One of the games I am looking forward to playing this coming year is Dragonfire by Catalyst Game Labs, an adaptation of 5th Edition to a deck-building tabletop cooperative boardgame format...without a board. Similar in concept to Paizo's Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Dragonfire supports two or more players who each choose an "adventurer" to play. Players assemble a personalized deck of card abilities with specialties in Martial, Deception, Devotion and Arcane. The group then collectively attempts to complete an adventure through cooperative play. If the group finishes the quest/adventure, everyone wins. This is hack-n-slash adventuring with no need for a referee, but no real opportunity for "role-play" either. Defeat the encounter, grab the treasure, and if you collectively survive the adventure, gain experience and level up.
David Megarry took the original concept of the dungeon crawl and converted it into the boardgame Dungeon! almost simultaneously alongside Dave Arneson developing his first campaign, Blackmoor. Mr. Megarry's game was probably the first to take the new gaming concept in a slightly different direction, but his would not be the last. Many games using many formats including electronics have grabbed the basic idea of fantasy adventure and re-imagined it. Dungeon! was first published by TSR in 1975 and remains in print in a new updated edition by Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast.
As an official licensed 5th Edition product, Dragonfire draws directly upon its source for artwork, themes, copyrighted terms and names. This, like in the Pathfinder game, makes it feel like there is a close connection to the parent product. I like Dragonfire better, however for a couple reasons. Dragonfire handles the assist element of play better in that it feels more like a party of characters who can assist each other by cooperatively attacking monsters, distracting the monster or weakening it with a spell. Locations are fewer in Dragonfire, but mean more to the group members who can only really aid others in the same location. The cards seem more relevant to the action on the table as well. All the card driven RPG games I have played rely heavily on abstraction and the burden is on the players to take liberties with the printed "color" on the cards and imagine how it might make sense interpreting the play of the cards as a loose suggestion.
There are a number of games that I am looking forward to playing in the coming year. Board games include Gloomhaven (Cephalofair Games) and Sword & Sorcery (Ares Games), new fantasy adventure games with a strong role-playing element. In addition to continuing to enjoy many of my old favorite RPGs, some new titles I wish to add among "games played" category include the new Dungeon Fantasy: GURPS and Conan: Adventures in a World Undreamed Of, both are on my short list of role-playing games to play this year. I have been reading Adventures Dark and Deep, Joseph Block's re-imagining of the Advanced Game with an eye to how Gary might have written a second edition had he not left TSR and would like to give it a try as referee. A member of our regular group has caught the bug for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and I am looking forward to playing even more of it in the coming year. A new edition of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea arrived at my door just before the holidays and I look forward to playing some of that. Zweihander and 7th Sea also look like role-playing games I will enjoy. And to wrap-up my "resolutions for the new year" I will mention that I look forward to the publication of RuneQuest Glorantha promised later this year by Chaosium.
The revolution in gaming that Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and friends ushered in with publication of the Original Game continues to spawn fun game products today, many quite removed in play-style from the pen & paper game introduced in the Little Brown Books. I am moved by the Dedication in Dragonfire's rulebook and repeat it here: "To Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for starting it all. Almost forty-five years later, and there is still so much room for new games and joy around the table in the magic they concocted."
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