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The trend that started with the Memoir ’44 Campaign Book continues with Fantasy Flight Games‘ new expansion the Descent Quest Compendium. The book basically contains 16 new quests for Descent (no word if it will have anything for Road to Legend in it) from a variety of folks in the games industry (including fan-favorites Ken Hite, John Kovalic and Monte Cook) and an introduction by Alan Moon. Its a nice hardcover title going for about $30 and should release in July, but the whole thing begs a bigger question – is this the future of board game expansions? It certainly wouldn’t work for every type of board game, but those based on scenario play seem ripe for this type of expansion (and let’s face it, if it keeps costs down and keeps the game fresh, would we really complain?).
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I think this is a great idea for an expansion, especially so when the book can throw in a twist – an intro by Alan Moon and contributors like Monte Cook et al would be of interest to many geeks I think.
The Memoir 44 book went a different direction by supplying the campaign system through their book. So while both expansions are just books (no cardstock, no minis), both I think provide exceptional value. They are very good ideas.
Fantasy Flight seem to be looking in this direction for the games that can sustain it – they release the Tide of Iron Designer Series book, and now the Descent book – I don’t think many of their other games could support such a product (Doom of course – but this won’t get one I imagine), but as an every now and then expansion concept – I like it!
Cheers,
Giles.
I couldn’t agree with you more about the value of all the books mentioned, Giles. Though I think there are a number of games this type of expansion could apply to. For example, I’d kill for a TI3 book that gave me a bunch of pre-determined system configurations and some variants (particularly some good variants for shortening the game) – maybe even introducing a bit more of the story into the game. Its not something that I would expect for every game, but I think its got potential – and its certainly easier on the wallet than another $50+ expansion with only a few extra bits!
That’s a good point! I would pay for that too.
I imagine Battlelore would be another FFG game with this potential. I know they have had a lot of bad press, but I would love to see a few more of the paper maps DOW started, printed with vastly different terrain like lots of water, built up areas (cities and castles), in moutain passes, or with specific adventure based scenarios on them. They might work as pull outs or similar from a book of scenarios.
I guess if they wanted to really follow it further they could do a glossy magazine with a mix of scenarios for different games (Battlelore, Descent, Doom, Wings of War etc. and tracks for games like Moto GP). I imagine this could do quite well as a yearly, bi-yearly or even quarterly publication. It would be a neat way of providing fans of games that won’t see a full expansion with something extra, as well as potentially recognising fan designed scenarios etc.
That is something I would pay for too!
Cheers,
Giles.