I dont know whether anyone has raised concern about campaign length on the forum before if they have apologies.

I like the look of descent 2nd edition but I am really concerned about game length I can accept 1st edition campaign length was too long, but 2nd edition is far to short to the point I have doubts I will enjoy the game.

The group I play with meet up every sunday for 6 hours this means a campaign would last 4 weeks, my players enjoy more character progression than just four sessions and I have not seen anything to suggest you can do multiple campaigns with the same characters or any signs there is room for character progression spanning more than 4 weeks without maxing everything out.

Hopefully someone has information to offer that will put my mind at ease. But at the moment I struggle to see how this game can be an alternative to an RPG when a games only lasts 4 weeks or an alternative to 1st edition campaign which could last 3 months.

I can certainly say that I'm looking forward to the much shorter duration of quests for D2e. I've had one quest form D1e take up to 10 hrs to complete once, it was WAY too long. Even going more then 4-6hrs is a bit much for any game.

Besides the opening quest, each quest will take roughly 1½ - 2hrs, which sounds great to me. On a positive twist here, look at it this way. Once you've completely finished the campaign, it'll give you and your friends a chance to swap roles and try new class combos then play quests you missed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd time around.

From the sound of it, there is plenty of replay value to this and with the speed that this game can be played, I'm sure there will be print-on-demand expansions to follow.

My opinion to you and your friends, play it, enjoy it, and I'm sure you'll be replaying to try and find the expert builds per class-archtype and such. Don't focus on the potential lack of time it takes.

Hi Coldmoon

Thanks for your reply.

I completely understand why certain gaming groups found 1st edition campaign to long but in my opinion if the campaign was too long play single dungeons and don't use the campaign.

But now in 2nd edition you have a choice of a very short game or a short game I will still most likely buy 2nd edition and I agree the other changes to descent all look very good but a lack of long term character progression for me is a major issue. Thats despite my gaming group not liking how long you have to spend being overlord on a single campaign so a shorter campaign is a good idea but not being able to do multiple campaigns with the same heroes is a real negative. Although I can see from a game writing perspective its much harder to get the game balance correct between overlord and players over a long drawn out campaign.

Infuser said:

I don't think Descent was ever meant to be an alternative to RPGs. I've always gotten the impression it was designed to be a tactical miniatures game where the theme was dungeon delving against an evil overlord. I think it was always meant to be something short that was played for one off sessions and then restarted. The idea of characters staying around beyond a single dungeon always seemed like something that was added to appease fans of the type of game Kevin wasn't trying to make.

Descent 2nd ed looks to be fixing one of the bigger complaints about the game, that is most people do not have the time and do not want a long epic game. If character development and persistence are important to your group, maybe an actual rpg system is more what you're after. There's quite a few good systems to choose from with plenty of premade material if creating dungeons and campaigns yourself is not something you're familiar with yet.

I agree to a point 1st edition is a tactical miniatures game, however it became alot more than that with the addition of road to legend it had a lot of roleplaying elements like character progression and was also a tactical miniatures game in many respects like a roleplaying game without the roleplaying.

Strangely in second edition they have made it more like an rpg in one respect greater story telling but less like an rpg by making the game alot shorter.

For many years my gaming group played rpgs but finding someone who wanted to DM or who could spend the time doing the game preperation was difficult in the end we started playing Descent no prep involved but with many similarites to an RPG.

I could be wrong but I reckon there will be alot more ex roleplayers playing descent rtl than people would think.

Ah, see the biggest problem I have writing here is that I never got a chance to experience Road to Legends. I wanted too and read the rule book (from the online PDF) just to get a feel of what could have happened. So I don't know your experience with RtL like you do.

I'm making huge allegations here only guessing that in future expansions for D2e that there will be longer campaigns, higher level hero/OL cards to work towards and such.

With what most are saying that it'll take roughly 20hrs to complete the core campaign, we'll just have to wait and see if they create any new campaigns that take much longer to complete. I'll also guess there will be plenty of user created campaigns as well that take that much longer once everyone gets a feel for how the game works.

Infuser said:

You may be right, but something to keep in mind, RtL was the third expansion. I think that the only reason it was made was the large amount of complaints about how people wanted more rpg lite elements. Problem was that system did not play well with the base game systems in 1st ed. That tells me the main audience FFG ended up with for Descent didn't want the kind of game it was intended to be. Plus play testing it sounded like a nightmare because of the time involved just completing a single campaign.

Thankfully those elements are being added in at the ground level now. Who knows, there may be an advanced campaign expansion for 2nd ed in the future. Right now I'm not aware of a different board game that is gonna hit the buttons you seem to be after. Descent 1st ed with RtL and the newest FAQ may be as good as it gets for your group right now.

Having more involved character investment with less time investment seems like one of the big goals of 2nd ed. Speaking for myself, there's no room in my life for 6 hour board gaming sessions anymore. Hell I'm lucky to get 2 hours. So I'm glad for the change.