If a Rumour with a quest is played (and the second part in Act 2 is also played) the game length is increased from 9 quests to 11 quests.

For those of you who have had this occur - did it affect the game's balance between Heroes and Overlord? While I'm intrigued by the concept of a slightly longer campaign, I'd rather have quality (balanced fun) than quantity. For those who have had longer campaigns - did you find it improved the game?

Just to check - am I right in thinking:

Only one Rumour Quest (and its second part in Act 2) can be played per campaign?

Rumour Quests (both parts) do not grant XP?

Cheers!

I think you can play as many Rumor quests as you want (the Overlord gets to decide, though), so you´re not limited to the one you´ve just played. As a matter of fact some Rumor cards state potential incompatibilities between two rumor quests from the same campaign, so that also implies that you can play several of them. Note that you are not bound to play the Act II version if the Overlord doesn't want to.

They don't give XP, no. It would put the campaign off balance greatly if they did.

Playing rumors does increase the length of a campaign, but it allows your group to explore uncharted territories with new tiles and possibly new terrain, new monsters/lieutenants and new relics as a reward. The Overlord can get new overlord cards that he/she wouldn't be able to get otherwise. So yeah, there is incentive for playing them just because it's fun to take a side quest or two during the main campaign. Now that's the only positive I can think of them.

Balance-wise, they´re really bad.Here's the deal: you are the overlord, and only you can decide whether to play a rumor quest or not. If you choose to play one, you reaaaaally need to evaluate your chances of winning it beforehand and think you have a fair shot at doing so, so that you can get the reward, AND on top of that consider your gain against the additional shopping phase the heroes will be getting. If all stars are aligned and you can bribe your opposition with alcohol (most likely) then you *might* be able to get something out of playing a Rumor quest. And if you lose, you make zero advancement and your heroes come back to the main campaign with more gear, more gold and a powerful relic.

Following that logic the inevitable occurs - if you can only play a rumor quest that you are almost sure to win (due to hero composition, e.g. wincon is strongly geared towards the overlord) then it means said quest probably won't be very fun for the heroes.

So why would you take that risk? is my question.

My approach is that I prefer to keep the campaign to the point, which shortens the campaign and allows us to play mini-campaigns afterwards, including these quests you would have played as rumor quests.

Keep in mind that if you are using a plot deck there can be a significant threat bonus to playing rumors. 1 for putting the quest in play, 1 at the end, 1 for winning, and 1/hero more if you take them on a KO instead of an OL card. That may or may not offset benefits to the heroes, but it's not nothing.

I think it depends on the two aspects mentioned above: the rewards the heroes could get and the benefits you could get. For example, in my case, I only have the "Crusade of the Forgotten" and "Guardians of the Deephall" rumor cards, and as Overlord I have almost always played both cards, beacuse I gain threat by playing them and I prevent heroes from searching and a couple of times KO them. And if I lose, they can only get at least 50-75 gold, so it's not much, IMO.

As an OL, you should play Rumor Quest Cards. The reason being is most of those quests don't really benefit the heroes at all. The only thing they might receive is a bit of gold from search tokens. Meanwhile, if the heroes don't go on the quest before doing the Interlude, then the OL gets the reward regardless. And they can be some pretty good rewards. Mainly, those quests are there as a way for the heroes to prevent the OL from getting some added benefits.

Of course, there are some exceptions where some quests yield a relic to the heroes. So you should be careful on that.

Meanwhile, if the heroes don't go on the quest before doing the Interlude, then the OL gets the reward regardless.

Omnislash, maybe I misunderstood you but what you wrote about the Overlord getting the reward automatically if the quest is not chosen is just false? I´ve never seen or heard this ever. I just checked the Trollfens book (I have been wrong in the past about a few rules so I´m not saying my understanding is better than yours) but there is no mention of an effect stating that if you still had Rumor quest cards in play at the end of an Act then the Overlord would get their respective reward. What you suggest doesn't make sense to me anyway because if I win every quest as the Overlord then Heroes never get to choose the next one, so I could virtually have 3 Rumor quests on the board and never attempt them only to get three additional relics for free at the end of the Act? I hope you haven't played it like this

Anyway,

Rumor quest means a pile of additional search tokens to salvage, a % of them being treasure chests and secret treasure rooms. But any item is worth gold, plus they grant a powerful effect.

And then you have an additional shopping phase. It means 5 more item cards drawn from the deck for each rumor quest played, and an additional possibility to sell existing gear for better one. So yes, 50 gold earnt in a quest (which is very very low) can be a big deal if these 50 gold plus half the value of a second tier item can get the heroes a top tier item.

So yes, there is HUGE benefit for the heroes for playing a Rumor quest even if they lose.

I would only play a Rumor quest as the Overlord if there was a Relic to get that would be a huge deal to the campaign on a quest I had a decent shot at winning. Let us say this situation almost never occurs.

The other possibility is if I´m getting too much ahead of the heroes as the overlord, e.g. you could play a rumor quest to try to even up the power between the two sides by giving the heroes some gold and more items to consider buying. Let us say my hero players tend to kick my ass pretty badly so that's not a situation I tend to be in nowadays (as opposed to when we started with this game).

And no, threat tokens are a lure in my mind. They are definitely "something" by definition, but their impact is marginal at best. I´ll take the threat when killing a hero only once I know who is winning the quest we´re playing, which is a sad consequence of the way they were designed. This being said, don't take me wrong, I want the threat to get me the couple of plot cards that are worth the price. Just never want to fuel that payment by playing a rumor, that's all.

EDIT: Removed the first part due to Atom4ge's reply below. The subsequent point with "doesn't make any sense" is still valid, though.

All the rumors in Manor of Ravens and the H&M packs reward the OL with the OL card they would have got for winning.

It also puts the follow-up advanced quest in play for act 2 (the one that would be available if the OL won if the quest had been played)

It is true that this is not the case for the ones in LotW or Trollfens

I just checked and yeah you´re right. Funny I missed that part, although I don't think I´ve ever drawn one of these Rumor Quest cards, so that's probably why.

Not sure what the point is behind that change, my heroes would pick a rumor quest all day long for the reasons stated earlier. There is no kind of reluctance for doing so, quite the opposite.

Maybe to make them more appealing to the OL?

If the overlord is on a roll and winning, he can just pick the interlude instead of all the available rumor quests and reap the free rewards?

Maybe to make them more appealing to the OL?

If the overlord is on a roll and winning, he can just pick the interlude instead of all the available rumor quests and reap the free rewards?

So... we (FFG) change the rules to make the Rumor Quests more appealing to the Overlord, so he/she has better incentive for NOT playing them and get free rewards out of nowhere. That's a hell of a way to promote Rumor Quests, lol

Rather to try and persuade OL's like you, who refrain from even playing the rumor card, to at least play the card.

If the quest isn't chosen (because the OL doesn't want to risk it, and he gets to decide) then its good for the OL,

The quest can still be chosen by the OL if he thinks he can win it, or if the quest is chosen by the heroes the OL still has a chance of winning.

None of those situation can happen if the rumor card isn't played, and then its just a wasted card.

So making it a bit more appealing to for the OL, who is the only one who can put them in play (aside from 2 or 3 travel events), to play the card seems logical.

But I'm just guessing here

For me, Rumor Quests are simply more fun and variety. I'm not a min-maxing, so I don't look for benefits on any side. Well, I won't play 25 rumor quests, simply because our campaigns are long enough without them, but adding 2 on each Act seems reasonable in our gruop. We agreed from the beginning that we'd took those quests as "mandatory". Just because if not, we're not playing ever those quests.

But if you're a min-maxing, or just if you're OL and heroes are getting too strong, please, DO NOT give rumor quests to a Treasure Hunter. That **** hero will find the chest everytime. And believe me, my heroes have SO MANY items, that they have no room for all them. I swear.

Rather to try and persuade OL's like you, who refrain from even playing the rumor card, to at least play the card.

But I'm just guessing here

Ah but I'm not in disagreement with that for that particular reason, if you´re playing for the fun of trying out these H&M quests with these new monsters then by all means do it

My playgroup will not have the chance of playing many of these quests after all, so that's definitely on the - side. These rewards won't be seen anywhere, that's the sad consequence of it. My point being that even though that would be by choice [for not playing rumors], I sort of feel like there is not much to gain from the OL perspective to warrant it, therefore the choice of NOT playing them has always seemed to be the best one by a fair shot.

On the other hand we are playing the mini-campaigns as well, so there is close to no incentive for playing Trollfens/LoW/MoR quests this way, not for the reason stated anyway. But if your playgroup only want to play regular campaigns then maybe spicing things up with the mini campaign rumors can be an option. I found LoW quite uninspiring, but you definitely want to try out these Marsh tiles from Trollfens and even Manor of Ravens with his huge Lieutenant.

As always, people do what they think is fun. While I can find some fun in playing a rumor quest "just for the lulz", I also find the fun in Descent as being my own character progression. Therefore if everybody gets geared up to the teeth while I sit with my Pit Traps broke and beaten, I sort of start to feel bored, lol.

EDIT: Andrew made a good point about the increase of length in a campaign. That's also a factor. While I think the mini campaigns are a bit too short to my taste, a regular campaign does take a fair amount of sessions to be completed. Which means you are stuck with the same "setting" for a very long time, as opposed to playing shorter campaigns with more variety, giving you also more diversified experience of the game in my opinion.

As AtomAgeVampire pointed out, the rumor reward on the Rumor Quest card is exactly the same as what the OL would win should the quest have been played. The only thing the OL doesn't get are the additional Threat Tokens. It IS a trade off in terms of what the Heroes can obtain through search tokens and Shopping Trips. But it really depends on how much gold they get and what items are there.

Also, I always opt for threat Tokens when it comes to a first KO of a hero. Yeah, you lose that extra OL card, but it allows the OL to get more Plot cards and trigger more plot card effects, which can be quite beneficial.