A: http://twinery.org/2/#!/stories/3c7a08f1-42ee-4f02-86e4-4a87af5ebdcc/play

B: Item: “Descent: Journeys in the dark (2nd Edition)”

Descent is a Table Top RPG played using cards, plastic figures, printed board sections and dice. The way it combines Story and Gameplay comes in its Campaigns that are provided with both the main game and expansions. These gives the “Heroes” an objective (Save an innocent, get to the other end of the map, kill a certain enemy). Success or failure not only determines rewards from an encounter, but also how the story will progress. When the player succeeds, the world remains in a good state whereas failure increase the rate at which it falls apart. Whilst this does create a sense of tension and stakes in each encounter, it works against the “Heroes” as each failure makes later encounters more difficult.

The game does, however, lack a sense of freedom. It moves from one encounter to the next, keeping the player in combat. Whilst this does fit it’s theme of world falling into chaos and darkness, it fails to humanize the “Heroes” for the players, stopping the players from properly connecting to the character they are supposed to be and retracting from the overall experience.

However, the choices a player makes as they level up changes how they have to play the rest of the game, and I have personally witnessed people play in character throughout entire games, which shows that it still has the capacity to engage the players and bring them closer to the action in a way that I either cannot or have not yet discovered.

Refrences