I understand that working together is key to beating some of the monsters but i'm not clear on the object of the game. Is it a race to see who beats the Dungeonmaster first or if one person manages to win, everyone wins?

I'm thinking about getting the game but i'm wary that the coop may make things less fun. some of our group likes working together to beat a game, but most of my group plays Magic: the Gathering, making them used to trying to screw each other over to get ahead. If there's an ability to PVP Descent is a must buy, because even though you're competing for the finish there's instances where you have to work together, making backstabs more hilarious and fun.

It's actually a PPPPvP game. Four players are cooperating to beat another. And that single player is NOT a DM. He is pulling out all the stops to kill/crush/maim/destroy/obliterate that obnoxious party of do-gooders. It's a knock-down, drag-out blood-mist battle if you choose to play with that attitude. It's pretty light on the whole RPG element, but has a great thematic setting. Just remember that there is NO DM, no guide, no mentor, only an adversary that wants to WIN. The only way he can do that is by making the Heroes lose/fail/die trying!!!

Like he said. I do not know if there is a specific PVP variant, making each hero out for himself, but I see no reason why one couldn't exist.

aww. I was hoping that it was a PvPvPvPvP kind of game where the heroes can shortchange each other to beat the DM first. as opposed to continuously being nice to each other to beat the big bad DM.

Essentially I'm wondering if the heroes can backstab each other.

Take a look at Doom The Expansion rules, they have Deathmatch and Capture The Flag rules that could probably be adapted for Descent....

-shnar

You may also like Tomb, which is for 2-6 players and is completely PvP. The Cryptmaster expansion (of which you can just grab the rulebook online) adds a complete PvP variant where the only way to win is to be the last party standing.

Also check out Cutthroat Caverns...

No, but Munchkin Quest is PVP. It's a light-heared dungeon-crawl that has Descent-like dungeons and the whole focus is PVP.

TOMB is also PVP from what I hear. (I have not played it yet, but it looks cool)

Though not a dungeon-crawl, Talisman is definitely PVP!

Tomb is no so much PvP (i saw the rules from the expansion Cryptmaster once, that looks a bit more like PvP).
you CAN play Tomb PvP (not looking at the most points, but the fact to screw others), but we end up most of the times avoiding us, because as soon as one person starts to mess with another, he gets everyone on his back

I must stay that the idea of playing Descent PvPvPvPvP actually sounds pretty cool, although our playing group kinda likes the fact that they finally play a game where they don't have to watch out for everyone one else, exept the OL.

If someone has a good idea on how to implement this idea, then keep me posted!

If you want to play with a bunch of heroes fighting one another, it would be a simple matter to assemble the tiles in some semblance of a dungeon and then throw them all in and say "go nuts!" Track each hero's VP by awarding him the CT cost of heroes he kills. Pretty straight forward. You could even have an OL player who's allowed to spawn one or two cards worth of monsters and jump into the fray (and then spawn one or two more after the first batch die off.) The monster player's advantage would be that killing monsters doesn't earn the others any VP, the disadvangtage would be that he's probably less well equipped to kill heroes than the other heroes are, so he wouldn't earn any VP either. That would probably be a handicap role for the most experienced player to try out.

Or you could write up some "hero" cards for each monster type and let them join the fray that way. One advantage I can see to such a deathmatch game is that it could pretty easily accommodate more than 5 players.

If you want the heroes to be fighting each other WHILE working through one of the existing dungeons, well I suppose you could, but it's unlikely the heroes would win to say the least. They'd just kill each other until the OL finished them off. A better competitive mode for this style ofp lay would be to have each hero track how many CTs they earned/lost. Use the total values to determine if the heroes win or lose the dungeon and let each hero compare their score to the others to see who did "best."

I think it would take some very tailored dungeon designs... mainly star patterns where the heroes each start on a leg and are all trying to reach the central hub, with short hallways or portals between the various legs of the dungeon.

I actually created some PvP capture the flag rules. I used WoWs Warsong Glutch as the intial idea. Each team of heroes will also get to spawn monsters and there will be a set of communal overlord cards for both teams to use. The first team to capture the flag three times wins. I haven't had a chance to play test them. Once the holidays are over my group is going to give them a try. If anyone wants a look at the rules let me know.

I'm quite interested! i've sent you a friendship request including an e-mail address. I'm very curious on how i can succesfully set this PVP idea up, and hopefully create some interest in my group to test it out.

I'm pretty sure I saw a quest like this on BoardGameGeek.

One good way to do this might be something similar to the way Mage Knight: Dungeons handled it. In that game, each player had a full team of Heroes with a certain number of "activations".

Monsters originally existed as Monster Tokens (somewhat similar to the blips in Space Crusade or Space Hulk) that would convert when approaching a Hero.

A player's activations could be used to activate his own Heroes, or a Monster/Monster token.

Something similar to this could work well for Descent:

You'd set up your Dungeon, your starting points for each Hero/Hero team along with treasures, glyphs and whatever objectives you may be using. Each player would get one or two Heroes and a set number of activations (two, or maybe three).

For monsters, one possible option would be to set aside Overlord Spawn cards in a pile (similar to Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel) and have them represented by tokens on the board. When a particular token is revealed, the appropriate card is drawn and those monsters are spawned.

Heroes could attack each other or Monsters, and Monsters could also be used to harass another player, if you wanted to spend your activations in that manner.

Anyway, just a thought. This is obviously pretty rough, but is an outline of one possible way to do it, without needing a separate Overlord player or a massive retrofit of the rules.

I created a PvP system using the Descent rules. I call it Descent Arena or Descent: Champions.

I made 24 custom characters for PvP purposes. If there's enough interest I'd be willing to post them. I had it playtested quite a bit and was making tweaks to each class but I wasn't done balancing, so you'd have to keep that in mind. But the core rules are solid. Here's how it works:

Every person who's playing rolls a red die. The highest scoring roll wins. That person gets first pick of the characters - no random draw. Then you go clockwise to the next player who gets second pick. However, he must choose a hero of the same conquest value as the first one drawn. Then, if there is a third player, he gets a pick, and it must also match the conquest value. However , the last player that gets to choose a character then chooses a second character, and this one can be of any conquest value. Then the characters are chosen in reverse order, following the last player's conquest value that he chose for his second character.

Basically it goes: First guy gets first and last choice. The middle guy gets to choose last of the first round but can determine the conquest value of the second round. It all makes more sense when you see the characters - they follow the Descent formula of fighter = 4, archer =3, mage = 2.

Each of my heroes has a selection of skills they can choose from. Each hero only gets one skill plus their own special ability.

Once you've got a team of heroes (the size is determined before you start) the game can begin. If you followed directions above, everybody's team should add up to the same conquest total so the teams should be balanced.

The players place their heroes on or adjacent to their starting square. I usually use the large room with four hallways branching out and four rubble markers to block line of sight in the main room. Then the players roll red die again to see who goes first.

The first player activates one hero and does his normal Descent actions - Run, Battle, Advance, Ready - spending fatigue as normal. Once he's done he places a threat token next to that hero to mark that he's done for this round.

Then the next player activates a hero and does the same thing. Play continues in this way until all heroes have been activated. At that point, all threat tokens are removed and the round begins again.

You can play to total party kill or first to a predetermined conquest kill amount. I suggest conquest kill amount because some tanks become very difficult to kill. What you'll notice very quickly is that losing a hero means losing an activation each turn. That means things can turn ugly very quickly.

In general this game takes about 30 minutes to play for two players controlling 4-man teams.

If there's any interest in this I can post my custom heroes (I used the portraits from Baldur's Gate).

Yes! quite interested! Please do share

(also sent you an invite including my "intel")