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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Via Magica

• Published by Hurrican in 2020
• Beat your fellow magic students in a bingo-esque game and utilize your powers best

This is a great filler level game. It’s a ton of fun to collect materials and use them to open gates. And then try and figure out what games and what elements you want to focus on opening first to get benefits from either immediately or throughout the game. As as well you need to grab points, so it’s a fun balancing act in what you’re doing. This is not going to be for everyone as it’s a light game, but I really like Via Magica for a nice relaxing and fun time.

Buy Via Magica

49. Too Many Bones

• Published by Chip Theory Games in 2017
• Chuck dice and battle enemies as you level up your Gearlocks to faceoff against the final boss

This is a fun short campaign style game. It’s not a big story game, but you get that mechanical feeling of leveling up in Too Many Bones that makes it such a fun time. And each Gearlock is unique and plays differently. I think that is part of what makes the same so special. Each characters want to level up in their own ways. And sometimes you just want better stats. But other times, getting and using your unique dice is going to create for some really fun game moments. The game isn’t a story game, but it can provide it’s own story.

Buy Too Many Bones

48. Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever)

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2018
• Place dice, fill in spots, and gain combos to get your highest score

I’ve already talked about this system two other times. But this is the original one to use the system and it’s my favorite of them. I really like how clean the puzzle is for trying to solve this game and do best at it. And there are enough combos that you can end up with some awesome turns. But the combos don’t slow down the game too much which is one element that I can really appreciate about this design compared to others. Though the flexibility in how you play is a little bit more limited.

Buy That’s Pretty Clever

47. Dungeon Kart

• Published by Brotherwise Games in 2024
• Rev your engine, take off, and mess with your opponents in this fast racing game

Dungeon Kart is obviously trying to be a Mario Kart style game. And I think it does a good job of it. I’ve played other games that offer some of that, but Dungeon Kart I really enjoy. It does a great job balancing catching up, slinging spells at your opponents and just a fun time. You get behind, no biggie, you get more and better spells. You’re in the lead, well, it’s your own fault you are there and you’re going to get blasted, but don’t worry, you can still catch-up again.

Preorder Dungeon Kart

46. Super Mega Lucky Box

• Published by Gamewright in 2021
• Combo your way into a bingo victory

This is the second bingo like game on the list where something is drawn and all players use it. But this one is a flip and write game that is more bingo like than Via Magica and has you filling in a three by three grid. Of course as you fill in rows and columns you get bonuses that can give you more. And the game provides great offsetting of the luck of the slip with powers from lightning bolts. It’s just a really fun, easy to play and fast game.

Buy Super Mega Lucky Box

45. Cartographers

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2019
• Draw your best map as you explore the lands in this flip and write game

The theme is only kind of there, but this is a great roll and write style of game. You flip over terrain and figure out how you want to place it out on your sheet. But beware monsters because your opponents get to decide where that’s going to go and it’s going to be the worst spot for you. Plus the game has fun scoring that rotates throughout the seasons so that one of the scoring elements in spring is going to be scored for winter as well.

Buy Cartographers

44. Res Arcana

• Published by Sand Castle Games in 2019
• Can you get your magical engine up and running faster than your opponents in this race to 10 points

I like how simple Res Arcana is, but how thinky it is as well. You need to really figure out how you want to leverage the cards that you have, or draft, in this game. And drafting really adds some strategy to it as you can try and figure out what your best cards are going to be how you can get them to turn out points. The game has this great build to it until suddenly you can get points and then the game just flies to the finish.

Buy Res Arcana

43. Railroad Ink Challenge

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2021
• Can you connect your routes better than your opponents can?

Another roll and write game, last one in this section. Railroad Ink Challenge is a great game of building out routes of both trains and roads and trying connect as many of them as you can together. Challenge adds in challenges that you can push for to score more points. But beware of leaving too many unconnected pieces, those can lead to your doom as they are negative points.

Buy Railroad Ink Challenge

42. Rebel Princess

• Published by Bezier Games in 2024
• It’s Hearts with Shenanigans, in the best way as you avoid proposals you really don’t want.

That’s really what Rebel Princess is, Hearts with shenanigans. But the shenanigans really do make this game. The princess powers are all game breaking in some way, and you want the ones everyone else have. And then the card that determines the special rule for the hand is great as it messes with everything. So you need to be quick to adjust how you are playing every time, and I think that’s great.

Buy Rebel Princess

41. Rock Hard: 1977

• Published by Devir Games in 2024
• Live your best rockstar life as you go from garage band to playing stadiums in this worker placement game

This game is really about living that 1970’s classic rocker life as you build up your band, gain reputation, write more songs all in hopes of playing on the biggest stage. I love how the worker placement is split up over three different times, day, evening, and after hours. And it’s fun that you need to worry about your job, at least for a little bit, and pay your producer as you become more famous because of course, while they help you, they also hurt you. It’s just very thematic for a worker placement game and a theme that I like a lot.

Buy Rock Hard: 1977

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition for another six weeks. After that expect this to be when I play my small games. Only 5 more weeks left of my Top 100 Games, then likely this will switch to smaller solo games and video games.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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What’s Changed from Early On To End?

Firstly, I don’t think that a ton has changed. I think there are a few elements where I commend what they did also I wish they were a bit better. And I still love the D&D nature of the game. When I sit down, I play Dungeons and Dragons because that’s what Baldur’s Gate 3 is, and they kept it very true to that.

So really, generally, this is my favorite video game that I’ve played. I love some other games that I’ve played, like Borderlands and Dragon Age. Neither of those games, however, give you that big branching feeling in the story that Baldur’s Gate 3 does. I get to sit down, explore where I want to explore, make choices, and feel like there are real things that change in the game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Act III Issues

Now, that isn’t to say that there aren’t issues with the game. And I think most of them crop up towards the end of the game. Not kind of the end of the game hurrah, but the final faceoff against the bad guy, or leading into that. Mainly that some elements of the game aren’t as smooth as they should be. But more so, the story isn’t as smooth as it should be.

By that I don’t mean so much the main plot. I think that there is one element where it really is not that well done. Mainly, it’s a move that doesn’t make that much sense for a character that you’ve interacted with. And I think with the massive branching narrative that they have, there are some choices that get locked in, in ways that you don’t expect, because of a choice made. I’m trying to be vague here, but it’s just enough story, let’s put it that way, that sometimes things happen that don’t make sense.

Does Combat Hold Up?

So this is another little nitpick of the game. Not a major one because I get what they are doing. And I still love the combat in the game. Turn based D&D style combat is what I’m there for. So it’s not really a nitpick with the combat, it’s a nitpick with the level cap. I locked into level 12 pretty quick in the game.

And I get that there is power creep and enemy scaling that would need to be done. But I missed leveling up every now and again. Even if they push it out and slow down the level from 12 to 15 so that you barely can make it to 15 by the end, it’d be fun to hit a level up more often.

I understand that there’d be a need to scale the enemies in different ways. Basically, you need them to put out more damage or have more health depending on where people are at. And the more you are a completionist, the more you need that in place. I am not a 100% player, but I find a lot and I easily was at level 12 before most of the big boss fights in the game. That made some of them fairly easy still. So the game could use enemy scaling and for me a higher level cap.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – The Story

Again, I want to avoid spoilers as much as I can. So this is going to be more general than everything. But I love the story in the game. I think that even with the hiccup of a couple of things either getting locked in or having an extreme result, it’s a great story. And you feel like your character gets to progress throughout everything that they are doing. That is a great element for an open world RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3.

I want more games like this. But I have been watching Neil Newbon’s stream of the game, he voices Astarion and he talks about how long it took to get this game out the door. And that is not without some of the issues that I mentioned. I understand why there aren’t many games like this, it is so much work. But also, I want more like Baldur’s Gate 3 in terms of options for your character, branching narrative, choices mattering.

Let me know what you think of Baldur’s Gate 3. How many playthroughs have you done (my wife is on her fourth)? And what games maybe give some of the same feel as Baldur’s Gate 3?

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Campaign Game Expectations

Branching Narrative

Let’s start out with story. I want a good narrative and I want a branching narrative in a game. Now, this doesn’t mean I need 10 different endings. Though I appreciate what Tainted Grail does, giving a lot of different end game moments. But I’m fine with just a story that gives me choices in what I do. The illusion of branching narrative.

What I mean by the illusion is that I can make a choice and that’ll change how something goes. It might make a few scenarios different. But the main story beats, I’m going to end up there no matter what. So do the decisions I make matter? Yes, for how the story is shaped and told to me, but where I’m going to end up not really. But there needs to be real, meaningful feeling decisions.

Tainted Grail does a good job of this, Stars of Akarios, you end up on a planet and can choose to go many ways. Gloomhaven, the story is much more linear throughout. In a few spots, it does branch but only changes stuff in a minor way. Sword and Sorcery, about once per box would you have a decision to make. Clearly there are other stuff that determine how much I like a game than just story. But now, I expect more from story because companies are doing more.

Storage Solution

I didn’t put these in any order, but this might be number one. I want a campaign game to come with a storage solution. And not just any storage solution. Sleeping Gods gives you baggies to save your game. That is not a storage solution that I’m talking about. Though, it’s better than not having the baggies.

What I am talking about is something that makes it easier to play and faster to the table. Gloomhaven I had to buy an insert for that. Sword and Sorcery it doesn’t have that at all. But Tainted Grail allows you to save characters and locations in an okay system. But when I look at good, I look at my Gloomhaven insert or Stars of Akarios.

I want to be able to pull out a whole tray of tokens and that that on the table. I don’t need to worry about getting them to the right spot or within reach. There is just a tray for that, and for the cards. And, ideally, you can have all your character stuff in a single spot. Make it easy as possible on me to get it back to the table. Yes, it is still a big game, but you can make it easier.

Scaling – Player Count and Difficulty

This one might not be the most obvious, but at times some games require you to play with four characters. Sleeping Gods you play with 9 characters plus the Captain, I believe. Now, you activate as the whole crew, but for a lot of people that is a lot. I always saw it just as a turn and knowing my abilities. But I totally get why it would be a lot.

And it isn’t just how many characters you control, it is how many monsters you control and how hard they are. Gloomhaven is a great example of this. The fewer players that you have, the fewer monsters there are on the board. But if a scenario is too easy or too hard, you can lower or raise the difficulty. That is great.

Now, sometimes games do need or expect four characters. So some games handle that in different ways. Oathsworn they are allies who activate on a simpler system in combat. That way you only need to think about a character or two. For Middara, they kind of slot in with another character. So think of lending health or stuff like that. Bad guys don’t change, but your heroes get stronger with fewer.

Interesting Mechanics

Interesting is a relative term. I think I mean that I want a mechanic that feels different or feels unique to the game. Stars of Akarios gave me unique tactical space dog fights. Gloomhaven has the dual use cards with the top and bottom. Tainted Grail leans into the exploration and survival, but also has the chaining combat system. Each of those feels different.

What I don’t really want is to only grab a handful of dice with an ability card and roll to see if I activate it. Now, something like Oathsworn has an element of that, you just grab dice and roll them. But it offers more than that, the card play and the battle flow system are unique. And the grabbing of dice is a push your luck element.

I hope it doesn’t come across that I don’t like rolling dice, rolling a handful of dice is satisfying. But if that is your mechanic, or main mechanic, that is old at this point. Sword and Sorcery, for example, mainly has your activating a card which tells you what dice to roll, and you can take actions to add dice. It’s why over time Sword and Sorcery has slipped so much for me.

Good Character Progression

Finally, I want good character progression. And this is also in two ways. Kind of like the scaling can be done in two ways. But I want good character progression where I get to know more about the character. This isn’t a must, but it is appreciated. Awaken Realms often has this as an add-on to their games. Echoes of the Past is that for Tainted Grail. You complete objectives, you get to read story about the horrible past your character has had.

It doesn’t need to be as blatantly obvious as that. But also in Tainted Grail, you find certain things that only a given character can do. Generally there are other ways to do them, but it’s easier for that character. And you find out more details about that characters past that way, or story, and it feels good to have something unique for that character.

But I also want to level up my characters fairly often. And leveling up can slow down as time goes on. But within the first few sessions I should get something new. I want to feel like my character is doing better and is stronger in the game. Generally this is more mechanical. For Gloomhaven, it’s less XP to level up early levels. For Tainted Grail, it’s chapters early on giving you things you’d normally spend XP for.

Final Thoughts

Now, this list probably isn’t everything that I want. Personally, I would love voice narration and app assistance for most any game. This goes back to the ease of play I talk about with an insert. That makes it easier to play and get to the table. But not flipping through a book also makes it easier and simpler to play.

So I want that for more games, but I don’t know that it is needed for every game. At least narration so I don’t have to read large swathes of text. But it’s also important that it’s done well. Don’t just have the designer of the game, or a random friend, read it, it needs to be well done. And same with the app, the app needs to be well designed as well, because a bad app can hurt ease of play if not careful.

What, to you are the important things to get you interested in a campaign game? What is often the biggest barrier for you to getting a campaign game to the table?

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So let’s talk about the different options that I am considering. I think that there are a few interesting ways that you can improve or change as a game goes on.

Possible Campaign Elements

Character Progression

The first one is character progression. I think that is fairly important if you have characters in your game. I don’t find it a major knock against Paper Dungeons because it’s so loosely a campaign. But you start with your heroes as level one in every game and level them up as you go.

For my idea, I want to have a separate character sheet, much like in an RPG, that you level up your stats. You get bonuses based off of how many bubbles you fill in, in a row. And you fill in a certain number, always, at the end of the a scenario.

If this is a competitive game, the person who wins gets a bonus. But if it is cooperative, there might be a bonus if you do the best in a scenario, like first pick of gear. For cooperative, though, you’d not see as much character development and splitting off.

Skill Tree

Building off of that character progression, skill progression is a great way to cause differences to happen. But the idea of a tree is that you can split off what you are doing. If you are a Gunslinger class, or something like that, you might unlock your first ability at level 1, but then at level two, you have three options. The one that you pick will limit what you can do further down.

Now, while I like this idea, it really causes things to become different and gives progression, I am worried that it’d make the game a bit more complex. I think a lot of the abilities would just need to be things that bump up health or statistics.

Items and Gear

Items and Gear would likely be one time use things, or maybe something like a pack mule to eventually being able to get up to a wagon. Something that can carry more items. Maybe skills are going to be more abilities that’d be used in every game since you are unlocked.

So things like health potions (or alcohol), magic scrolls, dynamite, things that you’d use once. Or maybe some gear like “armor” whatever that might look like. Basically wearable items or weapons. I don’t think I would ever add in ammo because I don’t want to track that type of thing. Plus I like giving more things versus losing things in a campaign game.

Story Progression

Finally, story is going to be an important element to the game. Right now that is what makes Paper Dungeons a campaign game. A tiny bit of story that you read in between games. And while I do enjoy that, I wish there was more. Or more so, I wish the story felt like it mattered a bit more.

I can pull out any card, read the story and play, and it doesn’t matter. I’d love to add in more story to the game. Maybe even give it some choices. Like, make a decision and that unlocks certain items, gives a stats bump, or maybe causes you to lose some money. But all based off of choices that players make. I even, at least once, maybe twice, would want to change up what the players interact with on a map because of a decision that they make.

That makes it feel more like a fun experience to me. The decisions that we make, for example, in Roll Player Adventures or Tainted Grail, change up what can happen in the game later. And that is very cool to have as part of the experience. It takes it from being told a story to character story.

How Much Should Their Be?

That is the question that I’m asking myself, because with enough campaign elements and campaign progression elements, the game can get large. Part of the fun of a roll and write, even Paper Dungeons which has a lot to look at on the sheet, is that it is a sheet.

I want there to be enough decisions that it makes the game feel cool. On the flip side, I don’t want there to be so many decisions that it makes the game hard to play. Looking, again, at Paper Dungeons, now that I’ve played it a few times, I know what to do every time I come back to it. I looked up one rule last time, but I mainly know what I need to do.

A campaign is going to be bigger. It is going to offer more challenges of remembering how to play. But with a nice little sheet of what to do on the turn, or even printing on the sheet the round actions, I hope to make it simple enough that it’s a fast refresher. Which means, things like skills, those are a bit harder to implement, potentially. But that comes down to being clever with how I design the game and work with that idea.

What campaign element would you want most?

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What Are Adventure Games?

Adventure games are going to be story driven games where you make choices, explore, and maybe even fight monsters. Both Sleeping Gods and Tainted Grail are adventure games in a fantasy setting. But adventure games don’t need to be fantasy. I game I backed on Gamefound, ISS Vanguard, is going to be an adventure game with an emerging story, exploration, and combat, but that is set in space.

In this case, both adventure games are campaign driven. Technically Sleeping Gods isn’t a campaign, but a game takes 10-20 hours on average to play. It is unlikely that anyone will play it all in one sitting. And if you do, that probably means that things went poorly for you. Tainted Grail is a more traditional campaign game where it is split into chapters. But there are adventure games, like Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl that are one off games that would fall into that category, or another game from Red Raven Games, Near and Far can be played like that as well.

Let’s Meet the Adventure Games Contenders

Sleeping Gods

In Sleeping Gods you are the crew of the Manticore, a ship taken to another world. You were brought here to search for a way to awaken the sleeping gods. To do that, you must find totems. But in a new land, you don’t know where anything is. So that means you explore around, talk to the people of the land, and find clues and quests that might lead you to totems. Some of the inhabitants are peaceful though, so you will need to fight.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail is a grim dark retelling of Arthurian legends, where Arthur took the knights of the round table and his people to the land of Avalon. A land that is almost between two worlds or is being held there. However, Arthur is long dead. And things are falling apart. You need to try and hold back the the wyrdness which is threatening to take over the lands again. But do you know enough to be able to do that? And will the people of the lands listen to you?

Compare and Constrast

Story Books

Both of the games use story books as a way of conveying what is happening. When you explore you flip to a certain spot and read the text. In Sleeping Gods, you might be made to go down a path if you do or don’t have a keyword on a card. In Tainted Grail, your path might be set if you are in a certain chapter or do or don’t have a status yet. Both are very similar, but Tainted Grail comes with an app. You do not need to use the app, but if you do, it narrates everything for you.

Combat

Combat is very different between the two. In Sleeping Gods, you play out the monsters in front of you and then activate your crew. The monsters are adjacent to each other. Since they are, that allows you to hit multiple ones at the same time. You do that by picking a crew member to activate and then flipping a card to see if they hit their target.

Tainted Grail, on the other hand, that one is all about card play for combat. You only face off against one opponent at a time. And this isn’t always a combat encounter, sometimes it can be a diplomacy encounter. Then you try and string cards together to defeat the combatant or to resolve the diplomacy.

In both cases, if the combatant is still alive, they will retaliate. Generally that is damage, but it can be a few different things. In Sleeping Gods, the combatants also have an end of round ability for once all the crew have activated. Tainted Grail, it just activates between every characters action.

Story Progression

Let’s talk about story progression before we get into character progression. In the case of Sleeping Gods, the story is just one giant thing. But really it is a lot of little things. There is no break point in your story where the goals change. You never stop to reset to anything new. You just keep going. The closest thing is when you run out of event cards and it gives you something to read.

Tainted Grail, on the flip side, has chapters. You play through one massive story, but the story is split into fifteen different chapters. So as you progress, you goals might change. You start trying to light the Menhir, statues that drive back the wyrdness, and by the end, well, let’s just say that it changes up a lot.

Character Progression

Both games also give you ways to level up your characters in the way of experience to spend. In Tainted Grail, each character gains their experience separately. In Sleeping Gods it is one big pool. Which makes sense because you are playing as the crew.

Another big difference is that Tainted Grail has you leveling up stats and adding cards once you reach a point. Sleeping Gods is basically just giving a character a new ability for leveling up. Don’t get me wrong, the abilities are good, but it is less stat focused than Tainted Grail. So it is less granular in how you can level characters up.

Skill Checks

Finally, we have skill checks. Both of them use them. In Tainted Grail it is rolling a die and then adding in whatever ability you might have. With Sleeping Gods, it is flipping a fate card and adding that to whomever you brought into the skill check. Both of them are similar with about the same level of randomness.

Head to Head Adventure Games Battle

Since I did a board game battle a little bit differently this time, let’s do some comparisons and see if/which any have an advantage in any of the areas that I highlighted. Plus a few more of theme, mechanics, and ease of play.

Story Books

These are very similar. Extremely similar in fact, but right now Tainted Grail will get the nod because of the fact it has an app. Now, I don’t mind reading and reading out loud the story for the stream. I might be doing that even if it was on an app. But for game play and immersion I think that app gives.

Combat

For combat, the advantage definitely goes to Tainted Grail. Both I find interesting, and both I like better than straight die rolling. But I feel like I can be cleverer when playing Tainted Grail. A downside to that, though is that it often takes longer to get through combat. Sleeping Gods, you just pick who you want to attack and go with it.

Story Progression

This one is tougher because both of them progress so differently. Whereas Tainted Grail has a more directed story in what you are doing, how Ryan Laukat and his wife managed to create an open world story is impressive. The whole game of Sleeping Gods feels like it has an arc just from the little direction. For me, I think this one is a draw.

Character Progression

This one is also interesting, but I do have a clear winner. For me, I prefer the Tainted Grail character progression. The more free form character progression with XP spending and level-up cards, it works for Sleeping Gods. Mainly because you play as the whole team not one character. But Tainted Grail really allows you to customize your character over time. I could take a great combat character and make them great a diplomacy by the end if I wanted to.

Skill Checks

This one, like I said, they are similar, but I prefer Sleeping Gods version. Is flipping a card that less random than rolling a die, no, not really But it feels like more control. And I can bring in characters to help and make it more likely to succeed. But doing so is a cost something. And the more you do it, the more it can cost. Versus the simpler version that is Tainted Grail where the additional numbers are basically always on.

Theme

This isn’t going to be that exciting. It is a tie. I love both of the themes a lot. I don’t always want to play in a dark fantasy world, but sometimes I do. So either of them works really well for me. And I think that the theme, because of the heavy story elements, really is there in the game.

Mechanics

This one is trickier. I think that Sleeping Gods mechanics are easier, but I prefer Tainted Grail‘s mechanics. For both fo the games the most mechanically heavy part of the game is the combat. And I prefer Tainted Grail’s combat. In terms of the rest of how the game works, it’s really close. Both of them are very easy to do. Tainted Grail, overall gives you more flexibility in what you can do. You want to explore, move, explore, move, explore some day, you can. For Sleeping Gods, that’s two and a half rounds.

Ease of Play

Another close one, but I do have one that I prefer. I think that Sleeping Gods is a bit easier to play. Both of these are big table hog games. They take time to set-up, they take time to tear down. But with Sleeping Gods there is less to track between sessions of the game. And the storage system is really nice for saving what there characters have. Granted, that’s just a ziplock bag, but since the characters have less it is nice.

The Winner?

I think that I prefer Tainted Grail but I also have more time in the land of Avalon than in the world of Sleeping Gods. Mechanically it offers more interesting to choices, but I really do like both. And I think I’d play both solo, but I’d play them with different groups of people. My campaign group would enjoy both. But I’d play Sleeping Gods with my wife because Tainted Grail might be a bit too much to track. Sleeping Gods is that little bit simpler but still big and epic adventure game.

Have you played both, which do you prefer? If you haven’t, does one interest you more than the other? Let me know in the comments below.

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What is a Campaign Game

Before we get into what I look for, let’s talk about what a campaign game even is. I use that term a lot and you can see that I have legacy games as campaign games as well. But a campaign game, in the board game hobby, is a game that takes you through a progression from game to game. This could be a narrative focused progression, it could be a character leveling progression, or a mechanics progression. But the idea being that as you play through all of the games, when you are have completed the progression you have experienced the full game.

So you can see that there is some flexibility in how those games work. I even have legacy games because while something like Aeon’s End Legacy and Pandemic Legacy have story, others like Charterstone are still story elements but the story doesn’t progress the campaign of the game. that is the mechanics.

What Do I Look For in a Campaign Game?

This is a pretty big question as to what I look for. Because there are a lot of different things but there are things that you can look for and that I do look for.

1. Story
2. Character progression/leveling
3. Interesting Combat Mechanics
4. Depth of Play
5. Ease of Play

Story

This is always going to be the first thing I look at. Not because the story has to be perfect, but if it looks bad, I’m out. Story matters a lot that it interests me. And that it gives me some choices. A great example of this is Tainted Grail. That game is all about the story, and not only that, there is a lot of story that can be pushed through. We have pieces and choices in the story that we’ll never see because of what we’ve already done. And while some of them, Gloomhaven, for example, have less branching story, there is enough to be engaging.

Character Progression

The next thing that I want is character progression. How do I level up my character in particular. In Gloomhaven, adding in a card each level was really interesting. It gave me a choice as to how I could hand build and create the style of character that I wanted to play. It also limited how much I could change that. Early abilities didn’t ever go away, sometimes, but it was a balance as you’d switch cards out. On the flip side, while Sword & Sorcery unlocked interesting things, a lot of the time the starting powers or cards you took were the same ones you used, so the progression wasn’t as interesting

Interesting Combat

This is one that I’ve realized matters a lot to me. I don’t just want to roll dice. Again going to Sword & Sorcery, you had a select few abilities and you’d just be chucking dice mainly. The decision space was limited. I liked Gloomhaven’s combat better because you not only were managing your use of cards. Basically something that makes more of a choice as you take actions or pull stuff back. This can also fall into action selection or things like that, the game needs to have a bit of a tactical and interesting mechanical feel to it for me generally.

Depth of Play

Next we have depth of play, and I’ll say that Ease of Play being the next one, this might be a bit confusing. The idea here is again, like the interesting combat, I want to have interesting choices to make. Whether it’s how I go about combat, make choices in the story, whatever it might be, I want interesting choices and interactions to happen. I want to have options that create interesting and unique combos or moments in the game that you need to think about. Not complexity for complexities sake, but moments of cleverness.

Ease of Play

On the flip side, I want the basics of the game to be fairly easy to understand. I think when you get down to it, Gloomhaven isn’t that bad. Most of the things you do are play down two cards do the top of one and the bottom of the other. So while these games are generally going to have a lot of set-up, the basics of what is being done in Gloomhaven is quite straight forward. Now, these games are still more complex to play than most, but I don’t think as horrible as most people think looking at the size of the box. It’s more that it takes time to get to the table and pack back up.

How Many Does It Have To Hit?

What I mean by this is do I need a campaign game to have 3 of these 5 for me to get it, or 5 of 5? There is of course going to be no magical number. But I do prioritize some of the others, the story is definitely the one that I care about most. Again, I don’t need an amazing story, though with the standard provided by Tainted Grail, I’m definitely going to judge games more.

I’d say almost the order I put them in matters the most. I’d maybe move combat up slightly above character progression, but character progression, depth of play, and interesting combat often are all tied together. Basically, for those, I want more decision space than just rolling dice.

Let’s Do An Example

So let’s look at the most recent campaign game that I’ve back, Chronicles of Drunagor. This game I’ve obviously talked about a lot and I compared it against Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread not long ago, you can find that here. But let’s hit on all five of those different areas:

Story

The game seems like it has a fairly generic story. The heroes are trying to drive back the darkness or at least figure out what is causing it. This seems like a story on the same level that Gloomhaven has. Not that exciting but not that bad.

Character Progression

Characters level up between each scenario, I think that there are something like 17 different scenarios. That’s exactly what I want. I want interesting and consistent character progression. It sounds like sometimes you can skills, sometimes you get weapons, but you’re leveling up a lot.

Interesting Combat

This is probably the area where it’ll be the most interesting to talk about. You have your basic movement each turn. But then you are activating abilities. To do that you place a cube of a matching color onto an ability. When you’ve done that and are out of cubes, you need to pull them back. When you pull back cubes you get cursed and you cover up one of those spots to place a cube. So there seems like some interesting challenges in how the combat and abilities will work.

Depth of Play

See above, no really, see above. But beyond that there are some interesting things. There is a book where you get to make choices based off of images that you’ve seen. I also think that it’s interesting to see how the door system works. When you come to a door, it gives you more story an tells you how to set-up what’s going forward. Not sure that it’s the deepest game play outside of those cubes, but that is the cool focus of the game.

Ease of Play

This might be the biggest area of concern for the game. But I do think that the ease of what you do with the cube combat and then rolling a die, that isn’t difficult. The things like setting up the terrain, pausing mid scenario to open and door and do all of that stuff. The house keeping of the darkness as it spreads, all of that’s going to be a lot of work.

I am hoping that overall with game that it’s easy enough to get into. I don’t love the idea of stopping in the middle but that cube combat/action system is just very intriguing. And I know that one of the complaints people had originally was that the story was a bit too linear. It sounds like with this second crowdfunding that changing up the story to make it less linear and the new stuff will offer more choices as well. Overall, it definitely hits on what I want in a game.

Will This Work For You?

That’s a great question, different gamers will like different things. But I do think that it’s a good framework as to what to look for. Now, you might have a dedicated gaming space where you can leave a big campaign game set-up all the time. I don’t, if I did, I’d probably be less worried about the ease of play piece and the set-up that is within that.

But know your type of gaming. Sword & Sorcery, which I’ve harped on a little bit for things I don’t like, is a good game. It is just a bit simpler. And for some gaming groups, especially getting into dungeon crawlers and campaign games, it’ll be an amazing fit. It’s knowing what will work well for you as a gamer but also for the group you’re playing with.

What is your favorite campaign game?

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Firstly, let me say that I won’t be talking about Legacy of Dragonholt. Legacy of Dragonholt is a simplified and good RPG that is meant for families, I’d say, and keeps everything very basic and simple.

Key Elements of an RPG

When thinking about what elements are taken over from RPG’s to board games, you need to ask what elements the board games are going to try and emulate. There’s a lot of things that they try to, but not all of them work as well and not all of theme are key.

Character Creation

Not one that’s used in a ton of board games, but it’s a core part to RPG’s. Most players I know of have about ten to fifteen different ideas floating around in their head. And that’s great, some board games try and add in elements like this. How does this work for board games, and does it work well? I think a lot of board games kind of half do this, and mainly focus on the next thing I’m going to talk about. When I say half do this, I mean they give you some characters out of the box to work on with maybe limited customization to start with. Gloomhaven, for example, you get your class, and you get cards with 1 on them and that’s your starting set of cards, but you can technically change things up a little bit, because you can swap in X cards, and you can buy gear, so you’d be slightly different than other characters. From what I’ve seen, Folklore: The Affliction maybe does more, but I need to delve into it. Sword & Sorcery also kind of does it with the abilities that you can take at the start.

So does this work well, I think it works okay, a lot of games kind of do it because it’s a lot of work to actually implement, and more board games play with tighter rule sets than RPG’s do.

Character Progression

This is what most board games try and emulate and might be one of the better things that they do emulate. By character progression, I don’t mean narrative growth, I mean leveling up. Who doesn’t like getting a new skill, more health, better stats overall, that’s one of the fun parts of Dungeons and Dragons for me.And there are a lot of board games that do this very well, something like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth has you progressing your deck and swapping out cards, Gloomhaven has you getting access to new cards and getting more hit points, Sword and Sorcery it’s new skills, weapons and more that you can get. Even stuff like Pandemic Legacy which borrows a few RPG elements lightly gives you an option for character progression.

I think this works extremely well in campaign games. In fact, that’s a knock I have on SeaFall and Charterstone as Legacy games is that I didn’t feel like my character continued to progress over time. Once I’d progressed to a certain point, I could optimize how I’d progressed but not progress further really. But then there are games like Tainted Grail which uses a lot of RPG elements and it’s great for their progression, and even a more limited progression like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth has interesting progression.

Story

A huge thing about RPG’s is obviously the story that the Dungeon Master and the players are weaving together. This is an area that I think some board games are better at emulating than others. The issue with story often is that the story doesn’t feel as immersive as an RPG. A good example of this would be Near and Far, it has interesting story in it, but it’s more about the worker placement style mechanics and leveling up your team to get victory points. Most of the time I just want more story and a more cohesive story, because they don’t expect the story to be read in any particular order. That was the issue and a big issue with SeaFall, there was no specific order for the story, so it felt like it started and stopped telling the story at different times. Then, however, there are other games, like Gloomhaven or Tainted Grail that tell a good immersive story, and while the mechanics might get ahead of the story at times, I don’t feel like it breaks my immersion. Now, all of those games I mentioned use some other RPG elements, but some games, like Mansions of Madness just has the story element of RPG’s that it adds in, and it works well there.

This element is interesting, because sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn’t. I think it can be a key component and should be the main focus for board games that want to be RPG like board games. I also think that it’s an area that games often oversell themselves on. I like TIME Stories a lot and it calls itself an RPG, it’s one of my favorites thus far, but I don’t get the story RPG feel.

Wrapping Up

Now, I’m a huge fan of RPG elements in board games. It can give a really immersive experience in a lot of different ways. For me, story is definitely king. I want a game with a great story that draws me into what is going on and gives me an experience w hen I play it. However, without solid mechanics to back it up, a game with a great story might as well just be the story. And character progression and even character creation really can give a game a great RPG feel when the story is good but not great.

One game that I’m extremely excited about is the new Roll Player Adventures that’s coming out this year. It builds upon a game, Roll Player, where you are literally just rolling up a character in a D&D manner and makes it into a board game RPG experience. I think it should work really well and the fact you can roll up characters in Roll Player and bring them into Roll Player Adventures is awesome.

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