Revisiting: Descent Second Edition

scissors wrote: The mystery to me then, is why 11,600 people own it (BGG numbers ) and why so many people like it as much as they do.

Cause really and truly it is a good game. There are some quirks, no doubt on that. It is challenging for both sides and creates some interesting decisions to make both in game and between games.

For my money it is the best attempt at a dungeon crawl with some character advancement, a connected and narrative campaign system and a dungeon lord role that is engaging rather than just controlling massive spawns of monsters whose purpose are to be cut down by heroes to give them experience.

There are so many elements going on here that you almost have to expect balance to be out of whack at times. This isn't a premapped scenario like Memoir '44...This is a combination of Heroes, Selected Hero Powers, Monster Mix, Overlord Cards and the scenario itself that needs to come into balance.

It isn't a game for all people, but for those looking for a Dungeon Crawl that has some tactical and strategic choices its pretty damn good.

I've had really good experience with the game. Sure it's not balanced, but it's just like Master of Magic being unbalanced.

I really enjoy the "complete package" even within the base game. 4 character archetypes with 2 classes each, just enough amount of monsters, and that campaign...

The overall feeling I get from the game is good. It flows well eve with its quirks (diagonal movement & LoS through corner intersection), it plays with little fuss. You can find a LOT of conflicting abilities & timing, but in general I keep those in line by having me as the final word (just can't believe those FFG guys that took over after the original designer left).

The tiles are great, you get to whack monsters too. While it can be a race game, I didn't feel it that way, at least not all the time.

The game is mainly a resource planning (your action) with awesome visual presentation. It's not that much of a "meaningful decision game", but that actually gives us the chance to enjoy the theme.

I played it twice just after it came out, and we had fine intentions of doing a big ol' campaign of it. But life intervened to the tune of a second child and I couldn't keep in it. It's too bad, I actually liked it quite a bit. One thing is that it is still very much Descent, in that it's really more of a tactical miniatures game than a dungeon crawl. It was just a much more streamlined one than it was before.

I'm really not able to comment on it much besides the fact that I did really enjoy it, and grasped it much easier than the big game. I would like to revisit it eventually.

scissors wrote: The mystery to me then, is why 11,600 people own it (BGG numbers ) and why so many people like it as much as they do.

It's a complete mystery to me, too! I feel like we were playing different games...which is I think the solution to the mystery. With a different set of monsters, in a different scenario, with different heroes, you might get an entirely different game; or at least, you might sometimes get the game as it SHOULD work, and sometimes you get "oops, the overlord uses Charge to put a dragon in the hallway on the first turn, and from there on the heroes just slowly hack at it each turn, while the Overlord hides the speedy monsters behind the dragon and on his turn they pop through the dragon, whack a hero, and then pop back behind; rinse and repeat for a couple hours (this is even more 'fun' if the monsters behind the dragon are flesh molders or whatever, so they can also be healing the dragon)".

I don't get it. Does this kind of thing not happen in the Descent-lovers' games? If not, why the hell not?

Really, anyone thinking about getting this game NEEDS to listen to that podcast, as it's the only place where I've seen my exact experience with Descent 2.0 described to a tee (that, and mjl1783's comments on here warning us all not to get it). And I really, really wanted to like it.

Either your post is exaggerated or you were misplaying some rules.

dragonstout wrote: I don't get it. Does this kind of thing not happen in the Descent-lovers' games? If not, why the hell not?

Because it's fun for nobody. Seriously, if you break your own game and make it not fun for the players or even yourself, you're an idiot. Yeah, you could park a big, beefy wall of a monster in a narrow hallway, blocking the adventurers from continuing onward and effectively stalling the game, but why would you? If winning is that important to you, go play chess. As the DM, you should be providing a challenge, and while you want to win, you want the adventurers to feel like they _almost_ made it. That's fun, and it makes for a good game.

If you're going to hallway block in Descent, you're an asshole and I'll tell you that right before I get up and leave the table.

Applejack wrote:

dragonstout wrote: I don't get it. Does this kind of thing not happen in the Descent-lovers' games? If not, why the hell not?

Because it's fun for nobody. Seriously, if you break your own game and make it not fun for the players or even yourself, you're an idiot. Yeah, you could park a big, beefy wall of a monster in a narrow hallway, blocking the adventurers from continuing onward and effectively stalling the game, but why would you? If winning is that important to you, go play chess. As the DM, you should be providing a challenge, and while you want to win, you want the adventurers to feel like they _almost_ made it. That's fun, and it makes for a good game.

If you're going to hallway block in Descent, you're an asshole and I'll tell you that right before I get up and leave the table.

I agree but don't. Yes, it is good to try to make sure everyone has a fun time with the game. But on the other hand, part of good design is taking every effort to limit exploits such as this. But I also don't think it is as big of a deal as it is made out to be.

The nice thing about Descent is, when I play head to head against my brother, we go all for it, with all the dirty tricks including corridor blocking (which, really, after the first few quests amounts to nothing), and when I play with my younger nephews and non gamers I can choose to go easy and still have fun.

Applejack wrote:

dragonstout wrote: I don't get it. Does this kind of thing not happen in the Descent-lovers' games? If not, why the hell not?

Because it's fun for nobody. Seriously, if you break your own game and make it not fun for the players or even yourself, you're an idiot. Yeah, you could park a big, beefy wall of a monster in a narrow hallway, blocking the adventurers from continuing onward and effectively stalling the game, but why would you? If winning is that important to you, go play chess. As the DM, you should be providing a challenge, and while you want to win, you want the adventurers to feel like they _almost_ made it. That's fun, and it makes for a good game.

If you're going to hallway block in Descent, you're an asshole and I'll tell you that right before I get up and leave the table.[/quote

not sure about this. The whole purpose of the rules for the Overlord player is that he doesn't have to be the GM, but can play a competitive game against the players. I don't think you can just wave of any criticism of the game because the Overlord should go easy to make it fun.

It's the game's job to incentivize me to play in a way which leads to fun because fun strategies win. If unfun strategies are the best strategies to win, the game design is fucked. As the Overlord my job is NOT to DM. I NEVER had to do that in hours and months and years of playing as the overlord in Descent 1E. I just played my ass off and so did my opponents, and we both had more fun because we knew neither was holding back. (except for the one time when it wasn't fun and jesus we all just wanted to go home because it was 4am and that fucking. boss-level sorcerer. kept. hitting. his undying roll)

If the entire goal of the heroes is to get to point B, and I can choose to take a monster wide enough to block the only route to point B, and that is, really, the only effective thing the monster can do (monsters are MUCH better at blocking than killing), then no, I am not an asshole for doing what the game is BEGGING me to do.

It's weird, Descent 2E is maybe the only game I've played since Cutthroat Caverns and Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel where I'd describe my experience with it as "that game is broken".

VonTush, which part of what I described above sounds exaggerated? I believe the only exaggeration is that you can't BOTH do the "small fast monster hides behind the dragon and pops in and out to attack" thing AND use Flesh Moulders to heal the dragon, because Flesh Moulders aren't fast enough, and only the master Flesh Moulder would be healing the dragon anyway. The main thing, though, was a Dragon sitting in the hallway, being plinked for a few damage every turn, with another dragon right behind it ready to take its place when it died. And none of the players have anything interesting to do because there's only one thing to hit and nothing else in the room. Meanwhile, this is actually just a prelude to part II of the encounter, and the part-2s are even more egregiously one-sided.

Oh man, I just remembered...there were times where, as the overlord, it was clear that the correct thing to do was stall and NOT even try to finish completing my objective, just because there is no overlord-hand-size limit, and you bring all the cards from part-1 to part-2. So I was just stalling to build up my hand, to make it easier to just win part-2 on the first or second turn.

But man, people LOVE this game; it was enough to give me real pause and regret about selling it despite our terrible experiences. Either something is really wrong with me, or the majority of people play the overlord like a DM instead of being ruthless.