Top 5 Things You’ll Love About Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven has been around since July 2019. With Gloomhaven available to play on PC, MAC, Playstation, xbox and Switch as well as the traditional tabletop game there is clearly a lot to love about Gloomhaven. I have been playing Gloomhaven with my friends every two weeks or so for well over a year and have only completed around half, if not less, of all there is to do. We started out playing monthly and found it was the highlight of each players; month and we just wanted more…

So, without further introduction, here are 5 things you’ll love about Gloomhaven!

#1 The Card Action System

Gloomhaven uses a card system to determine what characters are able to do each turn. The cards have three key things an Attack Action at the top, a Move Action at the bottom and an Initiative Value in the middle. Each turn players may use the Attack Action of one card and the Move Action of another (each Action can also be used as a default 2 attack or 2 movement).

At the start of each turn in Gloomhaven players must decide two cards that they wish to use and then place them so that the initiative is the uppermost card when they are revealed. Players are now locked in to these cards on their chosen initiative. At this stage the monster action cards are revealed with their own initiative values and actions.

The aim of this is to make the combat feel chaotic and unpredictable and it definitely achieves this. Shouts of “Did you not listen to anything we said?” are commonplace, similarly muttered “I thought I know what I was doing before all the monsters decided to go fast/slow”.

The card system is what makes Gloomhaven gameplay unique.

#2 The Simple Yet Deep Roleplay Experience

I have heard Gloomhaven referred to as DnD Lite. Whist it does not offer the same open-ended GM led gaming experience as the legendary RPG, Gloomhaven still has storylines and character progression that gets you involved and playing to character. The city and road events that can unlock side quests, grant rewards and determine your party’s story definitely add to this experience. As the game progresses and characters are unlocked more events get added. The outcomes of events can be influenced by party reputation and characters in play. As a result, our group often discusses the choices we make in the context of the characters and races that we are playing; having learned that this can have an impact on success. You’ll also find yourself unlocking side quests and items as a result of your choices in events; creating a deeper flavour to the game. There is a number of story arcs in the missions you undertake, along with a narrative in the “Town Records” that gives an ongoing flavour to Gloomhaven (the in-game town that the game is named after) growing more prosperous. As Gloomhaven becomes more peaceful a wider range of items become available to buy, reflecting the fact that it is now easier for sellers to get hold of things. So all-in-all you really do get a full roleplay experience straight from the box.

#3 The Retirement Mechanic Stops You Getting Bored

There is a natural mechanic to Gloomhaven that requires players to retire their current character after achieving their retirement goal. Doing so ensures that, for the majority of the time, playing your character does not become stale and you get to try out something new. There are a number of other cool impacts to character retirement that make this experience, that in a traditional RPG can feel a bit sad or disappointing, useful and a fun part of the game. Firstly, retiring a character often unlocks a new hero for the party to play as; with each unique and having its own flavour and play style. Is your character able to absorb loads of damage, turn invisible to avoid attack, summon up creatures to aid you or just smash baddies in the face really hard? You’ll find all of these playstyles and more in Gloomhaven. Secondly, each retirement gets you an additional “perk” (usually a bonus to the deck you use to determine the success of your attack) so every new character you play has a bit of an edge on its predecessors.

#4 Cooperating (Mostly)

Your party are in this together. If a character exhausts, there is a good chance you will struggle to complete the mission as the other players will get overrun by the monsters. As a result, the party need to consider who is getting hit, when, by what and can they take all that damage at this point; some monsters really do kick out a lot of damage. So, you will find yourselves looking out for each other. However; in each mission your character has to choose a battle goal. Completing these goals gains you checkmarks. Three checkmarks gets you a perk. Perks improve the performance of your character, generally improving the card deck you use to determine the success of your attack. If, all of a sudden, a player seemingly at random opens a room at the end of your turn unleashing a load of monsters on you; chances are that was to get their battle goal and you are left to try and deal with the unexpected turn of events. In addition, players want to “loot” gold and treasure to buy equipment and upgrade their card actions. This is where cooperation definitely goes out of the window. Only one person can get that treasure chest! Prepare to look on in astonishment as your party tank suddenly uses their fastest cards and disappears across the board to grab the goodies, leaving the rest of the party to the monsters your “friend” had assured you that you would not have to worry about! Whilst this may sound frustrating, it is also a source of huge amusement in our games and we’ll tease each other for being greedy “oh, way to be a team player” you’ll hear us shout.

#5 Strategising To The Missions

Your first missions are, somewhat inevitably, “kill all baddies”. As the story progresses, however, there will be other elements to missions that mean taking the approach “lay waste to my enemies” no longer serves your purposes. You may have to split the party, approach certain mission goals in a different way like dealing with continuously spawning enemies until you achieve “x”; in such cases achieving “x” is probably where your focus needs to lie. We quickly learned that just heading out to clear a group of monsters was not doing the job, perhaps you need to stop the weaker monsters that are poisoning you first; as poison prevents you healing until you have first healed the poison. When your party fail the mission due to poor strategy you will inevitably reconsider the strategy. This adds to the feeling that your team of heroes have had to escape and re-group before going back in to the fray. Some missions took our group a couple of efforts, only one has required two sessions’ worth of attempts so far, however, the missions that have had us having to plan are the ones that we have enjoyed the most; between our bickering that the missions are too difficult/stupid because we are bitter about losing.

In no particular order, those were five things to love about Gloomhaven.