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Hey guys,
I attended PaizoCon 2013 and my only event (beyond pickup games and the banquet) was to check this out. I sat down with Mike and another player on Friday to give the game a shot.
Characters
- Each player picks a character, which has an associated deck. This deck seems to be set at first, but expansions look to open up the option of customizing your '1st level' deck. My reasoning here is because each character starts with a specific number of 'typed' cards. Ezren (the wizard I played) starts with a lot of spells, no blessings (he doesn't like the gods), one armor, no weapons, etc. While these cards were set in the base game, I'd imagine that later on you could pick and choose exactly which cards you started your deck with.
- Each character has specific dice associated with their stats, which they use to make all checks. For example, Ezren used a d12 for Intelligence, and a d6 (or maybe a d4?) for Strength.
- Characters can only use skills that are listed on their sheet. Ezren had Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft as +2 bonuses under Intelligence, so when making those checks I could roll d12+2. He did not have Stealth listed, however, so when the game faced me off against an enemy that said "If the player makes a Stealth check, he gets +2 bonus", I could not attempt it. This is different from the typical game with untrained skills. It's a bit jarring at first, but makes sense from the perspective of keeping things simple.
- Each character does not have the same number of cards in their deck, or the same hand size. Valeros had a hand size of 4, with a good number of cards in his deck, while Ezren had a hand size of 6, with less cards in his deck (not a lot less, but some). This plays into the health mechanic (see below) and options. Ezren had a lot of options at play, but could blow through his cards quickly and (with bad luck) find himself at death's door). Valeros, meanwhile, could use his weapons and armor pretty often and not be too worried about his overall health thanks to the amount of cards.
Health System
This is something I was a bit against at first, but grew more towards it as we played. I'm still not sure if I like it or not, we'll see how the full game plays out.
The simple of it is this: Your deck is your health. If you draw the last card in your deck, you die/pass out/are unconscious/whatever. Probably not death, as you can reattempt failed scenarios, but I digress.
I was a bit worried about this at first because, as Ezren, I only had so many cards in my deck, and you have to draw back up to your hand size (mine was 6) once your turn is done. Playing any cards, drawing any cards, all of that just hurt me. This made me not really want to play a lot of my cards.
However, that changed a bit with the Refresh mechanic. By the way, I don't think that's the right term at all, it was a unique term that was part of the game. For now, I'll call it Refresh.
In short, a lot of cards in the various decks have a "Refresh" bit called out at the bottom of the card. On the Spell cards, it would say "Refresh: Knowledge Arcana 6" or something.
What does this mean? It means that after I play that spell, I can make a Knowledge Arcana check. If I pass, I refresh the card instead of discarding it, which means it goes to the bottom of my deck instead of the discard. With a d12+2 check, I had a pretty good shot at getting these cards back each time.
This made the fear of playing cards a lot less worrisome as a lot of the cards I started with had the ability to Refresh with a skill check. Valeros had a similar mechanic with all of his Weapons. Something like "Once per turn, Valeros can refresh a weapon of his choice". This let Valeros always use a weapon every turn without worry. Maybe it required a skill check actually, I don't recall. I don't remember him failing it though.
Scenarios
This is where I'm most sketchy on the big scheme of things, but will explain it as best I can.
-Each adventure has a number of scenarios associated with it. We played one of the scenarios in the Burnt Offering adventure. I don't know exactly how many scenarios are in each adventure, but if the examples on Paizo are any indication, it's around 4-5.
- Each scenario adds a number of specific location cards depending on how many players are involved. Good example of this here.
- These locations were spread out in kind of a circular fashion around the center, where the Blessing deck was (more on that later).
- Each location had a number of cards in its own deck. We used small versions of these for our demo game, looks like the base game has larger ones. One thing I am not sure of is whether or not these cards are fixed or if they are randomly chosen from what's available in that adventure. The numbers on this card, for example, could indicate randomness, or just be there to let players know what to expect.
Player's Turn
On a player's turn, they do a few things:
1. Draw a Blessing card (timer).
2. Choose whether or not to move to a new location.
3. Explore that location.
4. Draw back up.
I'll get to the Blessings in a bit.
Moving was as simple as deciding which location you wanted to move your hero's card (just a card with their picture) to. Sometimes it was beneficial to be in the same spot as another hero (Valeros granted other heroes a +1d4 bonus to combat rolls if they were in the same spot as him), sometimes it was not (Merisiel, who Mike played, had some special ability that required her to be alone, but I don't really recall).
Exploring a location meant drawing a card and flipping it over, then doing stuff with it. Easy enough.
Drawing back up is what it sounds. Draw back up to your hand size.
Blessings
The center of the table was where the Blessings deck went, which was really just a timer. Every turn you'd flip a card over, and if it ran out, you lost. Each card showed one of the deities and had a special effect that could come into play with certain cards. We didn't really reference it at all to be honest. Any time we played a card that referenced it, it usually had the option of "take the bonus on the blessing card or give yourself an extra die to a check". Everytime I remember us using these cards we took the second option, since getting an extra d12 (if making one of my Intelligence-based checks) was just awesome. Sometimes this was used on lower dice, but still, doubling your dice was pretty sweet. I have to wonder if the Blessings had similar great options, but to be honest I didn't look at them very closely.
Exploring
When exploring, we would either find a beneficial card or an enemy. With beneficial cards, you didn't get them automatically, you often had to make a check. If a Spell was found, you would need to roll an Intelligence check (or sometimes a Knowledge Arcana check was allowed as well). This meant that Ezren had a much better chance of collecting a Spell than Valeros. If you fail the check, the card went away. Weapons/Armor had a Strength check I think, Allies were Charisma, that sort of thing.
If you got in a combat, it was also pretty simple to handle. The monster would have a target number and tell you what was allowed to make that number. I *think* most said something like "Strength or Combat". So if you had no way to make a custom Combat check, you just used Strength. Combat seemed to be this mechanic that each character had a different way of doing.
With Ezren, I could play a spell like Shocking Grasp that allowed me to make a combat check using Knowledge Arcana or Intelligence and add 1d4. This would give me 1d12+1d4+2, and made it pretty easy to finish off the normal goblins with their target of 8 or so. Especially if I was in the same area as Valeros, since that's another 1d4.
The checks actually seemed kind of easy at times, though really, that may have been luck on our parts. We did fail some here and there.
Succeeding on a check meant that card went away, and sometimes there was a reward. Failure usually meant having to discard a card from your hand. Sometimes there were other effects even on victory. In the scenario we played, every goblin had some kind of fire. Even when winning, you had to make a Dexterity (I think) check against 4 (spitballing here) or take a point of damage.
The Goal
Now, moving around and gathering cards is all well and good, but the main goal of this was to find and kill the Villain before time ran out. Each scenario has an associated villain (in ours it was Ripnugget and Stickfoot) and a set of associated henchmen (some special goblins in this case).
At the start of the game, you take the Villain and X henchmen, where X is the number of locations -1. We had four locations, so there was the villain and 3 henchmen. These are then shuffled up, and one is added to each location, which is then shuffled. So somewhere in every location you have a special bad guy. Most of these are henchmen, one is the villain.
Now, maybe you'll get lucky and find the villain early. However, this isn't that lucky, as he will run and hide. So long as there are open locations, the villain can move around. So the goal thus becomes to close locations, block off the villain's retreat, then smash.
How do you do that? A number of ways.
- Each location has a way to Close it (eg: Desecrated Vault). This involves a check of some kind, Wisdom or Divine 6 in this one.
- If you find and kill a Henchman, you get a free check right then to Close the location (at least I think so, it's the case with the example skeletons I'm finding but I don't remember if that's the same for the scenario we played. I think so).
- When you run out of cards in the location's deck, you can try to just Close the location as your Explore action.
When a location gets closed, the villain can no longer go there. It cuts off one of his routes.
- Winning a fight against the villain prompts a couple things.
- First, check to see if any other locations are open. If not, you beat the villain and won!
- If there are, check to see if any heroes are there. If heroes are in other locations, they can make an immediate check to Close the location when the villain is beaten. This does not permanently close the location, rather it only temporarily closes it for the purposes of deciding where the villain can flee.
- If any open locations remain, draw back a number of scenario cards equal to X - 1, where X is the number of open locations. Shuffle the villain with those, deal one to each open location, shuffle them in.
In our game, we actually found the villain fairly early, while all locations were open. Valeros and I were in the same spot fighting him, Merisiel off on another location. After he was beaten, Merisiel got a check to try and close her location (for determining where he could run) but failed. We drew 2 cards from the generic 'scenario discard', shuffled him up with them, then put those three cards on the three open locations, shuffling them in.
Later on, after we had closed a couple locations, we found him again. Thankfully, after beating him in a similar situation (Valeros and I stuck together), Merisiel made her check to close her location and he was not able to flee, giving us the win.
Now, this wasn't all too easy. We were actually really low on turns by then, and I think only had one card left in the Blessing deck. So even though it *felt* easy at times to fight, we didn't have a lot of time.
My Only Real Dislike
The one thing I was really turned off against, and made it known to Mike, was how leveling up and tracking your characters was handled.
First, each hero had two cards. One that showed your character and you moved around to locations, the other that showed your starting cards/skills/etc. This second one had a number of check boxes next to each skill/ability/etc., which allowed you to bump it up when you gain levels (or whatever this game uses). I absolutely hate anything that requires me to write on my cards, so I immediately disliked this.
Mike did say that it may be a good idea to print out copies of those cards ahead of time as a tracking, which I will likely do.
The other thing I didn't like much was how you track your character. Once a scenario was beaten, you get some kind of reward. Some type of card (ours was some kind of Feat in this case). You pick that and add it to your deck, and it becomes a permanent fixture. Beat all scenarios and you get a reward for that adventure, and you keep going. This allows your deck to grow larger throughout the 'campaign' of sorts and for your hero to grow.
How are you supposed to track which cards you pick? Easy. Never ever do anything else with that deck. :(
Mike was under the impression that players would have their characters, put the deck back in the box once done, then grab it back out later on to resume. Which works fine in theory, if you are under the assumption that you always play with the same players. But what if you want to show it to a new group? Or have two 'campaigns' running?
I brought this up with Mike (and Vic Wertz, who joined us at the end) and they did agree some kind of Campaign Tracking Sheet (where you could check off the cards you added to your deck) would be worthwhile. Whether or not they follow through, I can't say.
To be fair, a single piece of scratch paper as your 'character sheet' and you can keep track of all of these things without marring any cards or needing to keep decks together. It is a very minor complaint. Still, campaign tracking is something I love (especially for games like this) and I fully expect to run multiple campaigns of this with different groups.
Overall
Even with the complaint above, I had a great time with this. I didn't get the chance to look at all the cards (especially the Blessings) nor am I 100% familiar with what non-Ezren characters can do (heck, I even forget what my own special abilities were... I think one allowed me to draw a new card each time I played an Arcana card, and if it were a spell I could add it to my hand... though how useful that is is debateable since I draw back up at the end... ack, rambling).
Still, the game was fun, it had a lot of theme to it, and it did give the feeling of taking our adventurers around and fighting goblins. Mike and the others did a fantastic job at putting this game together, and I am excited to get my first copy.
Oh... one last thing I should cover.
Story/Flavor
Now of course, this game is loaded with flavor in the forms of artwork, the characters, and the scenarios themselves. Flavor text/story wise... again, I played the demo, but I didn't see a whole lot. Maybe there was some flavor text to read as an intro to the scenario that was overlooked, but during the game there wasn't anything beyond the occasional description on the cards (and even this was sparse). I'm not sure how players unfamiliar with the setting will feel.
Still, I didn't really feel the story here. The feeling of leveling up a hero and associated classes/adventuring feel? Sure. The theme of the Rise of the Runelords itself? Eh....
So yeah. Back to overall. Fun game, I am a subscriber and will be picking it up. Feels similar to the Lord of the Rings LCG in how you 'fight the deck', but only barely so. Whether it holds up to time?... not sure. The demo version had like 1/4 of the cards, so there was a *lot* I didn't see. It was a lot of fun, but the lack of a cohesive story may hurt it in the long run.
Sorry for the rambling structure here, just kind of spewing my thoughts into text. Hope it helps, and if you have questions, let me know and I will answer as best I remember! :)
Edit: One thing I would *love* to see that could easily help the flow of a story/campaign is this: include decision cards. What does that mean? Make sure each scenario includes one or more 'decision' cards somewhere in the decks. When the player comes across these, it represents part of the story unfolding that isn't directly tied to combat (fighting the villain). Each character, whether they were the ones to flip over the card or not, can participate in this event. Maybe there are some checks involved, maybe it requires discarding/playing specific cards, I don't know.
Whatever the case, there shouldn't be a way to 'win' this card. Rather, there should be 2+ (preferably 3+) outcomes depending on what is played/rolled. This is then noted for later reference.
(RUNELORDS SPOILERS APPROACHING)
As an example, in the encounter we played, there were goblins attacking Sandpoint with some fire. Maybe somewhere in the deck we could have had the chance to find a card called "Mastermind behind the Attack". Shows a shadowy outline of Nualia. Players can combine Intelligence checks. If < 6, no later benefit, the research proved fruitless. If 7-15, the players found some interesting details in a journal about a woman named Nualia, if 16+, as above, but the characters also found out she is dealing with Lamasthu and demons.
Later on, in a scenario where the players face down Nualia, they can get some benefit depending on what they found. If they were unprepared (< 6), they take a penalty on combat checks. If they found out about her, no benefit, if they found out she was dealing with Lamashtu, they took precautions against demons (cold iron/silver/etc.) and get a bonus on combat checks.
This is a very bland example, but it's something that could help drive the story beyond your basic Villain fights.
The problem here is I heard tell that they wanted to avoid any Runelords spoilers in this, which I think is a mistake. I wouldn't expect anyone going into this game to think they *weren't* going to be spoiled. If the goal of the card game is to let the players feel as if they're playing through a campaign without having to read a 500-page rulebook, then it *needs* this story. Spoil away!
Second Edit: The post here makes me wonder if I heard incorrectly and their will in fact be some kind of Story card to help unfold the plot. I guess we'll see, but that makes me happy! :)
Chief Technical Officer
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Thanks for you comments! Some corrections/clarifications below:
Each player picks a character, which has an associated deck. This deck seems to be set at first.
No, that's just for the demo game. Rulebook excerpt:
Build Your Character. Each character needs a character deck; if you don’t already have one, build one. If you’d like to start playing quickly, use the suggested deck for your character provided at the back of this rulebook (see Starting Characters on page 21).
Alternatively, you can choose your own cards to create your deck; the Cards List on your character card indicates the exact quantity of each card type that you must choose from the box to make up your character’s deck. You may choose only cards with the word “Basic” in
the list of traits underneath the card name.
Characters can only use skills that are listed on their sheet.
Mike was mistaken on that. (I'm not surprised—this is one of the things that was in flux until the very end of the development process.):
If your character doesn’t have any of the skills listed for a check, you can still attempt the check (unless you’re trying to recharge a card; see Recharge on page 15), but your die is a d4.
Each character does not have the same number of cards in their deck...
At the beginning of the game, everyone does have the same deck size. Upon completing some scenarios, characters will be rewarded with a Card Feat, which means they get to keep one more card of a specific type in their deck; players that always play scenarios together will therefore always have the same deck size as one another, but if a character skips one of those scenarios, they'll have one fewer card than the others. (They could always make it up with solo play!)
If you draw the last card in your deck, you die/pass out/are unconscious/whatever. Probably not death, as you can reattempt failed scenarios, but I digress.
You die, unless somebody casts Raise Dead on you before the end of the session (and you won't have that option early on). I won't go into what death means here, as it's a big topic. I'll just say that, just as in the RPG, sometimes dying sucks badly, and sometimes it's not that big a deal.
I was a bit worried about this at first because, as Ezren, I only had so many cards in my deck, and you have to draw back up to your hand size (mine was 6) once your turn is done. Playing any cards, drawing any cards, all of that just hurt me. This made me not really want to play a lot of my cards.
After playing a few scenarios, you'll realize that this dilemma is one of the biggest challenges in the game, and mastering it is key to your success. It's also one of the places where different characters play very differently. We do a lot to keep that question interesting through every chapter.
However, that changed a bit with the Refresh mechanic. By the way, I don't think that's the right term at all, it was a unique term that was part of the game. For now, I'll call it Refresh.
It's recharge.
Something like "Once per turn, Valeros can refresh a weapon of his choice".
"When you play a weapon, you may recharge it instead of discarding it." It's free, and not turn-limited. Valeros is a very well-armed individual.
I don't know exactly how many scenarios are in each adventure, but if the examples on Paizo are any indication, it's around 4-5.
There are 5 scenarios in each chapter of the Adventure Path, and 3 more scenarios in the Base Set (we advise you to begin with these three).
Each location had a number of cards in its own deck. We used small versions of these for our demo game, looks like the base game has larger ones. One thing I am not sure of is whether or not these cards are fixed or if they are randomly chosen from what's available in that adventure.
Villains and henchmen are seeded specifically; other cards are seeded randomly. (There are mechanics to make sure that seeding is level-appropriate.) And yes, locations in the full game have many more cards than the demo does.
(Merisiel, who Mike played, had some special ability that required her to be alone, but I don't really recall).
When Merisiel is alone, she can recharge a card from her hand to add 1d6 to her combat check, or she can discard it to add 2d6.
Drawing back up is what it sounds. Draw back up to your hand size.
You can also discard as many cards as you like before you draw back up. (Which gives you flexibility, but comes with risk, as it's bringing you closer to death.) And if you have too many cards, you discard down to your hand size.
The checks actually seemed kind of easy at times, though really, that may have been luck on our parts. We did fail some here and there.
We don't really want the goblins to kill you—we just want them to make you burn enough of your resources so that you have to get together as a group and pull out all the stops when it comes time to defeat the real villain.
Succeeding on a check meant that card went away, and sometimes there was a reward. Failure usually meant having to discard a card from your hand.
Failure against a monster means the monster goes back in the deck so you can face it again, and you usually take some damage too.
Sometimes there were other effects even on victory. In the scenario we played, every goblin had some kind of fire. Even when winning, you had to make a Dexterity (I think) check against 4 (spitballing here) or take a point of damage.
It's a d6 roll, with everyone at the location taking 1 Fire damage on a roll of 1.
Each scenario has an associated villain (in ours it was Ripnugget and Stickfoot) and a set of associated henchmen (some special goblins in this case).
You played a typical scenario; there's at least one atypical scenario per adventure. The "Local Heroes" adventure in Burnt Offerings, for example, doesn't even *have* a villain or henchmen; it's all about acquiring allies.
If you find and kill a Henchman, you get a free check right then to Close the location (at least I think so, it's the case with the example skeletons I'm finding but I don't remember if that's the same for the scenario we played. I think so).
This is generally true of henchmen, though there's at least one exception.
If any open locations remain, draw back a number of scenario cards equal to X - 1, where X is the number of open locations. Shuffle the villain with those, deal one to each open location, shuffle them in.
You use Blessings for this purpose. And there's a catch: If you defeated the villain, you take those blessing cards from the box... but if you failed to defeat the villain, you take them from the Blessings deck. This means your timer just lost a few turns... but at least you've narrowed down the number of places the villain could be.
heck, I even forget what my own special abilities were... I think one allowed me to draw a new card each time I played an Arcana card, and if it were a spell I could add it to my hand... though how useful that is is debateable since I draw back up at the end...
It allows you to add new spells to your hand *during the current turn*.
Maybe there was some flavor text to read as an intro to the scenario that was overlooked...
There's flavor text on the Adventure Path, adventure, scenario, location, and most villain cards (there are a couple of villain cards that have no room for flavor text).
Still, I didn't really feel the story here. The feeling of leveling up a hero and associated classes/adventuring feel? Sure. The theme of the Rise of the Runelords itself? Eh....
The scenario you played was essentially the opening encounter of Rise of the Runelords, which in the RPG, basically establishes that Sandpoint suddenly has an unexpected goblin problem, and that's about it. I hope you'll find you get a bit more of the storyline as you continue play...
The problem here is I heard tell that they wanted to avoid any Runelords spoilers in this, which I think is a mistake.
Not sure where that's coming from! We made no attempt to avoid that. The card game will introduce players to villains, monsters, locations, and much more from the story, and will walk you through key encounters and (assuming you're reading the flavor text) explain how the plot threads from one to the next.
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Thanks so much for the responses Vic! I'll have to see if I can find where I heard about the "we're avoiding RotRL spoilers" bit, but I could have swore I saw it posted somewhere... in any event, I did see a few posts to the contrary later on, and corrected it in my other thread at Board Game Geeks.
I'm happy to hear there will be more story than I thought, I likely only came away with the 'story-lite' impression due to the way the demo was setup. In any case, it was the most minor of complaints. I had a lot of fun with the game, and have been recommending more to check it out! :)
For those curious: Board Game Geek Thread
If you quote the rulebook anyway, you may post the whole thing immediately.
Karui Kage - thanks for posting this! Just allowing Vic the opportunity to address your points presents a much clearer picture of the game. So thanks to you both!
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Chief Technical Officer
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I was wondering how the "Local Heroes" section was going to play out. I'm definitely looking forward to trying this game when it comes out!
I also really like "Here Comes the Flood" in Chapter 3. It does have a villain, but you don't actually fight it; instead you need to save more townspeople than the villain can kill before the dam bursts.
I was wondering how the "Local Heroes" section was going to play out. I'm definitely looking forward to trying this game when it comes out!I also really like "Here Comes the Flood" in Chapter 3. It does have a villain, but you don't actually fight it; instead you need to save more townspeople than the villain can kill before the dam bursts.
Hm, interesting. Is it possible to lose "Local Heroes" as well?
Hm, interesting. Is it possible to lose "Local Heroes" as well?
It is possible to lose every scenario in the game.
Characters can only use skills that are listed on their sheet.
Mike was mistaken on that. (I'm not surprised—this is one of the things that was in flux until the very end of the development process.)
Right, I even argued for a "d4 if nothing else" rule. Can't believe I forgot that.
Mike
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Chief Technical Officer
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Hm, interesting. Is it possible to lose "Local Heroes" as well?
Yes. In Local Heroes, instead of villains and henchmen, you seed each location deck with an extra ally card (in addition to any ally cards that are normally in those location decks), and whenever you acquire an ally, you can attempt to close the location. To win the scenario, close all of the locations before the blessings deck runs out. (And if you ever fail to acquire an ally, you have to advance the blessings deck...)
Hm, interesting. Is it possible to lose "Local Heroes" as well?Yes. In Local Heroes, instead of villains and henchmen, you seed each location deck with an extra ally card (in addition to any ally cards that are normally in those location decks), and whenever you acquire an ally, you can attempt to close the location. To win the scenario, close all of the locations before the blessings deck runs out. (And if you ever fail to acquire an ally, you have to advance the blessings deck...)
Okay, that makes sense. Does that scenario have specific allies, or do you just take extra ones at random from the box?
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Chief Technical Officer
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Interesting. So Local Heroes becomes a game of Press Your Luck!. Do you go ahead and close this location, getting one step closer to succeeding at the adventure? Or do you let it slide, and try to close it on the next Ally? And what if you fail that? Have you doomed the game now?
Yep, it's a careful balance. You will, though, know exactly how many allies are in each location at the start of the game, so as long as you're paying attention, you'll know when you're down to the last one.
If you fail to acquire the last ally in a location, you can still close it... but you'll have to empty the entire location before you get that chance. So if there are a bunch of cards left in the deck when the last ally comes up, you'll really want to pool your resources to make sure you can acquire the ally *and* close the location.
Does that scenario have specific allies, or do you just take extra ones at random from the box?
They're random. (At that point, the number of different ally cards in the game is 22 or, if you have the Character Add-On Deck, 25.)