Alrighty then! Not the first time KW has gone counter to what we thought.

What other questions got asked and answered by chance?

I only wrote a few down myself, as I haven't been on the baords long enough to know what everybody is DYING to have answered, but I remembered this topic getting heated here so I made sure that one way or another I'd get the answer this weekend. Let me see what else I've got...

(again, I apologize if ANY of these are common knowledge...I wrote down the ones that stuck out to me)

-Runemaster Thorn's teleport doesn't set off traps in the vein of scything blades and what have you.

-In SoB, the Kraken's tentacles do NOT gain the Kraken's abilities, like Ironskin (I think there was a topic asking this one not too long back).

-In SoB, the heroes attempting to flee an ocean encounter can NOT jump ship and leave the board, leaving the ship behind. In order to flee, the ship has to exit the board as well.

Those and the ruling on avatar upgrades are pretty much all I got as far as rules. I probably would have had more if I hadn't gotten so caught up in the event itself and the stories/quips the designers had to share. This is my first gaming con since the days of GenCon being in Milwaukee, so I kinda got sidetracked by the spectacle. That said, Kevin, Corey (Runewars), and John Goodenough (heh) were some the the nicest game designers I've had the pleasure of meeting, next to master Gygax himself (who I met at GenCon years ago...RIP). Rob was a hoot too with his Overlord discussion.

Cyan_of_Doma said:

Wow, does that mean tentacles don't have Swim?

And what happens if all the heroes swim off the map? Does the ship simply keep sailing until it crashes or floats off the other side? Or are the heroes not allowed to flee the map by themselves at all (this would be contrary to the rules)? Or can all but 1 swim off the map?

Thanks for the info btw.

I was actually the player that Cyan of Doma is referencing that asked Kevin those questions. Yes, Kevin said the heroes can swim off the map. We didn't directly discuss what happens to the ship in that case, but I think the implication was that it's fine and basically magically disappears when the last hero either swims off the map or dies. Kevin said that the ship should be considered sunk (TPK) if the heroes stepped backwards off the map. If they swim off, that is legitimate. It obviously wouldn't be a situation where the ship would be left sailing by itself....or maybe that's not obvious. Since it's a magical ship that basically does the bidding of the heroes, my interpretation is that it magically disappears when no longer needed.

As far as asking Kevin a lot of other questions that forum posters probably wish they had answers for..

I was intending to compile a list of some key ones (maybe 10 or so) but before I knew it, the day for departure was upon me and I hadn't gotten to it. Sorry.

However I would say a couple of things in that vein. In asking Kevin questions about interpreting rules, I got the distinct sense that his view on his Descent creation is fluid and dynamic. I'm sure there will be a camp of individuals out there that won't want to hear this. (Remember, it's just my opinion.) He openly acknowledged on more than one occasion that if he had certain things to do over again, he would do them differently. (One example was Dungeon #2 in the original Journeys in the Dark quest book The Brothers Durnog). He even had members of the audience defending that quest against his own critique. He also commented that it's now been several years since he did the original work on Descent, so trying to recall the exact logic or nuance of any given specific rule interpretation may not be completely automatic. (He is a human being, by the way. And a very nice guy as were all of the designers, as Cyan said.)

Another thing I came away with was that players and groups should feel empowered and welcome to make their own calls on situations. It is your game and you bought it for your own enjoyment. Certainly the designers are aware of the need for posting errata and FAQ's, but somewhere in the equation needs to be the recognition that they can't answer every last question that ever arises. (These are my words based on what I intuitively felt Kevin was getting at on a couple of occasions in discussing rule interpretations, and you can take it for what it's worth.)

On an unrelated note, another question that I asked pertained to possible card expansions for Descent (for Descent "specialists" if you will who own every expansion) that might include dungeons which feature expansion material. That's not going to happen. He said the design work on the dungeons take up 80-90% of the overall effort on the project, in terms of time and energy, and getting a return of $25 on the sale of a card expansion could never be cost effective. It is a business and there are only so many hours in the day to devote to it.

The weekend was a total blast and I'm really glad I went. Maybe in time I will match up who I met with some of the people who post on these forums...Cyan of Doma and Soylent Green for example. If you read this, give me a hint about who you are...

Schmiegel said:

That seems a little odd. I'm sure my approach on Enduring Evil was very different from his, but I found that drafting a quest was relatively fast; maybe half a day to put together something playable (though I tend to brainstorm sporadically in advance, so it's hard to tell what my speed would be if I had to write a whole quest book as fast as possible).

I guess it's plausible if he's including playtesting time...Descent playtesting is enormously time-consuming, especially in terms of man-hours if you're actually using 5 players in a single test game.

Or if the design of treasures, skills, monsters, and overlord cards is even more haphazard than I imagined...

The number 1 question I have is A) will there be another expansion and B) what will it be like? Vanilla or Advanced Campaign? What will the theme be? etc.

-shnar

Shnar - I get the feeling from what he was saying is that we're long from seeing the end of the Descent line. Obviously he couldn't "officially" confirm or deny the existence of an expansion in progress, but from his actions I'd say there is definitely something in the works.

Schmiegel - Very well put. I knew I forgot to write something down about the ships, and it was a critical thing I missed too, being "Heroes cannot flee without the ship without facing the consequences of a TPK" (ship sunk in this case). I swore he said they couldn't just tuck tail and swim back off the map towards where they entered though...I'll defer to you on this one, since I haven't played SoB as of yet and I'm really only going off of what I've seen on the forums.

As for who I was? I was sitting far right (towards the wall) second row for all of the seminars on Sat. Morning. I was wearing a black long sleeved shirt, had glasses, a beard and a very long ponytail. That help? If memory about who was asking what question serves, you were sitting front row, not?

Cyan, sorry to infer that the heroes can swim backwards off the map, that isn't what I meant to say. What I heard him saying was that they can swim off the side, but not the back (north). So it sounds like we're actually in agreement on that one. Yes, that was me there in the front row all right.. (And I know who you are as well.) I'll be sending you a private message as I'm moving to Milwaukee and I believe you live in Whitewater..