Amazon has most of its Fantasy Flight games on sale this week. After staring at Descent: Journeys in the Dark for the last few days, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered it.
While I've enjoyed a number of role-playing game (RPG) sessions over the years, I'm usually frustrated at the number of rules that many of the game systems have. I've often wanted a game that captured the theme and cooperative nature of a good RPG, but with a less open-ended feel. Milton Bradley's Heroquest (published in 1989) fit the bill, but the copy I acquired in a trade last year was missing a number of pieces. In addition, I'd prefer a game with nicer components and a more modern feel.
I've read a lot about Descent (since it was published in 2005), and I even downloaded the rulebook about a year ago. As in Heroquest, one player acts as a sort of narrator (much like the Dungeon Master in Dungeons and Dragons) and controls the various traps and creatures. This person is called the Overlord in Descent, and in some groups it seems as if the Overlord works as hard as possible (within the limits of the rules) to defeat the players. In our group it's more likely that the Overlord will simply try to make the quest challenging, without actually trying to defeat the players. The game is popular enough that many expansions have been published, providing many more creatures, settings and quests. I'm hopeful that Descent will fill a hole in our gaming group. It's supposed to arrive on Wednesday.
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