I just noticed that my Chain Mail Polyhedral dice bag ended up in one of the pictures above. For the sake of clarity that isn't included with the game - you can pick it up from Think Geek for $9.99. It is like a dice bag-of-holding, expanding to swallow multiple sets of poly-dice and enough d6 to satisfy a high level wizard intent on an Orcish BBQ. Dice not included.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/d562/?srp=1
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I've considered creating an initiative roll rule for combat - roll two d20 and high roll gets initiative in the "villain" segment of your turn if you had unused attacks during your exploration segment, for example. The problem is that many monsters have only 1 HP, which is probably why this rule doesn't exist by default. You may end up dispatching most monsters before they get a shot at you. Maybe any monster with more than a certain amount of HP should invoke the initiative roll.
Another rule that might help is that when engaged with a monster, if you miss and forfeit your moves to attack the monster on your next turn, you do not have to draw an encounter card at the end of your exploration phase on your next turn.
With a little tweaking of the rules, I think this could be a far more engaging game - and I haven't cracked into the advanced rules and card deck yet. Judging by the tokens and cards - I think that the more advanced adventures in the booklet may bring a little more complexity to the game including treasure tokens placed throughout caverns and monster encounters that are pre-determined at the beginning of game play.
Have you played this or any of the other D&D board games? Do you share my opinions? Did you come up with any house rules or other modifiers to change the flow of the game play? I'd love to hear your feedback.
Another rule that might help is that when engaged with a monster, if you miss and forfeit your moves to attack the monster on your next turn, you do not have to draw an encounter card at the end of your exploration phase on your next turn.
With a little tweaking of the rules, I think this could be a far more engaging game - and I haven't cracked into the advanced rules and card deck yet. Judging by the tokens and cards - I think that the more advanced adventures in the booklet may bring a little more complexity to the game including treasure tokens placed throughout caverns and monster encounters that are pre-determined at the beginning of game play.
Have you played this or any of the other D&D board games? Do you share my opinions? Did you come up with any house rules or other modifiers to change the flow of the game play? I'd love to hear your feedback.
Hm... isn't that a contradiction in terms?
After all, arbitrary is "one picked from a selection of equally valid choices", and random means "one picked without deliberation or evaluation".
After all, arbitrary is "one picked from a selection of equally valid choices", and random means "one picked without deliberation or evaluation".
The encounters are arbitrary. There is no rhyme nor reason to why a monster is encountered in a particular area - no reference to where it is encountered - no relevance to location or atmosphere or other trigger. This is not normal for a traditional D&D campaign, in general. You go into an underground hall and find the skeletal remains of a group of dwarves with goblin and orc arrows still in their chain mail and your magic sword that detects goblins and orcs starts glowing blue - and then you run into other underground denizens that aren't inappropriate - but seem... well... arbitrary.
Random - as in... scattered here and there completely by happenstance, again, with no rhyme or reason. There is a CLASS of encounter in D&D called a RANDOM encounter that basically IS this - and it IS arbitrary (you roll a random die to determine if an encounter takes place - you roll another dice to arbitrarily pick the monster encountered from a list of valid possibilities - but it doesn't really matter WHAT creature you encounter).
Hope that helps clarify your confusion about my choice of words, there and what it means in relation to how the game plays.
Random - as in... scattered here and there completely by happenstance, again, with no rhyme or reason. There is a CLASS of encounter in D&D called a RANDOM encounter that basically IS this - and it IS arbitrary (you roll a random die to determine if an encounter takes place - you roll another dice to arbitrarily pick the monster encountered from a list of valid possibilities - but it doesn't really matter WHAT creature you encounter).
Hope that helps clarify your confusion about my choice of words, there and what it means in relation to how the game plays.
After the review was written and published, I played a game with my wife and two other adults over drinks. This game was the most entertaining yet - although two of us "got" the game (rules, flow and sequence) more than the other two. It still had a very hack and slash Diablo/Gauntlet quality to the game play, but it was relatively entertaining. I should note that these two new players had no previous non-computer FRP game experience. I don't think the experience would bump my review up significantly - but it does illustrate that in the right atmosphere, this is a passingly entertaining game to spend some time playing. The rules still could use some significant refinement - and I'd like to see a stronger emphasis placed on exploration and discovery and less on combat and adversity.
As you can tell from the picture - you need a large play area for this game, really. It is probably best to play on a floor that has no obstructions in a large empty room - but a nice sized table will do. You may notice in the pictures, we played in our daily dining room and had to bust out the table extension - and even then, it was somewhat cramped quarters. It is a sprawling game, in play - and the game-board builds itself somewhat like Dominoes, so you never quite know which direction the board is going to grow in.
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