In the future, explorers around the world discover secret staircases within ancient pyramids. At the bottom of the hundred thousand dusty steps are three doors. Anyone who opens a door is never heard from again. Whispered rumors speak of lost treasure, primeval technology, and nightmarish creatures. Powerfully driven adventurers arrive to bravely knock on DEATH’S DOOR.
Each player in DEATH’S DOOR has their own unique ways of gaining points centered around themes like exploring, killing, or looting. You win by completing the objectives described on your Story card and preventing other players from completing theirs. You must combine strategy, tactics, and diplomacy as you place and open dungeons, discover dangers, and gather powerful treasure.
Players start in different parts of the dungeon, and place tiles with a hex grid to create the board. You choose whether to join forces or fight solo. Lairs, with more monsters and a lair boss, are challenging and require multiple party members working together. The Final Boss is very difficult to defeat. The game ends when the Final Boss dies (everyone wins), or when there is one player left alive (highest score wins).
A simple yet dynamic attribute system defines the ability of players and monsters to engage the world. They describe how everyone attacks, defends, and acts. Taken together, they represent the health of the character. As you get bonuses to these attributes, you become more powerful. As you take damage, you become weaker. If all three attributes drop to one, the character is dead.
With only a dozen pages of rules and about two hours of play time, DEATH'S DOOR is designed to deliver RPG depth and lasting replayability that can be still learned and completed in one sitting.
—description from the designer