Sunday 24 December 2017

A Year In Review

A year has already passed. I've tried to do one post every week this year, and while I had to occasionally miss a week here and there, I think I managed to write about a lot of different things this year. Most of it was advice no-one really asked for (hope someone out there found it useful), but I also had the luck to do my fair share of reviews this year. The interesting part about products is that despite liking them, and appreciating them, you sometimes just find yourself not using them after a while. Small, not very obvious things just add up, or you get bored when over time. For this reason I hope to look back at my reviews, and the products I used to highlight those that I feel deserve an end of year shout out. So, let's get into it.

Official Dungeons & Dragons

We had 3 books released this year: Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tomb of Annihilation, and Tales from the Yawning Portal. They were generally solid. Xanathar's Guide to Everything being very much a supplement book. Tales from the Yawning Portal was for those of us who wanted to see some of the old D&D adventures, which of course made it less tempting if you owned the original unless you wanted an updated version. My favourite of the 3 was Tomb of Annihilation, but I've always been a sucker for adventures that also work as adventure supplements. They give me a lot of material to reuse or steal, a new adventure to run and also a large degree of control, unlike a new Player's Handbook, for example. I can control what comes my players come across, where supplements often are harder to reign in.

3D Printing

The end of the year saw me finally being able to 3D print. And at this point I've had the chance to 3D print a whole slew of tiles, and props. The ones that I've used the most so far are the Rampage System and Dragonlock. The ease of printing for Dragonlock made it a favourite of mine, and the modular nature of rampage also made me like them. I still haven't decided which way I'll go but I've been enjoying them both so far. In terms of props, the Black Scroll Games chests have been my by far most used 3D printed props this year. Even 2D printed maps are made better with props so it isn't much of a surprise to why I ended up using them so often. The ability to switch the inserts as needed was extremely useful during play and made them even more useful.


Modular Inn Tiles

I reviewed this set in December of 2016, but over 2017 I used it quite heavily. Before my foray into 3D printing, I used it whenever I needed an inn battle map. Since starting 3D printing, I still use the tiles extremely often. They are just so much easier to print and provide very good visuals. 3D printed tiles often need to be painted. The Modular Inn tiles can just be printed in colour. Nice and easy. As an aside, I'd recommend printing dungeon tiles using white filament to help reduce or eliminate the need for painting if they are meant to be stone. It'll look slightly worse than a properly painted one but will be more usable than pitch black ones like mine. I also don't have the 3D printable sets that allow you to print buildings, so instead ended up re-purposing tiles meant for underground dungeons. That works fine, but it doesn't have the same level of detail as the specialized tiles and takes far longer to set up than the 2D tiles. In comparison, I could print off some tiles, tape them together, and be ready to roll. I could also quickly just set them up on the table and not need to worry about laying out all the props. I did still use a few props, most commonly chests, but I didn't need to completely fill the room in when going to somewhere else for my session. They were instead highlights. When running sessions in my house and using 3D tiles, I could just set things up ahead of time at the time. No problem. Where it got more difficult is when adding new rooms that also needed plenty of props. Either I'd connect the empty room and needed to add the props, or I'd connect the room with the props which caused them to shift. These issues weren't present with the Modular Inn tiles and allowed many different configurations. They are my favourite of all the sets I reviewed from Black Scroll Games so far.


Next Year

We've got a whole new year ahead of us. We'll get some new Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition stuff, of that I'm sure and I'm definitely curious. Black Scroll Games also had a successful kickstarter for Cities of the Black Scroll, which looks great. What's not to like about enough printable tiles to make yourself a bulletproof vest?

Tuesday 5 December 2017

Black Scroll Games 3D Prints

Review copies courtesy of Black Scroll Games.

What's a dungeon without things to populate it with? You know, besides an empty dungeon. Even without printing spools worth of 3D tiles and instead using paper tiles, 3D details can really make things pop. Black Scroll Games are probably best known for their 2D but 3D styled tile sets such as the Modular Inn tiles I reviewed.  They also have very impressive looking sets of tiles on Kickstarter right now in much the same style. However, in addition to that they also have an assortment of 3D printable materials that help bring dungeons to life. Honestly, I've had my eye on some of 3D printable stuff for a while (especially the chests). If there is one thing this experience taught me it's that it takes a while to amass a large enough assortment of 3D printed tiles to make it practical in play. Paper tiles though are quick and easy and with such highlights look even more amazing. So far, I've liked what I've seen and I hope to see more of their work in the future. Especially some undead miniatures and more objects for decorating dungeons. Their Patreon is here. They also have some of their older work here. They provide some 3D printable sandbags for war gaming as pay what you want. If you want to get a feel for their work, this is a great way to do so.

Black Scroll Games Chests
The two chest types available in the 3D Dungeon Chests pack.

Settings

Everything here was printed at 100 microns with a 0.4mm nozzle. It's a standard and unimpressive setting. Not impressive at all from the printer side of things, and very common.

Chests

The chests that Black Scroll Games came up with look amazing and actually open up. Need different treasure inside? You can just easily swap the insert, and there are a total of 7 inserts provided. It's a great design and is very adaptable. Out of all the 3D printable chests I've seen so far, they are my favourite. That said, there are some problems. I found that the inserts do not fit into the V2 chest properly. The chest is slightly too big so the insert will fall in. This is easily fixed by printing at 97% size, but I think they should be already sized for the insert out of the box. That way they are in step, and makes resizing the two together much easier. I hope the other sets also don't require such minor tweaking. I also wish that there was another alternate version missing the skull for the V2 chest, a version without the locks, and possibly a variant without the hinge. That way you could have the insert, the removable lid but also the aesthetic of the lack of hinge on the outside of the model. This last one is more a nitpick and would require more work to ensure it somehow stays in place, but would really push the set over the edge and make it something very hard to find faults with in my view. Sure, if I wanted that I could get a different set where the chest is one piece. However, I like how these ones look and would've liked the option with these chests. You can be sure these guys will and have been featured in my tabletop games. 

Black Scroll Games Werewolf
Pretty wolf, isn't he? He is from their Patreon page.


Werewolf

The werewolf mini is nice as well. It looks really nice when printed and the design doesn't need supports. If you are the kind of person who doesn't like terrain in their minis, you might not like the design compared to some others that only have the miniature on a base. However, you'd need some supports for that design because you wouldn't be able to incorporate them into the sculpt in the same way. I tend to prefer my miniatures without terrain on the base but here it doesn't bother me at all. The one thing that I didn't like was the head peg. The miniatures is printed in two pieces and they just didn't fit right for me. I had to file down the peg and I think providing a version without the peg would have been easy and removed this issue. Printing miniatures seems to be giving me the most trouble but this one went rather well.

Black Scroll Games Column
This is the smallest and most broken looking of the columns.


Columns

These guys look nice and are easy to print. If you need broken columns for the ruins of a temple or something, it's definitely a good choice for that. There are 7 different variations and some of them have lanterns. They aren't vastly different styles of columns but have varying degrees of disrepair and the variety is appreciated. I think the picture will do a better job of explaining the appearance than my words.

Sunday 3 December 2017

Quick Look: DRAGONLOCK vs. OpenLOCK

I finally did it. For years I admired those people who could print tiles and terrain to their heart's content, or at the very least for as long as their filament lasted. I am happy to say I am now part of their ranks as I now have access to a 3D printer. It was easier and harder in ways I didn't expect at the start. And for that reason I hope to share some of my experiences on the matter. Since I was still trying to decide which way I wanted to go (or neither since OpenForge is an option), this post is purely focused on the trial sets of the Rampage and DRAGONLOCK systems. You can bet I'll be writing more on this topic later since I can't hope to cover it in one post. I have to start somewhere though. If you want the Rampage system you can get it here and the sample DRAGONLOCK set can be found here.

Overview

I printed everything using a 0.4 sized nozzle and at 150 microns.

Dragonlock and Rampage tiles.
DRAGONLOCK on the left and Rampage on the right.

Dungeon Tiles

One of the first things that comes to mind is printing all kinds of cool 3D tiles. And the first two sets that grabbed my eye were the Printable Scenery Rampage and the Fat Dragon DRAGONLOCK systems. They look great and allow dungeons to be easily constructed. Naturally, before I used a whole spool on these things I wanted to take a quick test print of their trial packs and see what I thought of them.


Rampage

The Rampage system is quite interesting for a number of reasons. Disconnecting the wall from the floor like this system does means that it becomes much easier to create rooms. I don't need as many big specialized pieces, such as corner pieces, and instead need column adapters. This means that with very few pieces I have many options at my disposal and I absolutely love that feature.

The OpenLOCK connector is also interesting and is important. Since we are connecting more pieces in order to achieve the same result, the connection needs to be strong and well thought out. I also really like these connectors for a few reasons. That it's an open standard is very nice and means that quite a few OpenForge tiles can be connected. I won't be going too far into OpenForge here, but free and open tiles? That is great and them having such a great connection system is a massive benefit to the hobby in general. The other nice thing is that this connection system keeps the pieces close together. They don't wobble very much and there are many points of connections. Even the walls connect to other walls with 2 connectors. If you use the full total of connectors that the system allows, the setup is very sturdy. You can cause some shifting and experience some wobbling if you only use one clip. I'd recommend it only for smaller rooms or for connect rooms to each other over the course of the game. Otherwise use 2. All that said, I've found that the middle connector doesn't work as nicely as the outer 2. If you use one of the outer connectors it works fairly well and if you use both it is a very good connection. The only down side here is that it requires a lot of connectors compared to other systems but the sturdiness is nice.

I also have to commend the starter set. It gives you everything you need to make all the rooms you want. What's that, you want more? There is also a castle set provided. As far as starter sets go, this is very nice. Need floors? It's here. Need doorways? It's here (well, it's an open arch way or with a grate but it's better than nothing for sure). Need corner pieces? They can be built using all of the columns provided here. I wish the floor was more stone square style or at least one was included though. I think that style would be more versatile.

The biggest thing to note here is that the print quality really matters. The walls in particular have 2 connectors, one low and one high. If you get warping like my first one did, you'll end up with an unusable lower connector on the wall. One will still leave the piece functional but you'd want both to work so you will want to print using a brim. It is far easier if you do so for this set, and I'd say is essential for the walls and columns.

The designs are quite nice here. The wall is well detailed and textured. I like how the floor piece and how it resembles a floor due to its smoothness. It looks like the kind of thing purpose made to be walked on instead of being rough. And again, the connector works well.

Dragonlock

This set is a more traditional wall-attached-to-floor affair. However, it looks great and has some advantages to the other design from a printing perspective. The wall pieces are obviously going to be more stable since they are a single piece instead of being 2 connected pieces. Being attached to the wall like this, no brim was needed either. The wall piece was one of my very first prints out of my printer and it came out slightly warped due to me needing to adjust the bed level, but it still attaches perfectly to the other tiles. This is another nice thing from this set compared to the Rampage system. Warping doesn't cause nearly as many issues from my experience.

The clip design here is different and also interesting. I've found the Dragonbite v2 to be a bit wobblier than OpenLOCK. The clip allows the pieces to be moved apart a slight bit. If you did that much with OpenLOCK, they would separate. The v3 clips are better in this regard and have a much better fit. My trial pack, however, came with the v2 set and I had to download the v3 after printing a whole bunch of v2s. So make sure you print the v3s. They also have connectors only at the bases, which means large rooms can flex a bit when lifted off the table. When placed on the table, none of this matters or affects things.

I really like the look of these tiles. The back wall in particular looks great. I think a good part of this comes from the texture of it. I absolutely love it. The floor is nice as well but it's on the rough side. A few people I've shown them to said that they thought it was too rough for a floor meant for something meant for humanoid feet. They said it's more like the floor of a cave or mine, but the walls suggest otherwise. I can understand why someone might prefer a smoother design for the floor, perhaps with cracked stones due to time, but I still like it because of the texture it has. If you wanted that smoother style, you'd probably want to check OpenForge. I'll definitely need to take a look at them later, especially since they now use the OpenLOCK connection system.

The starter set contains no door pieces or corner pieces, in contrast with the Rampage system. If you want to make use of the free trial pack, you'll need to combine them with tiles from OpenForge or the Rampage system. This is really a shame from the trial set and makes it a far inferior as a complete set. It really is more of a trial set where as the Rampage system provides a starter set. If I had the starter sets for both sets though, it would become a lot more even. These tiles are very good from an aesthetic, usefulness (the connectors are very good), and ease of printing perspective.

Update: This comparison is out of date now that there is the DRAGONLOCK Ultimate: Dungeon Separate Walls set. This set allows you to attach walls in much the same way as the OpenLOCK system. These parts must be purchased, however, and the starter set remains as I reviewed it. I will be taking an in-depth look at the set shortly. It's very nice to have this option as well and removes the distinction between the approaches. Now you can use them both in the DRAGONLOCK system. 

Closing Thoughts

I'm not sure which I prefer. It's a hard choice and may depend on which side of the bed I'm waking up on. I took a quick look at the other offerings from both and I think I like the Dragonlock door better than the Rampage one including in the trial set, but I don't have the set yet so I couldn't print it. When taking the whole complete set into account it becomes far more even and that's why I'm having trouble choosing. As plain trial sets go, the completeness of the Rampage system makes it far more usable. So if your budget is free, Rampage and OpenForge will get you into the 3D printing game. It's nice that we have this kind of choice and we have even more options to choose from as well. However, I think this much will need to be enough for now.

Sunday 26 November 2017

DM & Players: Things That Just Make Sense

Every once in a while, there will be that moment a Dungeon Master realizes something that just makes sense for the situation despite what the rules say. It could even be a clever player who notices something that makes perfect sense in retrospect. It could be introducing two characters to each other. It could be trying to cover the bad guy in grease and catch them on fire. Regardless, these situations can come up in different ways and pose different challenges. They are also massively beneficial and are part of the magic that makes tabletop gaming such an amazing experience in my humble opinion.

Dungeon Master

In Combat Movement

There are many actions that can be taken in combat, many of which may not seem to make sense from an action economy standpoint. However, they can make sense from a character standpoint. The bad guy might make a dash towards the person holding what they want, and provoking opportunity attacks all the way there. You might also get the idea to fall back to a more advantageous position you didn't see before.

Big Bad Motivations

Often times the bad guys can be in a bit of a haze state, especially at the start of the campaign. We'll know what we want them to do, and what they are generally like but we won't know too much beyond that. Why are they doing what they are doing? What can make them stop? These questions are often overlooked. This is even more common for high ranked underlings. However, in the right moment we can find things that work surprisingly well. It can also be characteristics that we previously didn't realize. If an ally forces us to either hold our fire or launch a fireball anyway, not only is it a tactical decision but also a decision about the character of the person making the choice. Is using magic missile probably worse from the perspective of winning? Yes, but using it instead says something about the character. Aiming to wound or scare player characters away is a similar sort of thing.

Connected Plots

I've mentioned this before but dangling multiple plots in front of a party can be an extremely useful strategy. There are also other ways that players can be involved in more than one plot. It could be that something they need to save the world is also needed for a local noble to state their claim, dragging them into political situations. One of the most common times something just makes sense for me is when I'm dealing with multiple plots. In a particularly inspired moment (well, it seems that way at the time at least) I'll have an idea how to connect them together. It could be two plots that were previously unconnected or it can be another connection to add to the fabric of the campaign.

I do have to also give a bit of a warning though. One of the useful things about dangling multiple plots in front of a party is to gently let the party decide what kind of game they want to have and what interests them. However, if we just tie plots together anyway we can remove the element of choice. Instead, it will give more of an illusion of freedom since we will just connect the plots that didn't make it anyway. Of course, if it happens once it probably isn't much of a big deal. However, if you do it enough times that your players will expect it, it will probably be an issue.

Have Paper Ready

While genius can strike in the moment, it can be difficult to remember after the fact. Keep some paper ready for when these kinds of decisions are made. It would be a shame to have a good idea in the moment, start setting stuff up and forget it.

Player

In Combat Actions

Players, due to their decision making process being limit to their characters, often have a chance to more deeply think about their combat actions. While the rest of the party is taking their turn, players can still weigh their options. This often makes for rather creative attempts that aren't covered by the rules. These, more so than other situations, are particularly challenging.

Let's say a party member casts grease on an enemy and another party member tries to catch them on fire using a torch or a fire based cantrip (assuming D&D 5th edition rules). What happens next? The issue is, like I mentioned previously, we risk setting a precedent. While we want this to be effective since it is creative and takes two player turns, we also don't want it to be more effective than a fireball, for example. We also don't want it to be the default combat action going forward either. It should have advantages, disadvantages and also some level of situational dependence. Unfortunately, this is more of a skill than an art from my experience, is learned through practice, and will also be partially dependent on the group in question.

Backstory

Often times many details are left until later when making a player character. Elements of backstory are a big one that come up often. If you are entering a campaign setting you've never even heard of before, it might take some time to get a handle on it so that you can make those specific details of your backstory. After spending some time in a certain area of with a particular character, however, inspiration can strike. Maybe this was their home city all along but they were trying to keep a low profile and didn't say anything before now. Maybe it turns out the player knows another character but since they were 8 years old at the time, they aren't recognized. Regardless of the means, that time being in a weeds tends to lead to that “oh, that makes sense” moment that helps the character get further developed. I've also seen plenty of players who like this kind of thing as a core part of their gameplay. They want to be thrown head first and improv their way through.

Sunday 19 November 2017

Dungeon Master: Buildup

There are many tools at the disposal of a craft Dungeon Master, and a classic one is clever use of buildup. Over the course of a campaign, there are many things we can build up with locations and people probably being the most common. Who doesn't want to build up their big bad a bit? However, like all things, there are some difficulties that come with the collaborative nature of role-playing games. For that reason, I hope to share some of my experiences. Hopefully it helps someone out there or starts some interesting conversations.

Extent vs. Impact

One of the big conflicts with buildup is how much we build up and the overall impact we get. Doing too much buildup in the wrong kind of way can actually hurt us. At the same time, if we build things up in an exciting way we can still fall into a trap. If we build up a character or location up for the entirety of a campaign and due to luck, creativity or a combination of both the players make short work of it, we created a disappointment. There are some creative and not so creative ways out of this (liches and revenants in particular will be back) but in general it's an issue. There is always the risk of disappointment, it's just the more time and care we spend on buildup the more we highlight one particular thing and increase the risks. If we pull it off, however, we gain. There is also the generally safe method of buildup that leaves things in mystery. Someone sent an assassin and we won. But who? And why? This kind of buildup is less direct and tends to focus on outcomes. It's different than hearing whispers of an incredibly powerful legendary wizard who seems to have returned. Even if they find the source of the assassin and take it out, they still had a combat encounter. If it was a tense one, all the better for the buildup. However, it's important to make sure something comes with this kind of buildup. You'll want to address the source of the assassin at some point unless the players decide to willingly avoid it for some reason.

Unanswered Questions

Events and actions had implications and side effects. These make for great buildup to later parts of a campaign. I mentioned this earlier, but the assassin example is one such case. The way it tends to work is that the players will accumulate questions as they go through their campaign. As they get further along, they'll slowly get answered and lead to more questions before everything, or almost everything, is revealed. Also, as mentioned earlier, there needs to be a reveal. Building up to nothing rarely goes over well. It could even be unexpected, disappointing but hilarious. However, that is still a buildup to a punchline.

Telling and Talking

Hearing things about events that are happening, and certain people can go a ways to building up characters and scenarios. Knowing ahead of time who they just got on the bad side of makes things far more interesting and tense that suddenly making enemies with nameless guy number 505. It's a classic method. “Wait, thee nameless guy 505?” The trick, however, is in doing it in a non-boring way. Players tend not to like their campaign going on pause in order to let the innkeeper go on a long story time that says everything that needs to be said. Instead, it tends to need to be spread out over multiple people and events. At least 3 works fairly well for me. Some repetition can help as well, but it shouldn't be as detailed as the first or it can get grating. I find 3 tends to be the magic number in those cases as well.

Actions Speak

Personally, I find that actions and events speak far louder than my characters. It's one thing to hear a story about how powerful a magic weapon is from an innkeeper. It's another to have your players walk across grass turned to stone, hear it crunch as they walk on it, in order to find the magic weapon sitting in the middle of a platform unguarded. It's right there, fit for the taking. It's just that no-one has been stupid enough to move it until now. Everyone in the surrounding area seems to be terrified of it. You can be sure that your players will be expecting something from their new magic weapon. Talking is a way to build things up and yes, technically talking is an action but I find it much better and easier to think of actions in general when I'm thinking about buildup. It's less restrictive that way. It also gives you tools to build up to different things differently. Why should the nearly unknown cult that controls the city be built up in the same way as the puppet leader they put as the head of the city?

Foreshadowing and Uncertainty

There is another factor that makes such things difficult in tabletop games. We can't see the future as Dungeon Masters. However, buildup kind of suggests that we know where things are going. Trying to salvage buildup after thing didn't go according to plan is extremely hard to do and is basically an art. It's because we need to balance not making the buildup worthless at the same time as allowing freedom of choice. In these cases, I also find actions are extremely important. Actions can be interpreted. They don't necessarily have one set meaning. This tends to give more room to be creative than when things were directly told to the player characters. That said, thinking of talking as actions still allows some wiggle room. The people that players talk to could be unreliable or have their own reasons to knowingly lie. This adds an element of interpretation to the buildup and can still make it seem like it was always this way. I would recommend having a light touch for this. It can really make a confrontation more memorable but remembering it, executing it well, and having it be adaptable is tricky.

What To Build Up?

Particularly cool, unique, or important locations tend to be built up. The big villain also needs to have some kind of buildup. You don't want them to come out of nowhere and be meaningless. However, not everything needs to be build up. Having it targeted makes it more effective. Put another way, if everything is being built up nothing is.

Don't Sweat It Since It Comes Naturally

A large part of buildup comes naturally. Players will tend to have multiple run ins with the big bad. These run ins act as buildup. They create a history, build players expectations due to exposure to the character and if done enjoyably, lead to an interesting positive association. They may still hate them and dread seeing them, but also cautiously look forward to future confrontations. Likewise, a super hard to get to location will be hard to get. It may require guide to find, special supplies and a special path. All of this acts as buildup for the location. Trying to shove buildup where it doesn't belong can be one of the worst things you can do as far as buildup is concerned.

Thursday 16 November 2017

Dungeons & Dragons: Xanathar's Guide to Everything Review

Review copies (standard and limited edition) courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Pros:
  • New player options in the form of class paths.
  • New rules for Dungeon Masters. Some of them, such as how to determine area of effect shapes, would have been very welcome in the original books since they are so vital. At this point though, I think we've got a hang of it but multiple methods are provided. The new encounter guidelines are also nice and allow us to see how levels map to challenge rating.
  • Random encounter tables for just about every location.
  • A bunch of low powered magic items.
  • New downtime activities. And they are good! And they provide role-play and campaign growth opportunity through the new idea of rivals!
  • Lots more full colour art. It's no different than other books in this edition but lots of art should always be commended.
  • The page design is nice. The page outline and numbering are visually pleasing and fit into the style we've come to expect of this edition.
  • Binding on both of my books were perfect.
Could Go Either Way:
  • I'm not sure if I got unlucky but there were some odd artifacts on a couple of pages in my standard edition of the book. My limited edition was perfect though. If you are picking one out at the store, and are a perfectionist, you may want to keep an eye out.
  • 17 pages of tables for possible NPC names. I'm never against tables in my books but some people will definitely consider this padding, especially when the book is already on the shorter side.
Cons:
  • It's a bit on the short side. It's 192 pages long but it's a full price book. It's even shorter if you remove the tables of character names. This makes it hard to recommend over say the Monster Manual if you don't have it, which is a 300+ page tome.
  • Few options that weren't well received by me or my players. The 3 that stood out most at my table were the Samurai archetype, and the spells Invulnerability and Mental Prison.
  • No PDF, though electronic versions are going to be provided. This is almost there, but I think that if such a version was included as a bundle with the physical book it would be far better value. I also not needing to depend on the internet. One day.*


* Denotes nitpicking.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything Covers
The Covers for the books. I'm quite a fan of these.

Introduction

It's already been a bit more than 3 years since the release of D&D 5th edition (if counting from the release of the starter set), and in that time we've had a few new options for players here and there. We had some in the earlier adventures like Princes of the Apocalypse, as well as The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide but so far it's been pretty restrained this edition. Instead we got adventures that also functioned as introductions to settings. Curse of Strahd and Out of the Abyss, I mean you. In Xanathar's Guide to Everything, we get a whole slew of new class options and spells for players to choose from, but also a bunch of new options for Dungeon Masters to sprinkle through their world. We also get some new downtime activities and rules which appeal to both. Okay, Dungeon Masters can also use the new spells and re-engineer the new class options, but if you lock a clever Dungeon Master in a room with nothing but elastics and toothpicks they'd still come up with a rule system by the time you let them out. With that overview out of the way, let's jump into the meat of Xanathar's Guide to Everything, which is kind of like The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide with less fluff about the Sword Coast.

One of the spells I've already employed in one of my games. It's the kind of thing that makes for a good entrance for a necromancer. Dance, puppets, dance. It's also a good example of the kind of art to expect in the book.

New Player Options

Just about every class gets some love in some shape or form. New class options and new spells are probably the biggest highlight for players. The section on spells takes up 25 pages while the new class options take up over 50. As well, we get a small number of new racial feats. The suggestions for coming up with character stories are also nice to see. Characters are more than a bunch of class levels after all. These take up around 10 pages.

If you'd hope to love every option, I have to say that I did not. There were quite a few that I'm really looking forward to see at the table. I've got a player really wanting to try out the War Magic option. I also based an encounter around an Oath of Conquest paladin in last week's game. Spells are always a fun resource for Dungeon Masters and I'd be lying if I didn't sprinkle a few of them through my NPCs as well.

There were also a few features and spells that my players didn't want to see. My player who loves his fighters and other physical damage dealing characters had a beef with the Samurai option for fighters. He didn't feel the math quite worked out due to the ability to regain a use of their main ability every start of combat, leaving the Battle Master outmatched one on one when fully prepared. I tend to flip flop on this point because the Battle Master has some incredible tricks up their sleeve. Invulnerability and Mental Prison were more universally disliked. In the case of invulnerability it was due to the massive advantage while still being able to cast out damaging spells while for mental prison it was the lack of save attempt after the spell succeeded. At this point in my RPG playing career I've come to realize that there will probably never be a book of rules/player options where I'm happy with everything. A few such issues can still make an otherwise flawless book or rule system frustrating. We'll see how they go over during play. I did steal some parts of the Samurai class option for an NPC, so there is always that.


New Magic Items

The magic items included here cover a couple of changes and are a welcome addition. They aren't the earth shattering objects of power that will slay liches in a single turn. Instead, they are mostly common items that provide roleplay opportunities. I'm happy to see more of these kinds of items but if you were expecting a healthy range, from small and insignificant outside of role-play opportunities to earth shattering, you'll be disappointed. I have already thrown a couple of items from this book into one of my campaigns and they went over well. I'm confident there will be more to come. Just know what you are getting into.

New Rules

Similarly, we Dungeon Masters get some attention too. Of the total 192 pages (~174 if we don't include the character names), just under 70 of them are dedicated to Dungeon Master stuff such as new rules and guidelines. Some parts are more useful than others, such as the new downtime activities being far more useful than the rules for determining area of effect (seems like something that should've been in the 3 core books), but they were still nice to see. For me, the downtime activities and the emphasis on rivals as well as complications within them was one of my favourite parts. It takes it from a simple thing to do between sessions to something that contributes to the collaborative stories being told.

The new trap rules were nice to see. As well as outlining the same "simple" traps like in the Dungeon Master's Guide, they also brought up the idea of complex traps. These act kind of like a restricted legendary creature as they have an initiative score, and even give experience. Personally though, I was really happy to see the alternate guidelines for encounter design present. We've seen them in Unearthed Arcana before, but I personally feel that having an easy mapping between level and challenge rating was long overdue. The table is found on page 91 and roughly mirrors mine from the Unearthed Arcana. It's still not terribly consistent so I'd recommend using it as a reference and not bothering to memorize it. Generally taking the player level, dividing by 2, rounding down, and subtracting one will get you to within 1 challenge rating. It's not perfect, and will tend to either get the number right or underestimate, but it can be useful as a quick estimation tool. It's also nice knowing how many low level creatures you can throw at a certain leveled player at a glance.

One of my favourites from this book. It may be my bias showing though, since some of my favourite painting are by Aivazovsky. What? I like seascapes and boats.


The Art and Book Build Quality

The book is what we've come to expect from this edition of D&D. It's got good quality pages and a good hard cover backing. My bindings were perfect and my only real complaint in this section is the artifacts present in my standard edition version of the book. One thing I feel should be noted is that along with the smaller page count, the book's spine was made thinner. I quite like how the pages fit in the closed book since it helps combat the wavy page issue that can happen.

The art is also in the style we've come to expect and also plentiful throughout. From diagrams helping to explain the rules for determining area of effects to the illustrations of class options, it's well done. I would have liked to see more in the style I prefer (more realistic) but it's without a doubt well done. With how consistent these books have been this edition, I feel like I can almost copy paste this section. I do have to say though that some sections don't lend themselves as easily to art as others.

Price

The suggested price is the same 50 USD that most books cost in this edition. It's not quite as short as the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide but it's about 30 pages away. I'm sure you'll be able to find it for cheaper but I can see this as being one of the bigger issues with this book. If you are missing the Monster Manual, and Curse of Strahd, it may be hard to justify getting this book over those two unless your players are starved for new options. My person bias aside, the value calculation is influenced by the length factor.

What I felt was Missing

I would have liked to see more ranger spells here, especially since it's the class that probably needed the most help in this area. The melee focused ranger in particular doesn't have too much to choose from if they want to try to use their magic to enhance their melee attacks, while the ranged version has a lot more to choose from. This was a perfect chance to address this issue.

It would have also been nice to have a few more commonly useful map templates at the end of the book. Call me spoiled but I would have liked a map or two out of a guide to everything. It's a bit nitpicky since we already have quite a few maps provided in other books, but it would have been a nice to have.

Generally, I think 30+ pages more would have made the book a far easier value proposition for a lot of people. It is a bit short page wise and while I'll definitely be using things from it, it cuts a bit too close for me to be overjoyed with the price. At this point in this edition's life new books will face competition from already released books that people haven't had the chance to buy yet, which further complicates the value calculation. Opportunity cost, our good old friend, makes his appearance once again. Obviously a good sale or deal will take this complaint away though.

Free Stuff

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Summary

I began this review comparing Xanathar's Guide To Everything to The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide because I think it gives the best idea about what this book is. It's similar in that it attempts to provide new options for players but also things that would be interesting to Dungeon Masters. Where it differs is that instead of providing fluff on the Sword Coast, something that would be of interest to a Dungeon Master wanting to set their game in the Sword Coast, it provides new mechanical options such as downtime activities. If you really wanted new player options, this is probably the closest the edition has so far to a Player's Handbook II. However, due to its shorter length, lack of brand new classes, and a desire to appeal to Dungeon Masters as well, it isn't quite there. It's more like part of a Player's Handbook II mixed with part of a Dungeon Master's Guide II, though probably leaning more towards a Player's Handbook. What you need to do is ask yourself if you want something that will give you a setting with an adventure, help flesh one out, provide new mechanics to throw into your game, or new options for your players to create their character's with. If it's player options, this is the first book outside the core books that you'd want to get. There are also some mechanics and options for Dungeon Masters, but the choice isn't as clear cut since we have other books to choose from as well. This of course will be tempered by the price, which could make other books in this edition that you haven't had a chance to enjoy all the more tempting. 

Update
This is a picture of the artifact I mentioned. 
Xanathar's Guide to Everything Book Artifact

Sunday 5 November 2017

Some Thoughts For Undead Campaigns

There are many kinds of campaigns you can run and many ways to describe a campaign. However, people tend to have certain ideas, themes, or enemies they prefer to use. In my case, it's undead. As a Dungeon Master I like using them as my baddies and as a player I like going up against them. Undeath is a very general idea that allows for a lot of freedom. Since I've got quite a lot of experiences and opinions on the matter, I'm hoping that working through some of it here will help people who are considering running such a campaign in the future.

Themes

Some themes naturally come with undead. Life and death, to some extent right and wrong, the idea of forever, corruption, inevitability, fear, and what is natural are ones that quickly come to mind. However, we have many other options as well. One of the great things about undead is they can be used with other kinds of themes in supporting positions. Anything that can die can become undead. That gives us an incredibly large set of creatures that we can draw on and also themes to explore. A necromancer could have an undead army, but their goals could touch on many other themes not yet listed.

Undead Are Typically Evil

In role-playing games, undead are typically evil. There are exceptions in some adventures, but more often than not they are evil. Becoming a lich turns a creature evil. Becoming a vampire does the same. Playing with this little element can have interesting implications. In a world where the existence of the afterlife is known for sure, and methods to get there are known well as well, what kind of person would willingly choose to remain in the world as a vampire and lich? For what reasons? Exploring this question could lead you to campaign after campaign and villain after villain. Could people use skeleton guards for good? Good necromancers can be a lot of fun, especially when your players see necromancer and automatically think evil. Playing with those expectations without coming off as a jerk might take some skill and experience though.

World

When dealing with undead centred campaigns, there are a few world questions that come up quickly. How are undead created? Why would they be created? What do people think of undead? There could be a kingdom that relies on necromancy for its armies. Otherwise they'd be wiped out. Clearly they would not think negatively of necromancy. Their enemies though? I think that part is obvious. What happens if someone gets caught with undead? What if they get caught using necromancy? Are vampires known or simply the stuff of stories?

Variety

Undead, even without getting into the ability to turn any creature into a skeleton, zombie, or other version of itself, have quite a variety of different badies that can be thrown at your players. Even just looking at big bads, there are many options. Vampires, liches, death knights, wights, and revenants all provide different ways to make a campaign awesome. Take revenants. Right off the bad, you can make your party out a group of revenants out for revenge against the big bad. You could also have the opposite where your party is being chased by a revenant and they don't know why. This one can be a bit tough if players don't like you trampling on their backstory (it's very valid not to like having your backstory partially re-written as a player but some players are fine or even like it) but there are other ways to make it work, such as a helper NPC that they are traveling with (if this is the case, it's best to have 2 or 3 so it's not obvious who it is). The possibilities are really quite vast and varied depending on which one you pick. Just look at vampires and Ravenloft. Some monsters are obviously more inspiring than others, though.


Large Body of Work

There is really quite a large body of work you can draw on when dealing with undead. There are many legends surrounding them, many books that can help inspire you, and a massive amount of horror movies to draw inspiration from. Though it may seem weird to shamelessly steal from these sources, I find it does make it much easier for me to find inspiration when I need it. It could be as small as encounters or as large as campaign ideas (everyone has watched a movie and thought “I think it would be better like”) but in general, getting those creative juices going can be one of the hardest parts.

Sunday 29 October 2017

Halloween Inspired Creatures & Traits

Happy almost Halloween everyone! I don't typically do special holiday themed posts but thought I'd make an exception this time. With my love of undead themed campaigns, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I try to run a horror/undead inspired one-shot around Halloween. As such, I have a bit of material that I can share that should fit in nicely with Halloween inspired tabletop RPG sessions. Hopefully someone gets some use of these. They are intended for use with D&D 5e, though I hope it will help regardless. Also feel free to change the names I used. In fact you probably want to. I often let my players name the new creatures they come across.

Crawling Half

Crawling claws, you heard of them? Well, there are other forms of crawling undead too. Most of them smell.

Crawling Half
Medium Undead, Chaotic Evil

Armor Class 8
Hit points 6 (1d6 + 3)
Speed 15 ft. (Or half the creature's normal zombie speed)

Ability Score
Strength 13
Dexterity 6
Constitution 16
Intelligence 3
Wisdom 6
Charisma 5

Challenge 1/8 (25XP)

Actions
Swipe. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 1d6 + 1 (4)

The creature makes grappling checks with disadvantage and creatures trying to shove the Crawling Half have advantage.

Variant 1: The Crawling Half has the zombie's Undead Fortitude feature.

Variant 2: The first time a zombie hits 0 hit points and succeeds on its constitution saving throw, it is instead cut in half. The top half becomes a crawling half with 1 hit point and the Zombies Undead Fortitude feature. Recommended for casual implementation only/when large damage is done but the zombie still makes its save.

The above assumes a human. For more general use, cut the speed of the creature in half, add disadvantage for grappling and advantage for creatures trying to shove the crawling half.


Shadow Touched

Shades and shadows are but one possible result of touching shadow realms and/or playing with magic. Living creatures can be touched as well. From manipulating shadows to becoming one with them, the potential results are many and varied. What they have in common is that they are terrifying to be sure.

Some can move like shadows, or like sand. They cannot be caught as they move past you in this way. Just try keeping your eyes on them. It's impossible. It seems like one moment they are there and the next they are beside you. Some can even turn your own shadow against you.


Shadow Walk 

The creature can use its bonus action to move from one area of dim or darker light to another. The areas cannot be further apart than the normal speed of the creature.

Variant 1: You must spend 5 speed for every square between the two shadows. This variant does not cost a bonus action.


Shadow Glide

The creature does not provoke opportunity attacks as it moves.

Variant 1: Opportunity attacks against the creature have disadvantage.


Shadow Slip 

The creature can spend 10 ft. of movement to escape a grapple.

Variant: Change the amount of movement however you wish. It may depend on the type of creature.

Variant 1: Instead of costing movement, it costs a bonus action.


Shadow Influence – Grab

As an action the creature forces a target within line of sight to be grappled by its own shadow. It uses the target's Strength(Athletics) for the check.

Variant 1: Pick a DC based on the creatures control of shadows. Use this as the Strength(Athletics) for the grapple check.


Monster Ideas (Less Serious)


Head Thrower
Use the zombie stats and description with the following modification(s):
  • The zombie caries its own head.
  • The zombie will make a range 20/40 ft. attack by throwing its own head at a target at the first opportunity. Hit: 1d6 piercing damage and roll a grapple check. On a success, the target takes 1d6 piercing damage at the end of the turn.
  • Once its head is thrown, the zombie can only see what its head can see. If in doubt, roll 1d4 and use it like a compass (1 – N, 2 – E, 3 – S, 4 – W).
  • If the zombie can't see anything through its eyes, it tries it's best to regain its head. Add the blinded condition until something comes into view. The zombie will probably have a general idea of where its head is and try to fumble towards it. It may have trouble telling friend from foe, walk off cliffs, or have similar confusion while fumbling in this manner.

Though dumb, they are smart enough to realize they see through the eyes in their head. I've seen these things peek over hedges by grabbing their head by the hair and lifting it as high as they could. The crafty wizard can use these guys in very interesting ways as well. A friend of mine would order one to throw its head around a corner and then use the zombies reaction as an alarm. If you wish to imitate this, I'd suggest making sure you don't stand in front of the zombie before giving the order.

Vampire Cultist
For whatever reason, vampires are popular. Every now and then you run across a humanoid who pretends to be a vampire or does its best to live like a vampire in hopes that it will somehow inspire the “blessing” of vampirism. No action is too far to become a vampire for these people.

Old Work

I'll also link to my previous Shadow Hand creature. Hopefully someone out there finds it useful.

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Betrayal at Baldur's Gate Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Board game for 3-6 players.

Pros:
  • Thematic gameplay that leads to fun situations. There are some very entertaining cards and there's quite a bit of fun to be had watching people fail at the events depicted. It very much helps to get into the situation and enjoy the story that results.
  • Many new themed haunts, including some co-op ones.
  • The Dungeons & Dragons theme is given some serious attention. The haunts and tiles have changed quite significantly, character abilities reflect the original game quite a bit, and the cards reference D&D items. They could have gone a bit farther away from the original in pursuit of D&D themes, but I think it's not a bad job.
  • 6 pre-painted minis, game tiles (though not really usable for D&D), and tokens.
  • Rules seemed to be tighter than the original game. I'd still recommend a reread of the rules before play.

Could Go Either Way:
  • It's a Betrayal game. While there are changes, it is still very much the same system and if you didn't like the original there probably isn't enough difference for you to like this one.
  • While many of the cards do have art (much more than the Adventure System games), there are still many cards that are just descriptions.
  • The layout of the street level can get quite confused due to the combination of street and building tiles over the course of play. It makes for some interesting gameplay due to variety but often doesn't lead to the most sensible results.
  • Just like it's parent game, it's quite luck based. If you are in for an hour or an hour and a half of luck based fun, that's a plus. If you prefer more strategy and less luck, this might not be your thing. It's very much about being in fun and funny situations as a result of the game.
  • Having the D&D name on it, you'd probably want as many thing possible that you could recycle for use in your campaigns. Given how many miniatures, maps and dice I've stolen from board games over the years, it's probably fair to say that part of me always looks for what I can recycle. This game doesn't have quite as much some of the other D&D games, such as the Adventure System or, depending on what you are looking for, Dungeon Command. If you are looking for just a board game, this won't matter. If you were looking for parts, it will.*
Cons:
  • The chips/markers used to mark your stats aren't very good. They will cause damage to your character cards. You can kind of get away with not fully pushing them on, but that will obviously make it far easier to knock them off.
  • Why doesn't everything fit back into the box properly? You'd think I was doing car repairs or something. I tend to prefer to organize my tokens so I can easily get them when needed, but when I was done the minis didn't fit. It works out for me since I often steal minis for my D&D games from wherever I can find them, but it would have been nice if it all fit perfectly back into its box.*


* Denotes nitpicking.
Betrayal At Baldur's Gate Box
The Betrayal at Baldur's Gate box.

Introduction

I haven't done all that many board game reviews. Looking back on it, have I even done one before? Regardless, given how wide I cast my net with “unplugged gaming”, it should come as no surprise that here I am. With the current timing, why not Betrayal at Baldur's Gate? It seems to be my kind of game. And so here we are. It's worth noting that I quite enjoyed playing Betrayal at House on the Hill. It was one of those games that someone would bring to a get together and we'd have fun playing. Of course, it had a way of coming up more often around Halloween. Oh look at the date. So naturally, when I heard of this release I was a bit worried and also a bit excited. It would be easy to just slightly reskin the game. At the same time, making it too different wouldn't make it Betrayal anymore. It's a tough balance to strike and where that balance is can be very player dependent. Of course, it's a different situation if you don't have the previous game. Luckily things worked out well and it's been great playing it over the month of October. I've gone through 14 haunts at the time of writing this and now feel I can comment on the game. As always, I'm happy to hear what other people think. 

It's Betrayal

It's without a doubt a betrayal game. The layout itself has changed, from the floors of a haunted house to the streets/buildings and catacombs of Baldur's Gate, but it is recognizably Betrayal. There are other changes as well, such as the items being related to D&D, the events also being recognizable to D&D players, and the inclusion of co-op hauntings (though in those situations “haunting” is a bit of an odd term). You shouldn't expect something massively different, though it is different in flavour and I would say more refined.

The Game Itself

Players, playing adventurers exploring the streets of Baldur's Gate, lay down tiles to build up the area they are exploring. As they do, based on the cards they draw for exploring areas, players collect items, find omens, and run into events that help form their story. At a certain point (players roll a dice for every omen card they draw and if they roll high enough the second phase begins) the game changes. A player is outed as being a traitor who is out to do something evil at the expense of everyone else. If you played Betrayal at House on the Hill before, this should sound very familiar, though the rules for starting a haunt have changed. Where things differ greatly is that it isn't always going to be a player trying to go after everyone else. There are quite a few haunts where everyone will be co-operating to accomplish something together, or where the traitor isn't instantly known. In my opinion it's nice to break up the flow in this way and the elements of the game come together well.

One thing to know about these games is that luck is a big factor. It's not like you have no choices at all. You can heavily hamstring yourself if you wanted. However, the nature of the game is that rolling dice, and drawing cards are a big part of the game and contribute to randomness. In my opinion it is one of those games where you need to lose yourself in the game and enjoy the story that is coming about over the course of play. Sometimes that story will be the heroes making an easy time of the villain. Sometimes it will basically be a slasher movie as the betrayer knocks out the other players one by one. It's just the nature of the game. The first game we played involved the wizard becoming the hero of the game by starting to flood the area in the first round of the haunt, which heavily skewed things towards the players. This advantage diminished later as the players got pretty bad rolls. A few other times one side or the other started like a tank and just kept rolling. Still, fun was had. If what I described sounds like fun to you, you'd probably enjoy the game.

Each of the 12 characters in Betrayal at Baldur's Gate has a unique ability (2 character choices per miniature). This is a nice option to have, even if some of them may end up being situational. It's one of those things where having a new option to consider goes a long way and helps distinguish characters. At the same time Magic items and omens still make up a good chunk of the differences between characters, especially later in the game.

When laying out tiles during exploration, the game is divided into two levels. There is the street level, made up of building and street tiles, and the catacombs made up of catacomb tiles. The simplicity of only having two levels is nice and the variation thanks to having two kinds of tiles on the main floor is welcome, but this can result in kind of odd layouts on the main floor. This is a result of the random nature of drawing the two different kinds of cards. The game explains this away as Baldur's Gate being an older city and not very well planned, but it does end up being not as neat as Betrayal at House on the Hill.

The tone is quite different in Betrayal at Baldur's Gate compared to Betrayal at House on the Hill. Of course you'd expect this with the switch in themes, but I think it would have an effect on your preference. The original game rules work very well thematically for exploring a haunted house and if that's the kind of story you'd prefer to experience, it's hard to beat. Betrayal at Baldur's Gate has it's own feeling that can be appreciated as well. Sometimes it strays closer towards horror like the original. Other times its more in the style of an adventure. However, for this kind of game where a big part of the enjoyment comes from the shared story created over the course of the game, theme and feeling play a big role. It's a hard thing to explain and talk about and I'd also be curious what other people felt in this regard. There's something to be appreciated in both versions. I personally liked the variety in Betrayal at Baldur's Gate but it could also be the novelty talking.

Betrayal At Baldur's Gate Pieces

The Game Pieces

The core of the game are the cards (omens, items, and encounters) as well as the tiles that make up the streets, buildings and catacombs of Baldur's Gate. The tiles have quite nice art and does a good job of illustrating the areas that we find ourselves in. The cards have less art, though some of them do have some that is made from black outlines. It's nice to see some though, compared to the Adventure System games which had none.

There are quite a few tokens in this one as well. Quite a few of them have images depicting what they are. However, not all of them do. This makes the ones that lack the depiction stand out all the more. It's a bit disappointing, but luckily many of the tokens, especially the monster ones, do have art. The obstruction, quest, and blast tokens aren't as lucky. Given how the obstruction tokens are used in different ways depending on the haunt, I can see why it turned out this way but it would have been more impressive with more art. There are also 8 dice and miniatures. 

The Art and Build Quality

The art for the characters in particular is quite stylized. Much of the rest of it is too, such as the monster tokens. They are black ink on a coloured background, and look pretty good. The character cards were particularly cartoony compared to my preference (those of you who've looked at my previous reviews will know what I prefer), though they aren't bad. The item cards have art, but the rest do not. The tiles used for the rooms are well illustrated and serve their purpose. Overall, I'd say that more art could have been included but it completely isn't artless either. What art is there is pretty good. For my tastes the room tiles are the real standouts as well as the minis.

The miniatures are painted fine and have a good amount of texture to them. The wizard is probably my favourite, and you can bet will make an appearance in one of my D&D games at some point. As you'd expect, it's not to the same level as you'd expect from a hobby painter but they look fine. Areas are painted but they aren't perfect and there won't be enough shading for the super picky among us. Still, it's not bad and it's always nice to see pre-painted miniatures. The problem with the miniatures is the bent weapons. The dwarf, orc, and halfling were fine but the rest weren't so lucky. Due to the soft plastic I'm not really concerned of those components breaking. However, the wizard staff in particular is very bent. It would have been nice if it wasn't the case out of the box, though there are ways to straighten out such things.

The card used is fine. If you played the earlier game, you know what to expect. The problem that exists here is with the clips that attach to the character cards. A good few of them were too tight for me and marked the cards. Be aware.

The rulebooks are softcover as you'd expect. They are held together with a string which makes me a bit concerned about how well they'll last in the really long run, but it's what we were all probably expecting. You typically don't find hard cover rulebooks in board games. However, a PDF version of at least the basic rules would have been nice as a backup just in case. Something tells me doing so for the Betrayer's Tomb and Survivor's Tomb would be a harder sell. Please do let me know if they are around and I just missed them.

Reuse in D&D

In a pinch, the tokens with art can be reused in D&D if needed. Kobolds, beholders, goblins: all are easily reused. However, there isn't enough for a campaign here and you'd probably be better off getting your parts elsewhere. If you'd be getting the game anyway because Betrayal + D&D sounds like your kind of thing, it makes a welcome addition. However, you probably won't be buying the board game simply to reuse the pieces. The room tiles are too small unless you just wanted to map out the general area for theatre of mind use, but it wouldn't be that much easier than getting some dungeon tiles to map out the area. You'd also get the bonus of miniature combat out of using dungeon tiles instead. How much you liked the art would also play a role in your choice for this particular purpose. I wish there'd be more that could be easily reused, but there is still quite a bit that could be. The miniatures, of course, are easily reused.

Price

The suggested US price is $50. This seems to be the same as the suggest price for the original Betrayal game, though depending on when you search you may be able to find it for cheaper.

What I felt was Missing

I wish there were some rules copies online, kind of like what they did for the Adventure system games. Hopefully they'll do it in the future, but right now they don't. It's one of those things I really appreciate since board game rulebooks can get damaged quite easily.

Summary

It's a Betrayal game. If you didn't like Betrayal at House on the Hill then I don't think that this game is different enough for your tastes. However, if you did like it then you will probably like Betrayal at Baldur's Gate. To me it seems to be more refined than the original and the additional haunts, including co-operative haunts, are much appreciated. The D&D theme is incorporated quite well, and the humorous elements are a nice hidden treat. The main design criticism you can throw at it is that it may be too similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill, though it the game is far from a name change. The thematic difference will also play a role in your preference for one over the other (horror vs fantasy with a twist). If you liked the original game, the new haunts, and theme may be enough justification on their own, though I'd recommend taking a few minutes to do a quick search to make sure. I lacked a copy of Betrayal at House on the Hill so I'm happy to have one of the games. It's also seen quite a bit of play time so far this month, so it looks to be well received among my gaming groups.

Other Stuff
  • Want to see some of the game before deciding? There is this official discussion about the game that also goes over some gameplay, though I have to warn you ahead of time that it's about an hour long.