Current MSRP Increases

So let’s lay out a little bit of context. A number of board game companies are pushing up the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) because the price of creating a board game has gone up. Right now, there is lots of talk about how shipping costs are blowing up. And that definitely is the case which is delaying how fast things can ship but also when they do ship that cost can be moved onto the consumer.

But for board games that’s not the only cost increase to worry about. There has also been an increase in the cost of wood. If you’ve done a house project the past two years you’ll know that. So that means that wooden tokens and cardboard have all gone up in price. While they might all lower again over time, the MSRP increase is likely here to stay.

So Too Expensive To Succeed?

Now, this is not really the question I started with, but I think it’s the question that a lot of people will start thinking about. And I think it’s a question that a lot of gamers in the hobby are thinking about. Let’s take a look at a few games: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, and Descent: Legends of the Dark. All of these games, before or after shipping are sitting at $175+ which is a lot of money. These, however, are not all games.

Tom Vasel on The Dice Tower gets sales numbers from GameNerdz, I believe it is now, every month to show that games, for them are selling the most. And the ones that sell a lot are generally cheaper games. The game My City was on the list for the month of July and that’s a $30 game. So, no, not all board games are getting too expensive. But the cost of board games in general, might be rising because of shipping and material costs.

But Are They Too Expensive?

To me, this is a hobby board gamer problem, the increasing price of games. The average person who likes board games but isn’t into the hobby doesn’t go to Kickstarter. They won’t see Descent: Legends of the Dark in Target. For them, the price of board games might be high, but it’s not an issue. Ticket to Ride, Catan, Smallworld, Carcassone, all of those games are still a reasonable price. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, still a normal price and that game just came out.

So it isn’t the modern classics that are only a good price. But for gamers who are more on the hobby, the price of board games does seem to be going up. Or more so, there are more good looking big games. For example, this year I have backed Marvel United: X-Men, Chronicles of Drunagor, Zombicide: Undead or Alive, and Primal, all of which had a price tag of over $100. And I bout Descent: Journeys in The Dark.

But Money

And this is what it comes down to. As board gamers we like our new games. There is this fascination with the “cult of the new” in board games. And I think in society as a whole, the new and the shiny are what people care about. Most of the complaints about board game prices really come down to the fact that we can’t afford every cool looking game.

When the original Zombicide came out with a big price tag for everything on Kickstarter, it was a surprise. But it wasn’t as hard a sell. Why, because there wasn’t a new $150+ game each week on Kickstarter. That price tag was a once in a blue moon level. When Kingdom Death Monster was on Kickstarter for $700 for an all in (or something near that), it was a ton of money, but again, not a game like that every week.

But not just that there weren’t big price tag games each week, there weren’t good games every week. Kickstarter was still getting started into what it is today. Now, every week whether it’s a $150 game or a $20 roll and write, there is a game, at least, every week that looks interesting. Most weeks it’s two or three games. Even in the not peak times of right before Christmas, there are still big games out there.

So What Are We Seeing?

What we’re seeing is a hobby booming and growing. It used to be a very niche hobby. Now it’s still a niche hobby but it’s growing in leaps and bounds. I am trying to remember what the Dice Tower had on their news but the money in the hobby grows by about 10% each year, and I think last year, in a pandemic, it was closer to 20%.

This is exciting, but what that means is that there are more games coming to the market. Now, that means that there are more bad games. But on the flip side, it also means more good games and a lot more good games. I think that people forget, very quickly, about the good games and how few were coming out before. We were spoiled because there were ten great games that would come up a year around 2010, and we could buy them all. Now it’s 100 and they cost from $15 to $200 and we can’t afford them all.

So what we’re seeing is the hobby growing and booming and that is what we should want to see. It means that 10 years from now, we aren’t going to see no more board games, there are always going to be more to play.

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The Games

So let’s dive into both of the games a little bit. This might actually come across a bit as my Board Game Battles, because, well, they are battling for my money as to which one I’ll back.

Chronicles of Drunagor

This game is on it’s second crowdfunding over on Gamefound. It previously was on Kickstarter and has met with a lot of love from those playing it. It is an epic dark dungeon crawl game. You fight monsters, race against the darkness and bust down doors. That then gives you more story and adventure that you fight through.

You level up your character as you go and unlock new skills. Chronicles of Drunagor has an interesting action system where you are playing out cubes to activate different things. When you pull them back, you are placing out a black cube which blocks off an action from you. So you need to figure out that puzzle to maximize your actions and then pull back blocking what you won’t need.

Chronicles of Drunagor is really going to be the pure dungeon crawler of the two. And I like that about it because while I do have a number of dungeon crawlers, I haven’t gotten something that is purely that recently.

Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, on the other hand, is going to have more that adventure feel to it. Yes, there is still tactical combat with monsters on a map, but it’s trying to be more of an RPG than Chronicles of Drunagor is. It really is going to have you going across the lands and finding quests, fighting monsters, and more.

You do get to level up your characters, and while these characters are more generic, some of how they work is more unique. The miniatures actually don’t come with a head on them, instead you get to pick the one to put on which gives the player more control over there. And I really like the inventory system. You are placing tiles onto a character board. Those spots are then the different spots monsters can attack.

This also has a very interesting exploration system. You see a lot of it at the world view level as you travel around. But then you can delve deeper into specific locations. And in those locations you can then delve into buildings as well. So it gets down to the point where you are dealing with people and have conversations but also backs way out from that.

The Price Point

So let’s compare the price point and what you get at each price point. Chronicles of Drunagor, for just the base game is going to be $115 plus shipping of $40. So that comes in around $155 for just the base game content which is a lot, more details to come, and compared to Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, that is $165 with $20 for shipping. So Chronicles of Drunagor is cheaper for the base game by $30.

But that’s clearly not all that’s in determining the value of a game. In fact, that’s going to be a topic that I talk about on Monday on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When looking at the two, Chronicles of Drunagor definitely has the edge in terms of minis. Arydia isn’t so much a minis focused game. The value there comes from other things. You get a ton of tiles to explore, and just tiles in general.

I would give the edge, however, to Chronicles of Drunagor. Especially since Chronicles of Drunagor is proven to have good resale value, but on the flip side, Chronicles of Drunagor also has way more that you can add onto it. While I say it’s around $155, that’s just for the base game, you could easily push that up to $300+. Assuming now addons, the max for Arydia is going to be $210.

What Draws Me To Them?

I don’t think it should be a surprise, but I love campaign games. Both of these games offer me that. What do I love about campaign games, I like the character progression, I like to figure out that puzzle of how to make my character better and tailor them to my style of play.

I really do think that both of them give a lot of opportunity for that. The question is which one does it better for me. Let’s look at a number of categories to see which one might be better for me.

• Theme
• Mechanics
• Characters
• Character Leveling
• Equipment
• Ease of Play
• Value
• Play Group

Theme

This seems like it should be a tie because they are both fantasy, but they are different types of fantasy. Chronicles of Drunagor is more of a grim dark fantasy setting versus Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread is more of an epic fantasy looking game. I like both types of fantasy but sometimes grim dark turns me off of a game. If the game looks like it’s grim dark for the sake of being edgy, I will call that out. However, I don’t think that Chronicles of Drunagor looks like that. It looks to me like the story is crafted to be grim dark for the sake of the story, not for the sake of being edgy.

Winner: Chronicles of Drunagor

Mechanics

This is going to be another really close one. I think I like the combat mechanics better in Chronicles of Drunagor. The puzzle aspect of how you use skills seems really interesting to me. I like the idea of losing some as you go along, it is actually a bunch like Gloomhaven that way where you’d lose cards as you rested. Here, when you pull stuff back you lose an ability for more of the crawl, or until you rest in a certain way.

On the flip side, while I think that puzzle is more interesting, I think that the exploring, while interesting in Chronicles of Drunagor is cooler in Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. I like going from a tile to a grid map and then even into buildings. That has more of an RPG feel to it, which is another big difference. Arydia is much more of an RPG, and I love a good story element.

Winner: Slightest of Edges to Chronicles of Drunagor

Characters

The characters, while Arydia gives you more character diversity so you can pick what you want to look like more so, Chronicles of Drunagor seems to give you more diversity in the types (classes) of character you want to play. So I really, of course, like both of these again. But the ability to swap heads on minis in Arydia just so cool and something I haven’t seen before at all.

Winner: Slightest of Edges to Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

Character Leveling

I’m going to stop saying that it’s close because honestly, I wouldn’t be thinking about it so hard if it wasn’t close. But both of these have cool character progression. You unlock more skills and abilities. But I think what will sway me on this is that Chronicles of Drunagor again has that puzzle aspect to it. Now, that said, I feel like I also have a better grasp on Chronicles of Drunagor’s leveling as compared to Arydia. And it does seem like with Arydia there is a lot that you can do to customize your character as well.

Winner: Chronicles of Drunagor

Equipment

This is one that isn’t close. Arydia, I think has the better equipment. Not because it is cooler, though I’m not super familiar with the Chronicles of Drunagor equipment, but because it’s used in multiple ways. Firstly, it is fun to draw it out of a treasure chest to see what you get. But also you are attacked towards certain pieces/areas of the body. So your gloves matter for defense on your hands. And that is not something I’ve really seen before. It makes equipment choices even more tactical as you play.

Winner: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

Ease of Play

A hard one to pick, not because they are close to being easy to get out to play. Both of these games look like they have a ton of stuff. I don’t think that either of them would be easy to set-up. Also, neither of theme seems like it’ll just be set-up at the start. I won’t know what locations I’m going to delve deeper into for Arydia. And I don’t know what’s behind the doors in Chronicles of Drunagor. That is something that you need to know about both games. Honestly, I don’t think there is a winner here.

Winner: Draw

Value

We’ve talked about value above with the price point. But it’s tough because Chronicles of Drunagor can get really expensive really fast. And value means more than that, which has more value in me getting it played? Do I have a larger group for one game or another one?

Price point wise for what I want from Chronicles of Drunagor, the base game and stretch goal box, plus the expansion, it’d cost more than Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. And I really think that both are going to hold their value very well. Chronicles of Drunagor because there are a lot of people who are looking for it, and Arydia because there will be and it’s a known designer of Xia: Legeds of the Drift.

Winner: Chronicles of Drunagor (barely)

Play Group

Another close one, I have my campaign group and another person or two I could play a campaign with. My main campaign group I doubt I’d get to it for a while. We are doing Tainted Grail, we want to try Apocrypha, and we have Frosthaven coming. So there is no shortage of campaign games, plus I have Middara and more. Both of them, like I said in ease of play are going to be a lot for a lot of gamers. It has a ton going on. I think I might be more apt to get Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread to the table because it feel closer to an RPG.

Winner: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

So Which Will I Back?

Honestly, it’s really close. Looking at all the different categories I gave, Chronicles of Drunagor barely wins at 4-3 with one draw in there. I thin that I’m leaning towards Chronicles of Drunagor, even though it is slightly more expensive. It sounds like they are adding in more branching and developing story compared to what it originally had. If they weren’t doing that, I think that Arydia might have a better chance. For my style of gaming, I just think that the puzzle of Chronicles of Drunagor is more interesting. I have one day to decide though when Chronicles of Drunagor will have wrapped up.

Which would you back?

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