How To Play Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures is a game that comes in basically two parts, but we’ll get to those in a second. What you need to know is it is a massive story driven adventure game where you explore pieces of story, fight monsters and complete challenges. You do this by making storybook choices, and then playing a dice manipulation game.

Let’s start by talking about the storybook phase. A lot of what you do in the game is move around to different locations. When you reach one then you read some story element. Often times it’ll give you someone to interact with or choices of other things you can do. It’ll send you to another part of the story and then you make more decision or often go into the next part of the game.

The other part of the game is dice manipulation puzzles. This comes in the form of either combat or a skill check. To do this, you use the stats of your characters to build up a die pool, spending stamina basically in those areas to get dice of the needed colors. Then you roll all the dice in your pool and manipulate them so you can cover up the spots. But you are limited in how you can manipulate by the cards you have. And the fact that each person can only play one card.

Eventually you either die in a combat, or you make it to the end of the scenario. Then you reset and start another scenario.

What Doesn’t Work?

There’s not too much that I’d complain about with the game. My one, and this will depend on your group, but I found that it is pretty easy at 4 players. The game seems like it likely would balance best at three players. At four and if you are smart, you get a lot of things that you can use in that dice manipulation puzzle. So there’s rarely a case where we can’t deal with a skill challenge or even a combat in one round. And we rarely get close to dying even if we don’t rest for a while.

This is going to show up in a positive as well, but I think that the Nefras’s Judgement expansion is pretty important for the game. I know it’s Roll Player not Role Player, but the expansion really does help add in some role playing as you think about what your character would do. Do you need it for the game, no. I do think that it makes it better though, and it’s a lot to add, as in spendy, worth it, and I understand why not in the main box, but it adds a lot to the game.

What Works?

Dice Puzzle

Let’s talk about the dice manipulation to start. I like it as a puzzle. Like I said, I do think at 4 players it is a bit easy at times, and most of the time. But I do like the puzzle. And very rarely is it a puzzle that we solve immediately. So from that side of things it works well. I like sitting there figuring it out, talking through what everyone has that can work and eventually coming up with a solution. The fact we can do that is fun and it gives you a sense of accomplishment.

Characters

I also enjoy the different characters. Just basic out of the box they are fun. And getting the character backstory is Nefras’s Judgement, I think adds even that much more. You get to learn about your character and make decisions around that. Yes, you can import characters you play in regular Roll Player, but they wouldn’t have the backstory. So I don’t know that I’d do that.

And besides the backstory, I like building out my characters stats. I think it adds into the fun of the game. In our group I focused on charisma and wisdom, a lot because of backstory, but I’m great at those and have no strength. It makes for an interesting character. We’ve balanced our party with what people go for, everyone having their area of strength. It makes it feel like we can contribute in interesting spots.

Story

Now, I know I said that story is pretty subjective, and I think more than any part of the game it is. I enjoy the story of Roll Player Adventures. Without getting into the details too much, it’s a fun multiverse romp of a game. But not in the way that you’d expect it to have worked. And the writing is good, I don’t think it’s great, but it’s good.

I would put the writing in Roll Player Adventures on par with Gloomhaven, you just get a lot more choices. It is not on the level of Tainted Grail. Actually the closest I’d put it to is probably Stars of Akarios. Mainly because it’s fun but it’s not always the greatest writing.

One thing that I really like about the story is that you get titles. Instead of a checklist of things that you mark off, you get a card with a title. And if you have that title you get some extra story and flavor at the end. Which of course is warning about things that might happen in future games because of choices that you made. I think it’s a good way to do it if you don’t just want to have a checklist.

Who Is It For?

This one is hard to say, I think. For our group, it’s some people who were interested in a bigger campaign and myself who had played several before. So I ran with it, learning the rules, etc. Do I think a group of new players could jump into this campaign game? Better than a lot of campaign games. I don’t think Roll Player Adventures is that hard to learn. But it’s a massive box and is intimidating that way.

So I think that this is a good game for those people who want to dive into a first campaign game. They play other games, so they know how to learn rules, but they want to learn something bigger. It’ll be intimidating but I think that it’s very worth it for the game.

Roll Player Adventures Final Thoughts

I like this game quite well. Though, for so many campaign games it is about that experience of playing that game that really drives it. So if you don’t want a campaign game, you probably won’t get that much out of this review.

I do feel like my negative should pull it down further for me than it does. It being too easy is a negative, I don’t want to die, but I want to feel like I might. And in a combat, sometimes it feels like we can’t get it all done that we want to, and that’s good. But rarely with my health do I ever feel like I’m too damaged to continue. Or maybe that the scenarios could end in a good or bad way. The tricky part with that is that Roll Player Adventures is not built to branch that way. The titles are really how you get that branching story.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B-
Casual Grade: B

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Top 10 Board Game Expansions

10. Tainted Grail: Echoes of the Past

This one is lower on the list because it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but not needed. In fact, it can make the game a fair amount easier at times because you get more powers. But getting those powers can be hard, because dying is not ideal or being near death. Still, it adds in good story and background for the characters. And you feel like as your character you are chasing something slightly different than the other characters.

9. Tokyo Highway: Cars and Buildings

Tokyo Highway is a pretty dexterity game where you are building out roads going over and under other highways and trying to get your cars played out and not knock anything down. The Cars and Buildings expansion just adds more cars and more buildings that you can use, and different shaped cars. I basically always play with those. And the buildings, why not throw all of them in there and make the Tokyo area as crazy as you can.

8. Welcome To… Maps

This one is a catch all, not the last on the list. But the map packs and season rules for Welcome To… are a lot of fun. They definitely add some interesting twists on the game. But they don’t really make the game harder to play. It’s just a new thing to think about but generally one that is simple. The ice cream, you want to go up in numbers to collect the ice cream on the road. The Easter one, you want to be able to circle the eggs on the houses with numbers like 6, 8, 9, or 0. So something more to think about, but not too much.

7. Small World: Be Not Afraid…

There are a number of Small World expansions, some of them like the modular map, not needed. But ones that are like Be Not Afraid… are good because they just add in more races/classes and powers. It just means that you get more variety in what you are playing and a lot of the time that is what I want in a game. Do you need to know what the new races and powers do? Yes. Is there only one sheet when there should be more? Yes. But it’s easy enough to mix in.

6. Roll Player Adventures: Nefras’s Judgement

At this point we’re getting close to what I’d consider to be a needed expansion. This does a lot of the things that Echoes of the Past does for Tainted Grail. But it gives you a few more fun choices of your own with that. With Tainted Grail, it’s about completing goals. Here, you just go places, you get story and you get to make choices that affect the alignment of your character. I like those extra choices you get to make in the game.

5. Marvel Expansions

This is a cheat one, it’s a catch all for Marvel Champions and Marvel United. All of th ese expansions are great. They either give you more characters to play as or more villains to face off against. Hard to go wrong with that. Even the campaign expansions for Marvel Champions, it’s mainly just more heroes and villains. You can take any hero through the campaign, and you can play those villains outside of the campaign.

4. Clank! In! Space! Apocalypse

Apocalypse takes a game that can be hard, if you push your luck too hard, and can make it harder. Normally there are black cubes you pull for Lord Eradikus from the bag and they do nothing. Now they are filling up a board that can power him up, potentially. And you can spend to remove them but that’s at a cost to doing what you want to on a turn, which is a fun balance for the game. Clank! In! Space! is great without the expansions, but this one adds in so little it’s easy to just drop in that one new mechanic.

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow’s Walk

This starts a run of ones that just add in more, it’s an expansion that adds in more content to the game but not more complexity. Widow’s Walk is just more haunts that can happen, more omens and items and things that you mix into existing decks of cards or tiles. Are the haunts balanced any better, not really, but it’s more and as a game that I’ve played a lot, I don’t mind having more.

2. Deception: Undercover Allies

This one mainly just adds in more to the box, but the new roles are fun as well. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong might not need it, as there is a lot of stuff in it, but it’s easy to integrate and makes for just more content to have mixed in. And as I said, the new roles are fun as well. One that I really recommend because of how easy it is to mix in.

1. PitchCar Extensions

I think that these are almost needed, at least one, or maybe two. Do you need all of them like I have, probably not. Do you need to get more like I want to? Definitely not. But is it a blast to have all of them. More just means you have more tracks you can build and bigger tracks that you can build. A lot of the time that’s just the fun that you can, to have a big track that you can play in an evening. So more is great for PitchCar.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of just solid expansions or expansions that I don’t use that often. I liked Forgotten Circles well enough, but it was too fiddly for me to put on the list. Even though Gloomhaven is my favorite game. Or there are other ones, The Fountain of Youth for The Lost Expedition that I’d shuffle in sometimes. Same with for example Potion Explosions expansions. Some just don’t fit in the box and others might but if they are in the box, it makes it harder to play.

There’s even a situation, with Roll Player where my copy hasn’t hit the table. I have the expansions, I have everything in baggies, but I need to get an insert to make it work to be played. It’s just too much else in there otherwise.

I did skip too expansions that tended to just be another campaign for something. Sea & Sand for Destinies, just another game. The Signature Series cases for Detective, really it’s own game that you barely need the base for, if you do at all. They are kind of in a unique category. I love the stories for the Tainted Grail expansion games, but it’s basically a new game.

What expansion do you love in your collection?

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All Systems Go

Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons

A new D&D book, Fizban’s is all about dragons. I buy it mainly to get the stat blocks so that I can run even more dragons. But the books generally have solid lore in them as well. And while my Dungeons and Dragons isn’t run in a setting of the game most of the time, knowledge of the lore helps me build out my own worlds for my games.

Marvel Champions – Valkyrie

I believe that she was the most recent one to come out. So, really, no shock that I bought the next small expansion. Thankfully my wallet gets a bit of a reprieve while waiting for Sinister Motives to come out, though that might be coming out soon.

Battlestar Galactica

Yup, this is the grail game that I found, BSG. Now, I own Unfathomable and I probably don’t need to own both. But BSG, I love the theme, even though I thought the new show was just okay. And I know a lot of people who like to play it. Granted, a number of them own it with the expansions, but that’s okay. It’s one that I want to own just because it’s not going to become easier to find. And I will play it once in a while.

Crowdfunding

Astro Knights

Astro Knights, which I wrote about here, is the successor to Aeon’s End. Or a streamlined Aeon’s End, or Aeon’s End in space at least. I didn’t originally plan to back this one on Kickstarter, but the price point is very good. Will it be cheaper in retail, possibly? But I suspect the price with the expansion ends up being the same. And Indie Boards & Cards while not making many things Kickstarter exclusive, does do a few things.

Wine Management

And then there is Wine Management. Wine Management is a print and play roll and write game. And I wouldn’t normally look at them. But I like roll and write games. And printing off some sheets and then laminating them. I backed a D&D related thing, so when I saw this come up, I thought I would give it a try. If I find the game dull or too complex, or whatever, I didn’t spend much on it.

GameNerdz

Sleeping Gods: Dungeons

I would already own this, and I want the other expansion which is more maps, but it’s been hard to find. I don’t know what the Dungeons add, I am assuming just more locations or more story that you can delve into. Maybe more story that is strung together more closely than a lot of what you find the world. But if I can add it in mid game, I will when it shows up.

Thunderworks Games

Roll Player Adventures: Nefras’s Judgement

It’s an expansion to Roll Player Adventures which I want to start playing soon. Nefras’s Judgement adds in more story to the game. 300+ pages of character backstory, backstory boards, trackers, and some new discovery cards.

From what I can tell if it’s going to just add more depth to the characters. When you pick a character, now you get some different backstory quests and story woven around them. I don’t know that it is needed, but I do think it’ll add to the fun of the game.

CoolStuffInc

Atlantis Rising: 2nd Edition

Atlantis Rising is a game that I have wanted for a while. Zee Garcia from the Dice Tower really likes the game. And as a cooperative game fan, I think it looks very cool. Plus the mechanics just make the game seem unique to me. In particular, you can go out to the end of one of the peninsulas of Atlantis, and you’ll do something awesome, unless it sinks. So there is a cool push your luck element to the game. I’m excited to play this one when it comes in.

Set a Watch: Swords and The Coin

And then a solo game, though, technically 1-4. Generally I know about Set a Watch from the solo community. In this game, you are adventurers who go around deal with monsters, but one adventurer is always tending the fire, keeping it lit and keeping a watch. So there are a number of things to keep track of. It’s a solo game so very much interested me to track it down.

Which Is Most Exciting?

I think I’m most excited to get in Nefras’s Judgement. Like I said, I don’t believe that this needed for the game. I do think that it’ll add in some more fun depth for the characters. And it’ll help give characters motivations when playing Roll Player Adventures. Like I’ve said before, when I played, I was a slightly evil sorcerer, so I can add in motivations myself. But having some built in for a character and built into the story and the game, that is going to be fun. I look at Nefras’s Judgement like the Echoes of the Past for Tainted Grail. Is it needed, no, but does it add in something cool, most certainly.

Which would you play first?

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