Worlds of Adventure

Knucklebones: September 2007This is a reprint of an article written in April, 2007 for first publication in the September, 2007 issue of the now-defunct Knucklebones magazine. Because of its origins, this article is more introductory and (hopefully) more polished than many of my online writings. Despite the original source of this article, this blog is in no way associated with Jones Publishing or Knucklebones Magazine.

Previously to the publication of this article, I’d written a three-part series on adventure game design for this blog proper. I invite you to take a look at them for more on the topic: I. Fantasy Flight & That Old-Time Roleplaying; II. In the Cards; III. Dungeon Delving (and to see some of my thoughts that led up to this more comprehensive article).


Character, setting, and plot. They’re the basis of literature of any sort, from a top television drama to the newest Harry Potter book. And — sometimes — they form the basis of board games too. Not all games, granted, and very few games have all of these elements. But there’s no doubt that Klaus Teuber’s The Settlers of Catan has a vague setting, while Reiner Knizia’s Beowulf definitely has a plot. Enough people feel a connection to whether they play the Scottie dog or the race car in Monopoly that you could argue that even that old classic has character.

However there’s a category of games that specifically and explicitly plays up these elements of storytelling, putting you in the roles of characters who are exploring a setting as part of a larger plot. They’re called “adventure” games, and they’ve been around for thirty years now. They span the spectrum from TSR’s ancient board game, Dungeon! (1975) to Klaus Teuber’s own Candamir (2004). The adventure gaming niche has always been pretty small, but in recent years companies like Fantasy Flight Games and Atlas Games have steadily grown it, offering numerous opportunities to adventure in stories of your own.

A Definition of Adventure

By broadest definition an adventure game is “a game that allows players to participate in stories with more depth and originality than you’d find in most board games”. However, beyond that they tend to include a few specific characteristics.

Adventures & RPGs

Adventure games share their genesis with another popular American form of gaming: roleplaying. In the early ’70s Dave Arneson was leading a group of players in adventures in the dungeons beneath Castle Blackmoor.Two games originated from these experiences.

Dave Arneson himself collaborated with Gary Gygax to produce Dungeons & Dragons (1974), the first, and still most popular, roleplaying game. One of Arneson’s player, Dave Meggary, meanwhile turned the dungeon crawl into a board game, Dungeon! (1975), which would be the first adventure game.

The defining element of an adventure game is that each player plays a unique individual character who improves through gameplay. You might play “The Elf” or “Varikas the Dead” or “Monterey Jack”, each of whom has special powers that affect the game.

Adventure game heroes’ proficiencies tend to be defined by characteristics and skills which are then used in simple task resolution systems. They might be used to determine whether a character can successfully find a book, fight a dragon, open a door, or do any number of other games.

An adventure game’s setting is usually laid out as a map. Games might use a board, cards, or tiles to depict the map. Characters will then wander around the map and have appropriate encounters depending on where they go.

Plots are the storytelling element that is the hardest to fit into a board game. In some adventure games the “story” is the singular tale of characters fighting against an overarching evil. Others try and tell a more expansive story through special “event” cards that are drawn during a game. Finally, some adventure games don’t have set stories at all; instead the game is centered on the actions that characters take during a game, and how they grow and change from doing so.

One final defining characteristic of adventure games is that they tend to be pretty long, running from 2-6 hours in length. They can be a fine afternoon’s entertainment, but you can’t expect to knock most of them out in a few hours before bed.

Historical Adventure Games

The biggest surge of adventure game popularity (before the last few years) was in the mid 1980s, which saw the publication and expansion of several notable adventure games. Arkham Horror, which has since been revised and published by Fantasy Flight, was originally published in this time period, but the biggest two games were two fantasy offerings: HeroQuest and Talisman.

HeroQuest (Milton Bradley) was a unique “overlord” game where one player played against everyone else, a style of play now being supported by Fantasy Flight. HeroQuest itself is, sadly, long out of print.

Talisman (Games Workshop) was a more traditional quest into dungeons (and later, across many other terrains). It is currently out of print, but is scheduled to be republished by Black Industries this October.

European Adventures

Though adventure games have traditionally been an American and British phenomenon — with almost all the major producers of adventure games coming from those two countries — some of the best introductions to this genre of gaming actually come from the European continent.

European designers like Knizia and Teuber have, for years, been producing simpler, faster games that are terrific for family play. By applying the same ideas to adventure games European designers have produced well-designed games that offer a lot of the fun features of adventure games in just 90-120 minutes.

Candamir: The First Settlers (Mayfair Games, $49.00), by Klaus Teuber, will be familiar to fans of The Settlers of Catan because it uses similar mechanics. Here players traverse the lands around Catan’s first settlement, seeking out ore, hide, and timber. They will then trade in these resources to manufacture goods needed by the settlers. There’s just enough similarity to Settlers to make the game familiar, but individual characters with skills and the potential for experience offer up all the benefits of adventure games, making this an excellent gateway.

Return of the Heroes (Pegasus Press, $49.95), by Lutz Stepponat, is a slightly more traditional adventure game because it’s set in a fantasy realm — the most common setting for this genre of game. Players wander the land, gaining experience while preparing for a final battle against a Sauron-like villain. The most unique element of Return of the Heroes (besides its European simplicity and speed) is its quest system which cleverly defines tasks which keep you running back and forth across the board. Return of the Heroes has also been supported by a few expansions, but only the first, Under the Shadow of the Dragon, is currently available in English.

The Dungeoneer Card Game

Although somewhat more complex than the European games, Atlas Games offers a card-based game that is inexpensive and still pretty fast to play.

Dungeoneer (Atlas Games, $19.95), by Thomas Denmark, is another fantasy-based game. There are over half-a-dozen Dungeoneer sets, covering dungeons and wilderness alike. In this game the players individually explore forbidding terrains, attempting to complete three quests before their opponents. Besides playing their own characters, each player also acts as an adversary to all the other players, playing monsters and traps against them from his own hand of cards. You can get started with any of the Dungeoneer sets, each of which is a complete game. If you’re just looking for a game for two, you can get Dungeoneer: Lair of the Wererats (Atlas Games, $9.95). For three or four players, try out Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord (Atlas Games, $19.95), which was the first game in the series.

Fantasy Flight Adventures

The leader in the adventure games market today is Fantasy Flight Games, who is not only putting out a constant stream of new games in the genre, but is also doing a remarkable job of supporting their existing releases.

Not Quite Adventure Games

There are numerous other colorful, story-oriented games that don’t quite meet the definition of adventure games given here.

In several games players play individual characters but those characters don’t improve through play. Instead gameplay occurs mainly through cards. Shadows Over Camelot (Days of Wonder, $50.00) and Lord of the Rings (Fantasy Flight Games, $44.95) are both well-designed games of this sort. They’re also both cooperative games, though there’s a Sauron expansion for Lord of the Rings which introduces an “overlord” player.

Other near adventure games include well-themed science-fiction and fantasy adventures, where players play multiple characters rather than just one. The popular and well-supported HeroScape game (Milton Bradley, $34.95-$44.95 for a Master Set) and Marvel Heroes (Fantasy Flight Games, $59.95) are both examples of this sort of play.

Where the European games and Dungeoneer are all shorter games that might play in 2 to 3 hours, the Fantasy Flight Games are full-fledged adventure games which usually take a full afternoon of play. However their colorful backgrounds and game systems keep things moving along enjoyably.

Following are just a few of Fantasy Flight’s more notable games.

Arkham Horror (Fantasy Flight Games, $49.95) is a revision of a classic adventure game from the 1980s. Even more so than most adventure games it has close ties to the roleplaying genre because designer Richard Launius originally intended it to be a board game version of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

The game itself is quite different from the fantasy games that fill most of the adventure market. It’s colorfully set in the 1920s and features piles of beautiful period-appropriate art. Rather than being a fantasy, it’s a pulp-era horror game, based upon the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Finally, the game is also cooperative. The players are working together to keep eldritch horrors from destroying the world; ultimately they succeed or fail as a group.

Runebound (Fantasy Flight Games, $49.95), by Martin Wallace, fits squarely in the same category as Return of the Heroes and Dungeoneer. It’s a fantasy game where the players are trying to improve the skills of their characters sufficiently so that they can defeat the awesome Dragon Lords of the land.

It differentiates itself from the earlier games in two ways. First, it’s a longer and more complex game — running about an hour a player, where the other two might run half that. Second, it’s been thoroughly supported by Fantasy Flight — even more so than Dungeoneer.

Small decks of cards add new items, new allies, and change the story—meaning that the in-game events and the monsters that must be fought are modified. A set of character decks provide even more differentiation for each character. Two larger supplements, The Island of Dread and The Sands of Al-Kalim provide totally new maps to adventure across. The Sands of Al-Kalim, which is a recent release, also changes the victory conditions for the game: rather than defeating big monsters, you have to instead complete a number of quests, which provides a somewhat more thoughtful conclusion.

Thus, if you like Runebound, you’ll be able to play it in many different varieties for a long time to come.

Fantasy Flight Overlords

As already noted, HeroQuest was a popular adventure game in the ’80s. It encouraged most of the players to act cooperatively, but set a final player (an “overlord”) against them, allowing the heroes to work against a human intelligence rather than simplistic game systems. A few of Fantasy Flight’s more recent adventure releases have reintroduced this concept.

Fantasy Backgrounds

One of the joys of a good adventure game is the exploration of and interaction with a colorful, well-designed setting. Fantasy Flight Games has done a particularly good job of creating interesting fantasy worlds.

Runebound and Descent: Journeys into Darkness are both set in the same fantasy world of runes and magic, with several characters and monsters found in both games. As the realm continues to be explored through Runebound supplements that expand both the backstory and the geography, the depth of the setting is becoming obvious.

Runebound: Midnight, meanwhile is set in a different realm previously detailed in Fantasy Flight’s Midnight roleplaying supplements. Fantasy Flight is also working on a movie set in that world called Midnight Chronicles.

Descent (Fantasy Flight Games, $79.95), by Kevin Wilson, is a quick-playing and tactical dungeon exploration game. The overlord chooses a scenario and lays out the dungeon, then as players move into rooms he reveals monsters and treasures. The players try to push toward their goals, while the overlord tries to intelligently use his monstrous minions to foil them.

Descent is expensive, but that’s because it comes in a huge box full of massive plastic figures. Overall Descent may be the best of the entire crop of modern adventure games, but it’s also relatively complex, and thus will need at least a couple of skilled players to get the most enjoyment out of it.

Two expansions, The Well of Darkness and The Altar of Despair, each offer new dungeon designs and new monsters. The latter was just released this year. Designer Wilson has also designed several other adventure games for Fantasy Flight. Descent is directly based on his earlier overlord game, Doom: The Boardgame (Fantasy Flight Games, $54.95). Both games, as well as World of Warcraft (Fantasy Flight Games, $79.95), actually play a lot like video games, with their frenetic rate of play, quick turns, and clear goals.

Runebound: Midnight (Fantasy Flight Games, $39.95), another Fantasy Flight overlord game, is actually an expansion for Runebound that places one player in the role of the evil Night King. He can affect the outcome of encounters and send challenges hunting after the players, changing the game to be much more competitive (though also slowing it down a bit in the process)

Conclusion

Adventure games have been around for thirty years, but it’s only recently that there’s been a huge resurgence. As a result you can now play Catan settlers, doomed marines, fighters and wizards, or an entire set of characters from the 1920s, all while exploring numerous different realms bounded only by your imagination.


Author’s Note: Several years later, euro-adventure games haven’t been popping up as much, but FFG still seems to be pushing hard on them, most recently issuing a second edition of Descent —SA, 1/8/13

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