Descent 2nd edition is one of my favorite games. I also never get to play it. The reason for that is pretty straight forward: I have no one to play with. Yes, my wife is a good spirited gamer when asked, and she certainly enjoys plenty of games, but Descent has never been her bag. Mainly because of two factors–she doesn’t like that you can’t kill the heroes, and because someone has to be the overlord. Normally that person is me.
But earlier this year Fantasy Flight made this ponderous move, where they released a co-op variant of Descent that is much more akin to a random dungeon generator. Here’s the link to check it out
Now, this sounds EXACTLY like what I’d like to play. I enjoy the Pathfinder card game, but as an avid miniatures enthusiast who has meticulously painted up my Descent base set, I’d like to quest in a more 3D environment. The problem? Fantasy Flight has made this available only to retailers, to support “Organized Play”. To me, this seems like the most ass-backwards way they could have released this.
If you are already going to meet up with people to play, why do you need a Co-op variant to entice? You almost certainly will have enough people to play the game as it was originally designed. It’s the husband/wife or Father/son home enthusiasts who don’t have the time or interest to go play Descent with strangers at a game store who would benefit most from a Co-op variant.
But I can’t buy it, and it’s retailing on ebay for a ridiculous amount of money.
Come one Fantasy Flight, take a 5 second break from cranking out X-Wing miniatures and make a legit co-op variant available to your regular customers. Do it.