I own JitD and all expansions, but somehow would like to start my first RtL campaign with only the base game as I didn't use the expansions yet. Probably, hopefully I'll introduce these later.

I know that previous questions concerning RtL and expansions always got the advice of at least adding WoD, mainly for the Treachery cards.

Therefore this stubborn question. Did anyone actually play a RtL campaign with only vanilla Descent and enjoyed it ? Or is it a complete waste (of a lot) of time ? If it's a complete waste of time, I wouldn't like to be the first one to find this out.

Many thanks for your answers!

I don't really see any downside to adding the expansion material in if you are going to start a RtL campaign. Unless your copies are unpunched and you think you might resell them, why not add them. You get more monsters (ie. more game variety), more treasures and skills, power potions, the boulder, several props and board effect tiles that are used in some of the rumors, and of course, treachery. Treachery is a major upgrade that the OL can use, removing that from RtL would remove a key tool from the OL.

If you already own the expansions, I say, use the material for RtL.

I haven't played it with vanilla Descent only, but I can tell you this: We started our first RtL campaign without having played either WoD or AoD, but added them both in right off the bat. None of us are expert Descent players (indeed, only a couple of us had even played vanilla Descent before), but we didn't have much difficulty sorting it all out and becoming proficient. Someone with more experience may correct me on this, but it seems to me that the expansions don't add much of anything other than extra monsters and new OL cards--both of which lead to better variety. The treachery system isn't difficult to learn, either, especially since it functions differently in RtL than in the expansions, anyway.

I don't think other new wrinkles from the expansions (like extended actions) are even featured in RtL, so you're not really going to be adding a lot of extra rules to learn. My advice would be to just start with everything. Caveat: We don't have ToI, so this advice does not pertain to it. Good luck!

edroz said:

Is there a way to play the boulder now that Rolling Stone has been removed?

NigelTufnel said:

One of the expansion rumors has a boulder.