Unless I am misunderstanding the rules, each dungeon is laid out in its entirety at the beginning of any given quest. (I am fairly new to Descent but that is how we have played it each time) Then, the items, terrain, and figures that populate a given area are placed upon the opening of the door to that area. What I am wondering is if anyone places the room and hall tiles only after they are seen by the Heros. After thinking about it, I suppose this could be done without much problem if entire areas were placed on the table at the same time you would normally place all the pieces for that area.

Has anyone tried this? If so what problems or reccomendations might you have?

Thanks

I my group we have always played that the 'floor' is also first laid out when the area is revealed. I think it gives a better dungeon-crawling sense, and also hinders some of the logical deduction from just looking at how a map is laid out. It works just fine.

What you propose isa common house rule. It can take a little longer to play that way though.

I started out this way, but as slev pointed out, it takes more time and doesn't mix well with ADD heroes.

The way I see it, the heroes start off with a map, so why not just lay out the dungeon? I mean, they have a gist of what the outline is, the fun comes in where they choose to go and what's behind it. Sometimes laying out the dungeon causes heroes to choose paths that may be beneficial to the OL, revealing certain doom

I recall the old Advanced Heroquest where we would build the dungeon bit by bit. Now, while I don't mind the rule for Descent, I would think building the Dungeon does make for a quicker game.

The thing with Heroquest (HQ) is that it was meant to be played by revealing area by area since HQ was played on a static board with the entire dungeon already laid out. As Zargon (HQ's Over Lord), you just revealed the path that could be taken as the heroes advanced.

Since Descent's dungeons' layouts change entirely each quest, it does lengthen the game if you choose to layout the board area by area since it uses a more dynamic board (as opposed to HQ). Sometimes, Descent in itself can be a long run through if spawns occur repeatedly and if the OL gets you in a corner or stuck in between groups of monsters. I tried Descent once by revealing area by area and it dragged the game out. It was however a good break time for the heroes (smoke breaks, get drinks, stretch out, etc...), depending on how large the area was to be revealed. Not so much for the OL. If the OL is very good at keeping the pieces organized, though, it shouldn't be that big of deal. On the other hand, I don't really see any drawbacks with laying out the board in its entirety. Some more advanced players may be able to guess the easiest route through the quest just by looking at the board, but I think it is unlikely since the OL can throw surprises at the party in way of traps, spawns, and curses.

All in all, play the way you and your friends like. That's the beauty of games that are like Descent and Heroquest (regular and advanced).

Antistone is talking about Advanced HQ, a Games Workshop product that later led to the production of one of the best dungeon crawler games ever (Warhammer Quest) - the only flaw with WHQ was the later levels really dragged on rolling up all those items and extra bonuses for the leaders in each room, writing them down, forgetting to take into account something, rolling turns back, etc.

AHQ was pretty good though, but slightly more traditional in the sense of the DM was still in control of everything, rather than the competitive nature of Descent. That's why I prefer to leave as many rules as in tact- it's kind of a big advantage to lay dungeons out bit by bit.

I'm new to Descent and I perfectly know Hero Quest and Advanced Hero Quest. The main difference is the control the Game Master has on the game; in Descent it's a competition and the Overlord is a player who has to defeat the others to gain victory.

I'm not sure if you know Descent's cousin, DOOM: the Boardgame by the same author Kevin Wilson. In this game, the Invader player (=the Overlord) puts the map tiles only when map areas are revealed. Rules are basically the same and at first glance I was astonished by this difference between two games that are so similar.

I believe that setting up the entire map at the beginning makes things easier and speeds up play... but I'd like to give the sensation of a party exploring the unknown. If the map is already on the board, the sensation is gone.

Oops, just realized that wasn't Antistone, but Graveyard Greg. My apologies.

Well hey, why not use a bit of both? I imagine it might be pretty cool to do a custom mission where you setup the board as normal... but as the OL you may choose wheter or not to tip the players about there being secret rooms or passages. Having the players 'discover' this secret room or passage could be left up to a die roll requiring a set number of surges. The player searching gets an extra black dice for each dice in there agility stat... or anything else you could think up of them to have to try! If they find the room though, then you pull out the tiles and set it up, it's not laid out with the rest of the map. That way you get the quick setup time BUT some of the neat discovery of not knowing where everything might be.

In the rules it says the players are assumed to have a map of the dungeon and to lay out the complete dungeon at the start. But for me, it just depends on the campaign, or the specific dungeon. Some build more suspence all layed out, and some others add more flare and drama by only showing one room at a time.

I think it depends on your style and your particular group. For beginners, your first 3 or so dungeons, I would reccommend laying out the dungeon all right at the start. After that try room by room and see how that works out.

Thanks for all of the input, all points well noted. I can certainly see how it would increase the time required to play having to lay out the tiles when a door is opened.

I play regularly by revealing bit by bit (or more exactly area by area) and it doesn't take a lot of extra time, but my pieces are all well organized and i set apart all the pieces thet will be required before the beginning of the game (often while the heroes are choosing their equipment). I take the right number of glyphs, doors, all the floor tiles ... It's no more than a minute or too to lay down the floor when an area is revealed.

It might however, make the game harder. I'm not even sure if it does. I'll try the old way of building everything next time i play with a group of heroes that regularly loose

We regularly play that we build as we go, though this came about through playing larger maps on a smaller table.

We've since found a better table, but often still reveal dungeons area by area. It's a bit harder for heroes, because sometimes they end up exploring a loop and waste a lot of time, but my heroes like the extra challenge (I'm a noob overlord, and we often play with 4 heroes).

You do save a lot on the "load" times between rooms when you just set up the basic floorplan at the start though. We do this when playing with 3 heroes, or if we have a particularly ADD group that night that can't handle a bit of downtime.

We ALWAYS play by revealing the dungeons section-by-section. If the Overlord is oranized it doesn't add more than a few minutes to the gameplay time. Everyone thinks it is much more fun this way because it adds a feeling of exploration and mystery to the game. I should also mention that we play with Hirst Arts dungeon tiles, which are faster to assemble than all the little cardboard bits.

Hirst Arts? I would love to see these.

I think we will try revealing it area by area on the next run and see how the group likes it.