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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 3310355" data-attributes="member: 22882">Descent is an interesting game, but, ultimately, it seems fatally flawed in comparison to its predecessors, WH Quest and the two boardgames going by the name Heroquest.  FWIW, Runebound and especially Talisman occupy, in my mind, a totally different design space than these 'dungeon games' - they're much closer to traditional board games with only a fantasy theme to separate them.Descent is much more complicated than the Milton Bradley version of Heroquest and somewhat more complicated - and much, much slower - than the Games Workshop version of Heroquest (which I'll call by its US title, Advanced Heroquest, for clarity) and Warhammer Quest.Personally, I think the US/Milton Bradley version of Heroquest was the best in the genre; it took what this type of game does well (players vs. GM using streamlined but still tactical rules) and took it to the max.  You could play it cold without anyone but Zargon (the GM/Overlord) ever reading the rules, and the rules weren't any longer than those of, say, Monopoly.Advanced Heroquest was slowed somewhat by its more complicated rules and its use of charts instead of cards.  Cards have become ubiquitous in modern board games for a reason; they're much faster and more convenient in play than any other option, at least if well-templated (MB's Heroquest cards were).  The rulebook for Advanced Heroquest is the size of a small RPG's instead of a large boardgame's.  My other problem with it was, at least in the premade (anti-skaven) scenarios that come with the game, it throws a lot more mooks at the PCs to whittle down their HP.  Another source of slowdown?  The floor tiles instead of a board with doors placed on it.  But, I'm not sure this is all that bad because unlike most of the other complications, it does offer new and interesting functionality.Warhammer Quest is actually probably more complex than Advanced Heroquest, and has the same buckets o mooks problem with its premade scenarios.  But, it's a much faster game because it has cards and cleaner design work.  It keeps the floor tiles, the advancement rules and a fair amount of added complexity but speeds it up with better game design.  I can see calling WHQ better than MB's Heroquest, although I would personally disagree.  Both are very well done.Descent uses cards.  So, that speeds it up probably 20%-30% over what it would be with charts, maybe more.  It's scary to think where it would be with charts! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />  A lot of little things are timesinks in Descent (this is a problem with D&D at times, too - it's not any one thing, it's the combination of many small things), especially, I suppose, with inexperienced players.  Maybe if I played it enough to be as familiar with it as I am with d20, it would run faster... but a dungeon-crawling board game should *not* require the level of rules mastery a crunchy RPG does.</blockquote>

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