RPG-ish Boardgames

maransreth · Jun 21, 2006

Dork Tower!

All the way.

By Steve Jackson Games, this is a fun rpg-style boardgame where you play one of six characters. You start at low level and need equipment and scrolls to help you fight the monsters.

Highly recommended, especially if you read the Dork Tower comics.

arwink · Jun 21, 2006

I'll second Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which has had the highest replay value of any boardgame I've acquired over the last three years or so.

Zombies kind of works as an RPG-style game if you've got the right group of people, but can quickly become fairly dull if played with folks who aren't into replicating the swarm'o'zombies atmosphere.

philreed · Jun 21, 2006

maransreth said:
Dork Tower! All the way.

By Steve Jackson Games, this is a fun rpg-style boardgame where you play one of six characters. You start at low level and need equipment and scrolls to help you fight the monsters.

Highly recommended, especially if you read the Dork Tower comics.

Thank you! (And besides, I still get royalty payments so the more copies sold the happier I am.

)

Psychic Warrior · Jun 21, 2006

Descent and Runebound are tied imo for best fantasy boardgame I've played. I own both and get a lot of enjoyment out of them. What I found really cool is that the games use the the same characters and you could easily play a Runebound/Descent campaign with Runebound being the overland trek and Descent being the dungeon crawl. Lots of fun and potential there.

Kanegrundar · Jun 21, 2006

RPG-ish boardgames are my favorite type of game these days when I'm not prepared to play D&D, D20 Modern, or M&M 2. My favorites include:

Descent: Great game. However, it doesn't come with any campaign rules; it's meant to be played as an Overlord vs. the players kind of game. There's an expansion due out in the winter this year (likely after the first of next year knowing FFG's slow release schedule) that will include rules for campaign play.

Runebound: This is a better Talisman IMO. It has a lot going for it with two full box expansions (Isle of Dread and Midnight), and LOTS of cheap deck expansions. Runebound has a lot of replayability. Make sure you get the Second Edition. The first edition wasn't very good at all.

Arkham Horror: Yet another FFG game. Your characters advance as you travel through the city of Arkham closing gates to elder dimensions and fighting all sorts of horrors. There's an expansion for it coming out soon.

Warhammer Quest: This is hands down the best thing that GW has ever put out to date, and is far and away my favorite dungeon-delving game. It's long OOP, so finding a copy is going to be tough and is likely going to cost you a ton of money, but it's well worth it.

Hero Quest and Advanced Hero Quest: Both OOP and was produced by a partnership of MB and GW. While it will cost you to get copies of both (especially AHQ), they are worth the effort to find. I don't remember how the advancement went with AHQ (I don't own a copy and only got to play it a couple times years ago), but in HQ character advancement was purely gear upgrades.

World of Warcraft: Yet another FFG game (they are quickly becoming my favorite game maker). While this is more of a war game, it does have some RPG elements in the sense of MMORPG's. It takes a while to play, but it's a very fun game.

Doom: Yep, another FFG game. This is where the system used in Descent came about. Unlike Descent, however, Doom is more easily tailored to campaign play. It has some balance issues, but unlike a lot of people over at the Boardgame Geek I don't find it all that difficult to deal with.

philreed · Jun 21, 2006

Kanegrundar said:
Doom: Yep, another FFG game. This is where the system used in Descent came about. Unlike Descent, however, Doom is more easily tailored to campaign play. It has some balance issues, but unlike a lot of people over at the Boardgame Geek I don't find it all that difficult to deal with.

I'll second this one. It's a lot of fun. (I still need to grab the expansion.)

Nightchilde-2 · Jun 21, 2006

talwynor said:
Can anyone recommend a good board game with an RPG flavor or websites discussing the same? I've played Talisman and liked it...I'm thinking of the Warcraft boardgame as well, but haven't heard muych about it (it looks great anyway). It's hard to get my circle of friends and family into a true-RPG, but Talisman scratched the itch a bit and worked well for them as well, so I'm looking for others out there.

Vampire: Prince of the City board game.

I haven't ever played it, but I hear it's good.

And of course, Dungeoneer 2nd Edition

(also, I don't have a release date yet, but Epic Dungeoneer is coming out soon)

(And your in luck..this week's Wednesday sale is for board games!)