My copy should be here in a week or so. I'm excited to play, but I'm also nervous about introducing people to the game as it seems heavier than most they play. Any tips for how to ease new people in? Thanks.

Think of it as a simulation of Final Fantasy, not a simulation of D&D. There are a lot of "video gamey" aspects to the rules, like how everyone gets treasure as soon as one person opens a chest, water can't be jumped over, heroes die and get resurrected on a daily basis, etc.

Good tip - the people I'll play with are definitely more familiar with video games. I'm a pretty recent convert to board gaming too, actually. That should be helpful. Thanks.

the best advice I can give you is to make sure you all read the rules and print a copy of the most recent FAQ. Start with just the base game and introduce the expansions in order (if you have any.)

Your first couple games should all be the first quest with each player taking a turn as the OL. Everyone should be familiar with the game mechanics enough at that to move on to the rest (and much more difficult) quests at that point.

At first you must to focus not only to understand rules but even the strategy of heroes. Or they can be disappointed after first session, the learning curve is cruel. If heroes will be hopelessly humiliated in first/second area and won't be prepare to find their strategy mistakes, you may tell them some tips:

1) Even with random heroes (which I prefer even with the party of two heroes) try to have magician, warrior and bowman, because treasures are picked up randomly. But what you HAVE to have in your party is the RUNNER - guy whose speed and fatigue is extremely important. If you have speed 5, fatigue 5, yellow potion and choose a "run" action, you can run for 19 spaces in a single turn! Yellow potions are the most valuable thing in the game, learn this and get never out of them, it is really important, because…

2) The best advantage for heroes is SPEED! Do not try to grab ALL the treasures, money and potions and do not try to kill all the monsters. Overlord can spawn new monsters every turn and never get out of them. The best way how to solve hordes of monsters is leave them behind you, they are too slow to catch you. Actually, sometimes you don't have even to pass through all the rooms :-)

3) Second best advantage for heroes is INITIATIVE! Heroes open the door. So they should get prepared behind them in some kind of formation, at the beginning of the next turn one of them open the door and kill first monster, the runner starts up, open the glyph (most important), open the chest (important as well, it helps you to kill faster - so be faster - and it is usually impossible to kill the boss without them.) and so on, the rest of party ambush monsters and try to kill them before they will kill you.

There is a lot of other things you will learn but these are crucial to be able to win. Actually quests number 1 and 2 are meant like tutorials - first of them is almost unable to solve until you learn the advices No. 2 and 3, second of them is definitely unable to solve without the advice No.1

Enjoy the best game ever !!!