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Embark on an epic quest against an ancient evil... Descent: Journeys in the Dark is the board game equivalent of a dungeon-crawling tabletop RPG. It has a simple enough premise: four heroes band together to take on the forces of the evil Overlord across a series of quests. What sets Descent apart, however, are its replayability and sense of progression. Though each campaign consists of only nine quests, all but the first of those quests can vary wildly, and the heroes themselves can change as well. As the campaign progresses, the heroes grow in power, acquiring new power and abilities - but the Overlord also gets stronger, reinforcing his deck of cards with new additions and gaining stronger monsters. A single campaign can be played several times, and can turn out entirely differently depending on the heroes and their classes, how they advance, the monsters the Overlord chooses, and who takes which victories. So let's play it. I'm looking to put together a group of myself and four more players (ideally; I we can work with fewer) to run through the game - at least one campaign, and maybe more if there's interest. Since I have the physical game, I'll take on the role of the Overlord, and the remaining players will play the heroes. We'll use Roll20, most likely playing on Saturday afternoons between 4 and 8 EST, starting next weekend (March 4th). (The time could change depending on player availability, but my own schedule limits when I'm free.) If you're interested, post your interest in this thread, along with any times you expect to be reliably available apart from the period listed above. I'll likely pick my players after two or three days, but that may change depending on how many people apply. If you're familiar with Descent, this is probably all the information you need, but if you've never played before, that's not a problem. Though Descent is a relatively complex game, most of the rules can be absorbed relatively easily (and I'm happy to teach), Fantasy Flight has made the rulebook available for free, and many of the resources you might need (such as items and class abilities), are easy to find on the game's wiki.
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Feb 25, 2017 23:23
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House Rule: Rune Plate is being switched to Act 2 and Rune-Touched Leather to Act 1. We started with Heirs of Blood. The heroes won! quote:The Roll20 game is here, and we have a Discord channel here. We're moving onto Mists of Bilehall/The Chains That Rust. Players PMush Perfect playing Mordrog the Beastmaster. Astro Ambulance playing Widow Tarha the Hexer. Al Baron playing Elder Mok the Prophet. CirclMastr playing Tinashi the Wanderer the Wildlander. 5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 21:18 on May 26, 2017 |
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Feb 25, 2017 23:23
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(gently caress, I forgot to set the tag.  Can I get mod to change it to the Board Games tag?)
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Feb 25, 2017 23:25
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I am very much interested, and available anytime other than Monday/Wednesday evenings, and Sundays. I love me some dungeon crawling. Would we be using Roll20's voicechat stuff, or a Discord channel, or something else?
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Feb 26, 2017 00:22
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Astro Ambulance posted:Would we be using Roll20's voicechat stuff, or a Discord channel, or something else? Text chat most likely, since my mic is on the fritz and I haven't gotten around to replacing it. If the group would strongly prefer voice chat, I can probably dig up a replacement.
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Feb 26, 2017 01:13
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Maleketh posted:Text chat most likely, since my mic is on the fritz and I haven't gotten around to replacing it. If the group would strongly prefer voice chat, I can probably dig up a replacement. I cannot honestly see something like this working with just text without taking forever and being very confusing.
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Feb 26, 2017 02:04
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Astro Ambulance posted:I cannot honestly see something like this working with just text without taking forever and being very confusing. I've been playing with a buddy of mine over MapTool and it seems to work fine, but it could just be because there are only two of us. I'll look into it.
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Feb 26, 2017 02:19
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I would very much like to play. Also I highly recommend voice chat.
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Feb 26, 2017 02:50
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Same, and yeah, I'd also highly recommend voice. Had the game for over a year now, still almost never get to bust it out. Saturdays actually works really well for me at the moment.
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Feb 26, 2017 12:11
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All right, I bow to the will of the masses. I'll see about getting a headset before game day. We'll probably use Discord, but I'm open to Skype if it's what people prefer.
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Feb 26, 2017 19:48
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Discord is good.
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Feb 26, 2017 21:18
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No complaints about Discord. Edit Should we hunt for one more? Never played with 3 heroes before (or we control the fourth by committee? IDK.)
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Feb 26, 2017 23:09
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I'm down for playing with three heroes. If a fourth player pops up in the next week we can always add them. Even if you all want to wait, starting on the prep work wouldn't hurt. First order of business is the campaign. I have four available: The Shadow Rune, which came with the base game; Heirs of Blood, which requires only the core set and comes with current copies of the base game; Labyrinth of Ruin, which involves an evil sorceress and an underground maze; and Shadow of Nerekhall, centered around an ancient city. The Shadow Rune, being the first campaign made for the game, has some wonky balance issues and quest design, and I've played it to death, so we'll skip that. Heirs of Blood and Shadow of Nerekhall I have on order from Amazon and should get soon, and Labyrinth of Ruin I've had for a while. I'm open to running any of the three, but I may have to default to Labyrinth of Ruin if my order is late. Shouldn't be a problem, but full discolsure and all that. The other thing to decide is which of the four character archetypes (warrior, scout, healer, or mage) each of you wants to play. With only three heroes, you'll be missing one of the four, but with good play that whouldn't be a big issue. Likewise, you're free to have multiples of the same archetype, but I wouldn't recommend it. Once you've figured out who's playing what, we can get into picking your heroes and classes.
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Feb 26, 2017 23:49
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I'm good for whatever! I think we can probably skip Scout as long as we're relatively dedicated about looting stuff.
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Feb 26, 2017 23:56
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PMush Perfect posted:I'm good for whatever! I think we can probably skip Scout as long as we're relatively dedicated about looting stuff. Actually, looting stuff is one of the areas where a Scout excels. Action economy is a huge part of Descent, and having a class that can loot stuff without spending as many actions or as much movement is quite nice. Every archetype has niches to fill, but they're all strengths whose loss can be circumvented good play or the right builds.
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Feb 27, 2017 00:18
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I've never played Descent before, but I'd be down to play. I can play any day that's not Monday.
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Feb 27, 2017 01:46
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And that's four. Excellent. I'll leave you lot to decide your archetypes on your own. Ideally, you'll have that much sorted out within the next day or two, to allow time for you to make a few more decisions and allow me to get your heroes ready for the campaign.
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Feb 27, 2017 02:04
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Unless someone else has their heart set on warrior, i would like to snag that.
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Feb 27, 2017 03:14
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I call not healer.
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Feb 27, 2017 05:05
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I can do scout.
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Feb 27, 2017 05:15
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Amazon has confirmed that my order has shipped and is due to arrive tomorrow, so y'all can choose your campaign as well: Heirs of Blood, Labyrinth of Ruin, or Shadow of Nerekhall. Heirs of Blood is probably best if you're new to the game, but any of them should be perfectly playable.
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Feb 27, 2017 11:34
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Let's go Heirs since we have a newbie, then. Circl wants not-healer, so I guess that's me, and Circl as mage.
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Feb 27, 2017 12:30
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All right, that seems sorted. So with the general role-divvying done, you now need to actually decide who and what you're playing. Each of you needs to pick a hero and a class corresponding to your archetype. You can find the list of heroes here, with links to each hero's profile. If you haven't looked over the rules enough to really decipher their stats, don't worry too much - just pick a hero you think seems cool. In the interests of avoiding possible  problems, I'll only be allowing material I actually own; in the case of heroes, that includes anyone with the following in the "Expansion" column: Crown of Destiny, Crusade of the Forgotten, Guardians of Deephall, Labyrinth of Ruin, Lair of the Wyrm, Oath of the Outcast, Second Edition Base Game, Shadow of Nerekhall, and The Trollfens. It's not everyone, but it should be more than enough to find someone you like.For classes, I have most of what's been published. You've got the following options: Warrior Beastmaster: Summons a wolf to fight at his side. Berserker: Hits things really hard. About as uncomplicated as classes get. Champion: Has abilities that give Valor tokens to himself and other heroes. These tokens can be expended for various benefits, like extra defense and damage. Knight: A defensive specialist with good mobility and damage-soaking abilities. Skirmisher: A mobile warrior class whose skills revolve around dual-wielding melee weapons. Scout Shadow Walker: Summons a ghostly minion that makes monsters more susceptible to attacks. Stalker: Places traps on the game map that damage monsters and help make his attacks stronger. Thief: Good at grabbing treasures and attacking enemies from stealth. Treasure Hunter: Specializes in grabbing treasures, even more than the thief - he can even claim bonuses if he's carrying a lot of loot. Wildlander: A mobile archer. Like the berserker, there's not much else to say here. Healer Apothecary: Passes out Elixir tokens, which allow heroes to heal or claim other benefits. Bard: Has a multitude of songs he can play, affecting allies and enemies near him. Each song has two variants, giving the class a lot of options. Disciple: A fairly straightforward class built around healing allies and smiting enemies. Classic priest type, pretty simple to play. Prophet: Gives heroes an Insight Token, which facilitates the use of the class's abilities, like healing and defense. Spiritspeaker: A healer with a mix of healing, defensive buffs, and offensive abilities. Mage Conjurer: An illusionist who places image tokens on the map, which allow him to perform trick attacks and manipulate monsters. Geomancer: Summons rocks onto the battlefield that can be used to attack enemies and block their movement. Hexer: Places curses on enemies, which can be exploited for various effects. Necromancer: Summons a skeleton minion to fight on the party's behalf. Runemaster: Specializes in attacks with rune weapons (magic spells). Probably the simplest mage class. If you want more info about the classes, you can find links to all of them here. (The Wildlander class somehow didn't make it to this page, but it's on the wiki if you search.) 5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Feb 28, 2017 |
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Feb 27, 2017 20:43
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Let's go with Andira Runehand the Bard.
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Feb 27, 2017 21:01
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By the way, the game is up on Roll20. It's still being worked on, of course, but feel free to drop by and join the game.
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Feb 27, 2017 21:36
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How about the Discord?
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Feb 27, 2017 22:10
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PMush Perfect posted:How about the Discord? I've got my mic, but haven't gotten around to getting the Discord channel up. I'll post it when I've got it up.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:22
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I'm gonna play Reynhart the Worthy, the Champion.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:24
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And we've got a Discord channel.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:26
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Andira + Bard is going to be delightfully prickly, I think.Astro Ambulance posted:I'm gonna play Reynhart the Worthy, the Champion.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:29
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The role of Treasure Hunter will be played by Jain Fairwood.
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Feb 28, 2017 01:27
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Speaking of super straightforward, I'll be playing Jaes the Runemaster.
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Feb 28, 2017 02:39
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CirclMastr posted:Speaking of super straightforward, I'll be playing Jaes the Runemaster. This combo is slightly insane and should be frustrating to deal with.  EDIT: Copied from Discord chat: quote:Pre-campaign setup: done. Microphone: acquired. Once I get the camapign tomorrow and get the first quest prepared, we'll be all set to go. First session is scheduled for Saturday and 4 pm EST, but if people want to (and can) meet up earlier, we can. I've got Wednesday and Thursday afternoon free from about 2 to 8. 5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Feb 28, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 03:57
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I found an online tracker to keep track of our progress. It's mostly for my benefit (to keep track of who's won which quests), but any of you are free to have a look as well. It can be found here.
5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Mar 11, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 16:58
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Thanks for showing up and playing, everyone! The next game will be 3/18 at 4 pm EST.
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Mar 11, 2017 23:43
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Someone asked about the campaign map for the current campaign, so here it is. (Sorry for the lovely phone quality.) Our next quest will be Rellegar's Rest, just north of the Kethiri Ruins (your home base). Since there are two Road symbols between the locations, two cards will be drawn during the travel step, resolving the Road events on both.
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Mar 12, 2017 11:20
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Just updating the thread to say that we finished our first campaign. I'm pretty pleased, even if I lost. You guys are cool and I thank you for continuing to play with me.
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May 26, 2017 00:45
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Thank you for going through all this nonsense for us!
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May 26, 2017 00:47
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Final Tally for those interested.
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May 26, 2017 01:24
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I mentioned in Discord chat that I'd be using a few new game elements for the next campaign: Rumor Cards Rumors are the main method by which the mini-campaigns make their way into the game. At the start of the campaign, I draw three rumor cards, and I get no replacements unless a card gives me one. Rumor cards are played during the campaign phase (between quests), and can screw with travel, shopping, and other steps in the phase. Most notable are cards that add side-quests (of which I can only play one per campaign), which add additional quests that can be chosen at any time in act 1. The winner generally gets either gold (heroes), XP (overlord only), a relic, or some other special bonus, and the it segues into another side-quest in act 2 (with its own prizes). Naturally, not playing a side-quest causes its prize to go to the Overlord, since you were too busy to stop his plans. Plot Cards Lieutenants, on release, do not come with actual minis in the physical game, just tokens. Minis are sold separately, but since Fantasy Flight figured most people probably wouldn't spring for just a mini, they threw in an extra mechanic: the plot deck. This works like a class deck, with the Overlord getting one card at the outset and being able to buy more as the game goes on (including one that allows him to summon a watered-down version of the lieutenant). The catch: these cards are bought and activated using a limited resource alled Threat, and Threat spent to activate a plot card is given to the heroes as Fortune (which has its own uses). There also rules that replace the Nothing card in the search deck with a Secret Room card, but secret rooms are kinda dumb and unwieldy, and generally not worth the time they take the heroes to check out. We can use them if you want, I guess?
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May 26, 2017 01:33
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