My game group has grown to 5 so it's time to dust off the overlord tome of dispair, and being the alpha, by age alone, I will be given the role.

I really enjoy the coop card quests and the app quests for several reasons.

First if all, the exploration of heroes not knowing whats behind the door.

Secondly, in the case of the app, the mobs playing groups between the individual hero turns.

There are a few campaign books that we haven't played. Lab or R. And Shads of Ner. I was thinking about added in a sense of unknown to the quests. Reading only the flavor texts and the win conditions of the quests. Spawning map tiles and monsters only when line of sight is fulfilled. And activating mobs between heroes, but only ones that are already revealed.

Trying to consider the best way to handle reinforcements. Perhaps only minons and from the entrance or from the "exit" where they have yet to go.

I'll still play with overlord deck. I don't have any lieutenant packs.

Anyone try something like this?

These maps are delicately balanced for a good experience wherein the map is totally revealed and all information is known.

Your proposed changes are quite major, and I think will completely throw off the balance of the game in the Overlord's favor.

Furthermore, many quests will not work at all, because there may be tasks the Overlord has to do in parts of the map the heroes haven't revealed yet, such as rolling skill tests to perform a ritual, or tracking progress on a quest objective, or moving an NPC. These things are supposed to be known by the heroes so they can act to stop them.

Meanwhile, RtL has been explicitly crafted for that 'dungeon crawling' experience you enjoy. I think the regular game is closer to a game of chess - a competitive strategic experience.

You can of course give it a try anyway, but I would predict that it wouldn't work out that well.

The Imperial Assault style 'alternating turns' idea has been tried too. It also doesn't work well because again the quest rules are designed with a full proper Overlord turn in mind, with some effects happening at the start and end of the Overlord's turn, which is no longer once per round. Also the heroes don't have a particularly good experience when they start a quest with a monster group right in front of them - which is often. They likely can't clear it in one hero turn, so they are forced to endure many more attacks than they should have had to.

An alternative suggestion I would give you is to play RtL with an "overlord player". The game would still be largely app driven, but the Overlord player could control the monsters instead of using the activation steps. To balance things out a little I would also remove the activation bonus text, as that gives the monsters a large advantage intended to make up for the 'mindlessness 'of the AI.

Another option .. that doesn't uses the alternate turns .. but has exploration for heroes ... play Descent V1 !

But starting the game now will not be easy (mainly to find it at normal prices) and depending on your games priorities some point in the V1 will seem drawbacks mainly maps are bigger and so a Quest can take longer.