There are also fewer monsters the Dungeon Lord can choose from, and many of the monsters are pretty expensive to play.
It's not impossible to have a round where there's not enough Peril for the Duneon Lord to play anything.
## Environmental threats
It's not unusual for a **Dungeoneer** set to consider the type of terrain to give a monster or a player a boost in some attribute, but I feel like **Malthorin** makes the most of it.
Your player character either naturally has, or can gain through magic items, a preferred terrain or enemy type that enables you to either hit harder or defend better.
Additionally, there are traps and ensnaring effects either in specific locations or as Peril cards.
I haven't taken a tally of these kinds of effects and comparted them to a tally from some other set, but anyway it _feels _like the environment is espectially alive in this deck.
## Excursion into darkness
As you might expect from a small deck, **Haunted Woods** feels like a small play space,
I'm not sure just how small it is compared to where my dungeons usually are by the time somebody wins in other **Dungeoneer** sets, but it's hard not to notice that you're cycling (or about to cycle) through the Encounter deck, or that you've used up all the Map cards but you're still playing.
There's a feeling of close quarters not only because the map is small, but because you start to get to know the monsters of the forest.
There's the big spider, some dark elves, some really angry ghosts, and Malthorin himself.
You exactly get cozy with them, mostly because they're all trying
to kill you or displace you, but you do start to feel a familiarity,
and while it's hard to plan for every oppising strategy the woods
has in store for you, it can be comforting to at least know what's in store.
## Take what you can get
There's a similar objective familiarity with the Quest deck.
It's smaller than a full-size **Dungeoneer** game so, whether
you've played this set before or not, there's immediate pressure
to decide whether you're happy with your personal Quests or not.
Each time another player completes a Quest or swaps a Quest
out for a new one, your choices become more limited.
So maybe your choices have improved (depending on what
another player has discarded in a swap.)
Whatever the case, it's surprising what a smaller Quest deck
does to your priorities.
In a full-size deck, I rarely swap out Quests.
It's expensive to do, and it's not a guarantee that you'll get
anything better.
But in **Haunted Woods** it's a strategy that can deliver you a
Quest you're ideally suited to complete, or it may be a devious
way to impose a tough Quest on another player.
## Haunted woods and haunted houses
**Haunted Woods** is a small deck, so you're likely to see
everything it has to offer within just one game.
It occurred to me as I was playing a game with the centaur
ranger Karn Darkhoof and the druid Tolin Briarwood, that this
set is actually an excellent expression of a haunted house.
You start to view the obstacles as old classics, so you don't take
it personally when they try to kill you.
That's their job.
The question is, have you done everything you can to kill them
back?
Photos Creative Commons cc0, but all photos contain products and artwork copyright by Atlas Games and Thomas Denmark.