Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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After 50 hours of work in Photoshop and MS Office over the past few weeks, I'm proud to announce the availability of Left 4 Dead: the Board Game, a conversion of Descent: Journeys in the Dark!
The hefty, all-inclusive pdf file (107 MBs) can be downloaded here:
[url] http://www.geocities.com/mtpoll/l4dtbg.pdf[/url] EDIT: It's gone! See my post below.
I'd like to again thank Tahsin Shamma for creating the "Descent Dice Roller" at http://www.streakingegyptian.com/descentdice/roller.htm. It was invaluable in crunching the stats.
A few issues:
1. This thing needs to be play tested! Please give it a try and post your helpful tips (or just let me know who won and whether it was imbalanced) in this thread.
2. the cards have no designs for backs, and the fronts are a bit bland, to be honest. This type of cosmetic stuff isn't a priority right now; I may get to it eventually, but if you have designs or design ideas, let me know (there are two decks: The Search Deck and the Feat Deck).
I'll edit this first post with errata and FAQs.
Thanks!
EDIT: Here they are...
1. I underestimated how many basic Infected figures (regular zombies) would be necessary. From initial setup, there are about 30 on the board! The components that come with Descent won't do.. you'll have to rob your copies of "Last Night on Earth" or "Mall of Horrors"... or make paper zombies or something.
2. In addition to some typographical errors, I've found this problem: The Character Reference Sheets list the cost of Searching as 5 Action Points, but page 8 says the cost is 6 Action Points. The correct cost of Searching is 5 Action Points.
3. The Hunter's Pounce ability says that Survivors can't spend Action Points while they're tackled. This implies that they can spend free Feat Cards or take other free actions while they're tackled. They can't. While tackled by a Hunter, a Survivor loses his turn. I'll update this in the next version.
4. Page 10, the section about the Witch, is a bit unclear on one point: If the Witch succeeds in killing the target who startled her, she should be removed from the board. She isn't interested in other targets after the primary target is killed, and she "runs off".
5. The "Stick Together!" Feat Card cannot be used to move allies who are tackled or constricted.
6. Basic Infected figures have 3 Health Points. I can't believe I forgot to include that!
7. Players cannot shoot through doors, like they can in the video game.
8. Players cannot shoot through their own people (for example to kill a smoker that has an ally constricted), even though they can in the video game.
9. Regarding the Boomer's "surprise attack" ability, when it says that he must begin the turn "outside of line of sight" to gain the extra 4 APs, it should read "outside line of sight, not counting enemy figures". In other words, the standard for this ability is LoS as it pertains to spawning, not LoS as it pertains to combat.
I'm currently working on version 1.1, which will address these issues (and no doubt others).
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Mikkel Øberg
Denmark
Virum
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[Download in progress]
As a zombie-fan (that didn't sound quite right) I'm already impressed.
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Eric
Canada
Gatineau
Quebec
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mtpoll wrote:
I underestimated how many basic Infected figures (regular zombies) would be necessary. From initial setup, there are about 30 on the board! The components that come with Descent won't do.. you'll have to rob your copies of "Last Night on Earth" or "Mall of Horrors"... or make paper zombies or something.
I would think that the Zombies!!! packs would be a good option as well. I kind of remember seeing a pack with just minis.
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Joel Glidden
United States
Highlands Ranch
Colorado
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I'm about 10 pages into the rules and this looks great so far. Much thanks for all of the effort that has gone into this conversion. Have you played it enough yet to give an estimate of the time it typically takes to play through a scenario?
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Scott Woodard
United States
Burbank
California
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As a self-professed L4D addict (just ask my wife), I cannot WAIT to try this!!!
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Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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jmglidden wrote: I'm about 10 pages into the rules and this looks great so far. Much thanks for all of the effort that has gone into this conversion. Have you played it enough yet to give an estimate of the time it typically takes to play through a scenario?
Enough? I haven't played it at all! No doubt some other group will play it days before I get a chance to, which is why I'm counting on the help of this community to play test it.
Play time is one of my main concerns, however... I've had Descent maps go on for hours, and this game requires that you play each map twice (!) in order for the teams to switch sides.
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Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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Fixed typo regarding AP cost of Searching. See errata in original post.
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Kris Comeyne
Belgium
Brugge
West-Vlaanderen
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Nice, Within a week, I'll give you a revieuw...
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Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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Krusten wrote: Nice, Within a week, I'll give you a revieuw...
Thanks! What I really need is the following:
Were the rules clear? Was there any specific area that was unclear?
Were the sides reasonably balanced?
Did the weapons seem reasonably balanced?
How long did it take you to finish a match?
Of course, any other input you can offer would be great.
Also, I found another problem. I updated the errata in the original post again.
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Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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I finally play tested this today, and I think it needs to bake a little longer.
Who knew writing rules for a Descent conversion would be so complex? 
I think my main problem ("main" is the operative word here.. this thing has lots of issues) was map length... though level of difficulty for the survivors is up there too.
The scnenario I included with the original pdf is far too long for me to expect anyone to play through it twice in a row (a requirement of the game). Its size needs to be reduced by roughly 60%.
Furthermore, the Survivor team needs time to search for decent weapons before the Special Infected are jumping down their throats, so I think that the Infected team should start with their spawn timers at the max, not in "Ready 4 Killing" status.
The rules need to be overhauled.. lots of little issues came up that that I just forgot to mention in the first draft.
On the bright side, play testing revealed plenty of strong, practical ideas. I'm going to work on it for a few more weeks and then come out with version 1.1... I'm almost embarrassed to leave version 1 available, knowing how deeply flawed it is, but I will so that I can perhaps get other opinions.
I updated the errata above again, but at this point that list is getting pretty long, and I have the sinking suspicion that it's only the beginning...
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Randal Lloyd
United States
Matthews
North Carolina
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As a fan of zombie rethemes, I dig it.
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You may find this to be another useful balance tool; you can use it to estimate how many attacks it will take survivors to dispatch a given zombie or group of zombies, for example, which should help in nailing down the game length.
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I look forward to seeing where this project goes.
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Mark Thomas
United States
Findlay
Ohio
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Just downloaded the pdf. I just got Descent this week, but the concept of modding it with L4D sounds great. Nice work.
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Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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Thanks. This project kind of fell through... I won't have time to make the many necessary changes until June at the earliest.
But it's a start...
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Fredrik Lee
Singapore
Singapore
Unspecified
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http://www.streakingegyptian.com/descentdice/roller.htm
Is the above link still working?
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Randy Bayless
United States
Sedalia
Missouri
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I've been away for awhile and just logged back in. Is there anyway I can still get this stuff, the links are dead ;(
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Tahsin
United States
Waltham
Massachusetts
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I'm actually the guy who developed the above dice roller. I don't have that site up any more. I'll see if I can post the code somewhere else.
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Frinny Willywinkie
Australia
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im interested in reading this PDF but the link is dead. Is there any way i can get it?
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Mark Pollard
United States
Minnesota
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Some people have asked me for this via geekmail as well, but I'm no longer able to offer it.
Since creating this conversion, I've accepted a job in the hobby gaming industry. No one (neither Valve nor FFG) specifically directed me to stop offering it, but it seemed a wise move to pull the file down since both IPs are copyrighted.
Sorry! Thanks for your interest.
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Michal Dziewonski
Ireland
Dublin (originally Polish, tho!)
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*cough*OK, maybe someone who has downloaded the PDF can put it up somewhere*cough*
I'd love to read it, even if I might not play it ;-)
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Ben Boersma
Australia
Pakenham
Victoria
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Sorry I missed this - sounds interesting
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Sai
Australia
Jerrabomberra
NSW
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mtpoll wrote: Some people have asked me for this via geekmail as well, but I'm no longer able to offer it.
Since creating this conversion, I've accepted a job in the hobby gaming industry. No one (neither Valve nor FFG) specifically directed me to stop offering it, but it seemed a wise move to pull the file down since both IPs are copyrighted.
Sorry! Thanks for your interest.
Damn it. I'm a huge fan of L4D. I wish I had found this a year ago when it was still going.
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Richard Linnell
United States
Honolulu
Hawaii
Jacen Phillip Linnell, born Jan 15
This is my son Jacen Phillip - he was born 3 months early and weighed only 2 lbs. 5 oz. He is currently growing as big as he can in the NICU until we can take him home in April.
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Well, you could always play Doom, with the figs from Zombies!!! and ignore the plasma gun/bfg/etc. I actually think that the gameplay of Doom the Boardgame is a lot like that in L4D. Come to think of it, maybe I'll start working some house rules for this conversion.......
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Sai
Australia
Jerrabomberra
NSW
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solidhavok wrote: Come to think of it, maybe I'll start working some house rules for this conversion.......
I don't own doom, but if there was a L4D conversion for it, I'd certain consider the cost. If anything comes of your conversion would you please post a link here? Thanks 
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Posted Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:24 pm
