Descent and D&D

For those unaware of it, Descent: Journeys in the Dark is a boardgame by Fantasy Flight Games in which the players take on the role of heroes descending into a dungeon. One player is the Dungeon Master... I'm sorry... Overlord, who controls the monsters. The other players are the heroes.



The rules are here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/PDF/descentrules.pdf

The game is one of FFG's "Big Box" games (along with the World of Warcraft board game) and contains a bunch of unpainted miniatures (heroes and monsters), cards for items, skills & runes ("spells"), and dungeon tiles.

Main similarities with D&D
* The aim of the game is to kill monsters, take their stuff, and get more powerful.
* Players go on quests - predefined adventures where the Overlord reads out boxed text, and places monsters according to the adventure text.
* The Overlord may design his own scenarios (there is an adventure editor online for this).
* PCs may return to town and sell and buy items.

Main differences with D&D
* The aim of the Overlord is to kill the characters.
* The Overlord is constrained in what he can do; a deck of Overlord cards allows him to spawn extra monsters, trigger traps, and have monsters act more effectively. However, he can't play every card he draws and much be careful about play.
* There is no interaction with NPCs/monsters save killing them.
* There are no guidelines for balancing self-designed scenarios.

In comparison to a game of D&D, Descent is a lot more constrained and less freeform. Gameplay for a scenario (of about 6 rooms?) tends to take about 4 hours, comparable to a game of D&D. However, it feels slower than D&D to me, and I find D&D a more rewarding experience.

In some ways, it would not be hard for D&D as it stands to be adapted into a game like Descent; take the Miniatures Handbook and the Random Dungeon rules, the Dungeon Tiles and the D&D Miniatures and you could probably cobble something together. In fact, I do believe that you could do a very good job of making what we already have into a good D&D boardgame (better than the Random Dungeon rules), which would add value to what is already there without removing the core D&D experience.

I do not think, however, that Descent will ever be as popular as D&D, nor should it be the model for a future main edition of the game. Quite simply, they play very differently. (I tend to prefer a different sort of boardgame when I play such games - Tigris and Euphrates, Caylus, Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan tend to be more my sort of boardgame).

Two of the other big contenders for "the fantasy RPG boardgame" are also made by FFG (World of Warcraft and Runebound), though I feel that are also a bit too clunky and involved to appeal to the mass market, although Runebound does the job better. (The best RPG-like game, IMO, is Arkham Horror, though it isn't without its problems).

I've played a lot of boardgames over the past few years; my friends and I have a good collection (60+?) There's a different attraction to boardgames than RPGs, and it tends to the more strategical and tactical type of player; they also do not involve the creative faculties as D&D does. If you try to make friends with the Ogre in Descent, the Overlord is just going to hit you with its club - there isn't going to be another option.

Cheers!

You know, I agree for the most part. I cannot quite figure out why this game is so slow. Perhaps it is the adversarial role of the Overlord that bogs it down.

I have a friend who ran a warhammer quest game for well over a year. Great campaign with advancement and some real roleplaying. I think that OOP game would be a much better model than Descent.

I sort of abandoned Descent for a similar reason - it took as long to set up and play as D&D, but wasn't as fun. After four games, thigns weren't moving any faster.

I think there's simply too much going on with the game, too many exceptions to various rules, and too much to track. It's definitely an intriguing concept, but the rules are a real bear to manage. It doesn't help that the rulebook is really hard to reference.

With that said, I really enjoy Runebound. I think it captures the fun of Talisman without all the bad parts. Very cool game, and my D&D-like boardgame of choice.

Hey, Mike - did you know there was a new edition of Talisman coming out this year?

I'm not so fond of Runebound for a few reasons...
* Slow with 4+ players
* Lack of player interaction (I speak of the basic 2e game only, btw)
* The movement system
* Too harsh penalty for death.

Talisman gives a lot better player interaction, due to character special abilities (Thief steals, Assassin assassinates, Sorceress beguiles) and spells... also the the board set-up means characters actually are near each other to interact. However, Talisman gets tedious with the end-game, and collecting resources with 4+ players can be too slow.

My favourite RPG-like game is D&D.

Cheers!

A question about Descent... can it be played without an Overlord (Game Master)?

Bye
Thanee

The big thing that bogs descent down is that you're always in Combat mode. Just like in D&D, combat takes a long time. But because of the way the overlord works, everything the PCs do is done within the framework of a combat round, whether it's fighting, walking down a hallway, or divvying up treasure.

The ability of the D&D DM to switch between initiative and freeform is the best tool for pacing he has.

Thanee said:

A question about Descent... can it be played without an Overlord (Game Master)?

Click to expand...

No. There's no mechanism for the monsters moving on their own. You might be able to make one up, but the game tilts significantly towards the heroes in that case.

Cheers!

You know that there is a DnD Board Game right?

MerricB said:

....

Main differences with D&D
* The aim of the Overlord is to kill the characters.
* The Overlord is constrained in what he can do; a deck of Overlord cards allows him to spawn extra monsters, trigger traps, and have monsters act more effectively. However, he can't play every card he draws and much be careful about play.
* There is no interaction with NPCs/monsters save killing them.
* There are no guidelines for balancing self-designed scenarios.

....I've played a lot of boardgames over the past few years; my friends and I have a good collection (60+?) There's a different attraction to boardgames than RPGs, and it tends to the more strategical and tactical type of player; they also do not involve the creative faculties as D&D does. If you try to make friends with the Ogre in Descent, the Overlord is just going to hit you with its club - there isn't going to be another option.

Click to expand...

Except for point 2 above, you describe a classic Killer DM style of play. And to the very last paragraph...parley is a tactical option (a wise one at times), but in the olden days I recall many a DM who ran every creature fighting to the death and you couldn't parley with anything. This game just sounds like a Killer DM style campaign, with actually some reasonable limits on the DMs agression. Not my prefered style of play, but not so far from how D&D can operate in practice.

Merric did you say a new Talisman set? Who is making it and When WHEN WHEN?????????




now that I've calmed down do you have any links to info?