Among other things, one thing that I've been doing is looking into Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd Edition. I've always kind of seen Descent as a sort of primitive Imperial Assault, but the more I look into it, the more I see some huge departures from what I know in IA. In fact, there are some things that I really like about Descent that I wish were in the Star Wars game. I figured that I'd make a list of some of these things, and next week follow up with a list of things that I think IA improved upon.
1. Class System
Imperial Assault: Classes are directly linked to the hero chosen.
Descent: Heroes belong to one of four archetypes (Warrior, Mage, Healer, and Scout). The hero's archetype determines the class that the hero can choose from, with hybrid classes being added in later expansions.
I initially didn't like this idea because I thought that it robbed the heroes of their individuality. If Grisbane the Thirsty plays as a Knight, then Syndarel plays as a Knight in a later campaign, those two heroes would seemingly be pretty much identical. And with a ton more heroes than IA, it just kinda seemed like a waste.
But I'm not really sure anymore that is the case. Heroes still have their Heroic Abilities and their even more powerful Heroic feats. In fact, I'd argue that this actually adds a ton of depth in hero selection. Combining heroes' natural abilities with a class that suits them can really help the synergy of the good guys right from the start.
Even with that complexity, though, I think this will help players more easily choose their heroes. For example, people will probably know their play style pretty well. I know, for instance, that my wife would instantly go for a hero from the Warrior class. That eliminates about 75% of the heroes she has to sort through, and more importantly, about 75% of the class decks she has to read. Some players may be a bit more particular, but I do think that in many cases this could actually streamline the hero selection process, and not require players to read every single hero's cards before making a relatively informed decision.
Finally, I think this could give some new life to the game. Instead of saying "Man, I really enjoyed Vinto and I think I got a pretty optimal build for him, but I'd feel cheesey playing him again in our next campaign", you could instead say "Wow, it was a lot of fun playing Vinto as the Smuggler class, but I kinda want to try him as a Bounty Hunter next."
Also, this gives new life to underused characters. Less than optimal classes doom certain characters. There's a reason Biv hasn't been used much at my table lately, and it's because his class cards just aren't as good as others. But he looks so cool, it's a shame he never gets deployed. With interchangeable class cards, we could have a situation more like this: "Man, Biv really under performed using the Trooper class. I think he'd be a lot better if I used the Ruffian class on him, though."
2. Travel
Imperial Assault: There is no set provision for travel or pre-mission effects, with maybe a few rare exceptions.
Descent: Before a quest, players trace their progress from their base to their encounter on a map, drawing Quest Events for each obstacle they run across (mountains, rivers, etc). These can cause players to take strain, gain Item or Overlord cards, and even cause absolutely nothing to happen.
I really like the Travel mechanic in Descent. It's simple and doesn't have a huge effect on gameplay, but I think it helps a lot with the immersion. A lot of IA missions start with the heroes already engulfed in the action with relatively little context. In Descent, not only do you have context, but you actually get the experience of travelling to the quest. I think that's pretty cool.
I get how Imperial Assault couldn't really do this. Not only would it be impractical to have an entire map of the galaxy to have to deal with, but it would be impossible to implement side missions unless literally every single planet used in the game so far was on the map. Then, of course, there's the hurdle that some missions don't even directly specify the host planet. Speaking of side missions...
3. Campaign Structure
Imperial Assault: Full campaigns consist of Story Missions interspersed between Side Missions
Descent: As far as I can tell (again, I'm still new to this game) campaigns consist solely of Story Missions
Just to preface this- I'm torn on Side Missions in Imperial Assault. On the one hand, they tend to be more likely to be poorly balanced than Story Missions, and they break up the pace of the campaign. On the other, they allow for more diversity in a campaign, and even allow more content outside of the main campaign to appear- for instance, without story missions, it would be impossible to have a mission on Bespin during Jabba's Realm, or for Boba Fett to show up anywhere outside of Twin Shadows. So, I'm not really going to even try to get into that debate right now. The value of Side Missions is a topic for another time.
What I will say, unequivocally, is that I believe Descent is much better at telling a coherent story than IA. Now, of course this also has a caveat. I also think the story lines in Imperial Assault have greatly improved over time. In fact, I think each big box campaign has built on the Campaign structure in interesting and pleasing ways.
But even then, I think the Core box of Descent still reliably does more with its narrative. Without giving too much away, let me just describe why I feel this way.
First, the inclusion of lots of villains in campaigns means that the heroes will form nemesis relationships with their enemies more commonly. A lot of times, a villain in IA will only make an appearance or two throughout the entire run of the campaign. With Descent, the players will get more familiar with their foes. I get why IA has a problem with this. Overusing movie characters can really call into question how canon friendly the campaign is, something Descent doesn't have to worry about (as far as I know). Also, we see that sales for the original villains (like Weiss) are pretty poor compared to the more familiar faces. Perhaps if we'd seen them sell better earlier on, we'd be getting more original baddies that would commonly show up, but as is I think the best IA can do is play it safe and just grant "boss" status to regular officers and troopers for missions.
Second, I like the Encounter stuff. Basically, know this- Descent has very little change in rules or boardstate during a quest (which is something that I actually do dislike about the game). However, some quest are comprised of multiple Encounters, allowing for a single quest to feel like a more epic affair. After finishing an encounter, the next one is immediately set up. It could include different enemies than the previous encounter, additional Lieutenants, and even a different board set up. For instance, one Encounter could be at the gates of a siege, while the next could see the heroes having withdrawn to the Citadel. Stuff like that helps the campaign feel like a story, and less like randomly barely-connected events.
4. Turn Order
Imperial Assault: The Rebels and the Empire alternate their activations during their turns.
Descent: All of the Heroes activate. Then, when the Heroes have finished, the Overlord activates all of his monsters
Okay, I'm actually pretty torn on this one, but I wanted to include it because I think that, at least in my group, this could be beneficial.
I say this because some members of my group have Analysis Paralysis pretty bad. One thing about Imperial Assault is that it's not only important that the Rebels do useful actions on their turns, but also that they activate in the right order. If one Rebel could possibly fulfill an objective but activating him now would leave another beat up Rebel to the mercy of a Stormtrooper group, the Heroes are going to have to weigh their options pretty heavily.
I'm not saying Hero order in Descent doesn't matter, because I'm very sure it does. I'm just saying that it doesn't necessarily matter as much, and for some groups that could streamline gameplay.
5, Obstacle Variety
Imperial Assault: Difficult, Blocked, Impassable terrain types. Regular doors. Shield and Rubble tokens
Descent: Water, Blocked, Elevation, Lava, Pit, Hazard, Sludge. Regular Doors, Overgrowth, Portcullis
This might seem like a simple thing, but hear me out. While I dislike how little variety of terrain Descent has compared to IA, I do like the obstacles on the terrain more. I think it makes the board feel more alive. While IA does implement water, and I believe the Shield and Rubble tokens are somewhat similar to the Portcullises and Overgrowths, I'd love to see IA branch out more. Lava terrain would be a great addition to a Mustafar or Sullust expansion, and I think it's a shame we didn't have Hazard terrain on Hoth for the extremely cold areas.
So anyway, these are my first opinions in my own journey into Descent. Do you agree with some of these, or are there other aspects of Descent that you also like? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading!
May the Force be with you!
One small error in the side mission section. Nice read thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteI MUCH prefer the Rebel and Imperial sides of the table alternating individual activations. I haven’t played Descent but I have played Imperial Assault with whole-side turns instead of alternating. The game just doesn’t work. Entire Stormtrooper units get destroyed before they even get a turn and the game just becomes WAY too easy for the Rebels.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it could be made to work but it would require a pretty significant rebalancing effort and frankly, it would detract from the game’s appeal.
If your players over-analyze everything in the middle of the game, they need to be re-educated, not accommodated. Some games are meant to be played that way but Imperial Assault (in my opinion) is not one of them.
I had this same problem. Each game round was taking more than twenty minutes. It was honestly getting boring. So I started with:
“Guys; come on. This is supposed to be a fast-paced, action-oriented game. You’re turning it into Risk. Don’t analyze die roll probabilities and don’t spend entire minutes exploring every possible combination of what I might activate next. Just do what makes sense at second glance.” They heard, they agreed, they KINDA tried. But they still were taking like five minutes to decide each activation.
So after about one minute, I started counting down from ten. Not very fast but fast enough. They didn’t ignore me but they also didn’t really get what I was doing. When I got to zero and they were still debating, I flipped the activation token nearest my hand to red and took my turn. Things went much faster after that and we all had much more fun.
They did their statistical analysis at home, between game sessions and the next week, they came to the table with dice probability charts and I think one of them may have even had a decision-making flowchart on his phone.
Anywho. Over-analyzing makes fun for nobody, not even (usually) the person doing it. It just slows down the game.