Blackronin

The year was 1986. There were these adventure books where you were the hero. The first one that fell into my hands was part of a collection called “Lone Wolf”. You would follow a path “chosen” by you, connecting the numbers and pages, going forward and backward, creating a story and fighting monsters and bandits. A die, a sheet of paper and a pencil and off you go. That was my first plunge into RPG’s. I was fifteen years old and I tore off that book, repeating the adventure in that hot summer of ‘86. A few months later I was reading the rulebook of the Red Box of D&D, creating dungeons and filling them with monsters, so that my friends could enter the Adventure.
For years I tried boardgames that simulated something like dungeon crawling. But I never found one that really filled my cup. Until now, that is.
There are many Dungeon Crawling Boardgames. Some good in their design. Other less so. There are those very specific like Space Hulk (awesome), that despise being sci-fi fantasy, it is by concept and construction a Dungeon Crawling game. Never cared much about Warhammer Quest, the stats were very simplistic and every monster felt like the same.

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What sets apart this kind of boardgames is adventure. They must clearly have it and have mechanisms capable of portraying it. A sensation of claustrophobia, challenge, courage and a clear objective must exist. To simulate this we must have two important things in the playing characters:
Enough abilities to have a sense of unicity and a wide display of different approaches to the “reactions” these characters can have and;
The capability to evolve them as they win the challenges that the simulated universe puts on their path. So that they become better, gain gadgets, become unique and ours .
Adding to this, a universe that has enough bosses, variety of monsters and places and that is visually catching, so that imagination can fill the blanks.
There are many. I’ve played a few. Some simple, other complex. But finally I’ve played one that has an amazing potential: Descent 2nd Edition.
The difference between the first and second edition are many and they make sense. The new edition corrects old mistakes and refines and redefines several mechanisms. The game has become very fluid, fast and the combat dice rolls are incredibly elegant.
Those who have children do not hesitate in playing with them. They will love it. Of course you’re creating geeks. It’s on you…
But the true extra is the solo game devised by a fan in Boardgame geek. For those of us who love solo games, Descent sky rocketed. I truly advise playing this game as a solo experience.