Descent and D&D

[Stormborn]

Let me add another board game we played recently: Shadows over Camelot. Very fun. On each players turn you have to choose an enemy action (with the option to take damage yourself rather than make the situation worse) and then choose your knight's action. So far we havent played with a "traitor" - in each game you may issue loyalty cards in which one player may or may not be a traitor who is secretly doing things to make the game harder for the others to win but still must abide by the rules - and it was still challanging for beginners. Its not really RPG based, other than picking up the themes of Pendragon, but is a fun and mostly-cooperative game.

 

[MarkAHart]

I like Arkham Horror quite a bit - mostly as a solo game, actually. I bought both it and Battlelore last weekend, although my friends have had AH for a year or more.

Arkham Horror is an awesome game, and one of the few games that can be fun solo. I haven't tried the Dunwich Horror expansion, but I have the Curse of the Dark Pharoah expansion.

 

[hong]

Awww... I thought you'd had found this gem of RPG lore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_to_Undermountain

Man, I sucked at that.

 

[Ry]

I wish I could see a fantasy RPG that had specific rules for what the GM could and couldn't do, with the caveat of "if it doesn't work for your game, change it." I don't think "do whatever works for your game" is a clear enough guideline to really hit that sweet spot of fun for everybody (for more than 20 mins out of every 4 hour session).

 

[SteveC]

Well, I like Warhammer Quest (pretty old game of a similar style; and by far and wide the best one I have seen so far).

Bye
Thanee

Quoted for Truth. I've played all of the D&D like boardgames, and Warhammer Quest is simply the best. I'm still playing it over a decade after I picked up the rules. Descent and the D&D boardgame are nice, as is Dungeon Bash, but WQ is the best of all of them hands down.

--Steve

 

[Aaron L]

I thought he was talking about the videogame Descent too, until I read the thread.

When I want to play a board game I usually play Risk 2210 AD. I also want to try out Risk Godstorm, and I really want to play Arkham Horror and those other Mythos board games. Creatures and Cultists is one of my favorites games.

 

[ken-ichi]

I have Descent and agree that it often takes about 1 hour too long to finish. We have played about 8-9 games and the OL has won 2-3 of them. I have gotten the expansion, but have only used it in conjunction with the last two missions of the original game. I enjoy it but it would be better if just a bit faster.

I also have Runebound. We played it last Sunday with the Midnight expansion set. I think our games drag on a bit too long because we dislike the risk of loosing the battle so we spend too much time going through the lower level encounter raking in enough levels to easily take on the tougher ones. The Midnight set drastically changes the game. It becomes a player vs. OL type of game where the good guys need to team up to take out the bad guy before he wins. Being our first game we made some mistakes and the good guys didn't press forward enough and ran out of time.

I also picked up BattleLore. I have played about 4 games of it and like it alot. This is one that I can play with my younger sister who is not so strategically inclined and just have a good time. It plays fast, has clear simple rules (on cards for easy reference) and is good fun. I am really looking forward to many expansions of this game.

I have WHQ and HeroQuest (MB version) as well and really played them alot and enjoyed them. However I wanted more choice and options than HQ offered and found WHQ to be a bit slow (my brother is forbidden from ever playing a wizard ever again) and kinda clunky at times for us. Some people just can't get the charts and it takes them forever to find the to hit and to wound numbers. It gets kinda old to have to tell them for every roll they make.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey all!

I keep hearing a lot about how Descent is slow. Is this due to speed between turns or the sheer size of the game, or both. Out of curiousity how many rooms usually comprise a Descent adventure?

On the subject of the Descent (spaceship) computer game, I have a friend who lived, ate and slept that game for about a year (many moons ago). He kept moaning that I should play it and its got great deathmatch, he was always challenging me to a game. Finally I relented and decided to have him a game (over linked playstations), I encountered the mega missile weapon right away (like a homing nuke) and just fired, it found its way and obliterated him. I immediately put down the joypad and ever since I enjoy bringing up my 100% record against him at every opportunity.

...god help him if I ever get the group to play Descent the boardgame.

 

[Steel_Wind]

For what it's worth, I played a game of World of Warcraft: The Boardgame ("WoW:TBG") this past weekend.

Visually, the game has great components and it's a marvel to look at.

The rules, like all FFG games, tend to be written in a "slow reveal" format. There is no attempt to explain the game all at once by way of an informed intro. There is instead a "slow reveal" style of individual rules explanation in nearly all FFG games that tends to make the game look far more complex than it really is, takes far longer to read the rules as a consequence and it takes 1-2 games of actual play to understand how the game really works and what it's all about.

By which I mean to say that whoever writes the rules for FFG would make a very poor lawyer indeed.

Sometimes, as with the Game of Thrones boardgames and its XPs and Arkham Horror and its XPs, there is a VERY good game in there with meaningful strategy and choices to be made by the players. They are fun games to own and play.

And then sometimes, like in WoW:TBG - there just isn't. It's not that there is any aspect of the physical design of WoW that is less than A1. It is a top quality game in that regard.

But the game is also very much a player vs environment game with precious little to no interaction between the Horde and Alliance teams unless the Overlord is not slain by turn 30 - then the game defaults to PvP play for the final battle to determine who wins. (You can PvP prior to this, but the movement rules do not encourage it)

There really aren't many strategic choices of any kind to make. It's a hack n slash fest with a "oops - somebody won" ending. Very unsatisfying.

Worse, it's a whole lot of rules explanation for not a whole lot of fun or actual strategic complexity. When it gets right down to it, you can summarize the game in 2 pages.

I'll give WoW:TBG one more try I think (and I have yet to use the XP I bought for it). I also think that the game would play much better with 6 player characters than 4. The threats and quests presented by the game do not change depending on how many players are playing. Accordingly, it means you spend more time resting between combats in a 2-4 player game (the game uses 4 PCs with that number of players) as you have to more frequently pull out all the stops and spend all your resources to defeat the monsters. Due to the way the turn system works, this makes it quite unlikely that you will get to level 5 by turn 30 - which is necessary to have a hope of defeating the overlord.

I'm really enjoying FFG's games these days and I must confess that the gamer geek in me loves the boxes, presentation and components. The whole look and feel of FFG's games is top notch and I have always felt I got my money's worth in terms of physical product when I buy one of their games. They have my attention and several hundred of my dollars.

Up until WoW:TBG, I've always felt I got my money's worth in terms of gameplay too - but WoW has fallen short in that regard so far.

Marvel Heroes looks great too and is enticing me to buy it... I had given some thought to Runebound and would be happy to read a review by EnWorlders on the game.

I agree with Merric's game preferences for Settlers of Catan et al and Carcasonne in some respects - primarily as they make great family games. Carcasonne is actually a deceptively simple game with a deep strategy that shines through as you play it. It's all about farms!)

 

[MerricB]

I'll give WoW:TBG one more try I think (and I have yet to use the XP I bought for it). I also think that the game would play much better with 6 player characters than 4. The threats and quests presented by the game do not change depending on how many players are playing. Accordingly, it means you spend more time resting between combats in a 2-4 player game (the game uses 4 PCs with that number of players) as you have to more frequently pull out all the stops and spend all your resources to defeat the monsters. Due to the way the turn system works, this makes it quite unlikely that you will get to level 5 by turn 30 - which is necessary to have a hope of defeating the overlord.

Actually, a party of 4th level characters will normally defeat the Overlord. You don't need to reach level 5, but I do think that the difficulty of reaching level 5 is a design flaw. The game is much better with 6 players, though.

PvP becomes more attractive when Event cards give rewards for it; in 6 players, you actually spend time trying not to leave one person in the path of the other team, as they could just take you down. Note: play with the Deadly PVP rules. The normal ones are awful.

At our last Board Game Day, the game of WoW took 5 hours! Too long! The 6-player game I played took more like 3 hours.

Still, it's "team vs the game" for most of it; there are plenty of nice things in the game, but do agree that it feels bloated. Of the 60+ board games our group has, it's not in the top 20.

Cheers!