After a couple campaigns, I presume I can put my thoughts here and hear what you all think about it as well.

I must admit I got fascinated with the game as a hero, and before we could end the campaign we were playing, the previous owner of the game (and the OL at that time) decided to quit. Playing as the Overlord, the game experience changed to me. As the OL you must be aware of the rules, the mechanics and everything that is related to the game, or else you will be guilty of been playing the game wrong, and sometimes be accused of cheating. It's sad, but it's also real. Playing as a hero is very cool, not stressing at all, and the hero player needs just to roll dices and make a couple decisions until the end of the quest. So, after playing Descent in both sides, I came to a conclusion: There is too much uncertainty and gaps in the stated rules, and that, sometimes, can ruin the experience of playing the game for me.

I lost the count of the times I got into rules discussions regarding to diverse interpretations. And I am sure, inevitably, there will be more. However, I think it can be mitigated by FFG by taking new methods while creating the errata files.

I believe the FFG system of providing the FAQ's and errata’s need to be more constant and more focused in the card mechanics (that includes monsters, hero sheets, OL cards, plot decks, travel decks, secret passage decks, etc.) since they are the part of the game that can change the regular course of the stated rules. I mean, every card brings with itself a rule that MUST be very well spelled, and the game developer must be also aware of the impact the card will bring and its various consequences.

Actually, the FAQs and errata’s are being made and filed according to its expansion, making it much harder for a quick reference while playing the game. I think the more functional way to state the official errata’s is sorting them by relevance; class, OL cards, quest description, and so on, regardless of what expansion it is related to.

I’m not here to complain about the stated rules (that not mean I agree with them!), I’m here to demand a plain exposure of them, in order to minimize the incomprehension, misunderstandings and often hostilities between heroes and the OL. (Note: Take into account both sides are looking to win, although I respect the Descent casual playing from an OL that are not much concerned to win a campaign, but more interested into a lore immersion and soft ruling game)

I will put here some topics I think FFG need to watch carefully for the next FAQ/errata, and make it more effective for player to access:

1. A very detailed and illustrated topic about adjacency, square counting and line of sight - For most of the users in this forum the most confusing ruling.
2. Detail once and for all the combat steps - Before rolling dices, after rolling dices, spending surges [i.A. Rune mastery, weapon mastery, mana weave, uncontrolled power (…)], order of spending surges, damage done vs. damage dealt (reflective ward). The fans already debated the need of stablishing combat steps for further consequences into combat.
3. The need of a system to validate targeting for skills and effects – (I.A. fire breath, blindind speed, mental error etc.). For instance, can an Hybrid Sentinel apply its prey on the weak on the other targets affected by the fire breath or just the main target is a valid target for this purpose? Some cards from Basic II must have 2 targets to be a valid play(blinding speed, mental error), the monster receiving the bonuses and a hero making a test. The hero just making the test is considered a target of the card/effect?

All that said, I summon the core active players from this forum, Zaltyre, Any2cards, Indalecio, Omnislash024, Atom4geVampire, and much others to debate, add and/or expose their feelings about. One more time ty for your time, and sorry about the bad spelling.

I would suggest looking at the Glossary of Terms that Zaltyre created, and that many of us, including myself, provided assistance.

This is a gathering of critical information, and a solid core of definitions, timing, etc. This also happens to be information that has been culled by people that have played both sides (OL & Hero), and have extensive experience with the game. In addition, we have interacted with FFG's own personnel.

I think you will find much of what you are looking for in this document. If you access the top thread in this forum called Index of Useful Links, you will find a link to this Glossary. It is located within the section called Community Tools & Game Aids.

Once you have read it once or twice, we can then discuss what you feel is missing or needs additional information.

Ok, I already readed the previous version of the glossary, but I will see the new one. Ty

I agree, Dommus- being the OL requires a working level of rules comprehension to prevent heroes from either unfairly pressing an advantage, or believing that you're unfairly pressing yours. I prefer everyone at the table has that kind of comprehension for a quest before its played to keep the rules discussions away from the table as much as possible- if you can't trust your fellow players to follow the rules, it's tough to have fun.

I'm obviously biased, but I also think my glossary gets at what you're looking for. I came to a conclusion very similar to yours once I started playing descent regularly: the rulebook does not do a great job of clarifying what abilities do . To that end, I felt that what was missing was primarily a solid definition of what specific words and phrases meant in the game (one ability says 'place,' while another says 'move' - what's the difference?) So, I put together such definitions based on input from the community and what had already been determined by FFG rulings.

That being said, the rulings in the FAQ/Errata are all very good- but the document is really not supposed to be a supplemental rulebook- 'just a special notes about things that cause widespread confusion' and 'changes to quests and cards from their printed form.' What you're talking about sounds more like a 'Rules Reference Guide' which Descent doesn't have (officially,) but FFG made for Imperial Assault.

I rather like the illustration in the rulebook for LOS, but if you've got specific requests for situations to include in another, I'd be happy to work on something of that nature. My glossary includes a space-counting example which I think covers all of the bases.

Regarding things like fire breath, read carefully the sections in my glossary about target space, target, and affected . Those terms should answer most of your questions. If not, I can try to be more clear.

Zalt, you're doing a very nice job for the community. I've already printed your glossary and made it a reference in the table, however, you cant foresee every situation. This topic is here for the purpose of a call for help. Descent needs to be heavily patched, it needs more credit. Your example with IA is perfect, they got something better there in therms of mechanics, but that means they will leave Descent behind? Im here trying to force FFG hand to do something with their creation. Im honestly afraid of buying more Descent material (and I really wish to) having in mind they would quit 2nd Ed. and a new merge into a 3rd Ed. happen frustrating my plans.

I believe Indalecio already exposed his feelings in a similar way in another post, and I am aware most of his concerns are also mine now, and Im about to take a break of Descent to see what will happen next.

Ty for the assistance friend

I don't think it means they will leave Descent behind. I think that is only an indication that FFG learned a thing or two between the year Descent was released and years later when IA was released, and don't have the time to make one for Descent between developing expansions and answering rules questions.

Any talk about a third edition is pure speculation. For my part, I consider the third edition to be a long way off. If I had to guess, there is more coming for the second edition. even if there isn't , I don't think it's time for a third edition. That is, even if FFG announced today that there would be no more expansions coming for Descent, I would think it would still have life in it for some time. I've said this in other topics, but the quest vault is nearly limitless in scope. With the set of tiles we already have (not even considering those advertised with Bilehall) we can build a huge number of maps, and quest objectives and special rules are only limited by the imagination.

Additionally, the point of the glossary (ideally, it isn't perfect) is that you don't need to predict everything. It's about defining the framework within which the abilities exist, and within which new abilities are designed. For example, when the conjurer class was created, it required the development of image tokens. While image tokens are a new thing, they fit within the framework of a 'figure treated as a hero' but not 'familiar,' and that tells you everything you need to know about them (that is: no activation, block movement for all but friendly figures, block LOS.) I trust the people currently designing content for Descent- I know that they consider wording carefully when developing new abilities. For example, I once asked a rule question about the universal card 'Solidarity.' (Play this card at the start of your turn and choose 1 Hero sheet. Until the start of your next turn, each time any hero tests an attribute, he must use the attribute value on that Hero sheet.) I asked whether a changeling's 'hideous laughter' (reduces attribute values) affected this. The response was no, and it was explained that this is why the card specifies " the value on that Hero sheet ." The wording was carefully chosen, which I am glad for.

I don't want all of this to sound like I don't think Descent's rules could use any work, or that there are no issues. All I mean to convey is that I think FFG is doing a reasonable job communicating rulings in a consistent manner, and with very few exceptions ('Reflective Ward' still makes me cringe) the wording of cards and abilities is consistent across the game- the same phrase means the same thing everywhere it appears. Therefore, we do have the tools we need to solve most rules questions without input from FFG.

All that being said, the framework has its issues. There are at least 3 different ways to move your figure from one space to another in Descent: one uses movement points, two use space counting, and one of those doesn't even count as a 'moving into a space' with respect to other abilities, though it does count as 'having moved.' The sentence I just wrote is confusing, and the fact that it's one of the clearer ways to describe the movement system is very telling. However, you can't patch that. The movement system is ingrained into nearly every ability, and deeply into the behavior (and speed balance) of large monsters. The messy, multi-faceted movement system is at the root of Descent second edition- to change it, you'd almost have to start over (for the record, I've put some thought into trying to alter the movement system for a house rule- it isn't easy.) However, by learning the distinctions between the wording of those different movement types ('perform a move action,' 'move N spaces,' 'place your figure within N spaces...') every movement ability conceivable can be understood.

Overall, I agree with you- it would be nice if all of Descent's rules were more clearly defined (or re-defined.) However, I think we differ in that I am of the opinion that there is a good deal we can do as players of the game to make it

a) playable as is

and/or

b) a better experience for all by coming up with our own solutions

Honestly, I find alot of particulars when dealing with Descent Rules. There's the rule but then the small exceptions when it comes of said rule. It makes the game very confusing at times and leads to alot of rules discussion. Descent is VERY involved.

And still, my biggest concern about the rules is the definition of KOed heroes and if they are on the map or not. By definition, they aren't on the map with the exception of healing purposes. But then, there's all these Skill cards and AOE effects as well as the fact their token is actually on the map. A whole other ball of wax that doesn't really need discussion in this topic, but it's just an example of how much these rules can make the game confusing.

No argument here. When it comes down to it, Descent 2 is significantly simpler than Descent 1. However, it's still orders of magnitude more complicated than other games, because it's (thematically) a fantasy RPG- you can only simplify that so much. Can more simplification be done? Certainly.

The problem with simplification is that if you go to far, you eliminate the actual value of the game.

I actually think I enjoy D1e, D2e, X-Wing, etc. because of its complexity, and the fact that this complexity leads to a game which is very involved, with significant depth. Simplify it too much, and it loses that which makes it special. I don't, after all, want to be playing Monopoly.

Still, I do understand and agree with the view points presented.

I agree about the need for rules clarifications.

One thing that strikes me as odd is the assumption that the OL should be the one who knows the rules best, while those playing the heroes need less knowledge and can sit back. While this is true for roleplaying games where the game master has to establish and control a whole world, Descent 2 is not that type of game. It is competitive and play is much more limited in scope. In my group I am the only one who has read the rules, and explained them to the other players, including the OL. Until very recently I played exclusively as a hero, while my wife played OL having never read the rules herself once. We rarely have rules disputes, and this has worked well - It has never been suggested that the OL was cheating, and rules disputes only come up when a quest seems to favour one side unduly.

Anyone else experience something like this?

Once everyone in the group got familiar with the rules, disputes significantly decreased, and when they occurred they became shorter:

'Really?'

'Yup, see, it's because it says ___.'

'I see. OK, carry on...'

Playing a campaign helps too, because players become familiar with everyone's abilities.

When I first read the topic name I though about sharing our experiences and strategies rather than discussing the rules. That said, I will switch, I'm allowed, the topic to that way.

Although I don't have much [gameplay] experience with all the Descent world as I only have the base game & LoR, and some lieutenants and H&M expansions, I have gameplay experience with the ones I have, I've finished many campaigns as a hero and as the OL.

As for the strategies used as me been the OL I can say that "the blockade strategy" is the best (big tanky and crowd controlling monsters blocking a hall [shadow Drags, Golems, Arachuras, etc] while you take your time to do your objectives far away for them (note: always save dash to reinforce your blockades). Also the "focus the weakest" is very useful too; by using burst damage and hitting the lowest targets (preferably healers or mages) you prevent them for been useful to the party, negate the use of skills due to the lack of stamina, maintaining the other occupied either reviving them or fighting your monsters (usually Volucrix Reaver, Wendigos and even Goblin Archers), and by always hitting the same player will help you to grow tension between heroes ("why don't you do something?" "I'm dead don't you see", etc); psychological warfare is my favorite. And my last favorite, "the race" using high speed small monsters to do the objectives [Goblin Archers or Carrion Drakes] as fast as possible preventing the heroes to search, kill and do their stuff. This along the Saboteur OL class (web traps) can be a real frustrating for the heroes.

As for the heroes, I have found three main keys to victory: 1) composition 2) role playing and 3) communication.

1) We've found that the most effective is the race composition. High speed and awareness heroes (like Dez/Astarra [Hex], Asharian [Aphoca], Durik [Knight] and Jain/Silhouette [Tresure]) will force the OL to fight in the same terms. We focus in stamina potions, fatigue movement and very few combat. Also we developed something we call "the turtle formation" focusing in close combat and huge defense (Leoric [Necro], Avric [spirit], Grisban/Mordog [beast] and Tomble [Wildlander]). Moves very very slow but increases the survival possibilities.

We have more compositions and strategies but we haven’t tested them or lack in the diversity of classes and heroes I posses.

2) I found also that if the players do what they supposed to do will increase the victory chances, because there were too many times were the healer was doing the searches or the mage was reviving the K.O. There was one time a friend was Jain as treasure hunter and was so far away from the party, they were dying and he kept searching and searching, we lost a couple of quests, but due to the money & treasures he got, we crushed in ACT II quests, even though monsters were stronger.

3) Well, we found that as the OL is one person you never know what he’s thinking or planning, so why he should know the same for the heroes, so everytime a quest is beginning a strategy is made…and also a WhatsApp group (hahaha) for the secret communication from the OL. There were times, when the OL didn’t know what we were doing until it was late for him to realize.

Now, for the rule discussion, I found Zaltyre’s glossary very useful. I had one before, but wasn’t that complete. As a lawyer I tend to be precise and technical with terminology and interpretation, and my playgroup knows it (there were times where they told me I was being too strict about the ruling) which brings me to the other hand; I’m also a gamer, so as any2cards said, a game is rich due to it’s complexity and rule diversification, which leads to confusion and multiple interpretations.

Consequently, my group and I found two ways of solving this problem, either by a creating a type of tribunal (as real law cases is made; where everyone put arguments, proofs-other players commentaries and gameplays- and finally a decision whether they like it or not) or by searching the fantasy-way explanation (“he cannot move, he’s immobilized- oh, but he’s not moving, he’s teleporting himself- well ok.”) and creating that way a precedent (house rule). In both cases, the parties agree with the decisions made.

There's a lot of different things being discussed in this topic but I thought I´d share some of my reactions/thoughts, in no particular order.

Descent is a heavy game with a lot of rules, and requires a lot of involvement from the players, the overlord especially. The role of overlord naturally falls on to the player having most knowledge about the game, since the parallel to a game master is easy to draw at first glance. Another thing is that the owner of the game tends to be the first person reading the rules, thus by extension the overlord is generally the game owner at least for the first played campaign. Adding then the fact that the overlord needs preparation time with the game components more than hero players do, so if one person is taking the game home then the role of overlord generally falls on to that person. It's certainly possible to deal with it in a lot of different ways, but I was just talking from a very general perspective.

But I think it is vital to the game experience that the role of the OL is given to a person you can trust, AND a person that is reasonable in terms of making concessions and feeding discussions with valuable input. Anything else than that can lead to tensions. We´ve experienced that and it could turn quite bad very quickly.

We have been discussing about the future of the game multiple times, but my position about it can be summarized to keeping the game as it is and maybe play with a couple of house rules on top of that to address the few things that I personally find problematic. Whitewing said he would try to pick the next quests randomly, which was my exact thought (although I haven't tried that yet). I think this idea is strictly better than letting the losing side decide of the next quest, and it even allows for playing quests neither side would have picked otherwise. Now I wish one could build a lot more around it, like letting the game decide based on several factors instead of making it plain random, but this is where you cross the line in terms of how much change you want to port into the game.

My view about the rules/FAQs is that I would gladly pay for getting errata:ed cards instead of having to refer to countless pages of text. Then I also agree that the grouping by expansion name is not intuitive to me to be able to find the information in a timely manner. Then we can blame the game all we want, pointing to these niche situations where rules clash and the correct interpretation is hard to establish, but the truth is that we can also easily accept the fact the game will inevitably have a few holes, and that maybe 80% of these situiations can be solved by common sense or normal communication between players. A good chunk of the the remaining 20% would either require some reasearch, or just some good soul willing to let the one interpretation temporarily prevail over the other just to keep the game flow until a definitive answer can be found.

I think complexity in D2Ed is at the correct level. More complexity would have impacted the game flow too much. For many players, time is an issue and designing a game probably implies trying to find the right balance between play time and how much game elements can be packed within that time frame. I think they did more than alright with Descent, moreover the additional content has practically not increased platytime in a significant manner, bar of course the setup/planning time. But there are a lot of very streamlined games that I do enjoy a lot so to me the size of the rulesbook or the amount of different actions a game proposes is not a real indicator of how good a game is. The D&D adventure games series is extremely simple for instance, but the fun is more geared towards other things than selecting something to do among a dozen different things. There are still decisions to be made and a good amount of strategy.

Here's my 2 cents: what is Descent? A game. Games are made for what? Play! Descent can't be a 'work'! As an OL we should know how to manage things. I don't give a **** about winning as OL, the main thing we have to keep in mind is have fun.

I had my troubles with D&D more than 15-20 years ago. Now, if I had problems with descent, my fist option would be toss the whole thing on fire.

Descent is a great game, and it's a must to learn the rules, even be an expert...but if something stops the fun, we should let it behind.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FFG or any of its affiliates

I totally agree that a game should be played for fun. If nobody is having fun then it should definitely be avoided.

This said you can find fun in many different things. While it's fun to deal a 10+ damage attack with a lucky roll, or fun to get that treasure chest card from the search deck, it's also fun (at least in my opinion) to try and catch the heroes off guard when they feel strong. It can also be motivating to lose a quest just to try to plan for a come back later in the campaign. Tailoring your strategy to your opposition, micro-managing your abilities, some players will find it way too involving and some players will find the mathematical game awesome.

I´m always exhausted after a session of Descent.

I totally agree that a game should be played for fun. If nobody is having fun then it should definitely be avoided.

This said you can find fun in many different things. While it's fun to deal a 10+ damage attack with a lucky roll, or fun to get that treasure chest card from the search deck, it's also fun (at least in my opinion) to try and catch the heroes off guard when they feel strong. It can also be motivating to lose a quest just to try to plan for a come back later in the campaign. Tailoring your strategy to your opposition, micro-managing your abilities, some players will find it way too involving and some players will find the mathematical game awesome.

I´m always exhausted after a session of Descent.

Exactly. That's the point.

And btw, I bet you play the OL...lol. That's the price of the sacrifice.

I bet you play the OL...lol. That's the price of the sacrifice.

Good guess

I can definitely see myself playing a hero, but I like playing the Evil side too much for doing so. Plotting in the dark and calculating my chances of getting my plan through is all I crave.