joshuapavon said:
Antistone, do you do anything on this forum besides correct people, argue, and talk about your better version of Descent?
You can't let anything slide, ever. And, you seem to have a compulsion to let people know exactly HOW right or wrong they might be on a sliding scale, without actually using numbered ratings.
Wouldn't want it any other way. 
Play on, Antistone, play on.
James McMurray said:
That's where only playing with friends who won't try to break the system comes in. 
There are people out there who won't try to break the system?! Tell me the lands you have travelled.
Fort Worth, TX. Though we've been gaming as a group for about 5 years, and depending on which people you put next to each other, we've been gaming with one-another for 15 years or more. "Hey, if you do X and then Y, Z explodes". . . "Yeah, but that would be stupid" is a fairly common theme in our rules discussions.
My group assumed that this indicated that the optional campaign rules were originally supposed to be the standard method of play, but were later scrapped,and they just forgot to remove this aspect of it. This particularly made sense after playing the campaign rules a few times a realizing just how broken they are.
Here I go, digging up old posts again...
I wondered the same thing about the Conquest given for killing the bosses, but I'm glad they made it that way Here's why...
The people I game with are big in to character development (we all come from pen and paper RPGs, and even MMOs), so we devised a way to make Conquest Tokens represent experience points. Characters start at level one, and when they win a dungeon, they receive xp equal to the amount of conquest they finished with. The xp table...
0-4 xp, Level 2
5-11 xp, Level 3
Etc.
Depending on the level of the character, they gain "Perks". At level 2 they start with 100 extra coins, at level 3 they can "bind" one of their previously randomed skills to their character so they use it every time. (One character becomes the players "main" hero....atleast until they are dropped to 0 xp, then they must randomly again) All the way up to level 10 (each perk getting progressively better, but not in a way that will overpower them) in which the hero's receive a "Wild Talent" (a 4th skill card to begin the game).
The OL also levels in a simpler way. We thought at first to base his leveling off of the amount of tokens he takes from the heros throughout the game, but that means the OL would level quicker if he drags the dungeon out (which is no good), but in the end we went a much more simple way. The OL gains one level per win, and loses 1 level per loss. He also has his own "perks" to gain, including "refreshing" his hand for new cards and generating 1 extra threat per turn.
There are a ton more guidelines and rules we've implemented to keep everything balanced while giving the players (even the OL) a sense of accomplish from game to game, but you get the idea. =)
If anyone wants any more info, just let me know!
Oh, and I know there is a "campaign mode" already, but we didn't like the way it worked. =P