2394: The Witcher Adventure Game

Gave The Witcher Adventure Game board game a try today with the assistance of Andie; she wasn’t a huge fan, but it’s not really her kind of game. She stuck it out to the end, though, so I was able to get a good sense of how the whole game works. And I liked the game quite a bit.

The Witcher Adventure Game eschews the “easy” route the game could have taken by not being a reskin of Descent; rather than being a dungeon crawler, it’s presented at a more “macro” level as Geralt the eponymous witcher, Triss the sorceress, Dandelion the bard and Yarpen the, um, dwarf explore the Continent from Novigrad to Rivia, taking on quests, battling monsters and dealing with Foul Fates that infest the regions.

At its core, The Witcher Adventure Game is about resource management. Most quests require that you have a certain combination of “proof” tokens to complete them, and these are acquired by collecting “lead” tokens of the same colour in varying quantities according to which character you are playing. Geralt, for example, being a combat-inclined character, has a much easier job acquiring combat proof tokens, needing only 3 leads to trade in for one, whereas Triss, conversely, is better at acquiring magic, Dandelion at diplomacy, and so forth.

The basic flow of the game, then, goes: get quest, acquire lead tokens, exchange lead tokens for proof tokens, go to quest location, complete quest. Repeat twice more to end the game, at which point whoever has the most victory points wins.

It is, naturally, a bit more complicated than that thanks to the various obstacles that get in your way. Many quests — particularly if you’re playing Geralt — involve combat, though you can still complete the quest even if you don’t “win” the combat. And each main quest card also carries a number of sidequests that are optional, but worth a number of extra points each. There’s also a “support” quest where you can recruit the assistance of one of your opponents; if they accept, they get 6 points in exchange for some of their resources, while you also get 3.

Progression through the game is largely driven by each character’s Development deck of cards. As one of the two actions you can take in a turn, you can draw two of these cards and keep one as an ability that you can then use from that point on when appropriate. In Geralt’s case, his Development cards include potions and Signs, the witchers’ take on magic spells. The early game, it seems, is about acquiring a good spread of these in order to be able to deal with difficult situations you might encounter later on.

The cards are nicely thematic. Not only do many of them have enjoyable flavour text on them, but they work how you might expect if you’ve played the video games. Geralt’s card for the Quen sign, for example — which, in the video games, envelops him in a magical shield for a short period — allows him to exchange dice rolls with the Sign symbol for defensive capabilities. Also, much like the first Witcher video game in particular, Geralt must brew his potions in advance to be able to use them, and must quaff them before starting combat rather than chugging away mid-battle. This makes for some interesting decisions to make, particularly if you know you’re going to be dealing with multiple threats.

The overall way the game mechanics work seems to fit nicely with the themes and feel of The Witcher as a whole, too. As a bard, Dandelion is able to enjoy a steady income of gold coins, for example, while Geralt often wanders around penniless, having to rely on other resources to get by. The Investigation cards you can draw as one of your actions often incorporate characters and groups from the video games and source novels, too; expect to be harassed by Nilfgaardians and manipulated by Dijkstra before the game is over.

After one game, it’s hard to judge the overall difficulty of the game, but the mechanics were certainly pretty straightforward to pick up and apply. The challenge of the game, I feel — particularly with more than two players — will be to determine how best to use your limited actions to maximise the amount of points you’re able to attain, and how to balance powering up your character with actually making progress towards the end of the game and that all-important final score.

I’m keen to give it a go with the full complement of four people; the varying abilities of the four characters look set to make things very interesting indeed, and if nothing else the game creates an enjoyable and engaging emergent narrative as you play through a combination of the choices you make and the flavour text on the cards.

There’s no bonking though, to my knowledge.