Meh Descent Quests

The problem for me is why don't I just play D&D instead? If it's fast to set up and the dungeon is just a smashy smashy fun time, then it can fill a niche. If it's a huge campaign or has more than really mild book keeping, then why bother?

I've had mixed experiences on this front so far. The one big thing that I do like it for is 2 player.

kookoobah wrote:

I have to disagree. Tracking monster health is tedious in Descent and I only realized this because of the altars in this mission. When one of the heroes activated it, I had to put a dice beside each monster to record its life (how else was I supposed to remember all of them)

Huh. I just tuck the hearts on the figs to indicate damage. Like between the beastman's legs so it looks like he's delivering a stack of pizzas or valentines. For razorwings you can just put them on their backs, between the wings. If there is no room, like on a sorcerer, I just stack the damage underneath. This scenario isn't the standard by any means so the extra fiddly doesn't detract from the overall Descent experience for me.

A couple of the scenarios in Tomb of Ice are pretty short now that I think about it. They are also smaller in dimension. Maybe try a couple of those out and see what you think. The added feat cards can really help out the heroes in the AoD and WoD scenarios. Ironically, not as much in Hold the Line since there are no glyphs to activate.

MattLoter wrote:

The problem for me is why don't I just play D&D instead?

I go a step further: why am I not just playing Neverwinter Nights instead? By letting the computer handle all of the fiddly details, I can play through entire chunks of storyline in two- to- three-hour sittings instead of using that same time to play two-thirds of a single Descent scenario.

I have a lot of respect for Descent, and I think it mostly works well. But I no longer play it, nor plan to anytime soon. Maybe it's just too tactical for me; I don't need that level of brain-burn in my dungeon crawls, I guess.

I have to disagree. Tracking monster health is tedious in Descent and I only realized this because of the altars in this mission.

I think the only time tracking monster health in Descent is tedious is in that particular mission. We have played TONS of Descent, both before Road to Legend and also an entire > 6 months long weekly Road to Legend campaign. You barely ever have to keep track of monster health since most monsters are one-hit kills. When you do? Just put a bunch of hearts next to them. I agree that having a bunch of monsters burning at the same time sounds extremely annoying, though.

I also agree that Arkham Horror is much more fiddly than Descent. Which is stupid, because it's really such a simple game.

The problem for me is why don't I just play D&D instead? If it's fast to set up and the dungeon is just a smashy smashy fun time, then it can fill a niche. If it's a huge campaign or has more than really mild book keeping, then why bother?

Our Descent crew just started trying out D&D, and I gotta say, we're finding that Descent's a lot more fun in the combat parts. A lot more fun. We're enjoying D&D, kind of, but, we never would have expected this, the role-playing parts are more fun than the combat, which is similar to Descent: hours-long repetitive hack'n'slash. But more repetitive than Descent, because unlike Descent where your items (and therefore powers) change over the course of the dungeon, here you're just using your same powers, over and over. Damage is way more of a pain to keep track of, and counting modifiers and all that crap slows things down too. And yes, we ARE using Grandpa's Power Cards, which speed things up immensely.

Other big advantage Descent has over D&D: a LOT LOT LOT less work for the Dungeon Master.

a LOT LOT LOT less work for the Dungeon Master.

And let me tell you, from someone who ran a few RPGs back in the day, the above statement cannot be emphasized enough.

I'd disagree with the level of work for a DM if you are just running the new published 4E adventures. All you need to do beforehand is read through em so you know whats going on to make the role playing aspects flow better. You could even not prep at all and do fine.

If you are running homebrew, then of course it takes more work, but again it's all comparative to what you want to get out of it. If you just want a hack and slash dungeon crawl, pull stat blocks straight out of the MM and make up a map as you go.

Also, if you are just getting started with D&D and find it too similar to Descent, I'd wonder if you are still approaching everything from a Descent players sort of perspective? What I love about D&D (or other RPGs) over something like Descent is that I can do whatever I want and the game is able to support that. Don't just think, ok, I'll go run up to that dude and smash him with this attack, think ok I'll trick this dude, then hide over here then poison this other guy and summon an elephant to smash him. Then I'll dress up as him and rob his house.

The bottom line is 4E, now more than ever, is a tool box that you can use to play a lot of very different feeling games with. You can run Descent with it, you can run something even faster and simpler and you can run a multiyear epic world building campaign. It's all about how you and the group approach it.

The question I keep asking is "why not just play HeroQuest?" Is the Descent experience that different from HQ? Is it that little extra smidgeon of tactical depth really worth all the piles of chits and cards and shit?

Played the first quest of the base game last night with my sister and her boyfriend. It was as good as I expected it. I have been a bit harsh with Descent, the monsters aren't fiddly at all. I guess I was just annoyed with that one specific mission.

I guess Descent only truly shines if you have 4 heroes playing and if the dungeons are short enough not to drag out.. Oooh. Sounds like RtL.

Then again, what I like most about Descent are the cool quests that are very different from each other and as varied as RtL is, nothing beats a nice big dungeon. I wonder if the new quest book will have the best of both worlds -- ultra thematic quest dungeons and tight playing time.

MattLoter wrote:

I'd disagree with the level of work for a DM if you are just running the new published 4E adventures. All you need to do beforehand is read through em so you know whats going on to make the role playing aspects flow better. You could even not prep at all and do fine.

If you are running homebrew, then of course it takes more work, but again it's all comparative to what you want to get out of it. If you just want a hack and slash dungeon crawl, pull stat blocks straight out of the MM and make up a map as you go.

Also, if you are just getting started with D&D and find it too similar to Descent, I'd wonder if you are still approaching everything from a Descent players sort of perspective? What I love about D&D (or other RPGs) over something like Descent is that I can do whatever I want and the game is able to support that. Don't just think, ok, I'll go run up to that dude and smash him with this attack, think ok I'll trick this dude, then hide over here then poison this other guy and summon an elephant to smash him. Then I'll dress up as him and rob his house.

The bottom line is 4E, now more than ever, is a tool box that you can use to play a lot of very different feeling games with. You can run Descent with it, you can run something even faster and simpler and you can run a multiyear epic world building campaign. It's all about how you and the group approach it.

We were indeed running a published adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell). I was really looking forward to it being Descent-but-better, but combat feels fiddlier. We almost definitely are all approaching it from a Descent player's perspective, though, but that's partly because it seems like the rules kind of encourage that, giving each player a prescribed set of powers. I don't know what's going wrong; I know that the tactical combat part of 4E D&D is supposed to be its greatest strength, but people are barely using the extra bonuses of their powers (i.e. push someone, move an extra two squares, etc.), so we must be doing something wrong, I guess. We've played several sessions, though (all the way up to and including Irontooth, who caused a TPK); I was hoping it would improve, but it didn't. Advice is welcome.

kookoobah wrote:

I guess Descent only truly shines if you have 4 heroes playing

I really think the monster scaling aspect was a bad idea and/or tacked-on. The base game should only have included the "5 player" monster stats and required 4 heroes as the standard. Why they just didn't reduce the spawn rates for fewer heroes mystifies me.

Even with the reduced monster stats for 2 or 3 heroes, the players are hosed because they are penalized by how many actions they can take each turn. An extra hero is a HUGE resource in this game, the loss of which is not offset by a meager HP reduction in the enemies. Since spawns are pretty much constant, it's the number of monsters that can be killed each turn that really matters since most of them are still going to die after one hit. Two, or three-hero parties are way harder or impossible to win with than a full compliment. Unfortunately, this is not going to be apparent to the new player(s).

Edit: Fewer heroes also makes LOS spawn coverage too difficult.

We found that for most of the base quests, 3 heroes was actually more balanced than four.

One thing I noticed a lot of board gamers moving to RPGs having trouble with in general is the idea that you can do ANYTHING and really running with that. Don't just approach it as a tactical minis game where you look at movement and attack rules only. Think about what kind of crazy shit you might do that isn't just a move and attack. Think more cinematically. Be wild with what you want to do, really use the skills to try all kinds of ideas.

Also, this might take some more playing and getting ideas of how best to use them, but using all those weirder moves like shifting guys around (push dudes into fire places, off cliffs, into waterfalls) in conjunction with thinking outside the typical minisgame box will open up all kinds of new possibilities.

Keep on the Shadowfell is pretty good, but it is expected to be the first 4E adventure most people run, and hopefully the first D&D a lot of people ever play, so it is by design fairly simple dungeon crawley stuff. As you progress through it you'll see some tastes of more complicated situations but it's still more of an intro to get you used to the most basic stuff you can do. The pace for learning is slower as it's so much more complicated, they wouldn't want you to have to read and know the whole PHB before you could get moving on the basics.

Unfortunately D&D is a lot easier to get into both from a learning the rules and a learning the vibe perspective if you have someone who has played for a while to help guide you through. It's mega mega nerdy, but I'd highly recommend checking out the pod casts that the Penny Arcade guys did with a couple of the D&D designers where they played through Keep of the Shadowfell prerelease. Just kinda skip around if you want, but it gives a really good idea of the sort of vibe I like at my table and of how to exploit the rules to make exciting stuff happen. Especially the DM should listen to see how the guys who made the game run things.

The final thing is that rule zero in D&D is the DM can do whatever they want to. So whoever is running the adventure should feel free to make rulings on whatever however they see fit. Stick to by the book rules as much as possible, but undercover changes of some stuff on the fly to make an encounter more dynamic can make a world of difference. For example, if combat is dragging, he can just make the dudes have a little less HP and die faster.

dragonstout wrote:

We found that for most of the base quests, 3 heroes was actually more balanced than four.

Truth.

kookoobah wrote:

I guess the worst part is, you have to spend 3-5 hours on each mission to see if it works or not. Meh.

Even if it does work, the slow pace kills it for me. Last game I played was a 4 hero, 4 hour game. The downtime for players was so bad, I don't think I'll be playing again. Arkham's shared turn structure does a much better job of keeping things moving.