Went over to my friend Tim’s today, and we played a bunch of Wii U games (he’s now finding it very difficult to resist the allure of Nintendo’s underrated little console, particularly with a new Super Smash Bros. on the horizon) as well as some tabletop stuff, too.

One of the games we gave a shot was something that’s been on my shelf for a while, but which I’ve only had the opportunity to play once: The Legend of Drizzt. Our regular group as a whole has a bit of a mixed opinion on cooperative games and dungeon crawlers, and The Legend of Drizzt is most certainly both of those things, although it does have a few scenarios that are competitive or team-based in nature as well as pure co-op action.

I own quite a few dungeon-crawlers, ranging from Milton Bradley’s original Hero Quest through Games Workshop’s follow-ups Advanced Heroquest [sic] and Warhammer Quest to more modern fare such as Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition and, of course The Legend of Drizzt. Of all of these, Descent appears to have fared the best with the group as a whole, but it’s also one of the most complex affairs thanks to its campaign rules and myriad tokens and pieces. Consequently, it doesn’t hit the table as often as I’d perhaps like, and we’re yet to run a whole campaign through to completion.

The nice thing about The Legend of Drizzt is that its adventures are all standalone affairs that can be run pretty quickly, and which form a coherent narrative if you choose to play through them in order. It does lack campaign rules, sadly, which means each time you start a new quest you’re effectively starting from scratch with your chosen character, but this does mean you potentially have the opportunity to try out all the different characters and combinations of skills rather than being railroaded down a single development path. I’m unsure as to which route is better; while the ongoing increase in power of a lengthy campaign is fun, it’s also essential to have a group with full commitment to seeing it through to completion and, much as I don’t like to admit it, I’m not sure I have that right now. One day, perhaps.

But anyway. The Legend of Drizzt.

Drizzt, as it shall be known for the rest of this post, is one of the Dungeons & Dragons Adventures series of board games. All three of these games are very similar, and, in fact, are fully compatible with one another, so it’s perfectly possible to mix and match elements from all of them to create custom character builds, adventures and scenarios. I only have Drizzt for now, but I’m tempted to pick up at least one of the others at some point, too.

The essence of the Dungeons & Dragons Adventures series is to provide a lightweight dungeon-crawling experience inspired by the 4th Edition rules of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. For those who aren’t well-up on their pen-and-paper role-playing games, D&D 4th Edition was interesting in that it placed a much stronger focus on tactical, board game-style combat than previous incarnations, in which it was perfectly possible to perform abstract combat sequences. (You can do this in D&D 4th Edition, too, but it’s not really designed for it.) It also gave each character a very clear set of things that they could do, known as Powers. These fell into a few different categories: At-Will Powers could be performed every turn without penalty, and tended to be the character’s main attack skills, each of which with its own benefits and drawbacks; Utility and Encounter Powers, meanwhile, could be performed once per “encounter” (essentially a self-contained sequence in the game, often — but not always — a battle) and were a bit more powerful and situational; while Daily Powers represented the character’s most devastating (or helpful) abilities, but which could only be performed once per in-game day (or, more accurately, once per period between “extended rests”).

Drizzt isn’t anywhere near as complex as the main D&D 4th Edition rules, but it pulls some of its main features — most notably the use of Powers. When you start a scenario, you pick a character, and from there you’re given access to at least one deck of cards from which you can pick a certain number of At-Will, Utility and Daily Powers. These will then be the abilities that you will have to use to progress through the scenario — though if you’re lucky enough to level your character up in the middle of a scenario (a situation which isn’t guaranteed) you tend to get access to at least one extra one as a reward.

Since the concept of “encounters” and “days” doesn’t really exist in Drizzt, the Utility and Daily powers are effectively one-shot abilities that you need to think very carefully about when you use. There are a couple of Treasure cards you can score by defeating monsters that allow you to “recharge” these powers, but they are few and far between; you’re best off saving your most powerful Powers for when you really need them.

Interestingly, unlike many other dungeon crawler games, Drizzt doesn’t require an adversary (or “Dungeon Master”) player. Instead, the game makes use of a clever system whereby when you explore a new area, you draw a monster card and then activate any monsters of that type on the board (including the one you just drew and placed) according to specific conditional rules on the card. In essence, the game itself runs the monsters automatically, and the players have to deal with them accordingly. This is somewhat similar to how Warhammer Quest works, though in Drizzt each monster has its own unique rules and special attacks that you’ll come to recognise — and, hopefully, learn how to deal with over time.

I really enjoyed our game of it today, and I hope I get the chance to play it again sometime soon. It’s an enjoyable, lightweight and, perhaps most importantly for our group, quick dungeon-crawler with a lot of flexibility, and I’m looking forward to having the chance to play it a bit more.