Hello all, me and my brother recieved this game for christmas and have started running a playthrough with our friends. We made it through to the first act 2 quest with me, the overlord, winning everything but the first part of the masquerade ball. The party consists of Jaine as wildlander, Grisbain as berserker, Leoric as runemaster, and Alvric as the disciple. During the game we had a few rules disagreements, with the idea that "find it and prove it in the rule book, but until then we are going with the consensus of the group." My group was level headed enoguh, most of the time, to be rational about this. However, last night, when we were running the shadow vault.

They started playing smart, my Zac and barghasts were easily wiped out by the berserker having great rolls and mine being very bad. So, back i trek to take my next foothold at the river's edge with my ettins + zac with barghasts reinforcing. This is were it went wrong for them. They sent the casket bearer, Jaine, and our healer down the open side and shoved the bersker and runemaster down my throat up top. With the use of reach and some good rolls i knocked out the runemaster and got the berserker to retreat to rest and revive. That when the disciple popped up and cast prayer of peace, all monsters adjascent to him cant attack. The jaine had run right to the rivers edge and tried to hop down but barely failed the check! my turn now, I was holding a dark charm and had charmed her and jumped her down the river and right intow to my barghasts and Zac combo. I killed her with the full force of barghats and a frenzy card then proceeded to block the river entrance stream and run zac to be prepped to jump down the waterfall. This is were our first big conundrum came up, i had blocked the river. By the letter of the rules they had to take the long way down, they were very upset about this. Started telling me I was abusing the rules, they acted like there was no other way down there. I finally conceded (for the sake of just wanting to play) and let them still jump down the river edge and land in any open stream space. They decided to all try this and all of them failed their checks, crys of me cheating start again. Zac makes his moves and is now posed to strike towards the exit this turn and win. They make the dive and fatigue run to Jaine, she is revived by the member of our group who always goes last (order is Alvric, Jaine, Grisbain, Leoric.) They claim it is her turn now, I msaying its not because of the regular order. They argue that we always give the revived person a turn, which we had. That was completly coincidental though considering we always used the same order for all 7 of our encounters, and the people who got revived were always revived before there turn in our turn order had come up. We read the rules, find the thing about you being able to change turn order whenver you want. We had always had a house rule about never retroactivly changing anything, once the turn had passed it could be applied, but never after and only during if the rule was found in a timely manner. So, after 45 minutes of them scouring the rules they found the turn order and start complainging that it should still be her turn (the Leoric had not used his second action and just waited for the rule to be found…). So it is now jaines turn as she attempts to make it to and kill a nearly full health zac. She does not, I win.

Now, Im not perfect. I had messed up minorly on monster reinforcements (coming in too late) and which skill to use in a check for when the vampire is going getting through the riddle doors ( i used awareness and not the book.) However, I always told my group and severly gimped myself afterwards (6 turns into the Laddy Farrow door mission i found out what i was doing wrong, and put myself back in my starting room, and i still won rolling riddles on every door.) Then in the encounter to save the cardinal I put my reinforcements in late in one of the rooms, told everyone and apologized. Asked if I could keep them in as long as I killed the monsters I had manuvered into the cardinals room ( I felt I really messed up here, I also offered the option of not even letting me reinforce.) They chose to do the first idea I had, killing the monsters. I still managed to win that. On both scenarios, even though I screwed up, apologised, and then gave myself a severe disadvantage, I also gave them extra XP to make up for it (1 on the lady Farrow and 2 for the CArdinal). Now that this Shadow vault was over one member, the Alvric, started bringing this back up claiming im cheating and started nitpicking everything I did relentlessly, it stopped being fun. He threatened to stop healing people if they didnt do exactly what he wanted, and was using this to bully people into selling their items so he could be the strongest. I warned him that if he didn't stop I was done playing, he didn't and I stopped that night's session.

Now the Alvric is usally a fun loving guy, usually rolls to have fun and we always do. However, after losing so much he started to get angry. None of the losses were clearly onesided either, they were always close and came down to the last turn? How would you guys handle this? I love being overlord and I admit my mistakes. Im also the one who sets up every encounter's board peices, along with my GF, and the only one who reads through the encounter we are going to do. I also re read it constantly during the mission to see if i am messing up and to double check things. No one else even touches the thing. Yet I am treated like some war criminal whenver I mess up and come clean. The thing that irks me is that they would have never known had I not said one thing about it. So, I ask again what would you guys do?

TL;DR: My friend got angry over rules, they leave allthe set up and encounter reading to me and as overlord adn being the only person who knows the scenarios, I mess up. I always come clean, apologise, and give them extra winnings, even if they lose. They stareted being rules dicks after losing 6/7 encounters. How do I handle this?

I think we are all bound to make mistakes when playing.

Your opponents seem to react at kindergarten level - don't they also play wrong on occasions.

I would stop playing with people who make the gaming experience a PITA.

Fun is the main objective. If some players (re)act like jerks, find other opponents.

As a midway solution, let them read the quest text and prepare the map. They must be responsibilized in playing the game correctly - and when everybody cooperates to play right, everybody is more tolerant when errors are committed.

I basically agree with what Robin said.

Descent is a highly competitive game, and players - particularly new players - are known to have trouble accepting the fact that that Overlord can win as well as the heroes. The fact that you're winning more than most probably isn't helping with that. Here is what I would suggest:

1) The rules very clearly state that all players are allowed to read the quest guide at any time. If your hero players are getting pissy about you making honest mistakes, then tell them to start reading the quest guide themselves so that such errors will hopefully be caught sooner. Give them the guide and go make everyone some drinks while they read it over.

2) Play a few quests in "one-shot" mode and rotate who plays the OL. Letting everyone get some experience behind the curtain will give your group some perspective on how the game works. For example, I'd be willing to bet that one of the big reasons why you're winning every quest is due to the heroes making rookies mistakes like trying to clear every room of monsters before moving on. The fact that the only encounter they've won is the first encounter of Masquerade Ball (which downplays direct combat) is a big red flashing light in this regard.

Steve-O said:

Exactly and Robin's comment is right too.

I had this same exact problom with the game Mansions of Madness where at every games a player told be how I should play the Keeper (Keeper = Overlord). The Keeper/Overlord was not there to win but to creat an atmosphere for the Investigators/Heroes…even though the Keeper/Overlord is given tools to kills and slow the progression of the Heroes.

Try to explain your role to them and let them see that you're there to win to. It's a competitive game and sure is not for everybody and if they can't undertsand that simple concept of competition then find other, more mature, players. You'll see, you're fun will go up!