I’m intrigued by Tanares RPG 5E because I am an adventure board gamer and I personally see Tanares RPG as the most advanced rule adventure board game. This is of course with one major assumption that is the solo play mode in Tanares RPG works so well that once I learn the 5E rule, all else would feel as an adventure board game. Will the Tanares RPG hold up to my assumption? Let’s take a closer look.
Introduction
In this second part of the series, I have decided to compare “board game factors” amongst Arena: the Contest, Tanares Adventures expansion, and Tanares RPG. This may sound one-sided game from the start because Arena and Tanares Adventures expansion are officially labeled board games while Tanares RPG isn’t.
However, this is probably one of the most important comparison element for me because I am not looking for tabletop RPG game instead I am looking for the most versatile adventure board game.
So what is the definition of an adventure board game?
According to the Wikipedia,
“An adventure board game is a board game in which a player plays as a unique individual character that improves through gameplay.[1] This improvement is commonly reflected in terms of increasing character attributes, but also in receiving new abilities or equipment.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_board_game
Now just reading above, I think we can still say Tabletop RPG perfect fit the definition, but we don’t typically see it as adventure board game. Why?
In my personal opinion, I feel tabletop adventure board game get their vibe from the following seven elements:
Now let’s compare each of the seven elements. Because we are comparing traditional board game to Tabletop RPG, it is safe to view Arena and Tanares Adventures as a gold standard here.
As for the reference, I am listing star based scoring for each category at the end of each element discussion.
In this rating system, I assume two stars mean meeting the general standard. So in the current context of assessing board game factor, two stars mean the most player sees the particular element as common practice amongst the other board games. One star means its playable as board game, but suboptimal. Three stars mean it is one of the best form or representation of the given element in the context of board game. Spoiler here is there is no piece fails to meet the minimum standard.
Battlefield
Arena: the Contest has a paradigmatic battle grid system. The 16 x 22 battlefield will be made into a scenario specific battlefield by placing various types of terrains.
In Arena: the Contest, there are four types of terrains besides the walls. Lava/spikes are terrains that incite damages to those who enters them. Ruins/Swamp are tiles that slows movement. Altar is a terrain that gives attack advantage to the combatant who is on the tile. Portals allow teleportation of combatant from one portal to the another.
With this system, players can create their own unique battlefield for custom one-shot quest. In PvP mode, each players can take a turn and start to place these terrain elements in their liking. This makes the field creation as part of the game strategy.
This battlefield system will be expanded by Tanares Adventures expansion where they will be adding more types of terrains.
However, the true evolution of the battle grid system in Tanares Adventures comes from board and room tiles. These tiles will add surprise/random element to the board.
In particular, board tiles can be an extension of the main battle grid. These tiles will for sure give players dungeon-crawler feel.
Before I started to research about the 5th edition (5E) rule, I was under the wrong assumption about the Tabletop RPG like Dungeons & Dragons. I thought these games do not use battlefield and the combat were rather an abstract than structured.
It turned out Tabletop RPG 5th edition rule (5E) supports grid based game play as a “variant” mode. The “variant’ almost sounds like an “optional”, but the battle field system in 5E rule is not a half-baked system. In fact, I’d say grid system in Arena must have an origin in 5E whether direct or through other preceding board games.
For example, one of the encounter from the Tanares RPG sample PDF has an encounter specific mechanics associated with the battlefield.
In this encounter, a few shots of flame arrows randomly hit targets on the field. The target can be field objects either dry shrub or wagon in addition to a player character.
If the flame arrow hit dry shrub for the first time, it starts the fire and subsequent hit on the same dry shrub will continue to increase the fire to adjacent squares. Any creature enter or starts its turn in the fire square will take certain damage.
This is mechanically analogous to dynamically growing/moving Lava tile on Arena: the Contest.
Although it is a common practice for tabletop RPG, there is one drawback on Tanares RPG when viewed as a board game in regarding to its grid system. At the time of this writing, Tanares RPG grids is planned to be only provided in a form of PDF. This means we as players must print battle grid each time.
I am taking one star off from Tanares RPG here because this is not only inconvenient but I believe printed and taped battlefield quality will not match that of miniatures. I believe aesthetic in adventure board game is important factor for better game immersion.
Now having said this, I see there are several posts on the Kickstarter comment section requesting pre-printed battle field and Dragori Games has replied to some with what’s sounding like a potential possibility of add-on.
Minitures
Although tokens or perhaps even just a piece of scratch paper may be sufficient to represent your character and enemies from the game mechanics stand point of view, many players prefer miniatures. Miniatures are not just cosmetic, but rather seen as one of main part of adventure board games. They provide premium feel and higher amount of game immersion.
All miniatures are compatible across the three games. The difference here is though when you are purchasing board games, miniatures come as part of the game package while you need to buy separately for Tanares RPG.
Arena: the Contest core box alone will have 32 miniatures representing all included heroes and four generic types of villains. If you buy Legendary box expansion, you will get 16 more unique heroes and 70 more miniatures. Dragon Collection box will add five huge size dragon miniatures.
Tanares Adventure expansion will have at least 66 miniatures. Since this number is still continuing to increase with current Tanares RPG campaign, it is hard to say exactly how many you will receive at the time of item delivery.
One thing we know for certainty is that many if not all of newly introduced miniatures will have a use in Tanares Adventures.
For example, four original classes in Tanares RPG will have their representation as a miniatures in the classes pack. If you purchase the pack, you will get corresponding hero pads and attack cards that can be used in Arena: the Contest and Tanares Adventures. Villain pack contains many miniatures that are actual representation of Arena: the Contest overlords, which are like mini-bosses.
For Tanares RPG, miniatures are treated as an entirely optional. If you are to pledge for the essential kit for Tanares RPG, it costs $129. It comes with one classes miniature pack for free, which contains only 4 minis.
This is not Dragori Games fault though. Tabletop RPG can be played without a grid system and hence without any miniature. So there are for sure players who would rather not to pay for miniatures.
So I personally think Dragori Games had done well here by actually creating many, so called extra or optional miniatures for this RPG base campaign.
As a board gamer, for the full experience you might be interested in getting all miniatures. If you buy all miniature packs that are introduced in Tanares RPG campaign, you will have 46 total miniatures even without stretch goals. This number is growing with continued unlocking of stretch goals. We already know there will be 18 more added, which makes total 64 at the time of this writing.
The main reasons why I am taking a star away here on Tanares RPG are two folds. One is adding miniatures on RPG costs disproportionally more than board game counter parts. Specifically, we are looking at $120 addition for new miniatures introduced on Tanares RPG campaign while $99 Tanares Adventures expansion comes with similar number of miniatures plus a whole board game contents.
Furthermore, there is only vague confirmation if other miniatures from Arena: the Contest and Tanares Adventures have direct corresponding appearance/use in Tanares RPG. This is different from the other way around. Again, most if not all Tanares RPG introduced miniatures have been confirmed to have some specific use in the Arena: the Contest and/or Tanares Adventures.
Character/Hero
We have already looked at character or hero in each of the game and how they differ on the part I of the series. The core pieces here are:
- Will you feel uniqueness to your character?
- Will you feel progression of your character?
In Arena: the Contest, all heroes come with their own hero pad.
All four stats are related to the combat game play: Hit Points, Basic Attack, Defense and Movement. Additionally, each hero has a passive power based on their combat role. In fact, all of these are identical or standardized for given combat role.
As the character levels up, you will keep the information in the section of “quest log.”
Instead of quest log, one can use level up and attained special and primary attack cards to keep track even off game i.e. when saving the progress by simply putting these cards as a deck along with the hero pad.
Tanares Adventures expansion will continue to use Hero pad but in the campaign mode, there will be evolved version of hero development system by the introducing skill tree system.
Furthermore, since the last write up, Dragori Games has announced that in Tanares Adventures there will be another level of hero customization. Previously, shared amongst all heroes from the same combat role, the passive power will now can be customizable to each hero with introduction of dedicated cards for passive powers (ref).
With these changes, I surmise evolved version of quest log may be more valuable or perhaps make it required.
In Tanares RPG, your player character is represented by character sheets rather than a card or pad. This is due to the sheer amount of data you will have for your character.
All four stats equivalent from the Arena have corresponding section, which are hit point, armor check, speed, and hit dice. However, additionally there are ability, skill and saving throw stats and much more.
Although all three games receive full three stars from the board game component perspective, Tanares RPG undoubtedly is a head and shoulder above the other two games when looking at the amount of detail each character has on the table, but that is not what we are comparing here.
Enemy
In Arena: the Contest, boss will come with boss pad just like heroes do.
However, the regular enemies are just plain text in the quest book.
I see this as a suboptimal board game factor for the Arena: the Contest. Rather than having these represented in a card and placed on the table, I need to keep the quest book open and often need to flip pages back and forth to look different enemy stats and the quest detail. Some enemies, called overlords in the game are mini-boss and they have specific perks, called overlord perk. This was only addressed on the earlier/introductory section of the quest book, so either you write down and have it handy, memorize or keep flipping books. Furthermore, these enemies lacked associated art for better immersion.
Part of this has been fixed with Arena: the Contest version 1.5. Overlord perk part now get dedicated look up card. It simply confirms suboptimal initial design in this regard.
In fact, Tanares Adventures expansion will be fixing this whole issue. With the expansion, villains/monsters will have their own pads on the table.
When it comes to enemy, Tanares RPG monsters have great amount of details including stats and abilities.
In fact, these monsters have so much details that I would not have expected in a typical adventure board games, but this is to be discussed or rated in some other time. Today, we are looking this as if it is represented as a good board game component.
Normally, game master will have access to a book containing these detail as if monsters are game master’s controlling character. However, in game master less mode, if players were to look up the book for enemy stats each encounter like in Arena: the Contest, the game immersion factor will suffer. In fact, the amount of page flipping be more in the Tanares RPG than the Arena; therefore, it would be even more problematic.
However, Kudos to the Dragori Games because there will be dedicated enemy cards for each monster. In fact, Dragori Games has recently announced
Overall, Arena: the Contest loses one star here due to lack of card nor art representation for regular monsters, but I felt this still fell within the board game standard. It is just a cheaper/cost effective side of implementation.
While both Tanares Adventures and RPG gets exceeding the standard, 3 stars in the enemy category. I am truly impressed with the amount of monster information I see in Tanares RPG.
Items & Equipments
Equipments and items are required part of the adventure board game. Equipment gives customization of your character and feel of character growth. Items, often quest loots give the feel of the achievement and times serves main objective of the quest.
Arena: the Contest have both elements represented in the card format. I consider card format is generally the best way to represent these components in a board game. This is because these items frequently have associated original effect that player need to refer back to them each time when they are used.
In Arena, items are called “flasks” and these are dropped during combat of the game whenever a monster is killed. The flasks are only usable during the given encounter they were obtained. Only one artifact can be equipped by a given hero at a time in Arena.
There are also “magic items” called scrolls in the Arena. Scrolls are one time use and you will not be able to obtain the same one again during the campaign. So keeping track of these information, you will again use Quest log.
Tanares adventures will expand on the system with heroes will be able to equip both weapons and armor and carry a potion with over 100 to choose from (ref).
In 5E basic rule book, equipments will be tracked in your character sheets.
As a Tabletop RPG naive, my first impression about this character sheet system is an art of its own and each player develops their own style to keep track of all the necessary information on the sheet, ideally in the elegant, well organized fashion.
Weapon
For example, rapier has finesse property and 1d8 piercing damage. As a player, we will keep these information on the character sheet’s attacks and spellcastingÍ section.
Some weapons have special effect. For example, “twin handaxes of the 33 souls” will give +1 bonus to the hatchets after killing 33 humanoid enemies as its special effect.
This information is best suited to be place in the special section in short form like “+1 hatchets when 33 humanoid kill”. Given this is two-weapon fighting equipment, bonus section will have “two-weapon fighting.”
Armor
Penumbral armor is a type of a scale mail armor. In 5E basic rule book, scale mail provide armor class 14 plus dexterity modifier. In addition to this basic equipment effect, penumbral armor provides additional +1 armor class in a specific environmental condition.
I had initially thought to calculate total armor class and simply write the final AC number down on the main character sheet section.
On the equipment page, I was planning to just write down the equipment name and its special effect.
However, I read online that one of a player would typically write down the armor class along with the armor of its origin. The reason here is clear. When we change the armor or perhaps when a character levels up and its dexterity modifier changes, I need to recalculate the total armor class again.
In these circumstances, if these numbers were explicitly written on next to the armor, I can just adjust the change without recalculating everything. This is just an example of how keeping these information on the character sheet is viewed as an art of its own.
Items
In Tanares RPG, character sheet again has a section to keep items you own/carry.
These items unsurprisingly have great amount of detail. So writing all down in the small section including the detail/effect of items may be a bit too much. Instead one may put item name and page number from the guide where the item is defined as a style of approach.
However, it sounds like we may be in a better luck here. According to the Dragori Games, items will come in the form of cards with solo play expansion.
If we look at Tanares RPG as a legacy game, keeping all progression in the character sheet makes sense and within the territory of board game. Though considering amount and type of data tracking, one may have some learning to do here to be efficient and organized.
Dice
Dice is a common element in the board game to provide game play variance. Luck element sometimes can be a source of debate due to user preference but in an adventure board game, it is one of main game mechanics responsible for the epic moment like the game changing critical hit by your character or a miss swing by your enemy allowed you to surviving right at the one last health point.
Arena: the Contest uses a single d20 dice roll to determine whether combat attack is hit or not. The rule is fairly simple here. If you rolled a number higher or equal to the target defense value, it is a hit and attack specified damage and associated effect will incur.
As someone value tactics and strategy over luck myself, I was surprised how well Arena system worked. It certainly had moments I could swear due to my hero attack miss and resulted in a whole so I think perfect plan ended up changing. However, this exact system is what gave me the “epic moments” in the game. It also created uncertainty element during each attack and that made me emotional moments every attack when the game start to become closer.
In Arena, the dice system is not used beyond combat. At the time of this writing, there is also no indication dice will be utilized outside of the combat in Tanares adventure expansion either.
In the 5E rule, dice system forms its heart; therefore, Tanares RPG will be heavily utilizing dice.
For example, combat attack will require two rolls. First is d20 roll to determine if the attack is hit or miss. If it is determined to be a hit, you roll another dice for a damage amount. This double layer attack system creates varying degree of damage based on the weapon type, but also each turn be treated differently even with a same weapon. For instance, dagger weapon attack damage will use d4 roll while Rapier will use d8.
There are also other rolls during combat like rolling dice for potentially resisting opponent’s spell effect.
In fact, you will even be rolling dice outside of combat in Tanares RPG to determine if the certain event succeeds or fail. Now more rolling does not mean more luck factor. As in Arena or Tanares Adventures, most dice rolls if not all in the Tanares RPG can be modified. In another word, the luck is controllable. So I am certain you won’t be feeling pure luck made your win/loss but instead the luck element is used to create game variance such that every event and turns have unpredictable, game moments.
Therefore, I believe Tanares RPG gets full board game factor here.
Complexity
The last piece is not a direct component of the board game but rather most subjective and abstract factor. It is a complexity or simplicity of the board game.
Many players seek adventure board game for tens and perhaps hundreds of hours of game play. With this, one seek for non-repetitive play to keep the players’ interest. This naturally result in balancing between the core game rule versatility and complexity. The more versatile game rule means the developer has more game design space to work with; hence, there are more options for developer to make unique feeling gameplay for each encounter. The simple analogy is reversi where there is only black or white piece while pieces have different movement in the chess. The more versatile the game design is the more complex the rule becomes.
There will be a point where adding complexity gives minimal to no additional versatility benefit. Roughly, I see three games are related as Arena being simplest rule amongst the three while providing enough versatility to keep the game still fun and exciting. However, if someone asks me can the same amount of excitement and unique encounter feel last beyond 10 quests? I must say unlikely. The game rule is simple but it may hit design space limit when trying to create more unique feel to each encounter and heroes.
This is where Tanares Adventures come in play. The rule will become more complex by the introduction of skill tree, power cube system, dedicated passive cards and room/board tiles. However, the added complexity will create more design space for Dragori Games to play around for creating what they claim as 100 unique quests.
Amongst the three, Tanares RPG goes to the extreme of complexity. 5E rule has much more detail in every aspects of the game rule. This makes the game to be the most versatile by design. However, the amount of complexity is for sure be more than anything we have ever seen as a board gamer.
The question becomes, is it too complicated? Is the amount of versatility worth the complexity of the game design? One thing we have to assume here is their solo playable campaign is long enough. If we only have a handful of events/encounters that lasts total of 20 hours or under, we may well be spending more time to learn about the rule than actually playing the game itself. So we have to assume the game have at least as much and hopefully more hours than the Tanares Adventures expansion, which is pretty high threshold to beat as Dragori Games rate the game play to be 100-200 hours.
Besides the sheer amount of play time, the presentation of the game plays a key. If Dragori Games could introduce 5E basic rule to new players in a proper step wise approach by means of tutorial quests, new players may be able to see each encounter having interesting unique mechanics rather than feeling of learning complex rule at once.
On the contrary, if Dragori Games assume that all players are familiar with 5E rule before starting Tanares RPG, many board gamers will be turned away due to previously never seen amount of steep learning curve.
So which way is Dragori Games going?
At the time of this writing, I believe Dragori Games certainly recognize there will be players who are new to 5E. One illustration of this is their creation of Simplified class.
On the other hand, Dragori Games suggests to download and read free 5E basic rule guide and even addressing a possibly of purchase D&D player’s guide for character creation. Now this could be simply from the fact there is no reason to duplicating already extensive well written official guide.
However, the other element that keeping me come back and wonder is the fact the whole campaign starts from level 3. Although this sound fairly common practice of in 5E world, this seems to assume players joining Tanares RPG are already familiar with 5E system.
Personally, I had hoped Dragori Games created optional level 1 and 2 mini campaign that allowed new players to familiarize into the complex rule of 5E. This mini campaign can be viewed as a tutorial campaign to learn the rule of 5E while playing the game.
For those players who are already familiar with 5E rule, they can of course skip this mini campaign and start at the level 3 where everything gets more exciting. WIth it, this is where I believe most board gamers will end up struggling with Tanares RPG.
Conclusion
In this article I have compared the board game factors of the games that are officially labeled as board games to a game that is labeled as Tabletop RPG.
So Arena: the Contest and Tanares Adventures are essentially gold standard in this comparison. However, the result is much more closer on Tanares RPG than I thought; hence, I still hold my stance of thinking Tanares RPG GM-less mode as a tabletop adventure board game with complex game rule.
The main points of consideration about Tanares RPG from board gamer’s perspective is that you will need to print battle field on your own. Miniatures are seen as optional element and you will need to pay premium price if interested in obtaining them.
The real decision is though the complexity of 5E rule. Personally, the complexity is acceptable for the better versatility, but currently Dragori Games stance of Tanares RPG for new 5E player seems a bit mixed and most likely players will need to do lots of homework on our own before we can start appreciating the versatility of the game.