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Game Review - "Runebound"
7 years ago
I got to play the board game "Runebound" (3rd Edition), a fantasy adventure game I'd bought cheaply. I'd mentioned earlier that I wasn't satisfied with "Tiny Epic Quest" because it tried to do many things at once in very little detail and had only a victory point system instead of a clear goal. Well, Runebound takes a different approach.
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/261.....-third-edition
HOW IT WORKS:
There's a big hex map to explore. Each player gets 3 actions per turn that can include movement, adventuring (costs 2), shopping, resting, and training. You move using dice that say "you can spend this to move onto a plain/forest/mountain/&c" or spend dice to move onto roads/into cities. You shop by entering citiees. Training gives you skill cards, which you either learn (getting their powers) by spending quest tropies or just burn to "exert". Exerting lets you reroll dice or boost your stats for stat checks.
Adventuring means going to one of the ~20 colored markers on the map to draw from one of 3 colored decks that are, mostly, focused on movement, a social decision and stat check, or combat. Eg. "Quest: Go to X spot that might be halfway across the map or next door, and try to roll one of these 3 possible dice combos to make one of these outcomes happen and get this card as a trophy." I got one to visit some forest bandit, and after exerting to reroll some dice, I got the best possible combo and he gave to my poor adventurer self. In another quest I could either lose an action to help a caravan, or make a might test to steal any one shop item.
Combat is unusual. The player to your left controls the monster. Each fighter gets a set of cardboard coins and flips them, showing symbols like an axe (do damage) or a wing (turn over a coin or re-flip an enemy's coin) or a lightning bolt (activate special power). The fighters take turns spending these coins, so there's some back-and-forth decision making that's a little more complex than just "roll to see who hits". This can last several complete flipping cycles, so the next player is encouraged to start their turn meanwhile.
The overall point is "collect lore tokens and then slay the boss dragon that shows up after Act 1, and who's weakened by your lore". There's also a second scenario available about a necromancer, and each scenario has its own custom events and quests mixed in with the generic ones. As the timer advances, story cards get played and say things like "everybody now has to fight a small dragon" or "there are lore tokens up for grabs at X location".
Shopping gets you new items that give you special combat coins and other benefits. Some items exist just to be traded at a profit.
The physical parts are cool. Plastic minis, colorful tokens, nice map, catgirl character. So many tokens and cards though that it's tricky to set up and put away.
HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED OUT:
I had some fun playing it solo and got through the first act (~10 turns), but felt like I'd made little progress toward having any hope against the dragon. I'd gotten just one item and 2 points of lore, and monsters get an extra coin in Act 2, so I was basically doomed to get whipped by the dragon and had no chance unless it doesn't recover HP between battles (which is ambiguous).
Then I tried it with 4 players, telling them I'd spent around an hour playing it while learning... but that turned out to be woefully misleading. Hours later we decided not to play Act 2 but instead to bring forth the dragon and start its final Post-Act-II endgame, ruling that we could all beat on the thing until it died. Because the game's supposed to be non-co-op, there's little ability to cooperate otherwise, yet little incentive to go first against the dragon.
Items were basically unavailable because we were all poor, including the player who'd specifically devoted multiple turns to well-timed trading. He couldn't afford, say, armor or a magic weapon. We looked upon the shop inventories in vain, since we also had little combat power as a result. We mostly wandered around different parts of the map alone, interacting mainly by the fact that adventure sites one hero visits become unavailable for a few turns. It seems like if I could wander around for long enough, having adventures, I would eventually be able to get a few items and good skills -- the good ones require 3-4 quest trophies and specific colors -- and be decently prepared for the big difficulty spike of the boss. But that difficulty level means I probably can't win even if I'm often successful in my questing, and large parts of the game (items, skills) feel locked off.
Because a given quest is equally likely to appear on any site of its color, the map feels kind of pointless even though I like the movement system and there's lot of neat-looking terrain. I'd be more motivated to move around if I could actually afford the items in a distant city or there were a reason to bother with a quest to a distant area versus seeking out another quest. There's also no change in the world caused by your actions beyond that you get lore. So the general experience is that you wander around trying to get stronger until time runs out and you fight the boss.
In contrast to "Tiny Epic Quest", there's a tighter focus on "having interesting things happen while moving on an overworld". That's good, because more detail is possible. But there's an unfortunate "multiplayer solitaire" feel and the lack of interaction with the world makes it suspiciously like just killing infinitely respawning cRPG monsters to gain experience points. The game seems to demand a major time commitment that's hard for me to talk other people into. In contrast to "Tiny Epic Defenders", TED had the sense that the world was getting wrecked if you failed, since you lost access to the special features of destroyed regions; none of that here, though I see the necromancer scenario puts zombies on the map.
Overall: I'd like to try it solo again or with 2-3 players, but I think it's going to be a lonely solo experience for me due to the sheer time commitment. I thought about how to speed things up but it takes significant house-ruling: maybe +1 movement die, adventuring costs 1 action instead of 2, item prices halved, -1 trophy cost for skills.
GAME DESIGN LESSONS:
-Detailed but slow combat drags down a multiplayer game.
-Whether co-op or competitive, have some way for players to interact.
-Have some kind of short format, ~1.5h at most.
-Too many cards/tokens and different types thereof are intimidating and make the game harder to learn. Unifying, say, combat and skill checks would simplify everything.
-Having the game world change in response to heroes' actions is more important than having lots of hexes or locations. Having many locations reduces player interaction.
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/261.....-third-edition
HOW IT WORKS:
There's a big hex map to explore. Each player gets 3 actions per turn that can include movement, adventuring (costs 2), shopping, resting, and training. You move using dice that say "you can spend this to move onto a plain/forest/mountain/&c" or spend dice to move onto roads/into cities. You shop by entering citiees. Training gives you skill cards, which you either learn (getting their powers) by spending quest tropies or just burn to "exert". Exerting lets you reroll dice or boost your stats for stat checks.
Adventuring means going to one of the ~20 colored markers on the map to draw from one of 3 colored decks that are, mostly, focused on movement, a social decision and stat check, or combat. Eg. "Quest: Go to X spot that might be halfway across the map or next door, and try to roll one of these 3 possible dice combos to make one of these outcomes happen and get this card as a trophy." I got one to visit some forest bandit, and after exerting to reroll some dice, I got the best possible combo and he gave to my poor adventurer self. In another quest I could either lose an action to help a caravan, or make a might test to steal any one shop item.
Combat is unusual. The player to your left controls the monster. Each fighter gets a set of cardboard coins and flips them, showing symbols like an axe (do damage) or a wing (turn over a coin or re-flip an enemy's coin) or a lightning bolt (activate special power). The fighters take turns spending these coins, so there's some back-and-forth decision making that's a little more complex than just "roll to see who hits". This can last several complete flipping cycles, so the next player is encouraged to start their turn meanwhile.
The overall point is "collect lore tokens and then slay the boss dragon that shows up after Act 1, and who's weakened by your lore". There's also a second scenario available about a necromancer, and each scenario has its own custom events and quests mixed in with the generic ones. As the timer advances, story cards get played and say things like "everybody now has to fight a small dragon" or "there are lore tokens up for grabs at X location".
Shopping gets you new items that give you special combat coins and other benefits. Some items exist just to be traded at a profit.
The physical parts are cool. Plastic minis, colorful tokens, nice map, catgirl character. So many tokens and cards though that it's tricky to set up and put away.
HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED OUT:
I had some fun playing it solo and got through the first act (~10 turns), but felt like I'd made little progress toward having any hope against the dragon. I'd gotten just one item and 2 points of lore, and monsters get an extra coin in Act 2, so I was basically doomed to get whipped by the dragon and had no chance unless it doesn't recover HP between battles (which is ambiguous).
Then I tried it with 4 players, telling them I'd spent around an hour playing it while learning... but that turned out to be woefully misleading. Hours later we decided not to play Act 2 but instead to bring forth the dragon and start its final Post-Act-II endgame, ruling that we could all beat on the thing until it died. Because the game's supposed to be non-co-op, there's little ability to cooperate otherwise, yet little incentive to go first against the dragon.
Items were basically unavailable because we were all poor, including the player who'd specifically devoted multiple turns to well-timed trading. He couldn't afford, say, armor or a magic weapon. We looked upon the shop inventories in vain, since we also had little combat power as a result. We mostly wandered around different parts of the map alone, interacting mainly by the fact that adventure sites one hero visits become unavailable for a few turns. It seems like if I could wander around for long enough, having adventures, I would eventually be able to get a few items and good skills -- the good ones require 3-4 quest trophies and specific colors -- and be decently prepared for the big difficulty spike of the boss. But that difficulty level means I probably can't win even if I'm often successful in my questing, and large parts of the game (items, skills) feel locked off.
Because a given quest is equally likely to appear on any site of its color, the map feels kind of pointless even though I like the movement system and there's lot of neat-looking terrain. I'd be more motivated to move around if I could actually afford the items in a distant city or there were a reason to bother with a quest to a distant area versus seeking out another quest. There's also no change in the world caused by your actions beyond that you get lore. So the general experience is that you wander around trying to get stronger until time runs out and you fight the boss.
In contrast to "Tiny Epic Quest", there's a tighter focus on "having interesting things happen while moving on an overworld". That's good, because more detail is possible. But there's an unfortunate "multiplayer solitaire" feel and the lack of interaction with the world makes it suspiciously like just killing infinitely respawning cRPG monsters to gain experience points. The game seems to demand a major time commitment that's hard for me to talk other people into. In contrast to "Tiny Epic Defenders", TED had the sense that the world was getting wrecked if you failed, since you lost access to the special features of destroyed regions; none of that here, though I see the necromancer scenario puts zombies on the map.
Overall: I'd like to try it solo again or with 2-3 players, but I think it's going to be a lonely solo experience for me due to the sheer time commitment. I thought about how to speed things up but it takes significant house-ruling: maybe +1 movement die, adventuring costs 1 action instead of 2, item prices halved, -1 trophy cost for skills.
GAME DESIGN LESSONS:
-Detailed but slow combat drags down a multiplayer game.
-Whether co-op or competitive, have some way for players to interact.
-Have some kind of short format, ~1.5h at most.
-Too many cards/tokens and different types thereof are intimidating and make the game harder to learn. Unifying, say, combat and skill checks would simplify everything.
-Having the game world change in response to heroes' actions is more important than having lots of hexes or locations. Having many locations reduces player interaction.
