by veector
This is a sad story with a happy ending.I bought Descent (1st edition) as soon as it was available for pre-order from my friendly online retailer. I had been to GenCon when it debuted and I was a huge fan of the DOOM board game, it's predecessor.
I tried to get a few gaming friends in to it. Everyone was either a RPG guy or a board game guy. Nobody wanted to play.
Road to Legend came out and it was the same thing. Even with the campaign play style, it was really difficult to get anyone engaged with the game.
Years passed.
Then the second edition was announced. I was skeptical. I had started a Pathfinder RPG group and was doing fairly well. Would they enjoy 2nd edition? I didn't know, but I gave it a shot.
They enjoyed it. They even brought in lots of roleplaying, BUT...
It didn't last. The repetitive nature of the play style got to them. There wasn't any strategy, only tactics. There wasn't any roleplaying, just the limited engagement of the chase once a scenario started.
I tried finding a different group, but it was much the same as the first time. People would play occasionally, but not consistently.
In the end, I gave up on Descent.
Over the years, my son had always been too young to play. I showed him how to play the introductory scenario with the troll a couple of times. He enjoyed it, but he still wasn't old enough to handle some of the reading.
Finally, as my board gaming interests changed to other, more strategic games, my son asked if we could play again. I dragged out all the tokens, dice, and cards. Brought out the fully painted minis from 1st edition and the core set of 2nd and we played.
He's got it. He's excited. He's all over it. His reading skills had really improved so much and I hadn't even thought about it. His tactical skills had really improved and he was analyzing which monsters would be better for a given scenario.
All in all, he's a true Descent fan now and he's making me one again.
This evening, we had one of his best friends from school over to play. It took some explaining to help the new kid get the gist of what was going on, but once he did, he was in to it just as much as my son.
For a present, I guess for the both of us, I bought him every boxed expansion, four of the villain miniature expansions, and the co-operative play module. Our Descent cup now runneth over. As for me, I don't think of it as my game anymore.
This is his game now.