Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Overview:
Descent is a dungeon-crawling game of adventure for 2-5 players. One player takes on the role of the Overlord who is in charge of all the monsters and traps and is trying to defeat the heroes. The other players all control one or more heroes and are trying to complete various quests, kill monsters and collect treasure.

Components:
The game comes in a huge box and is filled with a very large amount of components. Firstly there are all the plastic figures to represent the monsters and the heroes. These are all very good sculpts and look superb, especially if painted as many people like to do. There are also a plethora of cardboard tokens in the game to represent player’s health, gold, chests, obstacles, effects, etc. There are a host of cardboard pieces to build the dungeon with as well as the doors throughout. There are also a full set of good quality cards for all the equipment, treasure, skills, monster stats and overlord cards. Also included are a set of character cards with all the heroes stats and details on them. Finally there is a set of dice which is very good quality, and the rules booklet and scenario booklet.

Rules:
The rulebook is a large size colour booklet. The actual layout of the rules is not the best and I often found myself flipping around in order to find a particular rule. However, there are examples of the pertinent rules in there and once a few turns have been run through it isn’t too often that the rulebook needs to be consulted. This is definitely a game that it is easier to be taught by an experienced player rather than to figure it out for yourself though, and definitely easier to learn as you go rather than try to learn all the rules and exceptions at once.

Gameplay:
The game is scenario based and so the Overlord will need to set up the map as specified and will then read the text to the players to explain what is happening and what they are trying to do. It is played over a series of turns until either the Overlord or the heroes have reached their game winning position as stated in the scenario.

Game set up - The Overlord needs to set up the board for whichever scenario is being played. The heroes choose their characters by whatever method is agreed upon (some people like to pick which character to play, other times it is randomly assigned). The heroes are then given their starting skills and money to buy equipment, and tokens for their health and fatigue. The Overlord reads out the text from the scenario and the players place their figures onto the starting spaces on the board.

Rounds - Each round consists of all the heroes taking their turns in whichever order they decide, followed by the Overlord having their turn. This continues until either the heroes or Overlord attain their victory conditions.

Heroes: The heroes start by naming what kind of action they would like to take. The four possible actions are:

1) Run. This means that the hero gets Movement Points equal to double their Movement Rate to spend on whatever they wish.

2) Advance. This means the hero gets Movement Points equal to their Movement Rate and can also make one attack.

3) Battle. The hero gets no Movement Points but can make 2 attacks.

4) Ready. The hero either makes one attack or gets Movement Points equal to their Movement Rate, and gets to place one order on their character.

When they have declared what type of action they are performing the hero then gets to do that action. Individual things within each action can be done in any order, and thus a player taking an advance action could move some spaces, then make an attack, and then continue to move the rest of their unused Movement Rate.


Overlord: The Overlord gets to draw a number of cards from the Overlord deck and gets a number of Threat Tokens equal to the number of Heroes. These threat tokens are used to play the Overlord cards, which are usually cards to summon new monsters or play traps on the Heroes. The Overlord then gets to play any cards they wish and activate any monsters they have on the board. Some of the Overlord cards also allow them to be played during the Heroes turns, interrupting their actions.

The combat is fairly simple once you know what you are doing. Each weapon tells you which dice to roll and the characters often have other bonus dice to add. Then it is a case of calculating how much damage is caused and how many wounds the target takes. Playing through a practice round of combat will help new players to understand.

There are other exceptions to movement and combat rules which come from character abilities, skills and also their fatigue. Fatigue is used to gain extra Movement Points or to add to combat effectiveness or activate some special abilities.



Review of gameplay:
The game is quite daunting at first as there are so many pieces and there are a lot of little details to pay attention to. This means it usually takes a long time for the first game as everyone is getting used to the system and the different actions and all the exceptions that come into play. Combine this with the fact that it is cooperative and new players will often have lengthy discussions over what to do and it means it usually runs around 4 hours for the first game. This is definitely something that comes down with experience though and the games will start to play much more quickly. The gameplay itself is very fun though. Even when you have taken your turn you will often be making suggestions to other players and giving advice so it feels like you are involved all the time. It is great fun advancing through the dungeons, killing the monsters and seeing what treasure you get from the chests. Playing the Overlord is also fun as they are actively trying to win against the heroes, rather than acting purely as a dungeonmaster and dice roller for the monsters as in a game like Heroquest for example.

Overall:
The basic game comes with 10 scenarios but there are a lot of different characters to play and so even playing the same scenario can be a very different experience each time if you use different heroes. It scales well from 2-5, I have played many games with just 2 players and this works just as well as with more. It’s often said that the game is balanced best with 4 and that it is too difficult with 2 or 3 and too easy with 5. I think this depends on the level of experience in the group and it is always possible to handicap either the Overlord or Heroes in either case.
The one thing that stops me playing this game more is the set up and put away times involved, which is usually at least 30 minutes total. Overall though if you have the time I think it is worthwhile.

Scores:

Components: 10/10
Rules: 5/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Fun: 10/10
Overall: 9/10