So I own Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5
Nov 13, 2017 18:58:37 GMT -8
Post by rickno7 on Nov 13, 2017 18:58:37 GMT -8
So... yes the game has some controversy, I'll reply with my thoughts if anyone wants to asks questions or what-have-you.
For the start, I want to talk about my gameplay experience with it.
Warning: Do not look this game up at work, almost every image you'll find is NSFW. Think "Heavy Metal Magazine meets Hellrasier". The images I link to in this post are PG-13
Also, warning: early game spoilers.
Also, warning: I write walls of text for fun.
Looking for D&D replacements
I haven't been around the forums as much because of my job for the past couple of years has taken a lot of my time. My D&D group turned into a weekly board game group because we have a pool of 7-8 players but only really seem to get about 4 people at once(the two consistent players being myself and a friend). Still, it has expanded to twice a week we have about 7 people playing all sorts of stuff. In this time, we've had some players get the newest dungeon crawl "D&D replacement" games, and I'll tell you I hated them all. Shadows of Brimstone was abysmal(I like their other games, own 2 of them). Imperial Assault had good characters, but every mission is a dash against time(fuck that). Wrath of Ashardalon was like playing D&D with a group that dislikes all role playing. Conan was innovative and fun and Zombicide:Black Plague was a blast BUT they both suffered with no actual campaign. Characters reset between each game. Me disliking these games is no big surprise: i hate combat with miniatures in my RPG's. I dislike Warhammer and generally most things to do with grids. I even dislike Final Fantasy Tactic's combat... I have played through the game several times for the story, but holy crap I hate positional/miniature combat.
Kingdom Death: Monster is different. So if I had to give a shitty smash together explanation of the game, I'd say its WoW-Boss fights + Choose your own adventure + Civilization(the video game) + MMORPG-crafting/items. It is also the most fun, and loudest board game experience my group has played in the 3 years we've been consistently meeting.
Boss Fights
So what are the fights? Well, they are kind of like an MMORPG's boss fights. 1 group vs 1 monster. Sometimes the monster has adds, generally each monster has some gimmicks and neat phases to go through. This game has no GM/DM to play the monsters. Instead there is an AI deck and a Hit-location deck. The AI deck is what gives the monster its actions, and it is a series of "if - then" statements. Somehow this really does give the monster its own personality even though these cards are randomly chosen. Our 2nd "White Lion" was a scaredy cat. Every time he was hit, it seemed he rushed away. The bravest thing he did was grab a character, drag him across the board, and use his human like hands to pierce the character's ear drums(causing permanent hearing loss). Soon as we caught up, he played cautious and kept his distance. Our first lion was nothing like this, it stood its ground and had AOE attacks that caused all of us to avoid ending our turn near it, seems like a completely different creature. The hit-location deck is like a set of attack outcomes, and every card has several results. Even if you just "attack" every turn, every single attack feels like a whole new action because the locations change things and trigger events. Every single monster has its own set of decks(yes multiple decks per creature) that govern it, so every monster seems different.
Civ Your Own Adventure
Another part of the game is creating your civilization. You build a town, and you decide what goes on there. There are choices in the story events that link together, or mile-stones your progression can unlock. The town is your character. The "survivors" you play during fights will likely die. Some will last a while, many will die in their first couple of fights. Seriously, its not called Kingdom Death for nothing. You're going to die to bad dice rolls, you're going to die to bad adventure choices, and sometimes you'll die because someone else chose poorly. Because of this, there's a "pool" of characters that your group picks from. Each has their own flaws(kind of like Disads from Savage Worlds), their own personality quirks and such that are a result from how they've been played. In the end, its your town that persists through it all, and you level it up like a group character. Want to have a Sparta from hell that focuses on killing monsters at all costs? You can literally train killers from birth. Want to have a caring family oriented town that knows life is hell, but tries to give its children the best life you can? You can do that too. Want to be cannibals and skin citizens to make armor.. well... yea you can be that too. The instruction manual is a big book of story events, so that it is basically an adventure module where you try to survive while solving some world questions.
Item Crack
The world is a flat plane of stone masks. Literally. So the resources are whatever you can kill. When you kill something, you can make a crafting building that specializes in making equipment from that monster. These items are really neat, like neat in the way collecting items in an MMO are, and that last part for your final set of armor? You just need to kill one more thing to make it. You'll beg the group to go kill that thing. You collect bones, hides, eyeballs, whatever you can sever off a monster, you will make magical weaponry with. We cut the balls off a lion with a critical hit once.. and sure enough, you can make a potion container that imbues magical properties to liquid poured inside.
Ending the post
There's just not enough time or room to describe everything neat and cool and different about this game. It is the closest I have ever gotten to feeling like playing a true role playing game through a board game. I'm not going to tell you to go out and buy this stupidly expensive game, but if you get a chance to play it, then do so. Prologue is kinda simple, but by year 2, we were all invested in our little community.
Feel free to ask questions, discuss things. I'll check back and answer.
For the start, I want to talk about my gameplay experience with it.
Warning: Do not look this game up at work, almost every image you'll find is NSFW. Think "Heavy Metal Magazine meets Hellrasier". The images I link to in this post are PG-13
Also, warning: early game spoilers.
Also, warning: I write walls of text for fun.
Looking for D&D replacements
I haven't been around the forums as much because of my job for the past couple of years has taken a lot of my time. My D&D group turned into a weekly board game group because we have a pool of 7-8 players but only really seem to get about 4 people at once(the two consistent players being myself and a friend). Still, it has expanded to twice a week we have about 7 people playing all sorts of stuff. In this time, we've had some players get the newest dungeon crawl "D&D replacement" games, and I'll tell you I hated them all. Shadows of Brimstone was abysmal(I like their other games, own 2 of them). Imperial Assault had good characters, but every mission is a dash against time(fuck that). Wrath of Ashardalon was like playing D&D with a group that dislikes all role playing. Conan was innovative and fun and Zombicide:Black Plague was a blast BUT they both suffered with no actual campaign. Characters reset between each game. Me disliking these games is no big surprise: i hate combat with miniatures in my RPG's. I dislike Warhammer and generally most things to do with grids. I even dislike Final Fantasy Tactic's combat... I have played through the game several times for the story, but holy crap I hate positional/miniature combat.
Kingdom Death: Monster is different. So if I had to give a shitty smash together explanation of the game, I'd say its WoW-Boss fights + Choose your own adventure + Civilization(the video game) + MMORPG-crafting/items. It is also the most fun, and loudest board game experience my group has played in the 3 years we've been consistently meeting.
Boss Fights
So what are the fights? Well, they are kind of like an MMORPG's boss fights. 1 group vs 1 monster. Sometimes the monster has adds, generally each monster has some gimmicks and neat phases to go through. This game has no GM/DM to play the monsters. Instead there is an AI deck and a Hit-location deck. The AI deck is what gives the monster its actions, and it is a series of "if - then" statements. Somehow this really does give the monster its own personality even though these cards are randomly chosen. Our 2nd "White Lion" was a scaredy cat. Every time he was hit, it seemed he rushed away. The bravest thing he did was grab a character, drag him across the board, and use his human like hands to pierce the character's ear drums(causing permanent hearing loss). Soon as we caught up, he played cautious and kept his distance. Our first lion was nothing like this, it stood its ground and had AOE attacks that caused all of us to avoid ending our turn near it, seems like a completely different creature. The hit-location deck is like a set of attack outcomes, and every card has several results. Even if you just "attack" every turn, every single attack feels like a whole new action because the locations change things and trigger events. Every single monster has its own set of decks(yes multiple decks per creature) that govern it, so every monster seems different.
Civ Your Own Adventure
Another part of the game is creating your civilization. You build a town, and you decide what goes on there. There are choices in the story events that link together, or mile-stones your progression can unlock. The town is your character. The "survivors" you play during fights will likely die. Some will last a while, many will die in their first couple of fights. Seriously, its not called Kingdom Death for nothing. You're going to die to bad dice rolls, you're going to die to bad adventure choices, and sometimes you'll die because someone else chose poorly. Because of this, there's a "pool" of characters that your group picks from. Each has their own flaws(kind of like Disads from Savage Worlds), their own personality quirks and such that are a result from how they've been played. In the end, its your town that persists through it all, and you level it up like a group character. Want to have a Sparta from hell that focuses on killing monsters at all costs? You can literally train killers from birth. Want to have a caring family oriented town that knows life is hell, but tries to give its children the best life you can? You can do that too. Want to be cannibals and skin citizens to make armor.. well... yea you can be that too. The instruction manual is a big book of story events, so that it is basically an adventure module where you try to survive while solving some world questions.
Item Crack
The world is a flat plane of stone masks. Literally. So the resources are whatever you can kill. When you kill something, you can make a crafting building that specializes in making equipment from that monster. These items are really neat, like neat in the way collecting items in an MMO are, and that last part for your final set of armor? You just need to kill one more thing to make it. You'll beg the group to go kill that thing. You collect bones, hides, eyeballs, whatever you can sever off a monster, you will make magical weaponry with. We cut the balls off a lion with a critical hit once.. and sure enough, you can make a potion container that imbues magical properties to liquid poured inside.
Ending the post
There's just not enough time or room to describe everything neat and cool and different about this game. It is the closest I have ever gotten to feeling like playing a true role playing game through a board game. I'm not going to tell you to go out and buy this stupidly expensive game, but if you get a chance to play it, then do so. Prologue is kinda simple, but by year 2, we were all invested in our little community.
Feel free to ask questions, discuss things. I'll check back and answer.