach a Spell point total of ten (10) points wins the game and is proclaimed Grand Siege Magus.

Wizard's Gambit is a light-hearted game for the casual gamer and for family play.

Players place track and cities, create routes, and deliver goods. Bonuses are awarded to players who deliver multiple types of goods. This game requires careful management of steam to move your train as well as hand management to thwart other players as well as enable your own route.

500 copies manufactured for Essen 2008.

Days of Steam is #5 in the Valley Games Modern Line

Game description from the publisher:

In Wiz-War, wizards wage no-spells-barred magical duels deep in an underground labyrinth. This classic board game of magical mayhem for 2-4 players, created by Tom Jolly in 1983, pits players' wizards against each other in a stupendous struggle for magical mastery. Win by stealing other wizards' treasures and hauling them back to your base, or just score points by blasting the other wizards. The last wizard standing always wins.

Staying true to the spirit of the game that has entertained players for years, as well inspiring an entire genre of games, this 2011 edition of Wiz-War caters to the imagination and the funny bone. Casting an enriched array of spells, your wizards race through an underground maze, avoiding fireballs, werewolves, and psychic storms. Subtle game enhancements by Kevin Wilson and Tom Jolly promote faster play and clarify card effects.

Re-implements:

Wiz-War

(This entry is separate from Wiz-War based on reports from the designer that the new edition has expanded components and significant rules changes; it's also easier to merge two games that are the same than split two games in one listing that turn out to be different.)

Description from BoardgameNews.com:

Dragons, knights, trolls, princesses, dwarves, and other fantasy characters make up the world of Drachenherz. Dragons are searching for treasure, of course, but they're being pursued by dragon hunters, and those are the two sides that face off in this game. On a turn, a player plays one or more cards with the same motif, then refills his hand to five cards. The cards are always played onto the part of the gameboard that has the same motif. By laying out cards, one collects point cards that are already present. This is how a dragon collects treasure cards – but the third dragon hunter defeats the dragon, while a second knight protects the princess. Other combinations await the players, and whoever collects the most points wins.

Drachenherz is part of the Kosmos two-player series.

Online Play

Yucata (turn-based)
Board Game Arena (real-time)
BrettspielWelt (real-time)