Dungeon Crawl Board Games

I was thinking of picking this up as a five player option for game nights with my friends.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Warnings?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Gloomhaven looks cool

Didn't like my first and only game of it. It lacked direction and context and took forever to set up. It clearly had alternate ways to proceed other than fighting the bad guys upfront but didn't seem to provide any ways for me to find out what they were. And if I'm going to play a dungeon crawl that isn't an RPG I'd rather go with something cooperative.

Asault on Doomrock is pretty good at scratching the RPG itch for me, but it's a very long game by all accounts and only goes up to 4 players.

There's the various D&D games like Legend of Drizzt and Wrath of Ashardalon, but I don't know their player counts and the difficulty seems a bit overdone.

I think I've heard good things about Arcadia Quest but I couldn't really tell you anything about it. There's a bunch more but I haven't played more than a couple and five sounds like it might be a difficult player count for dungeon crawls.

Dungeon Crawlers tend to get increasingly worse the more people you play with.

Descent (2nd ed) is pretty much the standard for game archetype. Drags a bit with 5 players, but so does every other coop.

Gloomhaven is basically multiplayer rogue-like, it's for enthusiasts who don't mind pushing though dozens of (mostly similar) scenarios, might be overwhelming for new/casual players.

Super Dungeon Explore - cute, simple, might be preferable option for young / weebs.

And if you're rich and/or masochistic there's Kingdom Death, 4 players presently but 5 player expansion should be coming shortly (2018-19).

SDE FK is pretty bad though. If you're interested in Super Dungeon Explore either pick up a 1.0 box or wait for SDE 2.0.

What's so bad about FK? I only got core + first 2 expansions.

There's no reason for the heroes to attack spawn points. It's much better for them to do nothing but grind minions. Minibosses are much stronger than in 1.0, killing spawns make enemies stronger and spawn a miniboss. There is also no timer on the game so it tends to drag on. SDE 2.0 looks a lot better, but I haven't actually play tested it yet. It is a lot closer to 1.0 than FK, but it incorporates the miniboss a lot better than 1.0 as you fight one strong miniboss once per game and they streamlined it by removing the wound track making the clock based on Overlord turns.

Been playing descent for a bit with a few friends, a lot of fun if you have the right attitude towards it.

Some of the quests are very difficult for either the players or the overlord and the class balance is all over the place. But it's fun to play and the campaigns are fun since they keep going between sessions so I personally would recommend it if you can find it for a decent price somewhere.

Also if you do end up getting and want some of the expansions / lieutenant packs, do some research before you end up paying for them, some of the additional stuff is somewhat underwhelming.

I own quite a bit of decent.

The companion app is pretty great because it turns it into a full on co-op game instead of requiring someone to be the Overlord.

The missions are always a race to accomplish a goal instead of an exploration goal in the regular game.

The only house rule we have is that we treat a blue X roll as a 1 heart roll for melee attacks instead of a miss. For ranged and spells it is still a miss. Having a 1 in 6 chance to miss your attack as a melee focused fighter is pretty retarded.

That said, 4 players is the max I would play the game with using the app. Five if you have an overlord.

The set-up and tear down is a pain in the ass for this game though, so be prepared for that.

The D&D adventure games are pretty good even with all the bits and bobs and 'perfect knowledge' of monster actions. It is bullshit how monsters always go first though.

Gloomhaven is pretty awesome but not worth a damn if you aren't going to campaign it.

Arcadia quest doesn't support five people. Fun and simple skirmish game.

Oh look in this thread a bunch of co-op trash masquerading as true Dungeon Crawlers. I get no satisfaction in defeating a deck of cards, of beating a game mechanic.

Thematicly Descent and the D&D Adventure board games are set in Dungeons but they are missing the exploration and the DM of HeroQuest and Dungeon Saga.

A lot of tactical combat games people also think are Dungeon Crawlers.

Is this any good? What are D&D boardgames like compared to the RPGs?

I like them. Ravenloft is great for the atmosphere but can be really hard. The Legend of Drizzt makes the heroes a bit more powerful but follows the Legend of Drizzt. Elemental Evil tries to shake things up and actually offers a coherent campaign. It's also more aimed at 5e audience instead of 4e.

There will be a new one at the end of the month, it's looking pretty good so far.

Ah I love me some rpg in a box thread, descent is fun I change the rules up sometimes just for fun.
Dungeon saga is hella fun can't lie. And when I'm in the mood for more story some mice and mystics...

I hated Mice and Mystics. The rulebook was a mess, the difficulty depended more on the luck of the draw than how well you played, the main characters were hugely imbalanced and those 2 missions close to the end with only 2 characters felt like a huge middle finger to my gaming partners (a co-worker and his 2 kids).

It is true nez and Collin just wreck shit! And yes it is not the best game, but in honesty I've only played the game with one other person so we never had any issues but I can see this game not working cool for a bigger group.
And like descent some times I will change some rules to make the game more playable... it's the awesome part of table top a book can't tell u to stop breaking the rules like a video game

Aw crap I've been going through the campaign (extremely slowly, I think we started 3 years ago) with a group of 4. I guess I'll play DM when the time comes and have someone play Rayman in the background or something.

As someone who has played the entire campaign of Descent 2e twice I can say the game can be good or horrible depending on how you play it. If the players and the overlord play optimally the game turns into a running simulator. Combat is pointless and the only purpose of monsters is to physically clog corridors with their bodies so that the heroes don't run fast. If the overlord is dumb and engages in standard D&D fights with the players while the players also act dumb and fight anything that appears in front of them you will probably have a good time.

One way to solve this is to use the app. Instead of respawning monsters and constantly having to grab a mcguffin it presents tougher fights and time limits. I don't know if it's compatible with 5+ player expansions though.

Get Heroquest, it's bloody brilliant.

You can pick up components pretty cheaply, I think in all it maybe cost me £60 over a few months, where a complete sealed copy on eBay would be more than double.

Of course if you want there's .pdfs of nearlty everything on Ye Olde Inn, for UK, EU and US versions and more. Also you could get alternative miniatures if you're not fussy.

desu I'd recommend just playing Moldvay D&D over dungeon crawl board games

youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A

Is Massive Darkness any good?

We have it, have played it a few times, but it falls apart of the same reason as always.

The "evil overlord" in this game cannot be the guy set out to annihilate you and your team. He must understand that he is there to create a narrative, paint you a picture of your adventure so to speak.
Our "main guy" is so obsessed with playing WAAC, he literally always takes the "best" monsters, no regards to story or what ever (So... Why is this black dragon hiding in a small hut in the forest again?!?). He constantly complains about the overlord being massively under-powered. And while true, he clearly hasn't seen the overlords true objective in the game, to make it fun for the players! He can win by objective, he does not need to curbstomp his opposition, and get mad when he fails.

And its always the same guy who leads the campaigns (regardless what game we play...).
But what can you do... The guy used to DM our games back in the day, when he was good at what he did. Now I´m afraid, he´s just a bitter old guy, afraid to let go of old routines.

So word of advice, have a good "leader" or someone who actually cares about the story behind the game and someone who´s not a sore looser. The overlord fights an uphill battle, and must be prepared to loose and still keep a smile on his face.