After ten years runebound has made a return to gaming tables in the form of a new 3rd edition.

2nd edition veterans will now be wondering if they'll like the changes and if they should upgrade to the newest version. To help them decide I'm going to do a series of posts highlighting the differences between the editions, with each post focussing on a different area of the game.

Today I'll be starting with "maps and movement".

Both editions are set in the same area of terrinoth, with the same cities and landmarks appearing on both maps. The r3e map is a zoomed in version of the r2e map and only covers half the area, it's not as epic but it does flesh out the area a lot more by showing villages and features that were too small to display on the r2e map.

The thick border has been removed and the hexes are slightly bigger, the number of hexes has increased by 20. The artwork on the map and dice is a huge improvement, terrinoth has never looked so good.

There was an good design choice to move rivers from hexes to the borders between hexes, this frees up a lot of hexes for other uses and means for some hexes you need to roll different symbols when moving depending on whether you cross a river or not.

The r2e map is a much harsher environment, full of difficult terrain, and the r3e map is full of roads and plains. The terrain in r2e is better placed by dividing the map and forcing players to deal with it, in r3e most of the difficult terrain lurks around the edges of the map.

This shows how often each terrain type appears:

R2e r3e

Forest 40 26

Plain 36 101

Swamp 4 4

River 30 n/a

Town 8 4

Hills 32 24

Road 15 24

Mountain 17 16

In r3e 62.5% of the map is either plains or roads, in r2e this was closer to 28%. In r3e any movement dice can be used to travel on roads and moving on plains is as easy as moving on roads in r2e.

This shows the chance that a movement dice will match a terrain type.

r2e r3e

Forest 1/6 3/6

Plains 3/6 4/6

Swamp 1/6 2/6

hills 2/6 3/6

Road 4/6 6/6

Mountain 1/6 2/6

River 3/6 2/6

The dice in r3e are a lot more forgiving, because one side can match any terrain type, and to make things easier every hero can discard cards to reroll dice.

In r2e a hero rolls 5 dice for movement but can choose to roll less dice to recover stamina (stamina doesn't exist in r3e) to represent the hero taking it easy. In r3e the hero get 3 dice for movement but gets 3 actions during a turn, so they can get up to 9 movement dice. In both versions a hero can choose to move one space instead of rolling dice, this is 20% of max distance in r2e and 33.3% in r3e. You can do this 3 times in r3e so you can always move 3 spaces regardless of terrain.

The 3x actions magnifies the effect of movement increases, if you buy a horse for +2 movement you can roll an additional 6 movement dice a turn. If you get one of the six movement upgrades a hero can cross the entire map in a single turn.

Hero's travel around the map looking for adventure tokens and finding safe places to recover from battles. In r2e hero's heal at the 8 cities, in r3e they heal for free in the 4 cities or 16 shrines/keeps. There will always be a location to heal close by in r3e but hero's can also heal in the wilderness by rolling movement dice and matching their current hex.

Finding adventure tokens is also easier in r3e, because all adventures are the same difficulty you will never be more than 3 hexes away from a location that "could" have an adventure. In r2e you could be up to 6 hexes away from an adventure hex of the appropriate difficulty.

R3e does have quests that require hero's to travel to specific spots on the map, this is one area that r3e does well and something I'll go into detail about in another post.

Summary:

The 3rd edition map looks great and includes a lot more (new) detail about the world of terrinoth. The map is bigger in size (hex count) but covers less of terrinoth. The rivers have been moved to the edge of hexes. The terrain is too scenic, the movement dice too friendly and numerous.

R2e is as much about the journey as the adventure, the movement mechanic was groundbreaking and more than anything defines the runebound experience.

R3e has been diluted the movement mechanic almost beyond recognition, the aim is to allow you to draw adventure cards as quickly as possible. This will appeal to some players and frustrate others.

Great summary, Mulletcheese. It's always interesting seeing the numbers and the peculiar differences between editions spotted out. I hope you can post this on BGG as well.

I will post this on BGG as well.

I'm going to go through the most controversial changes first before moving onto the areas where the new edition made the most improvements.

The thick border has been removed and the hexes are slightly bigger, the number of hexes has increased by 20.

Excellent comparison! You say there are more hexes and they are bigger. Does this mean the main board is bigger as well? It would be great if you could post the board sizes of both editions. Thanks.

The board is the same size, the 2nd edition had large borders of 6cm (height) and 17cm (width).

Most of this space has been reclaimed to allow for more hexes despite them being 0.5cm bigger.

The dice match the artwork on the map, which means when 3rd edition gets a new map (2nd edition has 6) the dice will also have to change. This means that any problems with terrain/movement "could" be resolved in a big box expansion.

Where I appreciate R2E's dedication and innovation regarding modeling the trials of the journey, I can't say that is what got me in the door or kept me entertained for 4 hours. It was neat, but often became a hassle that lent little to the overall enjoyment of the experience.

The hardcore gamer in me laments the ease 3E's number's imply, but in application I suspect the lessened focus on the trials of travel will translate into more meaningful engagement with the towns, quests and gems within the world.

From my point of view there is almost everything different . And changes are for good.

1- In 2nd all heroes have I belive 5 dice for travel. In 3rd they have movement points and so that much of dices. Which is better, beause movement equipment like lets say some flying boots (didnt look for equipment now, but I believe something like that is there) is more crucial. In 2 it was almost useless.

2 - fight is resolved by dices and round by round - range, melee, magic. In 3 this is much better. They are combat tokens. All enemies have same tokens, enemies have different attributes for which they can spend some types of tokens. This is much more better then it was in 2. For two reasons - because it gives you more strategic decisions and you must think how to use your tokens properly. This is much better then use dices and compare numbers. And whats great is that for your enemy use your oponent that tokens. OK, when you play in more than two persons, the third one will be waiting more time then in 2, because combats will be longer as I believe, but on other side, on combats two players plays againts each other, so I believe that feeling about that Im playing and not always only waiting then my oponents end his turn will be much better that in 2. But I didnt try it, so..

3 - time space on left on the map. On 2 the game can be endless. If everyone will just loot to have better and stronger hero and nobody will go to fight with end boss it can be played really long. No big problem for me, Ive played this with my 9 years old nephew, whose love the moving and fighting and looting, so we played few hours per day and we played it almost 3 or for days in that style . On 3 there you have timeline. So after every round when all played its moved down. Twelve time or something like that. And after two or three movings around depends on scenario, something happens. The end boss automatically appears, or start to going to the destination city where when he will be there game ends by hero loosing. I usually dont like games which force me to end in some rounds, but in this case it makes sense.

4 - with the time line there is another good thing. The quests refresh. In 2 it happens always when some type of quest card comes to game. Sometimes it happens that it doesnt go in play for too many rounds, sometimes it goes after three fights. I dont know, but I like the quest refresh, which happens in same time after move 6 and 12, which is better for planing.

5 - quests. In 2 you didnt know which type of quest youll have. If it will be fight, or some kind of quest. Even there was I dont know 80%? of fights, it always can happen that there will be five cards of quests in line. And my 9 year old nephew didnt like it, because hi liked fight more that talking . In 3 there you have three types of quests. Fight, Explore and Social. They have different colours so they are on different locations. On 2 there was green, red, purple, red quest so from easiest to hardest. I dont know how it will work on 3 where you have all the fight quests under one marker, but that thing that you have fight under gold marker, under green you have exploration and under purple you have social is really great idea. Because you have desicion where to go. You want to fight. OK, go to gold. You want to explore? You can, go to green location. Its on you, not on random.

6 - map. Map looks better than on 2. Even pictures on cards are from my point of view better and little more "realistic" then in 2.

7 - on cities you have always only 3 things in market. You take another three, then buy or not some things and discard else, so there always be only three things. This will be better than in 2 where some cities can have 20 items etc at the end of the game.

8 - dices looks better. Now you can on first look see where you can go, because they have same background as map. Difference is that you have there only two lands on one side of the dice, If I remember well, in 2 there was three lands. I dont think that this is problem. Now you cant go throght half map on one dice cast (because that two instead there lands and because you have with that heroes without equipment only three dices). This is good, now you must think better where you want to go and when you will need to be there.

9 - manual. I dont remember how it looks like in 2 - I have it on box somewhere on my gaming chest , but manual on 3 is good. Not too big, with some examples, as Im beeing older and start to plays with my young nephews, I prefer that better then some hard rules and one hundred pages manual. Even that there sometimes is time for that kind of games like lets say Malifaux where you must read manual whole day, before you can even start your game

OK there are some things which I dont know if they will be good or not. Like that all fights have same level of enemies (i mean not green, red like it was in 2), Im not sure how this will work, even I think that it will work.

There are some little cons, like that you have only two quests in game, I mean two big bosses to resolve and kill. I believe that there will be more expansions in future but it take some time before theyll be on shops, so for now this is cons for me. I hope that there will be some expansions soon, like new quest, maybe some "reprint" of sand storms from Sands of time, so some big expansions, I hope that there will be traps expansion for 3 too. Another cons is that there are only 40 cards for fight, 40 for explore and 40 for social. This isnt so much. I know that this will change too with expansions, but when you play in more players the enemies starts recycle too fast I believe.

And final verdict - yes, definitive yes. The mechanics and other things are better than it was in 2. Its little different game from this point of view, but its good. I know that now there are much more options for people which like I have all big previous expansions for 2, so you have option to play in sand, in frost, in jungle, but when you compare base game 3 looks much better. So if you didnt play 2 and want some cooperative land exploration and didnt like Talisman, becuase that round walking isnt for you, try Runebound 3rd edition.

If you have 2nd, still buy 3rd (because if the sells will be good there will be expansion in future:) ) because youll receive better game mechanics with some easiest thing like that new dices are, and with more complex fight. And it still Runebound.

Pavel

Thank you for this assessment, I look forward to reading more of what you have to say. I have everything for 2ND ed and personally enjoy the 3rd so far with just one solo play, but look forward to see how well it holds up after multiple plays. That said, your comparison analysis is enjoyable and intresting in that it supports that it is easier to move arround in the 3rd ed vs 2nd.

I'm still planning on continuing my analysis but had to take a short break due to real life taking over my gaming time for a few weeks. I will be back with more soon.

3 - time space on left on the map. On 2 the game can be endless. If everyone will just loot to have better and stronger hero and nobody will go to fight with end boss it can be played really long. No big problem for me, Ive played this with my 9 years old nephew, whose love the moving and fighting and looting, so we played few hours per day and we played it almost 3 or for days in that style . On 3 there you have timeline. So after every round when all played its moved down. Twelve time or something like that. And after two or three movings around depends on scenario, something happens. The end boss automatically appears, or start to going to the destination city where when he will be there game ends by hero loosing. I usually dont like games which force me to end in some rounds, but in this case it makes sense.

Am I the only one who played using the doom track in 2nd edition? I always played to the doom track timer, so I don't understand allegations that the game could be "endless" in 2nd edition. Once time was up on the doom track, the endgame began, and each player had one chance (and one chance only) to slay the end villain.

If it was "endless," you chose for it to be endless... no?

It's the same as saying Talisman takes too long while your characters are packing 20/20 in Str and Craft. The other player(s) were the timer in RB2, someone hits Yellow, you need to start hitting Yellows too or you're falling behind. RB2 never took more than 2 hours, so far anyways, can't see it starting to take longer for no reason in the future.

If this comparison will come later, apologies, but has anyone counted the number of adventure and item cards in both editions. With 4 levels in 2E, there seems to be a lot more types of adventures and also more items. However, our base set may already have a number of add-on decks put in.

(Movement wise - stickers get a meh - we already had one fly off and on to the floor ... Paging a Kickstarted substitute! )

3e has a bigger adventure deck, 60 fixed cards + 40 scenario specific.

2e only has 85, 55 core and 30 scenario specific.

3e comes with 2 scenarios and 2e only comes with 1 scenario.

Scenario specific cards in 2e are weighted towards the end game, so the early game is the same regardless of scenario but the last half is much more scenario based than 3e.

The 2e adventure decks are also free of duplicates and contain named bad guys (this was how the farrow family made their first appearance). The 3e decks can contain up to 4x of the same card and monsters are generic (e.g. ogre).

So 3e has more cards but 2e has more unique cards.

I'm working on a full analysis of the adventure decks now.

2e only has 85, 55 core and 30 scenario specific.

2e has "84 Adventure Cards (35 green, 25 yellow, 16 blue, 8 red)" (p. 2), which exactly do you see as scenario specific?