Leveling up your game
As much as we love what we've been able to accomplish with Ravingspire, there's always more that one can do to make their game truly epic! Here's some ideas for additions to Ravingspire you can do at home to really make your foray into the Tower so incredible its maddening!
16" Lazy Susan
 The circular nature of the rotating board and encounter ring of Ravingspire lend well to the addition of a rotating table! Or at least, a rotating table on the table, like a 16" diameter lazy susan! While the Encounter ring segments may be slid in front of a player during their turn if they desire an up-close look, the ability to turn the entire Tower board itself really adds to the fun of exploring a rotating Tower and assists in reading through the various cards on a level, especially when a Hero is trying to decide whether or not to traverse up or down between two levels on their turn.
Mini Card Shoe
If you're a board game card sleever then you'll know that sleeved cards are a bit thicker and slicker than unsleeved cards. As such, if you've decided to sleeve your cards you may want to pick up a miniature card shoe from Broken Token or other supplier. The double-stack mini card shoe fits perfectly on the in the Encounter Card/Banished Card slots on the Foe Mat, and makes it easy to pass around the Encounter card deck itself around the board for those who prefer to draw their own cards.
|
Painted Miniatures
Ravingspire uses tokens to represent the Heroes and Foes that wander the Tower, but if you're a miniature-minded gamer there's nothing stopping you from using some of your own miniatures to represent your Hero! We're big fans of Reaper here at VCG and here we've painted up some Reaper Bones to represent our Heroes when we play our own games of Ravingspire.
Sleeving Cards
The mini card sizes are approximately 44x64mm, and there are about 400 of them in the base game. The large card sizes are standard playing card 2-5/8" x 3-5/8" ("Almost-a-Penny size"), and you'll want about 50 sleeves of that size.
Mayday Games, Swan, and BCW all make 45x68mm ("Mini Euro") sleeves which may be used to easily sleeve Ravingspire's cards, though they are a bit on the long side. If that sleeve length (68mm) is too long for one's preference, they also make 43x65mm ("Chimera-sized") mini sleeves which may be used to sleeve your mini cards due to variance in width manufacture. However if using Chimera-size (43x65mm) sleeves you'll want to have extra on-hand, as some will be too tight for a good fit. |
Advanced Rules
The Tower Awakened
Once you have a few games under your belt, try playing the game with the tower already Awakened and hunting you down from turn 1! In this alternate setup, the five slots of the Dungeon encounter ring are completely filled with encounter cards before the game begins (any Chaos cards drawn before first turn are reshuffled). As soon as first turn begins, Chaos cards and Adversaries are in play and counted. Beware, an awakened Tower with an early Foe on the board can spell Madness for an overconfident Hero!
Madness Reigns
If you're finding Ravingspire's gameplay too soothing for your advanced abilities and never lose to the Tower, try playing it in "Madness Reigns" mode. Here, the Madness Track starts at a value equal to the number of players rather than at two plus the number of players. Furthermore, when a player's Hero goes mad they get shuffled in with the Foes for the other players to face, and that player is out of the game! Don't go insane a single time, or that will be the end of it! That also means in a solo game the Madness Track starts at 1! (Beating a solo game with Shayla Nimblenook in "Madness Reigns" mode grants the Ultimate Escape Artist achievement!)
Once you have a few games under your belt, try playing the game with the tower already Awakened and hunting you down from turn 1! In this alternate setup, the five slots of the Dungeon encounter ring are completely filled with encounter cards before the game begins (any Chaos cards drawn before first turn are reshuffled). As soon as first turn begins, Chaos cards and Adversaries are in play and counted. Beware, an awakened Tower with an early Foe on the board can spell Madness for an overconfident Hero!
Madness Reigns
If you're finding Ravingspire's gameplay too soothing for your advanced abilities and never lose to the Tower, try playing it in "Madness Reigns" mode. Here, the Madness Track starts at a value equal to the number of players rather than at two plus the number of players. Furthermore, when a player's Hero goes mad they get shuffled in with the Foes for the other players to face, and that player is out of the game! Don't go insane a single time, or that will be the end of it! That also means in a solo game the Madness Track starts at 1! (Beating a solo game with Shayla Nimblenook in "Madness Reigns" mode grants the Ultimate Escape Artist achievement!)