Descent Game Night Kit

My FLGS ordered in a Descent Game Night Kit which I have taken possession of since I have offered up my services to host and run the event at the store when it gets scheduled, if it gets scheduled (as my FLGS owner is a bit of a slacker like that).

At this point I have ran through twice and both times I was smoked. Both times I paired up a basher with a healer. The first time I more or less picked randomly and was killed by the third room. The second time I put a little more thought into it and managed to get to the fourth room! And that is out of a possible 10-12.

It has been a while since I've played Descent and usually I'm the OverLord so this has been fun. I've been able to knock some of the dust off my Descent abilities and been able to look at the game from the other side so to speak.

The way the Game Night Kit works is there are 12 Encounter Cards - A Starting Room, Three Objective Rooms (which are seeded in the deck) and then 8 Generic Rooms. The game ends when you completed Objective Room 3 which is seeded in the last three cards of the stack so will appear in room 10, 11 or 12.

These Encounter Cards are pretty neat because they give you a little flavor text, reference you to the room diagram in the book detailing how the room is setup and then usually give you a task that you need to complete within a certain number of turns otherwise bad stuff happens.

Now after you complete and Encounter Card and it goes away you can't even take a breath because the game starts hitting you with Fate Cards which you draw when Encounter Cards aren't in play. These spawn monsters, damage you because fireballs or giant spiked boulders in the way...Basically they're there to make sure you keep moving because every Fate Card you draw you move the Fate Track down by one.

The Fate Track is your Game End Timer...From the top Fate moves down, from the bottom Doom moves up. Shall the two meet, your game is over.

There are also two tracks that happen which pertain to the leveling up during the game. When you kill a monster you place one damage token on a track per space the killed monster occupied. Once it reaches a certain point (depending on the number of players) you draw a treasure card. When you kill a Master Monster you move a second track up which allows you to draw more treasure cards when it comes time to draw, you still keep one though.

The second way the game handles leveling up mid-game is the Objective Rooms. When you succeed or fail the first Objective Room you get either 1 or 2 XP. The 2nd Objective Room gives you XPs as well, but I don't know how many as I haven't visited the room yet, and triggers the Act II monsters and item deck.

Lastly the monsters are controlled by a AI deck of 10 cards, flip a card, it shows the four monsters available in the quest and you move through the card following the instructions detailing what they do. In a nutshell they typically move closer and then attack. Or stand and attack if they have ranged weapons. Different cards will also give little perks and bonuses.

Now, if you've made it thus far, awesome! I've had a blast these first two games I have to say, even though I was whooped. I do get the feeling that FFG is in a bit of a Beta Test with these though in preparation to launching a big expansion with rules to remove the OL and make it all ran by AI card decks and random dungeon card flips. Just a guess, but they have said this expansion (which is a POD expansion I should add) will be available for retail at some point.

They have already announced a second Game Night Kit with a similar concept and I expect it to be pretty much the same as far as setup, components and flow and personally I welcome more.

A downside is as I mentioned there are only four monster types used in a mission so the monsters lack variety. Also each room is characterful, but once you see it and have the excitement of exploring it, the room does loose a little charm. But the plus side is I've gotten my ass whooped so bad I've only seen half the rooms.

Well this is getting a bit long, but if this is in fact a beta type test for an alternate play style for Descent I'm very excited. I always end up playing the OL so playing the heroes is a nice change of pace for me...As a side note, the removal of the OL in Super Dungeon Explore Kickstarter is the main reason why I bought so much into that one, so I'm all for AI decks.

TL/DR: Check out the Descent Game Night Kit, it mixes it up in a pretty neat way and especially if you're the one that always gets stuck playing the Overlord in games.

Sounds cool. I've been missing Descent lately and have thought about buying second edition. I've still got all my 1st edition stuff but I don't see me ever digging it out again.

I like playing OL in these types of games, but I'm intrigued by the AI deck. Hopefully once FFG puts out a full AI expansion at some point. In the meantime I'll keep an eye out for one of these kits.

I thought there were plans to release a cooperative expansion, or maybe I was reading about these game night packs? I think Descent 2nd would hugely benefit from cooperative play.

I agree. I don't mind playing the OL and that's likely why I do so often. It is a very welcome option though...Usually what happens is I'm forced into the role because no one else wants to or knows the game well enough to run the OL.

One other thing I forgot to highlight is that it is great for those one off game sessions where you do get to advance your character a bit without doing a full or mini campaign.

From what I know the Game Night Kits will be available for purchase later. That's all that has been announced at this point.

There's just something that feels very Beta Testing about this launch. Like a bit of feeling the water out, seeing what works and what doesn't. So I'm really hoping this is a portent for things to come on a much larger scale.

I'm still thinking about getting Descent 2nd edition. Can anyone comment on how much is "lost" if you play each time as a one-off scenario? I question my group's ability to maintain a campaign.

The game really is made for the campaign. There are the small expansions which do three or four mission campaigns - Layer of the Wyrm and Trollfens if that helps you out.

But that said, you can give each player some XP and gold to spend on weapons and in essence skip ahead a few levels. I can't remember the exact rules for that though but there are some in the base rules.

If I were to be honest, this is one of those games where I feel like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts...There's a lot that is good to very good on its own but the collection is what makes the game great.

So it would appear the core of this kit--the Forgotten Souls adventure--is going to be released soonish as Starlit Citadel now has it listed for sale and Funagain has it up for pre-order.

I'm still sorely tempted to pick up the gamenight kit off ebay [unless someone here happens to know of an FLGS selling 'em for $50 or less] for the nifty but totally superfluous promo items (playmats, acrylic wound tokens, loot tracker, and dice--which may *not* be quite so superflous depending on what the co-op rules and cards require), but the price is still sitting around $100 for the bloody thing. It'd be a no-brainer at half that [which is what I'd actually expect to pay if my gamestore would ever order the damned things]

VonTush: Are the blue dice different (beyond color, that is) from anything else available outside the promo kit? Or are they just basically the equivalent of "alternate art" promo cards for just about everything else they do?

Here's the link for FFG's announcement. You can order it from FFG right now from their PoD stuff. One things to note is that you have to print the rules out yourself which are needed because those detail the special rules for the rooms when you enter them.

The playmats...I ditched them last game. It only helps you keep things organized once you're deep into a campaign and at that point you'll develop your own organization for your character. Otherwise picture putting a half dozen or so cards on two 8.5 x 11 pieces of paper in front of you. Lots of wasted space.

The wound tokens are nice, but like the playmats aren't needed. The loot tracker? If its the card I'm thinking of you'll get it with the PoD thing.

As for the dice, TM me your address and I'll mail you one. I ran the event at the store and paid all the entry fees myself not charging anyone else so I have all the tokens and dice. It is the exact same blue dice in the base game, or at least I assume as I never double checked. No special rules and yeah it is basically alternate art.

First time I'm reading about this. I stopped paying attention to Descent a long time ago and even less so when I sold my 1st edition stuff. Sounds cool, I would definitely like to try this. I would hope they can make the whole game an option to go OL-less. I didn't mind playing as OL, but it's such a weird position to be in. You want to ensure everyone has fun like a GM, but you're competing against everyone else.

It does feel like a different game...Like if Gears of War and Descent 2.0 went into a F-Hut and this is what came out. It is very fun, but it does come out feeling closer to Gears of War than Descent 2.0.