Hey everyone,

I realize that 'Sea of Blood' has not long been out, but I was wondering if the rumor mill has made mention of any new expansions (preferably with new characters and monsters) in the works, or of there being a second quest compendium any time soon?

Thanks all,

Toby

I hope for another Camp setting like Undead Desert setting or something like that, with new figures Big desert map(like the sea)...pyramids etc ^^

A new campaign setting would be sweet, but I never can find players to join me with the other 2 released so far

With the expansions full of new monsters and characters, it is easier to get players to join. The desert setting sounds good to me - one set deep underground with rivers of lava and whatnot, something akin to hell, would be awesome too.

If there is another expansion forthcoming - general consensus puts it as a Vanilla expansion - seems to be the trend the past couple years. Vanilla - campaign - vanilla - campaign...

That's where my hope lies! I wants me some more monsters!

SoylentGreen said:

Could be cool if its both things, new camp expansion with new monters!=Pthey can add x quest to play as Vanilla, and the rest Camp mode^^

I'd like to see a Quest Compendium 2 and a new Vanilla expansion with new monsters, heroes, minis, cards etc.

Mcmanus said:

I think it would be too much to combine the two. When you have a vanilla expansion - you are looking at 12 or so quests that are larger than the ones for a campaign. (Tomb of Ice did include like 10? dungeon levels and a rumor I believe that could be used in campaigns.)

But it would be too much in my opinion to expect 1 box to include a full vanilla expansion AND a full campaign option.

Well add 10 Quest isnt so much I mean its just a couple of pages more...its like add a buch of pages to the SoB rulebook

Since FFG didn't already publish hero sheets for Descent for the 6 new runiverse characters in Mists of Zenaga expansion for Runebound, my guess is next expansion shall see the 6 heroes (FFG has done things like this so far...) in a newly designed jungle setting. I don't know wether the setting will have outdoor tiles or just be running through the Wicked temples in the jungle (did anyone hear Indiana Jones music just now?). I hope the expansion (just like ToI) will also have some stuff for the AC.

Assuming a vanilla expansion is next in line, the real question is if they will support an advanced campaign, and if so...which one?

With Tomb of Ice, we had some extra dungeons and outdoor encounters to feature the new monsters.

Now, we have Sea of Blood and Road to Legend. So which one will we get the support for? Dungeon levels are a given, but outdoor encounters is the question, especially since SoB has not received the same level of support from the players.

I personally would be happy with more RtL support. Perhaps use some of the new monsters (if any) as an Avatar.

Another thing I would like to see that supports BOTH of the advanced campaigns is a vanilla expansion which includes Avatars for both SoB and RtL, including Avatar upgrades and specific LTs. That seems less likely though.

Combining a vanilla expansion and a campaign expansion would be foolish; it will simply discourage the people who don't play advanced campaigns from buying it. Possibly even discourage the people who do play advanced campaigns from buying it, since the advanced campaign expansions aren't compatible with each other. RtL and SoB are already competing with each other.

No expansion to date has 12 quests. JitD and WoD each have 9, AoD and ToI each have 6. And yes, quest guides are presumably cheap to print . But Kevin Wilson has reportedly said that the quests are the most time-consuming part of expansions to design*, and naturally they're also the easiest part to illegally copy (since they're just information, not components). I bet they wouldn't include them at all (or would just include one or two token quests) except that the new expansion components don't get used in any of the existing quests, so they need new quests to justify their existence.

Which is one reason why a new quest compendium is unlikely - the other being that the first one bombed. Yes, the main problem with the first one was that the quests were designed by Descent amateurs and didn't get sufficient proof-reading or play-testing, but that was also probably the only reason they were willing to try it in the first place - if they needed the normal Descent team to do all the writing and playtesting, it sounds (from Kevin Wilson's comment) like it would be significantly less profitable than simply doing a normal expansion. Of course, I don't have any inside information, so it's quite possible I'm wrong, but I doubt we'll be seeing another one.

Of course, I'm kind of mystified that people actually want a bunch more quests. There's an official database of fan quests , and it's had 13 new (English) entries in the last year, but those 13 quests have only had a collective total of 5 user ratings between them. We've got so many quests that they're withering on the vine; what do you want more for?

The issue of campaign support in vanilla expansions is a interesting. If there was just Road to Legend , I could see them continuing to print expansions in the ToI style that are basically vanilla expansions but with a few cards and such included for campaigns. But if they intend to keep printing new campaign expansions, and if (as Jonny WS implies) they would need separate content for each in order to support all of them, that's going to become wildly impractical really fast. If they really want to keep creating and selling new campaign expansions, I think the only realistic option is a schedule of planned obsolescence for the old ones. The latest and greatest campaign always uses all vanilla expansions to date, so if you keep buying the new ones, you get to use all the new monsters and such in your campaigns - and if you don't buy the new campaign, then tough luck.

Personally, I'd like to see more general content that can be used in many quests and game modes (heroes, skills, treasures, overlord cards, spawnable monsters, and the like) and less elaborate stuff that you use once and throw away (quests, crushing walls, stomach tile, etc.). Some of that one-off stuff is interesting, but a lot of it doesn't actually work very well in play, and the resources going into it (both development and manufacturing) have got to be totally out of proportion to its use at the table.

* Maybe that means they're not spending enough time on other stuff? 6 quests should obviously take longer to design than 6 heroes, 6 monsters, or 6 treasure cards, even if they were balancing them carefully (which we're pretty sure they're not), but in my experience (from The Enduring Evil ) quests don't take all that long when you're building them out of components that are individually well-balanced, and maybe the ratio of general, reusable content to one-off stuff could stand to be increased?

The Advanced Campaign content from Tomb of Ice can be integrated into both campaigns (which I have done so). I don't see why a Vanilla Expansion wouldn't follow that same trend, include a few Dungeon cards and some Rumor cards that use the new monsters.

What ToI did not do was include an alternate monster startup list for the pre-existing RtL dungeons. The only way to get ToI monsters into RtL dungeons is by spawning. Would have been nice to see an extra E slot of monster options, like you have in SoB. So if they create a Vanilla expansion with Advance Campaign features, I'd love to see a suggested monster list for the past dungeons.

-shnar

I agree with shnar. Dungeon Levels and Rumors can be pooled together and used in both campaigns, hence designing a few dungeon levels and rumors expands BOTH campaigns. Outdoor encounters/maps should be separately designed, but I don't see much problem with designing a few, since the playtest shouldn't be too long for those. Also adding new overlord cards (including new spawnable monsters), treasures and heroes (and feats, I suppose) would definitely expand BOTH campaigns AND vanilla, so I can't see a reason why they shouldn't be able to do so. Adding a compendium of options with new monsters for old maps in AC would be really nice way of expanding the campaigns too. I'd also love the design of a few new Avatars for both campaigns, but I don't expect it.

It could be cool too to see a "3d expansion", like a ghost city with some 3d houses, Mordheim anyone.?=)