by BilboAtBagEnd
Let me start out with this: it pains me to write this article. Not only do I love the D&D Adventure System, but I own all three games currently in that series: Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of Drizzt. I'm invested in it, and I love it, despite its many faults.
Descent 2e, on the other hand, was something of an unknown factor to me. Not solo-able nor co-op without variants, it didn't satisfy the same itch at all. I was never really interested in an Overlord mechanic that required another player to lord it over the others, although I understood its attraction to people looking for a game with a challenging (given a good and experienced Overlord) opponent. However, with the co-op variants cropping up (in particular, Nerdook's solo/co-op variant, Nerdook's D6-driven Overlord, and Redjak's Automated Overlord, and now the official Forgotten Souls and Nature's Ire), suddenly Descent 2e became a much more attractive investment.
In this article, I cover the differences and similarities between the D&D Adventure System and one of the closest relatives to it in the Descent 2e family of co-op variants, Forgotten Souls. Which one is better for you? I leave that to you to decide; for me, the answer is Descent 2e.
The ThemeBut first, let's cover an aspect of the two games that may have a significant impact on which one you like better, regardless of mechanics. The D&D Adventure System, in particular the Legend of Drizzt, has a coherent world with novels and stories behind it, and a long history of being a classic RPG world. It's rooted in some aspects of
Lord of the Rings while being its own game, with dwarves, elves, orcs, halflings (hobbits, basically), humans, and other beings not included in LotR (like the tieflings) who can be warriors, rangers, thieves, wizards, etc.
Descent 2e, on the other hand, is based in the world of Terrinoth, which is nowhere near as coherent. And while it features the same standard fantasy races and a few others (I think there are minotaurs?), and the same standard classes, Terrinoth is at best a copy of a copy. Only recently (such as in Rune Age) is a backstory being formed. People looking for classic D&D who are really into the lore of its world will be disappointed. But people who are just looking for fantasy will be satisfied.
Still, you need to consider that something like Magic the Gathering, which did not have a story for years, and the story that is present now is based on cliches, is far more successful than, for instance, Legend of the Five Rings, even though the latter's world is far deeper and more developed and only sometimes based on cliches.
I'm just looking for fantasy and, given that I'm really not happy with D&D as a fantasy world anyways (nothing is going to compare to
Lord of the Rings, basically), I don't really care that much between the two. If anything, I lean towards Terrinoth because of its openness, even if that openness is due to its being incomplete.
And now, let's get into the mechanics.
The MapThe D&D Adventure Game System has the typical dungeon crawl aspect to it with regards to forming the board: square map tiles are revealed as characters reach open edges and attached to said open edge. Obstacles and objects like pits and coffins affect your movement and line of sight, and of course monster spawn points affect where they appear, and very occasionally the room might be a skinner tunnel. With this system, there is never a question of whether tiles overlap, and tiles can open on multiple sides and often do.
And it's a little boring. Most tiles are going to use the full square, and even when you run into things like great rooms (which consist of multiple tiles laid down at once) in certain scenarios, you're wandering through a boxy dungeon for every scenario. I can see why they never bothered with creating scenarios that had specific map layouts to start with: there's no way to make it as interesting as random exploration would.
In Descent 2e, there are two ways of setting up the map:
1) Scenarios specify which map tiles to use and their layout. This is the standard method.
2) Map exploration similar to the D&D Adventure Game System, which right now officially only occurs in Forgotten Souls as well as unofficially in Nerdook's solo/co-op variant.
But there's a distinct difference in Descent 2e: you have far more variety in the rooms. It feels like a dungeon that some creative Overlord actually built themselves, rather than, well, extruded building product used by someone less imaginative and/or on a time crunch. Long corridors, smaller treasure rooms, expansive rooms with a tiny bridge, it's far more interesting. And more liable to overlap issues, but Forgotten Souls has a pretty clean solution to that.
And the way that the tiles are randomized (since you can't really create a face-down stack as in the D&D Adventure Game Systems) is through a deck of cards and a little guide with specific monsters (we'll cover monster generation and monster AI later). And it's brilliant, because every card yields a different feel for each tile, as well specific overlord effects. It's as if every map tile in D&D had its own environmental card associated with it, as opposed to randomly being played from the adventure deck.
So in Descent, the map is random, but the effects are tied to the each map tile, and this is brilliant. It allows better theme and better depth to the effects, from mini-quests to making zombies actually scary. Some of the effects are, of course, more devestating than others, and thus the current room card can be cleared, but that just means that clock will be advanced and peril cards---which are far more similar to the random environment effects of D&D---are drawn. Best get outta that room ASAP.
The BitsFigurines in both games are, as to be expected, decent. I don't paint my minis, though, though I did dry-brush the dark blue heroes in D&D to bring out some of the features, something less necessary for the light gray heroes in Descent.
Cards are flimsy in D&D, so I recommend sleeving them; by contrast, with the non-POD (print-on-demand) Descent cards, they're linen-coated. The POD quality of Forgotten Souls' cards is about the same as the D&D cards, maybe slightly better, and definitely more colorful. Art is best on Descent, FFG pulling out all the stops in a way that Wizards definitely did not.
And then there's the dice. Ah, the dice. In Wizards it's a simple d20 for everything, from attribute tests to combat to automated decisions in certain scenarios and cards. Simplicity has its advantages, certainly, but the variety of dice in Descent yields interesting combinations and better decision variety. How do you spend the surges that might come up on die faces? Do you prefer for this turn the weapon with the green die, which are weaker but surge more often, against the Shadow Dragon which requires one surge to even hit? Or do you hope that you can get enough surges on the weapon with red and blue dice to whack that Shadow Dragon hard across the snout?
The LootThere's a lot more loot in Descent, but normally you won't see that loot save between sessions, whereas loot comes up all the time in the adventure deck in D&D. Most of the Descent co-op variants, however, add rules so that you can get loot and even get a choice of loot, and Forgotten Souls is no exception.
In particular, Forgotten Souls rewards monster-killing in a more predictable and challenging way than D&D, with the loot track, which has two concepts: a damage track, where the larger the monsters you defeat the faster you move up it to trigger the loot payout (which is immediate), and the master kill track, which will allow you to pull more cards from the current act's shop deck to choose from. You only get one card per payout, but it's usually very worth it. Both tracks reset on payout, preventing the loot mechanic from letting players walk over the dungeon.
The MonstersD&D wins on monster variety per game by far. Descent's Forgotten Souls is fixated on four specific monsters by contrast, which definitely reduces its replyability compared to other variants that allow you to access your full creature zoo.
But the AI is what makes the difference in each game. Monsters in both games are driven by small lists of actions and conditions, kind of mini-programs. However, any specific monster in D&D will always use the same program; whereas there is variety in what each card gives each monster in Forgotten Souls. One round you'll have fast zombies; another round, monsters will focus on the fastest adventurer to reduce the ability of the party to move quickly through the dungeon; another round, Shadow Dragons will get one surge. This mimics some of the Overlord behavior in the regular game, where the Overlord combines card effects with monsters.
In D&D, every monster gets a card that stays in front of a player. This can get unmanageable with swarm cards (but at that point, the party has other problems to worry about). In Forgotten Souls, every card has instructions for each of the four creature types, which is far cleaner.
The AdventurersIn D&D, your heroes have one static class. This dwarf will always be a beserker, this elf will always be a ranger. Their special ability of course complements their class, and it's rather simple to pick your hero.
In Descent, you have a lot more choices. For one thing, classes and heroes are separate, resulting in more combinations (although certain characters require specific classes to be effective). There are also, currently, more classes available in Descent than in D&D, split into four different types. To encourage better balance in the party, you need to select heroes of different class types. This is sensible, although it does mean you can't barge into the dungeon with an all-warrior group without house rules (but then again, you probably
don't want to).
In addition, as the game progresses, Forgotten Souls will grant experience points to customize your hero with select cards from your class deck. This customization is not available at all in D&D apart from finding random stuff in the adventure deck.
The PunishmentForgotten Souls is very brutal. To survive it, to even get through half of the requisite number of rooms, you're going to need to optimize your hero and class choices. You're going to need to be canny about what you sacrifice to move through the dungeon or kill monsters. I'm thinking four heroes are necessary because, despite the increased number of monsters and the reduced slack with the fate/doom track, you get more actions before the Overlord phase. Two heroes are going to have a tough time of it without house rules.
But all in all, punishment in Forgotten Souls is somewhat controllable, and as you gain experience with dealing with each kind of room, you likely will reach a point where you can actually win against the damn thing.
By contrast, you can pull cards from the adventure deck in D&D that will knock you down 6 HP for failing a skill test, or even without a skill test. Punishment is random, simplistic, and not terribly learnable.
The Scenario(s) and ReplayabilityForgotten Souls is a single scenario that varies the timing of its climax points. Replayability is rather limited as a result.
Consider, then, D&D's plethora of scenarios. And yet... in the end, so many of them amount to "kill a bunch of monsters, explore a bunch of rooms that differ only in the random monsters that are spawned, rescue tokens or kill a boss." Each of the three climax points in Forgotten Souls, by contrast, does something very different. For instance, instead of being a McGuffin of little value other than winning the game, the cauldron of souls in the first climax point is an active object, with advantages if you grab it in time, and disadvantages if it suddenly cracks. And the game doesn't simply end there; there's more variety up ahead, especially with the room/encounter cards.
Official SupportWith the release of Nature's Ire, it looks like co-op/solo will be a new interest in Descent 2e for FFG. But if Nature's Ire is all that's additionally released, this will officially be as supported as the D&D Adventure Game System, which is not supported at all anymore.
I'm hoping for more, but hey, Forgotten Souls is pretty damn good.
ConclusionsYes, I'm going to be putting up for free lottery all of my D&D Adventure Game games. It hurts, but there's kind of only room for one adventure game system in the house, plus there's plenty of co-op variety with Nerdook's and Redjak's variants, which together allow full access to all the scenarios (of which there are many), all the monsters you could ever want, the quest rewards, the lieutenants, even the campaigns.
(I mean, I miss Crypt Dragons, but Valyndra the greedy dragon is the lieutenant to own if you're only going to have one.)
At the same time, for people who like having different complexity levels in their dungeon crawls, there's probably room for both in your life, if perhaps not your shelves. There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of the D&D Adventure Game System. There's a lot to be said for the deeper choices available in Descent 2e. I personally would prefer Mice & Mystics if I'm looking for something lighter than Descent 2e, though because you still have the simplicity but also better variety.
