I'm goink to ask a maybe silly question, but this is bugging me.

Me and my game team are playing Heirs of blood and it's our first experience with descent or similar games. We mostly played rpg so we decided the overlord at the start of each encounter only reads the fluff and the special rules relevant to the Heroes, letting the Heroes discover everything else during the game. Clearly i don't read to them the victory condition.

Our aim was to have a roleplay-like experience but i'm concerned with the results. In the last two encounters they had a difficult time trying to understand the objectives and that was a little frustating.

So i am looking for advice and hints!

I think not reading all the rules will only benefit the OL and almost guarantee his victory. The victory conditions are crucial for both the OL and the party, and the heroes need them to make a good strategy.

Unless specified otherwise, all of the information in the Quest booklets (or books) are public knowledge for both sides. Not allowing the heroes to read everything (as appropriate), especially the victory conditions, basically skews the entire campaign to the Overlord's side.

In fact, most groups that I have played with, in order to be properly prepared, will read several quests ahead of time, planning in advance which quests they will choose, based on the outcome of the current quest.

Remember that the intent of the game (in most cases) is for all of the knowledge to be public. That is how the game was designed, and how the game was balanced. By not allowing this, you are fundamentally changing the nature of the game.