Descent is probally my second favourite game in the world. It has the best feel, originality, simply and quick combat system, fun, attractiveness and with Road to Legend, the ability to rival large 60+ hour video games like oblivion, baldurs gate and Zelda in scope of play.

However, with everything that I love about Descent, there is one game I rank higher. Warhammer Quest. Now I know they are very different games, and not really always comparable. In fact I think that Descent is far superior to Warhammer Quest in many ways. For example..

Warhammer Quest's combat system is long and tedious with multiple rolls, many modifiers and arithmetic involved to just calculate if you hit the opponent. In fact basic fights in WQ sometimes take 30 min due to its clunky combat system.

Advanced Campaign. Warhammer Quest simply dwarfs in comparison to Descent due to Road to legend.

Originality. Descent doesnt just batter old fantasy archetypes, but invents new ones.

Support and Availiblity, means you can get Descent anywhere new for a new price, whereas you need an extra kidney to get a new WQ.

Nonetheless, Descent lacks something that would make it my perfect game. Solo rules and Co-op rules that do not need an overlord. Random generation rules for creating dungeons on the fly would be great. I often do not have anyone to play with due to my families busy schedule. I love descent the best, but without solo rules I often play WQ or Advanced heroquest, simply because I have no choice. Descent would be the top dungeon crawl game if Fantasy flight released a pdf, an official rules book, or an expansion giving a way for DM/overlord absent play, which allows for co-op and/or solo play and that gives a system of random generation. There are many ways to make Solo play and random generation work well. For example, dungeons, treasure, monsters and events can all be generated by rolling on tables, or drawing cards. Monsters do not need an overlord to function. The Warhammer Quest type rules are very easy and make sense. Anytime a MOnster with a melee weapon can move, it will always move towards the closest hero. Whenever a monster can attack a hero, they will. There are tons of ways, and I have no doubt that if you tried you could make a mind blowing set of Random/Solo/Coop rules.

Even more amazing would be a set of rules to completely automate Road to Legend so people who can only play solo, are able to do so. Now I know that is a tall, order, esspecially at first glance and that RTL is based heavily on the fact that there are two factions, controlled by people. However, if you stop to think about it, with the right modifications, and overhauls to the system, Road to legend could be an amazing Solo/Coop experience. Its really not that hard to imagine. The overworld map could could operate like any other random aspect. The OL lieutenants could follow a set of automated rules or could have tables used to determine actions, or a combo of both. Automating the dungeons of RTL and outdoor encounters is the easy part. And for the most part, everything about the heroes turn remains unchanged, simply fleshing out some rules to autromate the overlord on the map and in the game week is all that is needed. It doesnt have to be erfect, just playable and fun for those who crave it.

I personally would love to play RTL solo. I Love solo gaming, since it is only myself vs. fate. There is no one to explain tactics to, or compromise with, no egos, just the pure game and unbiased fate as your opponent. This is the one thing that Warhammer Quest has that Descent does not yet have. Don't get me wrong, I love playing with others, its the main reason I play unplugged games instead of video games. However, the experience of sitting in the living room on a winters night, by the fire, while the wife reads, and music plays, dungeon delving and challanging fate all by myself is amazing. Somehow its amazing to see that a board game can worl just as automated as the AI opponents in some video Don't knock it until you try it, solo gaming is as rewarding as multiplayer gaming and a game as large and impressive as Descent should not miss out on this crucial niche of gaming. Solo gaming esspecially works well specifically with Dungeon Crawling, since the overlord, this unsen imense force is very similar to fate.

Certainly solo play or overlord absent play is not superior to having more players, and its not supposed to better. Its supposed to offer interesting alternatives for people who can only play solo, or for groups that want to play all on the same team cooperatively. Solo gaming is very different from regular, however it offers a fun quality that you cannot get when playing with people, although under-rated, solo gaming can be exceptionally enjoyable. Obviously, regular descent is the way the game really shines, but I think so many people would enjoy these add-ons, and the game would have everything that people have been searching for in a Dungeon Crawl.

I suppose my final and most important point is this. If Fantasy Flight does release rules such as this, it can only bring good. These rules would be optional, and those who do not want to use them, can completely ignore them, however, those who are craving something like this will get an even better game. No one looses by making more optional variety, it only creates more buzz and brings more people to the gaming table.

So why not Kevin Wilson? Why not FFG? Use your incredible skills and finally fufill the niche of the Dungeon crawl game people have always asked for? You have alwaost already done so, you are 85% there, with a few pages of text, some extra tables or cards, Descent could become the most complete and rewarding Dungeon Crawl of all time.

I am currently working on a system of house rules for this, but frankly, Kevin Wilson and FFG are the ones to do this task well. However, if there is no chance of official rules like the ones I mentioned, I would love to colaborate with others who seriously would like to create them for house rules.

Cheers,
Christof

Anyone have any insights on Solo Descent or Solo Road to Legend?

I think the most problematic aspects will be dealing with Overlord Advancement and Upgrades, Overlord Cards during combat, Threat and Reinforcements.

I have some ideas to start. For example, instead of having an overlord choose upgrades during game week, the upgrades could automatically activate after a certain amount of time to keep the Overlord forces on par with the Heroes.

Certain things can be easily automated. The plot can be chosen at random. Monster movement and attack can easily be done using Warhammer Quest style combat rules.

The thing to remember when trying to create solo rules, or automate a game for DM-less solo/coop play is that, the game is not not geared towards making it strategic and interesting for two forces, but rather just to make it challenging, interesting and strategic for the heroes. As a result certain things can simply be done away with and replaced with another mechanic so long as it makes it work for the game. For example In regular descent, I have been working on a way to automate it so I can play solo. One of the challenging things is dealing with threat and overlord cards, a very significant part of the game. However, it can be automated by thinking about what the mechanic does, why, how and what is accomplished by it. For example, threat and overlord cards.

For the Overlord, threat and overlord cards make the game more interesting, give powers and abilities which can be used to hurt the heroes or strengthen the overlord player. Threat is the currency used to keep the overlord card system balanced and keep the cards from being played all at once, disbalancing the game.

From the heroes perspective, overlord cards represent new challenges other than monsters and traps. The overlord cards also help to keep game balance for the heroes.

Automating this can be accomplished in a couple of ways. Remember, we only need to now fufill the mechanics effects on the heroes. I figure that the overlord card/threat system can be accomplished in a couple of ways. These ideas need work, however here is one example.

Overlord Cards can be used somewhat like the Unexpected event cards in Warhammer Quest. Since the cards would be drawn at random, some cards such as Curse of the Monkey God, would have to be removed, Other cards such as spawn cards obviously would work if automated. This accomplises automating the overlord cards, keeps the heros on their toes and gives the heroes another chek and balance. However, we still need a way to regulate the overlord cards, since we are not having threat as currency with a person deciding when to play them. I have thus far had success dealing with this problem, rolling for an unexpected event. Roll two black power die, on the roll of a blank, draw and activate an overlord card. This ussually means that an overlord card gets drawn every two-three turns. I find this is not too overwhelming. This system needs polishing for sure, but for now it accomplishes what it needs to. That is, it automates the overlord card system for solo play and adds that extra unexpected force to hinder the heroes. How balanced is this? Is it too hard or easy? Not sure, nut its a start. Remember, I am not trying to make Descent Solo rules an exact replica or the regular rules, thats impossible, I am trying to find a way to capture the combat system, feel, monsters, equipment etc of descent for a solo game.

Here is an example of how to automate Descent so it can be played with 1-4 players with no overlord player. Doing this for RTL would be amazing. Anyone with ideas on specific aspects of RTL or descent, on how they could be altered for solo/coop play, please leave them on this thread.

Cheers

Christof

I like the idea of adapting a Warhammer Quest-style event system; I think I'll try it to see which side gets mercilessly slaughtered by the turn order (I'm betting it all depends on the hero count, but yeah, monsters are going to totally lose). Of course, spawn rules would pretty much get tossed out the window, and Warhammer Quest heroes are somewhat more durable and have a much larger death penalty. So, we shall see.

Everyone here has made outstanding points. I'll get back with some actual ideas to contribute. I'm almost late for work.

Another idea for Random Generation is as follows.

For one off regular JitD games, a system of random dungeon generation would be a bice optional add-on, as it would give the players a new element of suprise and replayability to the game, each time the dungeon is new.

To Generate the dungeon, a set of cards needs to be made for each corridor and room piece present physically. Dead ends are not included, they are added automatically when the rooms contents are generated. Cards must be used over tables, as one can run out of pieces if the same result is rolled too many times, or the objective room could be rolled much too early.

Cards are turned over as the heroes progress generating the dungeon. When a corridor is turned over no rolling on the contents table is necessary. However, when a room card is turned over, the heroes must roll on tables. The first table determines how many exists are dead ends, and how many are doors/new corridors. The system is set up so that there is always at least 1 door chosen and that there is no more than one door/corridor per side of the tile. The second table rolled on determines how many monsters and which type . The third table rolled on determines if there is any gold, potions, glyphs, potions or treasure chests. The chests are always done so that the first chest rolled is copper, the second silver and the third gold. Additionally in order to keep the balance, there are technically four different types of monster tables, a beggining table used initially and until the copper treasure is found, a copper table, used until the silver treasure is found, a silver table used until the Gold treasure is Found and finally a Gold table used after the Gold treasure is found. There is an objective room table rolled on to determine the boss monsters.

Keep in mind th dungeons now will look more like sprawling mazes with dead ends instead of nicely designed layouts with specific geometry and symmetry. Again the idea for this is to bring the descent system, items, heroes, monsters and feel to a solo/Coop DM-less system. It will be somewhat different tahn the experience had when playing the regular Descent.

Monsters are added to quest by rolling on room contents tables. Monsters can appear in corridors if spawn cards are generated.

The Rune locked doors would not generally be used unless a system for finding the keys is added, such as the portcullis mechanic in Warhammer Quest.

Here is an example of play

"Heros on their first turn, start by drawing the first card in the dungeon deck over, it is a corridor. The heroes place the starting glyph on the corridor and place heroes as normal. The heroes then check for events to see if overlord cards are drawn. A card is drawn, and it is a spawn card. The card spawns a spider which is placed on the corridor. The heroes move along the corridor to the spider and engage it in combat. The spider is slain. The Heroes then move to the end of the corridor and draw a card. This time it is a medium room. A regular door is placed on the border of the corridor and room. The heroes then roll on the tables to find the contents of the room. Two doors in the rooms are found and placed, while therest of the open spots are blocked by dead ends. The other tables show there is a healing potion, a stash of gold in the room. (Rules are neded to govern where these items are placed, perhaps each hero could place one item) For monsters there are three skeleton archers and one master skeleton, there is also one master beastman.."

Again preliminary ideas but we can build on them, and if FFG takes advantage of the idea for solo/coop play the system could be very heavily fine tuned and tons of fun. Descent is such an amazing system and game that with these options added it could honestly rival the fun of a Video Game like Morrowind or Diablo.

I was thinking about the Solo experience as well. But instead of coming out with specific rule set I was thinking more of specific adventures designed for solo play. I was going to try my hand once the new map editor came out.

The player would move from one encounter area to another. As each area is revealed there would be texted detailing the ‘AI’ for the mobs. Would they move forward and attack. Would the beastmen linger by the Naga guarding the door, forcing the player in the NAGA’s command radius. Would the skeletons shoot and retreat. Does the giant stand on the chest, or advance to a position so he can knock the hero into a spiked pit. Things like that.

In Multi player there is always time pressure. This could be duplicated to a limited extend by have threat collected each turn. Once a certain threshold of threat is reached the hero’s max health could be reduced. Something along those lines, it would need to be play tested.

For those who really want a single player experience, I think you should make one. Try coming up with an adventure. I was going to try converting G1-G3, “Against the Giants” into one. With special stats and different ‘AI’ for each of the giants. The hill giants would be dumb and attack straight away. The Frost would be a little more cunning, perhaps using the environment and finally the Fire giants would throw boulders and execute delaying actions.

I contributed a solo rules for descent and road to legend a while ago. Here is the link:

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=4&efcid=1&efidt=8505

Christof999 said:

Unfortunately, there are only so many ways to do a solo dungeon crawl. If you have an alternate or better way, please, by all means contribute it! Thats what this thread is about. All dungeon crawls are extremely similar, Heroquest, Dragonstrike, Warhammer Quest, Advanced Heroquest, Descent, Space Hulk the D&D boardgame, all of them have extrmely similar, if not identical aspects to eachother. Obviously if FFG makes rules like this they will come up with rules that differ slightly from the WHQ rules. However, as stated there are only a few ways to make a modular dungeon randomized. I also do not really understand your objection, all I am trying to do is come up with an alternate way to play one of my favourite games, if the rules are very similar to other games with the same concepts, then so be it, its not breaking any laws. If its fun, why is that bothersome to you? On the other hand, if you have some alternate rules, then by all means, please share them, Id love to incorporate them.

Cheers

Christof

Ok I was reading the RTL rules and I came up with some more ideas.

One of the main things that needs to remain intact is the overlord growing in strength, however with no person playing the OL this needs to happen automatically. The heros can then witness that as time passes their foe is becoming more potent. Essentially XP would be kept track of by the hero players for the overlord normally, which in turn would be used to buy the Avatar upgrades and so forth. However, it needs to be automatic, so the heroes are not choosing which upgrades. The system I playtested a bit today that seemed to work ok was this.

For each Avatar make a list of every upgrade that they can purchase with XP. Then they need to be ranked and decided which are important ones that are crucial for making the Avatar keep pace relatively with the heroes power. Obviously not every upgrade that exists can be purchased, and some upgrades would really need a human player to take advantage of. Nevertheless, there needs to be a list of upgrades that would work choosen, and put into a logical order. Essentially, the heroes keep track of the XP for the Avatar. Then, each game week when the Avatar would normally have the chance to purchase upgrades, the upgrades are bought automatically when the XP accumulates enough. For example, the first upgrade on the list costs X amout of XP. When that amout is reached, the first upgrade on the list is automatically purchased.

Coming up with a system of rules for moving the avatars around the map board was relatively easy, except for deciding how to deal with the possibility of the Avatar attacking the heres directly, as this can be very unwise for the avatar. I will deal with that later, but was thinking of something along the lines of "If the Avatar is close enough to attack the heroes, then he will do so on a roll of 11 or 12 on a D12". Anyways, the movement rules. Essentially, an Avatar always moves towards the closest city to him on the map, and will always attempt to lay siege to it if he can. Another approach was to make a table for scripting the Avatar movements such as roll a D6 to determine the direction the avatar moves (Ie, relatively up, down, left right). If landing on a city, roll to see if the Avatar attempts to lay siege to the city. I found the second system worked a little better, as it gave the heroes a little more time to breathe, however it was a little less logical. Nonetheless, making a solo play RTL is becoming easier than I thought, the heroes move along the map as normal and check for encounters. The encounters are randomly generated and are fairly generic anyways. The same with dungeons. While in the dungeons, the monsters simply follow the WQ stylle of rules. A Monster with melee attacks will always move towards the clostest hero to it and attack when able. A Monster with Ranged attacks will always move away from a hero, but stay within firing distance, and will attack at every oppurtunity.

As always, input and improvements are very welcome. Also, please point out where I might run into trouble, or difficult things to automate. So far though, I found RTL is easier to automate than JITD since there are so many Quest details that the Overlord needs to deal with in JITD and in RTL much of the game is randomly generated by cards, and the maps have way less feautres. Its dead simple to draw the encounter card and set up the small outdoor tiles are the heroes.

Cheers

Christof

When the solo/coop heroes enter a regular dungeon, they draw a card from the dungeon deck. The heroes consult the rules and assemble the dungeon as normal. If the players own only JiTD then, use only the minions marked A. However, if the heroes own all the expansions then they must roll a 1 D4 to determine which minions are used for this dungeon. 1,2,3,4 correspond to A,B,C,D. Obviously on those dungeons when only A is used, those are the only monsters availible, and no rolling is done.

Hey Christof999,

My brother and I have been playing RtL with the Overlord Automated just because we are both very competitive and we prefer to play co-op. I can send you some of the algorithms if you would like. I am not ready to post them on the forums yet but getting close. We Still have a few minor bugs to work/ figure out first.

We are on out third time playing RtL and are in the Silver campaign and so far he is keep up in Exp to staying slightly ahead of us. Our goals have been as you said, to make as much as possible random so we do not have to play against ourselves.

RoyalDirk said:

Hi RoyalDirk,

I would be very greatful if you could send me your system of playing RTL automated. I have no one to play with often and I love solo gaming.

You can email me at [email protected] Obviously, just remove the NOSPAM from the address.

It sounds like you have done some really interesting things with RTL, I think the more randomization the better, so Ill be really interested in taking a look at your method.

Thanks again, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers

Christof

Alright, it is time for me to play devil's advocate.

Personally, I would LOVE to see a co-op or solo version of Descent. In fact, before RtL came around, my brother and I were actually coming up with our own design for a "better" Warhammer Quest.

HOWEVER, I don't necessarily believe it is best for the game. One of the things that makes Descent the most fun for us is the fact that the enemy is coordinated and intelligent. One of the problems my friends and I always had with WQ was the fact that there was no brain behind the monsters. In real life, even spiders and other insects have strategy. Study any form of life and you will discover that they do waht they do VERY well, and only lemmings storm blindly ahead. That being said, unless you have a way to breathe life into the bad guys... To really let ethem behave intelligently -- it will never be as much fun (at least in my modest oppinion)

There was a game (I forget which at the moment) where the players took turns being the bad guys. Each player controlled a hero, but one out of every four turns they were the one controlling the baddies as well. I think this mechanic could work well for Descent. It would still require some tweaking, but it could work. You could even use that mechanic to turn Descent into a competative thing; Each player could have their own goals and adgenda, which would encourage the players to use the overlord to their greatest potential.

Ultimately I think taking the brain away from the overlord would be a mistake, so it's far better to find a way to collectively play him/her.

Osaka said:

I agree that the intelligent and competitive Overlord is the best feature of Descent. Its the first Dungeon Crawl that really allows the DM to be a part of the game, to have strategies and the ability to win. I am not advocating this be removed, or even marginalized in anyway. However, the descent world, tiles, theme, story, monsters, characters, items, combat system etc. are all awesome no matter what the overlord is like. I would just like to see optional rules for Descent for people like myself who play more solo games. I love how descent works when we have enough people for an overlord and heroes, but when Its just me, I still want to be able to play this amazing game without the need for a Dungeon Master.

In addition, although monsters become brainless when governed by solo rules, that doesnt mean that the game isnt fun this way. WQ is still an awesome game, and is still very chalenging regardless of the robotic type monsters. Solo gaming is a way to play squarely against fate. When I play Advanced Heroquest 2nd edition, I honestly get the impression that there is an unseen force, the web of wyrd, working for me, with me and against me all at the same time. The dice powered Advanced Heroquest is the only way to truly play a game created completely by the universe itself. Even if I play a computer game, the results are not in reality randoma, but just part of a math algorithim that gives the appearane of randomness. However with Ad. Heroquest, no force in the world can predict before the game starts what the dungeon will look like, which monsters will appear, what the Quest will be or how the characters will fare. I believe this experience makes games just as rich and rewarding as a game like descent played with a person. Its simply more variety and options, giving people more chances to play the game.

Finally Ill say that my wife and I love playing descent, but sometimes we do not like to compete against eachother. We like WQ because its completely cooperative. Coop games are fun. For us there is nothing like the two of us struggeling against fate to win the quest.

Cheers

Christof

Christof999 said:

AngusBull on the 'Geek has a wicked, simple system that works very well for solo/coop Descent:

www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/36525/descent-solo-adventurers-kit

Might be what you're looking for . . .

Go to the variant forum and print out and test Descent Quest.

If you like it, there are links where you can buy professionally printed decks of the cards so it feels like a real expansion. (just make sure you find coupon codes on the net to knock the price down)

This is by far the coolest and most tested random-dungeon generation system out there for Descent. It is based off the uber-awesome Warhammer Quest!

Trust me, it is well worth buying the artscow decks offered for this variant! Truly amazing!

Link for this Variant is in my signature (Not my creation, I just love it so I advertise it)

For anyone who's interested I developed solo rules with coop DM-less play and a system for randomly generated dungeons which you can download here:

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Really? You revive this thread after a full year of inactivity to post a link to a mod that's older than the thread...then, after nearly a year of making no posts at all in this entire forum, you come back to this one thread and revive it again?

You are allowed to start new threads, you know. Also, there is now a homebrew subforum you may wish to leverage. Maybe that didn't exist the last time you visited.

Just sharing creative content, Jeremy. Don't mess yourself.