Gloomhaven

Co-op campaign: pick two cards per round, fight monsters and complete the scenario's objective.

1–4 players
60–120 min
3.9 / 5 · Heavy

Set up the game

0 of 6 steps

Tick each step as you complete it.

1Pick a scenario from the book, read the introduction and build the map with its tiles, doors and overlay tiles. Set up only the monsters, loot and traps of the first room.
Scenario page
2Set the scenario level: the party's average level divided by 2 and rounded up. Lower it by 1 for easy, or raise it by 1 or 2 for hard or very hard.
Scenario level tables
3Each player picks a class not already in the party, takes its mat, its starting level 1 hand, hit point and experience trackers, tokens and one facedown battle goal card.
Character mat
4Shuffle each character's attack modifier deck (20 base cards plus perks) and the monsters' modifier deck.
Modifier deck
5Prepare the stat card of each monster type in play, its standees in the bases the scenario indicates, and one shuffled ability deck per type.
Stat card
6Place figures on the starting hexes, money and treasure tokens, traps, and the elemental infusion table with all six elements in the inert column.
Elemental infusion table

What it is about

Gloomhaven is a campaign co-op of hexes, doors and monsters that share one ability card per type. Information is imperfect: you know what you can do, but not exactly what your ally will do or when the monsters will act.

The heart of the game is the hand of cards. Each round you choose two, one for initiative and both for your actions, and every rest costs you a card. That tension between doing the strong thing now and saving fuel for the last room is what turns each scenario into a puzzle.

The campaign adds progression: experience, gold, items, new classes and unlocked scenarios. But the tutorial starts where a real game starts: an objective, a map, two cards and a party that has to come out alive.

BGG page Official rulebook

Source note

The downloaded PDF is the first part of the official rulebook: setup, rounds, turns, combat and monsters. Campaign and city rules are outside this summary. Illustrations cropped from that manual.

Official EN rulebook, part 1: scenarios (Cephalofair, 2017) · Reviewed: 23 Oct 2026