After playing the 1,5 (I won the second one in the middle) first quest on the basic box my players are now bugging me to start a campaign. They want to have some kind of continuation in the games and to be honest that would be cool for me too.

As I see there are three options available:

1. Start off now immediately with Road to Legend. But is there loads to be learned in the game OR is it adviseable to have the expansions too? Maybe we should just jump right in, make custom characters and learn while playing. Or is there a possibility that we lose some of the fun by playing RtL quests this early?

2. Play a shorter campaign (approx. 5 quests) with either someone's homebrewed quests or with the Vanilla box quests using someone's homebrewed campaign system. This would be the absolute best option for us for now, as I'm afraid that RtL is going to be too long, too soon for us.

3. Play the vanilla box quests with vanilla box campaign rules. It just feels that the campaign system in the vanilla box is going to be really unbalanced, especially if the quests are easy to start with.

Any good suggestions?

Mordjinn said:

You could do this, but if you've only played two vanilla quests, odds are you haven't come across half the subtle tactical situations that a group of heroes should have down pat before making a serious attempt at the AC game. This is not to say you can't do it or that you won't have fun, both are entirely possible, even probable. But you may be left with a feeling that something's missing or something is unfairly balanced in the AC simply because your heroes are approaching things from the wrong angle.

As far as having other expansions goes, sure they add more stuff to the mix, but they aren't really imperative. The problem with jumping into an AC game too early has nothing to do with how much money you've sunk into other Descent expansions, it has to do with how much experience your hero players have with the sorts of crap the OL will throw at them. It has to do with their expectations from the game. If the OL is seriously trying to win, he'll try to crush the heroes quickly, one way or another. In AC that usually means defeating them before Silver, or very shortly after. An inexperienced group of heroes will feel gypped because they didn't even get halfway through the progression before they died. The truth of the matter is that letting the heroes make it to Gold makes things very hard for the OL. Not impossible, but hard. It's not a wise tactical move for him.

Mordjinn said:

This is always an option. I don't have any homebrews to recommend, personally. I'm not entirely sure if Enduring Evil was written with campaign play (ie: continuing status between quests) in mind, I don't think it was though. There's also the fact that Enduring Evil is apparently not workable with the official quests, which means going to that homebrew system is equivalent to throwing out (or at least needing to rewrite yourself) any official quests you haven't played yet if you ever want to get use out of them. Since you've only played two, that seems a bit of a waste just now.

Mordjinn said:

We played the basic campaign a little bit when we first got into Descent. "Unbalanced" is not the word I'd use to describe it. "Pointless" would be more accurate. It attempts to convey the feeling of progress by giving the OL and Heroes each a little boost at the start of a quest, which scales according to how many quests this hero party has completed previously. But everything still gets reset, and then the bonus gets added. You don't get to "keep" anything from previous quests, which is kinda what everyone wants in a campaign. It misses the entire point of what players generally want from a "campaign version" of Descent, and as such it is highly disappointing. I suspect that recognition of this fact is one of the motivators of FFG creating the AC expansions in the first place.

The best thing you can do, honestly, is keep playing the vanilla game until people have it down pat. Rotate OLs to keep things exciting (and to let everyone see the game from both sides.) I would recommend at least playing each of the base game quests once.

If your group is absolutely unwilling to continue playing vanilla, then go ahead and jump into the AC. It will probably end badly for the hero party, but Descent is a harsh mistress. If you don't want to to commit to a couple months-long game, you can use the AC rules for starting at Silver or Gold level to make the process shorter. That will probably further skew your campaign experience, but it will also keep things quick. Short of searching a homebrew system, it's about all you can do.

You could also try to make a homebrew variant of your own. Say, play vanilla quests, but change all the chests in the first dungeon to copper and play with Copper level monster cards from the AC. Second quest, let the heroes keep all their copper gear, but make all the chests silver and use Silver monster cards, then Gold chests/cards, then Gold chests with Diamond monsters for the fourth quest. After that you'd have to wipe everything and start over, but at least you got four quests instead of just one. Please note this idea is entirely spur of the moment. I have no idea how well it will work in practice and I haven't even spent too much time considering foreseeable flaws. But if it sounds like a reasonable compromise, by all means give it a go and let me know how it works.

Steve-O, you're my hero. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

One idea that came from the group was that we could play the Vanilla box quests one after another, but keeping the same heros and skills, unless the OL wins. If the heros have trained new skills, then they get to choose which three they keep for the next quest. This way after two or three quests the heros might have really nice combos and synergy and are really afraid to lose. This also enables us to play through the basic box adventures as you suggested.

Mordjinn said:

While these are options, for the long term the best option for the group is to play with completely different heroes and skills every time (and even rotate the OL player).
By the time you have done the bulk of the main quests you should have a much better handle on the game and have worked several different strategies and discovered a variety of tactics.

That will give you a much better chance of having an enjoyable time when you play a proper campaign (RtL or SoB).

The risk in playing the same heroes (and skills) is high that you develop in only limited ways, appropriate for those heroes and skills, and when forced to do something diffferent, by draws or OL counter-tactics, you struggle.

For example, the worst hero in the game, by a large margin, is Red Scorpion.
But give her Telekinesis, Tiger Tattoo and Skilled/Swift and she becomes a game-winning thoroughbred - something you would never believe unless you've figured out the tactics and utilities involved (and yes, other heroes with the same or similar skills can do this stuff even better - Grey Kerr for example, but most runner heroes in the base set don't get Wizardry skills).

Seriously, this is a massively rewarding game franchise. But the first box, the original game, is best used as a 'learner set' to try and get as much out of it as possible, if you plan to move forward later. The game gets better and better, generally as you go deeper into it.

Mordjinn said:

As I said before, sticking to the vanilla game in order to learn the ins and outs is probably the most important thing for your group right now. If this house rule will satisfy your group for the time being, then by all means, use it. Your hero players will very likely end up with some killer skill combos before too long, which just means you'll have that much more work cut out for you as OL. (If you find yourself thinking that the heroes are winning too easily, remember this house rule is in effect before you go changing 5 other things to "fix" it. Try altering this rule slightly instead.)

Good luck!

Good points from both. The key here is that they keep the same heroes and skill unless OL wins. As they don't have a clue what to expect, I'm hoping to win as OL at least at some point, which will reset the heroes. Also I was planning to take the four heroes just used in the OL win game out from the hero deck, which will guarantee completely new group of heroes for the next game.

I know my players are enjoying the game, but at least one of them is constantly bringing up the worry about the lenght of Road to Legend (or Sea of Blood). He doesn't believe that we will have the attention span for a campaign that long. Are the any good tips which I could turn his head on this? I've tried to tell him that it doesn't matter if we play once a month for the next five years and that not everyone is needed for every quest as they can play eachothers heroes if need to be (which is the main reason for switching to Descent from Warhammer RolePlay). That will keep the campaing moving. Is there a possibility of playing some turns "virtually"? The players decide what they want to do and I as OL then do the turn with one of them? Is this viable? Are the ACs really superduper long?

Mordjinn said:

I read some where that each tier copper, silver, gold, is about 4 dungeons to the next rank. So around 12 dungeons plus the Overlord 's Keep dungeon. Our group is completing a single dungeon a game session, so for us im estimating 13 games sessions one every 3 to 4 weeks so we will be done in a year:)

for a shorter campaign, start at a higher tier, like silver or gold, its in the rule books....

Mordjinn said:

Most RPGs I've played in tend to span several months, if not years. Whenever I run a game myself, I make a point of keeping it short and my games still typically average 3-6 months. If your group has the attention span for an RPG, they have the attention span for the AC game (although if WFRP is the only RPG you've played, it sounds like they might not.)

When RtL first came out, initial reports were pegging a full campaign at around 2-3 months for completion, assuming you played approximately once a week for 4 hours (roughly 1-2 full dungeons per session, with outdoor encounters taking up time when found.) I haven't seen as many game reports after the first year or so of RtL's commercial life, so maybe people have been speeding up as they get used to the process. If you guys are just getting into Descent and the ACs in particular, I'd say 2-3 months at one session per week is probably a good estimate for how long it would take. If you have time (and energy) to play all day long on a Saturday or something, you might cut that down significantly by playing extra-long sessions.

You're also absolutely right about not needing to stop because you're missing a player. Generally I don't do that in RPGs either - the fastest way to kill a game is to not play it, after all - but in a game like Descent where there's no reasonable expectation of RP, it matters even less if one guy isn't there. It's entirely possible for two or three hero players to communally decide what action a missing player's hero will take. In theory the OL could also take that hero's turn, but personally I think it's better if one player isn't on both sides of the equation.

If there's only one guy who worries about the length of the AC then another option, as heartless as it may sound, is to simply play without him. Still hang out with him at the regular times, of course, but maybe schedule a different time to play AC with anyone else who's interested. I'm not suggesting you keep it a secret or anything either - let him know you're starting up and that he's welcome to play if he wants to, but that you intend to play regardless. If you don't have 5 physical people, you can double up heroes for however many you do have. Then you'd even have the advantage of concrete numbers to show your worried friend later. ("Look, we played this campaign with three people and finished in just over a month, if you want in next time, that's how long it will probably take.")

Steve-O (won't be quoting, as there was so much good stuff):

We are an old group of five friends and have been playing together for over 20 years now. RPGs, boardgames, you name it. Started off with the good old Red Box D&D and never looked back. I think the main problem is that we constantly get excited about new games, before really playing the old ones many times. Arkham Horror, Battlestar Galactica, Last Night on Earth, A Game of Thrones, Kill Dr.Lucky, Chaos in the Old World, War of the Ring, Middle Earth Quest, Warmachine/Hordes etc.etc. Even when I'm really enthusiastic about Descent, I'm already eyeballing Mansions of Madness, Runewars and some RPG possibilities This is what a short attention span means: Too much time between the sessions and too much loose money for the new games.

But, but, but. You are right about "the best way to kill the game is not to play it". I will heed your advice and play through the Vanilla before heading into Road to Legend. I KNOW that it will be something we all will enjoy a lot as I know the guys. Always a bit weary and suspicious, but loving it in the end. If it takes three years, then it will, but eventually we will finish the campaign and probably start a new one