Just got the game and really love it. Outstanding game. My question though comes from the Masquerade Ball Encounter 1, My group got to the end and it turned into a HUGE argument that almost finished the game for the night.

For a hero victory, It says the heroes must roll a die (gray or black, depending on how may players). If the number of shields rolled is equal to or less than the guests they successfully rescued, then the heroes manage to save Lord Theodir.

The problem comes in the fact that the overlord was able to escort ALL guests out and the heroes rescued 0 guests. The heroes rolled the grey die and got 0 shields. The players feel they won because a 0 came up so they rescued Lord Theodir, although the OL was the one to grab every guest.

Now, The guest section also states for the objective tokens, Half are red, representi cultists. The other half are blue, representing important noble guests--ONE OF WHOM IS LORD THEODIR--. So of all the tokens placed, according to this rule, Lord Theodir is one of the guests.

So in this respect, I feel the quest contradicts itself under these conditions because the OL feels he won because he got all the guests out and the book plainly states one them is Lord Thodir. The players feel they won because the quest states if they roll equal to or less shields, they win. The rescued 0 guests and rolled a 0.

In this instance I would lead to the OL winning simply because he actually got all the guests whereas the heroes rescued NONE of them. This turned into a way larger argument then needed, but the book pretty much gave winning conditions to both sides at the exact same time. IS there any official word on this exact situation?

The rules say roll equal to or lower, they rolled 0, which is equal to 0, so they won encounter 1. Think of it being that Lord Theodir was in the bathroom or something or had stepped outside and wasn't any of the guests that were kidnapped, which is basically what that die roll represents.

The rules quite clearly state that the heroes have a win condition of rolling a die result of shields equal to or lower then the guests they saved: that clearly includes rolling a 0 and succeeding as a possibility, or else the win condition would be worded differently.

When flavor gets in the way of game mechanics in a board game, game mechanics trump it. Feel free to houserule it if you like and the other players agree.

Victory Conditions:

If the monsters are defeated (or when the last guest leaves the map for any reason) the encounter ends.

Any guests remaining on the map are considered to be rescued by the heroes.

The heroes roll a die (depending on the number of heroes) to determine if Lord Theodir is among the guests they have rescued.

.... ....

If the number of *Shields* rolled is equal to or less than the guests they successfully rescued, then the heroes managed to save Lord Theodir.

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The victory conditions specify, that the heroes must successfully rescue guests in order to rescue Lord Theodir. The heroes cannot rescue no guests, and roll a die to determine if no guests is Lord Theodir.

No, it doesn't. It clearly states that if the shields rolled are equal to or less than the guests they rescued, then they win. If your roll is 0 and you successfully rescued 0 guests, then your roll is equal to or lower than the guests you rescued, which is the victory condition.

I agree that it's a dumb condition, but it's quite clearly written that way. In no way does it say you must have rescued a guest in order to make the roll, or that if all guests are kidnapped the overlord automatically wins.

Whitewing got it right.

Anyway, the victory conditions of that encounter are very luck

dependent (and thus frustrating).

Your analogy isn't much different than, another post's, where the OP had an issue with a Hero player declaring that he may use a fatigue to make an additional attack, because the rule book doesn't specify that you can't.

You just wrote it in your counter-argument.

"It clearly states that if the shields rolled are equal to or less than the guests they rescued , then they win."

If the heroes do not rescue any guests, they cannot roll dice equal to, or less than the guests that they rescued - because they haven't rescued any guests.

In this particular case, the Heroes cannot achieve their victory condition, because they did not complete any objectives.

I can just about guarantee, that if this argument/discussion is presented to FFG, that they would agree with my argument. In the event that a discrepancy cannot be agreed upon by both parties, I believe it is acceptable for "a" hero to roll dice against the Overlord to determine the winner, as this is a dice rolling game, it would seem appropriate.

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Back to the Encounter 1 Special Rules:

Lord Theodir IS one of the Noble Guests. He is not using the washroom, nor is he having a cigarette, or cheating on his wife in the Observatory. He IS one of the Noble Guests declared by a blue objective token. Therefore if the Overlord escorts all of the blue objective tokens off of the map through the exit, the Heroes cannot have rescued Lord Theodir.

If the Overlord escorts all but 1 blue objective token off the map through the exit, the Heroes can win, as their Victory conditions could be won as they rescued at least one guest, who upon a roll of the dice, may determine whether or not, he is Lord Theodir.

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I think that under these rare circumstances, that we can apply real world logic, as you cannot create something from nothing.

With that being said, I have no issues with anyone who wishes to play differently, abiding by different logic.

No it isn't at all the same thing.

It clearly says that if you roll a number of shields equal to or lower than the guests rescued, the heroes win. If the guards rescued are 0, and you roll 0 shields, your result is equal to or lower, and that is the only determination of victory on this map. If they don't rescue any guests, then the number of guests they have rescued is 0. What about that is hard to understand?

You can keep quibbling about the flavor all you want, but the rules are clear. And you can appeal to authority all you want, but until you get an official response, the only thing we can go off of is the rules as written. Get an official response from FFG that agrees with you and we can all agree, but until then, the rules go the way they are written.

The victory condition in this map is whether the final roll is equal to or lower than the guests rescued. That is the only determining factor in deciding who is the winner. Rescuing guests increases the odds of the heroes victory, but the die has a result of 0: no matter how many guests are rescued, the result of 0 will always be a winning roll for the heroes in this encounter. How many guests you rescue in no way shape or form impacts the victory condition except for the modification of the odds of success on that roll.

Allow me to summarize here: The only determining factor in whether or not Lord Theodir is rescued is whether or not the final die roll is equal to or lower than the total number of guests rescued. It states that if the roll is equal to or lower, then Lord Theodir is rescued. How the encounter plays out determines how low the die roll has to be for the heroes to win, but that's all. It does not deny you the roll if you rescue 0 guests, the overlord does not automatically win by getting all of them, if that were the intent, there would be a clause there or a line somewhere that indicates that.

As written in the Quest Guide:

1: The Guests:

A: Blue objective tokens represent noble guests.

B: One of the objective tokens representing a noble guest, is Lord Theodir.

2: Heroes Victory Condition:

A: The Heroes roll a die to determine whether Lord Theodir is among the guests they have rescued.

Lord Theodir cannot be among the guests the Heroes have rescued, if the Heroes have not rescued any guests.

3: Overlord Victory Condition:

A: If the heroes did not manage to rescue Lord Theodir, Lady Eliza Farrow has managed to abscond with Lord Theodir.

If the heroes did not rescue any guests, they did not manage to rescue Lord Theodir.

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In your argument, a double critical dice roll magically conjures Lord Theodir from the basement of his castle, to the walkway outside his front door.

You find out where in the quest guide is specifies that you can magically teleport Lord Theodir from his basement outside, I will gladly agree that I am wrong.

I'm inclined to agree with Whitewing.

Surely FFG is aware that there is a face on the black (or grey) die that has zero shields. They invented that die, after all. If they didn't want this situation to be valid, they would (should) have called it out as an auto-win for the OL in the quest rules.

As it stands, I see no reason why the heroes can't "successfully rescue" zero guests. Then upon rolling zero shields, they have met the required victory condition.

As far as theme goes, the introductory text does not in any way guarantee that Theodir is present at the party (until the ending text, anyway.) It assumes he is present - a reasonable enough assumption considering it's his party at his mansion, but an assumption nonetheless. Add that to the fact that Theodir is described as being a little bit crazy, and nobody appears to know what he looks like (per intro text) and I can totally see the argument that he was saved by virtue of not being present while Eliza and her goons were hauling people off into the night.

On top of all that, Theodir has apparently been holding on to a set of artifacts known as Fortuna's Dice - by name and by effect apparently something that grants supernatural good luck to the owner - and it becomes even more plausible that Theodir would've been absent if fate decreed that the heroes would not ave been able to save him themselves.

Steve-O

The auto-win for the overlord occurs if the Heroes do not rescue any guests.

Successfully rescuing zero guests, would strong contradict the definition of the word successfully. If you were called upon to rescue;

Overboard seaman,

Skiers lost in an avalanche,

Underage women forced in a prostitution ring.

And you did not rescue any of the above, it is still safe to assume that you successfully rescued anyone? I strongly disagree, that you can successfully rescue zero guests, as I believe it strongly contradicts the definition of the word successfully.

FFG probably didn't think too far in advance, that their players wouldn't be able to understand the definition of that word, which is why it is not clarified for this specific circumstance.

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Generally, in all other encounters there is an instantaneous victory condition for either the Heroes or the Overlord. You're suggesting that the instantaneous victory condition for the Overlord, directly relates to whether or not the Heroes can not save any guests, yet roll a critical strike to conjure the person holding the ball who is already off the map, in the Overlord's play area.

In what other encounter, can the heroes remove an objective token from the Overlord's play area, and place it in their own? I believe that objective tokens removed from the map, and placed in either the Heroes' play area or the Overlord's play area, indefinitely remain there.

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Would you be able to, in "A Fat Goblin", go into the Exit Area, go off the map, as an action pick up the bundle of crops from the Overlord's play area, re-enter through the Exit, and place them in the farm?

- You tell me that you are allowed to do as such, and I will indefinitely leave this discussion. Because in this particular scenario described by the OP, and the counter-arguments suggesting another possibility, is predominantly what is being suggested as viable.

As written in the Quest Guide:

1: The Guests:

A: Blue objective tokens represent noble guests.

B: One of the objective tokens representing a noble guest, is Lord Theodir.

2: Heroes Victory Condition:

A: The Heroes roll a die to determine whether Lord Theodir is among the guests they have rescued.

Lord Theodir cannot be among the guests the Heroes have rescued, if the Heroes have not rescued any guests.

3: Overlord Victory Condition:

A: If the heroes did not manage to rescue Lord Theodir, Lady Eliza Farrow has managed to abscond with Lord Theodir.

If the heroes did not rescue any guests, they did not manage to rescue Lord Theodir.

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In your argument, a double critical dice roll magically conjures Lord Theodir from the basement of his castle, to the walkway outside his front door.

You find out where in the quest guide is specifies that you can magically teleport Lord Theodir from his basement outside, I will gladly agree that I am wrong.

Again, you are arguing purely based on flavor, not on the actual rules and game mechanics. Flavor is irrelevant for the actual way to play a game: by flavor goblin archers wouldn't block my view towards hitting an ettin by blocking line of sight because I can shoot over their heads. That's not the point though: at the end of the day, game mechanics and rules supersede the flavor aspect. You are free to houserule it however you want (if your players agree of course), but at the end of the day, the heroes win condition is solely whether or not they roll the die and have an equal or lower number of shields show up then they rescued.

All of your later arguments are just silly: the quest rules specifically state that this encounter resolves based on that die rule, the other maps make no specific rules regarding doing any of that. Stop setting up straw man arguments.

You have unconsciously agreed with me, in every single post you have made. I completely understand that you do not consciously agree with me;

But you have said, that the Heroes victory condition is solely based on the fact that they roll dice equal to or less than the guests that they have successfully rescued.

I preach, yet again, that if you do not rescue any guests, you cannot roll dice to determine if you rescued the Castle's Lord.

It specifically says, and I preach yet again, that the Lord is one of the Noble Guests, indicated by a blue objective token. If no blue objective tokens have been rescued by the Heroes, they cannot win this encounter.

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I have based the vast majority of my argument, minus analogies that you cannot seem to grasp the clue of, on the Encounter 1: Masquerade's Ball from the Quest Guide.

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It specifically mentions that the Castle's Lord is ONE of the blue objective tokens. Therefore, I firmly stand that the Heroes must rescue at least one Noble Guest in order to determine that they have rescued the Castle's Lord.

It specifically mentions under "Escorting Guests": A hero may rescue his escorted guest by moving off the map through the Entrance.

Being the only other variable, the Heroes defeating all of the monsters on the map, the heroes rescue the remainder of the guests.

Once again, in the Victory Conditions, it specifically states that the heroes may roll dice to determine if the Castle's Lord, is among the guests that they have rescued.

The only two ways guests can be rescued in this encounter, is by either escorting them to the entrance, or defeating all of the monsters. Neither which of these, are by rolling dice.

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I have had the quest guide, in front of me, at all times while debating this discussion.

- It states in the Public Information on the first page, that the quests are written with the assumption that all players know the rules and victory conditions.

- It also states, in the Rule Book on Page 18 under "The Golden Rules" that quest rules listed in the Quest Guide take precedence over the rules in the rulebook. (I.E. your mechanics and rules counter-argument)

... You can't just declare that the person you are arguing with is agreeing with you when they aren't. That's not an argument tactic, that's just dishonest and putting words in someone else's mouth. Preach is a good word for what you are doing, because you are just repeating the same incorrect and fallacious arguments over and over again without actually acknowledging what I've said, constructing straw mans and saying all sorts of ridiculous things like "you have unconsciously agreed with me".

Again, nowhere does it say they must rescue at least 1 guest to be allowed the roll. That is solely your interpretation based on the flavor of the encounter. The flavor is entirely irrelevant to how the rules of the encounter function: flavor is just flavor, it's not a game mechanic. When this encounter ends, you roll the die to determine the winner of the encounter. The number of guests rescued determines the odds of the die roll. That's it, that's all. The flavoring of the quest is irrelevant. It does not say you only get the die roll if you rescue at least 1 guest. Nowhere does it even suggest that: all you are repeatedly harping on is the meta-game logic of the idea that the nobleman is stated to be a guest, and they cannot have rescued him if they didn't rescue at least one guest. That is not, however, a game mechanic. That is an argument constructed solely on the flavor of the encounter.

Consider the exact same encounter with all flavor removed, just mechanically. Inside these rooms there are objects the players want to retrieve, that the overlord is trying to retrieve first. They must stop the overlord from running off with them. At the end of the encounter, roll a die based on the number of heroes. If the die roll result is less than or equal to the number of objects the players prevented the overlord from capturing, then the heroes win.

That's it: that is essentially the encounter. Everything else is just flavor. If FFG had intended for the overlord to win automatically by capturing all guests, there would be a clause in there stating that. It would not have been difficult to add a line that said "If the heroes rescue at least one guest...." before the part about rolling the die, or "The overlord wins if no guests have been rescued". It is conspicuously absent. You are simply extrapolating conclusions based on the flavor of the encounter, none of which is represented in the rules regarding the mechanics.

Show me where it actually states, outright that not saving any guests denies the heroes the roll at the end. It doesn't, all you have is an extrapolated conclusion drawn from multiple lines of flavor.

I just don't think the OL escorting all the guests out was thought out very well. What I said is that if the Overlord is able to escort all of the guests out while the players get 0, AND the rules state plain as day that one of the blue tokens is indeed Lord Theodir, how is it possible then that the Overloard and the players both get him in the same exact round?

Overlord is able to get all guests, one is Lord Theodir.

Heroes rescue zero quests. Roll a dice, they.........rescue Thedoir?

How can you pull a body from nothing? The rules for this quest in THIS particular situation is not good. I still think the overlord wins because he has "every guest" and again, according to the rules before hand, one blue token guest "is" Lord Theodir. Not a chance to be Lord Theodir, one "is" Lord Theodir. With 0 guests rescued by the heroes, they honestly shouldn't even be allowed the dice roll.

Don't get hung up on the blue token being Theodiir part, it's not relevant at the end of the encounter because it's not listed under the victory conditions for overlord or heroes. It's flavor to explain why the encounter plays the way it does, that's all. When determining whether the heroes or the overlord wins, the only part that matters is what is listed under the victory conditions for each of them. I agree the flavor in this condition is a bit wonky, but that gets trumped by the rules.

The correct way to play it out is as is written under the victory conditions.

I am at my wit's end for this discussion. There does not seem to be any swaying your opinion for what is clearly written in the text.

I did not intend, at all, to bring about a debate, with I am right - because I say so. And I understand that, as you play through the game, you learn mechanics that are intended for the game. The first time around, myself and the gentlemen I played with, played by the rules to the best of our knowledge, and as we continued playing, we learned mechanics we had been playing incorrectly, and begin to play to those rules.

I have not played this genre of board game for 19 years. I played Hero Quest when I was a child, and my brother picked this game up, as it reminded him of it, and we've begun to enjoy the genre all over again. I do like the fact, that this game has re-playability - which makes it worth spending $100 on (I only have the basic package)

You, probably having more of this genre-related experience, may be correct - and I may be incorrect, not understanding to the full extent of the intended game mechanics. I will, though, attempt to relay the scenario to FFG, if I figure out how to, for an official response.

Will keep in touch, I really enjoyed the debate though Whitewing.

Tas

Agree wholeheartedly with Whitewing with rules as written.

Tas, i think your getting hung up on the word successfully as being an absolute condition where it is actually a variable for the die roll, which given the wording is understandable.

The victory condition is number of shields rolled on a grey die has to be equal to or less than number of guests rescued.

So, Die roll is equal to or less than X, where X is number of rescued guests.

When putting a value into this its perfectly valid for that value to be 0. You successfully rescued 0 guests, so your value is 0.

To put it another way the game does not say that you make the roll if you have rescued at least one guest, it tells you to roll the die regardless.

I agree too with Whitewing, but theme wise it's lame. You can adjust the story all you want and make assumptions, but story wise him not being present makes for a crappy ending. If story is your thing and you don't like the fact that rolling a blank wins the encounter then just house rule it for next time.

Personally I like it the way it is, RAW.

If the rules said "If the heroes have rescued any guests, roll a die and then..." you'd be correct, Tas. As it stands, there's no condition placed on the roll of the dice, which means everything parses out as other people in the thread have said. 0 is a face on the die, so the heroes have a chance at winning regardless, as other people have said, of what the flavor text says.

My group had the exact same issue and I sent the question to FFG. This was sent a while ago but did not see the FAQ get updated though.

Ben

So their answer is "The way we wrote it, you get to roll the die, but we should have been more clear about our intent, so we'll go ahead and put our intent in the FAQ, without actually telling you in our answer here what our intent was."

Funny, we played this last night and ruled you can't have rescued a guest if the OL was able to capture them all. Glad to see Justin's response confirms this.

So their answer is "The way we wrote it, you get to roll the die, but we should have been more clear about our intent, so we'll go ahead and put our intent in the FAQ, without actually telling you in our answer here what our intent was."

And sadly never put in the FAQ. So use whatever your standard conflict resolution method is for this. You can go by what they said or what they now say they intended to say.

Let the fighting continue!!!!

So their answer is "The way we wrote it, you get to roll the die, but we should have been more clear about our intent, so we'll go ahead and put our intent in the FAQ, without actually telling you in our answer here what our intent was."

And sadly never put in the FAQ. So use whatever your standard conflict resolution method is for this. You can go by what they said or what they now say they intended to say.

Let the fighting continue!!!!

I would apply the RAW until any official FAQ comes out, especially as Justin is no more in charge of the rules questions now.

He already on occasions has answered wrong - contradicting Adam Sadler's rulings and thus needing to back from his answer.

Whitewing applied the correct way of interpretation of the rules: applying the letter and not trying to guess the hidden intentions of the designers.

I would not consider that other interpretations were "right" from a correct reading of the encounters' rules, even though they happen to have the support of Justin - who admits that the rules, by themselves, would not lead to their conclusions.

I would say that we here could have the display of the difference between boardgamer and RPG player rules interpretations : the former keeps to the rules along what logics say; the latter choose to interpret rules in a mostly subjective, sloppy way.

Those two "gaming cultures" have their full right to exist, within the bonds of their respective gaming environements.

As Descent is a boardgame, subjective/realism argumentation is wrong and one has to stick to strict logics - even if the game abstractions don't "feel" right.

At least, when it comes down to answering rules questions.

Everybody, besides that, plays as he wants at home.

I am not going to win or try to win any debate but this game has a lot of poorly worded stuff and at times you have to make "reasonable" decisions based on wording selections. If you are unwilling to make "reasonable" modification to rules as written the game becomes rather broken at times. Not saying what is "reasonable" here and that is a big part of the problem. Reasonable people can disagree on the definition of reasonable.

Case in point. The 2nd final in LoR (cannot recall name). There is a door adjacent to the spot where the heroes start. If you are playing 4 hero game there is no adjacent spot to place your ally. Reasonable fix is to put it on opposite side of door but that technically violates RAW.

Another one is the first Act two quest for Trolfens. The one reinforce option says to place 1 minion plague worm. For two hero version there is no minion plague worm in the group.

Can list a lot more with poor wording but do not want to derail this thread.