Dracula 1897 with Kickstarter Exclusive

Let's have the heroes themselves explain what the game is about...

Thank you to our friends who contributed their voices! And now we step outside of Victorian London to let Talking Cardboard tell you about their impression of Dracula 1897 during our previous campaign!

And what do we have to say about it?

Now, if you like, let Mark Streed take you on a more extensive tour of Dracula 1897 in his thematic overview video! 

Why Did I Create This Game?

Quite simply I created this game because it is the kind of game that I want to play. I love social deduction games. I enjoy cooperative games, but I found I really enjoy secret traitor games where cooperation is not always automatic. I’m also very attracted to games where both the theme and the gameplay are intricately entwined. It’s nice to score points, but it feels so much more rewarding when you feel like you’re actually on a mission to accomplish something noble. In this case we find ourselves injected into the London of 1897 where our task is nothing less than to destroy the evil that is Dracula.

This game did not originally have a Dracula theme. But once that was decided upon, the story influenced it at every turn. With each tweak and iteration, Bram Stoker’s original haunting vision came ever more to life in the gameplay. Now you too can take the Orient Express to Transylvania, encounter Dracula at the house in Piccadilly, or visit Renfield in the asylum.

Who Created This Game?

This game is designed by David Allison. Though this is my first board game brought to production, I have been a lifelong lover of board games and have been tinkering with creating games for a while. Outside of board games I have had many successful ventures with creating treasure hunts, designing escape rooms, and writing murder mystery events. I was a little math genius in school, but a theater major in college, and I love to bring that combination of logic and drama to all my endeavors, including this game. I have also done a lot of event planning including some good sized, complex events, so I have a history of successfully managing projects to fruition.

Gameplay

If you want all the gameplay details, check out our Rulebook and Player Aid Book! In the meantime, here's a summary.

The game can be played with as few as two players. In this instance it is strictly a cooperative game. Players gain the advantage of performing one action twice in a turn, but otherwise it is just a question of whether the two of you alone can fight off an aggressive Dracula.

With three or four players, each action can now only be done once per turn but Dracula will go less often. To make up for that we introduce the Influenced player. This character is like Mina in the book where she remains a Hero, wanting to see Dracula destroyed, yet isn’t entirely trustworthy, and everyone is aware of it. This player is not part of the final battle. They just need the heroes to reach the final chapter in order to win. But in exchange for that, they will need to meet a secret goal that helps Dracula, or else Dracula will kill them for their uselessness.

With five or more players, Dracula’s ability to affect the game himself becomes more diluted, so he recruits another ally, the Corrupted player. This player begins the game as a Hero, but is secretly on Dracula’s side all along. This player only wins if the Heroes lose and Dracula prevails. If the player is discovered, they may choose to give up their hero status and become a minion instead, openly serving Dracula, but operating in secrecy will prove their greatest asset. This would parallel to Lucy in the story who eventually became a vampire herself.

In the story, Dracula brings fifty crates of dirt with him from Transylvania. The heroes find twenty-nine of them, and then another dozen shortly after, leaving just nine. That is where our story picks up. Those remaining crates are in a hidden crypt in one of eight London locations and the heroes need to figure out which one. In the meantime Dracula is carrying out his plan of moving a crate to each of his hideouts. The heroes need to destroy all of the boxes, wherever they may be, but ideally they would like to destroy as many as possible while they are still in one place.

To figure out where the crates are, characters will gather clues from three locations requiring an expedition to Castle Dracula and the Nunnery in Transylvania, or a more convenient visit to Renfield in his London asylum. Each one offers up a clue eliminating half of the remaining possibilities. Successfully investigating all three should then pinpoint the exact location of the hidden crypt, unless of course someone was lying about what they learned…

In addition to destroying all the crates of dirt, the heroes must catch up to Dracula in the end. This is represented on the Chase Track. Dracula has a head start because his plans were already underway before the heroes even discovered the threat he posed. As he furthers his plans, Dread tokens appear across London, deterring characters from visiting certain locations. But every time one is placed, it also advances Dracula on the Chase Track as his plans near completion. The heroes can also advance on the Chase track by destroying crates and by playing certain cards in the final chapter. If they can’t catch Dracula in the end, they lose.

A player can do various things on their turn, though generally they can only do each thing once. The first thing they always have to do is move (or decide to remain where they are). The character, if in London, can go to any location in London, unless it has Dread tokens on it. They can also choose to spend a turn travelling to Transylvania on the Orient Express.

The rest of the actions can then be done in any order. A player might utilize the unique power of the location they are on, or they can investigate that location. Doing so would either yield information on the location of the Hidden Crypt, or perhaps they will venture into the basement and destroy crates if they believe they have found the crates' location. Players may also choose to invoke one or both of their character’s unique actions, they may lay a card on the location they are at (to make it easier to investigate), they may play one of their Privilege cards if they have one, or they may trade things with another character on the same space. If there is a Corrupted player, they may also make one accusation, triggering a vote of confidence (or lack thereof) in that player.

Once all the players have gone in a round, the person who was the first player will take Dracula’s turn. They’ll gain a Courage token for their trouble and remove two cards from the Resolve deck. Next comes a card from the Dracula deck. This might just result in the placing of a Dread token. But it could also result in a Plot Twist. In that case players may add cards from their hand to a pool in an effort to avoid something disastrous. The target number is the number of the Conflict Track. Oh, did I mention that every time you gained a Courage token, it was making the Conflict Track go higher? Or worse, Dracula might send one of his minions to attack you and try to scare you off his trail. That also requires a pool of cards, except now you need the less common Thwart cards instead of the more common Rally cards, plus the attacker gets to add their strength to the Conflict Track. Perhaps you should have picked up some weapons along the way! Once the Dracula card is resolved, Dracula himself will then move to a new location. Hopefully you avoided the three possible locations he might go to next or there will be yet another Dread token on the board.

If the deck of Resolve cards should ever run out, then so does the willpower of the characters to carry on and the heroes lose. Should enough Dread tokens come out that Dracula reaches the end of the Chase Track, then his plans are too complete to be thwarted and again, the heroes lose. They give up on their home and relocate to Edinburgh. But let’s take a more optimistic approach and say neither of those things happened. Let’s say the heroes believe they have indeed destroyed all of the crates and that they have what it takes to catch up to Dracula. They can then vote to move to the final chapter (perhaps just before Dracula or the minion get another turn!)

In the Final Chapter, all of the hidden Insight cards are turned face up and the actual location of the Hidden Crypt is determined. Then turn over any cards under that location that were placed during investigations. If they are sufficient to destroy the crates remaining, then the chase begins. The heroes gather their remaining cards in hand into a deck and start flipping them one at a time. For every Discovery or Despair card that comes up they move up one space until they catch up to Dracula (if they hadn't already). But then the minion can also play Discovery or Despair cards from their hand to advance Dracula further. If the heroes can’t eventually catch Dracula, or if he reaches the end of the track, then the heroes lose. But if they are able to catch him, and he can’t get away, and at least one of them acquired True Conviction during the game (Van Helsing says you can’t kill a vampire without true conviction), then Dracula will have been vanquished!

Included in the Game

Watch a playthrough with the Board Gaming Crew!

Plus, each backer on Kickstarter will get our exclusive item, a holographic acrylic standee to replace the True Conviction cardboard tokens. But not just one! You'll get 5 so that each hero can potentially have one! (The picture below is an approximation)