When you read the words ‘dungeon crawler’ in the previous sentence, did you conjure an image in your head? Did you see brooding warriors in armour alongside scantily-clad women only wearing enough armour to protect their most intimate areas, flanked by wizards in robes? Did you envisage skeleton warriors, orcs, goblins, and magic? Was it dark, gloomy, and grimy? If you did, this might not strike you as a problem, because it’s probably what you’re looking for in a dungeon crawler.

What if you’re looking for something else? What if dull greys, greens, and browns aren’t your thing? What then? Up until now, your options have been very limited. As soon as you step outside of the generic, gritty fantasy theme you’re either looking at generic, gritty sci-fi or ‘family/kids’ games. Artisans of Splendent Vale redresses the balance by giving us a watercolour world full of diverse, non-stereotyped, pastel protagonists, breathing fresh life into tired tropes.

By the book?

Artisans of Splendent Vale takes a leaf out of the books (pun very much intended) of games like Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion which use a book of maps to play on. I’ll touch on overworld exploration later, but once you visit a place where some kind of skirmish takes place, you’ll be instructed to turn to a particular page in the Action Scene Book and told where to put the different characters before getting down to some fisticuffs.

Skirmishes – Action Scenes in the game’s parlance – in Artisans are great fun. There’s an initiative track to keep track of who gets to act in what order, which is more intuitive for newcomers than something like Gloomhaven’s per-turn initiative setting. I had an initial worry that the action scenes might feel a little hollow, with so much attention being lavished on the narrative and world-building. I needn’t have worried, the action scenes are solid. What I really like is the way they’re not always just a straight-up fight. I’m not going to spoil things for you here, but let’s just say that at times you’ll be testing how fast you can get out of trouble, instead of getting elbow-deep in it.

The design choices for the skirmishes have been carefully thought out too. Gone are plastic minis, and in their place instead we’ve got screen-printed meeples with round edges. The screen-printing is friendly too, just giving the impression of clothes and characteristics. Why am I telling you this? Because the sort of person who might want to try a game like Artisans of Splendent Vale might also be the same sort of person who’s looking for a friendlier experience. The sort of person who wants to feel like they’re being led by the hand into something welcoming and fun, without having something sharp and pointy stuck between their ribs and left for dead.

Representation matters

During its Kickstarter campaign, a lot was made of the diversity represented in Artisans of Splendent Vale. It’s true, there’s a ton of diversity in the game, and it’s a good thing. It doesn’t take very long before you realise how embedded it is in the game. To begin the game each player chooses one of the four characters in the game and takes the corresponding (200+ page!) book, and what you’ll notice right away is that each book lists the character’s pronouns. If you choose Farah, you’re going to be referred to as ze/zir for the rest of the game. What’s the last game you played where that happened? This doesn’t just happen for pronouns. All four characters are QTPOC, which is another first for me in a board game.

Does all of this matter? Yes, absolutely, it matters. It’s not just about ticking boxes. It’s not just a case of saying “Look at us, we’re being so diverse, right?!”. I play games as a part of that huge demographic group of heterosexual, cis, white males. I don’t have to worry about what I see in games. I know I’m going to find something familiar in whatever I play. What about the huge number of people who don’t fall into that intersection of those Venn diagrams? What about people from marginalised communities? What’s going to make them feel comfortable and at home when they take their first steps into this hobby? Artisans of Splendent Vale might not cover everything, but it does a damn fine job of doing better than most.

The sad truth is that there are people out there who will actively avoid the game because of the diversity and representation. I’ve seen it in online groups. I’ve seen people who believe it’s some kind of agenda, and it’s ridiculous. If you’re really worried that a game with a good representation of diverse characters is in any way negative, I’d ask you to stop reading now and close your browser. We should celebrate the fact that games like this exist. In Artisans’ case, this celebration should be amplified, because it’s not just a token gesture of a game, it’s an excellent game in its own right.

Career path

Artisans of Splendent Vale is a campaign game. Your choices dictate where you go in the world, what you do when you get there, and how your character changes after the action scenes. I love that each of the characters has a different mechanism for tracking their advances. Harinya’s method for brewing potions is completely different from Javi’s artificing, where he fills in nodes around tracks. It reinforces how different each character is from one another.

These differences are apparent in each character’s book too. Most of the books’ contents are the same, but there are subtle differences in some parts. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything, but there might be occasions when your group is exploring a room, and each of you is looking at a picture of it in your books. One character with a certain ability might be able to see something in their picture that the others cannot. If you see a number in something like that, you’re free to look up that location in the book and see what you find there. This is one of those bittersweet features of a game like this because it means that your experience could be very difficult from somebody else. Your chosen characters (if you’re playing with less than four characters) might not see things that other people did. That’s just something you have to live with in any campaign or legacy game – you won’t see and do everything in one playthrough.

Something about the game makes your character feel uniquely yours. I’m not sure whether it’s using pencils to add things to your to-do lists, or using the overworld map to decide between you what happens next, but I can tell you that the moment you apply your first scar sticker to your character, you’re going to feel a real investment in their fate.

Final thoughts

In an ideal world, I’d be able to write a review of Artisans of Splendent Vale and tell you why it’s so good. It’s a great campaign game with tons of dungeon-crawling skirmish action, character development, and fantastic writing throughout. Seriously, the story of Artisans is great, and it’s abundantly clear how much time and effort has been put into the world-building. The graphic design and illustrations throughout are beautiful. Truly beautiful. This isn’t an ideal world, however, so I have to pay attention to what this game does for inclusivity and diversity and applaud it for that. To have these things not just paid lip service to, but woven into the very fabric of such a story-rich game is special.

In the interest of transparency and full disclosure, I’ve got to tell you that I haven’t finished the game yet. I’m playing a two-player campaign and getting the time together with my player two to get through it all is tricky. What I can tell you, however, is that I desperately want to know what happens in the end. The story is so good, which is a good thing because there’s an awful lot of reading between fights. If you’re not a fan of the written word and look for your games to be action, action, action, this probably isn’t the one for you. If and when you do complete it, if you want to explore all of the ‘what might have been’ options you can buy a reset pack to play it all through again.

Artisans comes in a big box so make sure you have space on your shelves for it. Along with the rulebook and action scene book, you’ve got four full paperbacks along with the various meeples, pencils, and the gorgeous card box. The card box works like an old card index, and even the design and artwork on it evoke the sort of feeling the game is going for. If you’re looking for a big-box campaign but are tired of the same old themes being re-hashed, and if you have the money for it (it’s north of £100 at the time of writing), Artisans of Splendent Vale is going to give you and your friends an adventure you won’t soon forget.

Review copy kindly provided by Renegade Games Studios. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Artisans of Splendent Vale (2022)

Design: Nikki Valens
Publisher: Renegade Games Studios
Art: MK Castaneda, Lil Chan, Cleonique Hilsaca, Lisa Pearce, Christina Pittre
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 45-90 mins per session

The post Artisans Of Splendent Vale Review appeared first on Punchboard.

What is The Adventure Zone?

The Adventure Zone is a massively popular fantasy/comedy podcast run by the McElroy family. It started off as a pretty standard D&D campaign, but very quickly took a more story-oriented direction. The characters they created and the campaign settings grew their own universe, lore, and fanbase, and it’s incredible. I absolutely loved the Bureau of Balance arc, which spanned three years of episodes. The guys are funny and engaging, and the world and stories Justin McElroy created are amazing. Seriously, if you haven’t heard it yet, you should listen.

The show grew so popular that it spawned three graphic novels, and in an act of coming full circle, there’s now a game. That’s right, a game based on a podcast, that was based on a game. A bit like when you play with a Lego set based on the Lego Movie, which is a film about Lego.

And to think, they say creativity is dead.

What you’ll be pleased to hear (if you came here to read reviews about board games and not RPGs that is), is that this game isn’t a reinterpretation of D&D. It’s not even close. It’s a game about the thing the podcast does so well: story-telling.

Once upon a time…

I believe that story-telling is woefully under-represented in board and card games. A few have made a worthwhile attempt at it, games like Tales of the Arabian Nights for example, but for the most part your options are extremely limited. I can understand why. So many games are built around the concept of a score and determining winners and losers, that something as fluffy and abstract as ‘telling a story’ is hard to incorporate. Nemo’s War 2nd Edition did a good job, but it’s still possible to play while totally blanking over the flavour text.

The Adventure Zone game immediately deals with the first of those problems, by making it a co-operative game. Everyone wins, or everyone loses. The second problem, that of scoring a story, is also handled well, but I’ll come to that later.

The game begins by choosing a villain, a relic and a location. Each has its own deck of cards, which are placed on their spots on the board. On a player’s turn they choose one of the face-up cards on the top of one of the piles, and try to resolve it. That card is something the team are trying to overcome, and to do that they add up the strength from their character sheet, any additions from items or other players assisting them, and the roll of a special D20. That number is compared to the big number printed on the card, and if the total is the same or higher, the players win. Any failures knock their health track down a step or two. (note: there seems to be an omission in the rule book around the numbers in arrows on the challenge cards. If the arrow on the card adjacent to the one you’re taking on shows ‘+1’, then you need to add 1 to that card’s strength)

Once the players get through the relic deck and either one of the other decks, they win. Hoorah! You might think that all sounds pretty lightweight as a game, and you’d be right, it is. Roll a die, compare some numbers, take a card. Not the sort of thing I normally go for at all. But to go into The Adventure Zone with the mindset of ‘this is a game to win’ would be missing a big part of what the game does, and does really well.

Follow The Leader

The Adventure Zone is a mechanism to tell stories, first and foremost. To facilitate that, every game needs someone to act as the Team Leader. That role is akin to something like a Dungeon Master, and their job is to help create and steer the story unfolding on the table in front of them.

Each player takes a sheet for their character, in one of the five classes available, and gives them a name. They then answer three questions which have prompts on the sheet. There are some choices on the backs of the sheets for this, or you could roll the die to choose one, or even just ignore them and make up your own. This does a great job of getting the players invested with what’s going on, and sows the seeds of getting involved with the story. There’s even a space to doodle a picture of your character, which I suggest doing. No matter how bad your drawing ,might be, it adds to the immersion.

The team leader reads the descriptions of the villain, relic and locations, and creates the bare bones of the story, and why those three things are together. The players then decide on names and other details. The leader does the same thing whenever a new face-up card is revealed. It’s not enough to just say “There’s a terrifying illusion, a maze of realities, and a garbage pit“. Their job is to weave this all together into part of the narrative, so you end up with something more like “Deep in the bowels of this stinking garbage pit, we find ourselves trapped in a maze. Who would ever build a maze in a garbage pit, and why? And more importantly, what are we going to do about that terrifying illusion in the middle of it!?” Every time a new card is revealed, the story changes slightly, and it’s the players who keep the story going with their imaginations.

Adventure Zone vs Comfort Zone

There’s a chance that you – the person reading this now – hate the idea of being called on to explain a part of a story. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable speaking in a group, or dislike having attention focused on you. Maybe you have difficulty articulating what’s in your head, or struggle with imagination. Keith Baker and Jenn Ellis, The Adventure Zone Game’s designers, recognise this, and there’s an entire section in the rule book devoted to being a good team leader. It explains how to get people involved when they find it difficult, by doing things like asking leading questions.

Importantly though, it also recognises that some people are never going to want to come out and talk a lot, and it explains how to deal with that. I was so happy to read this section, it’s something I think is incredibly important when it comes to inclusivity and making people feel comfortable around a table. This level of care, and recognition that players aren’t just cookie-cutter games players (whatever that is) is something I really admire the creators for.

If players can be coaxed into talking and pushing the story along, it ends up benefiting them. Some of the cards in the game give prompts which, when acted on, add 1 to their strength for the encounter. For example, the card might be called ‘while opening the Sealed Vault‘, and the prompt on the card states ‘Who does this vault belong to? What stories have you heard about it?‘ If the player manages to explain this, they get that +1 bonus. If players are struggling with this elaboration, this is where the art of being a good team leader comes into play, moulding the game around the group at the table so that nobody feels uncomfortable. Asking open-ended questions, giving prompts, and interjecting if necessary.

Balance

This game follows the Bureau of Balance arc from the podcast, so let’s touch on balance for a bit. While there are rules in the game, and a way to play it to-the-letter with the right group, the beauty in this game comes with choosing where to ignore those rules. I’ve played this with my wife and eight-year-old son, and what he got from the game was the fun of making his character, and making up silly names. We took on Gary the Lich in Buttcrack Cave, and had to have a five minute break while he created a character sheet for our dog in the middle of the game.

That sort of situation is where this game shines. Did we follow the rules completely? Heck, no. Did we have a lot of fun because we ignored them? Absolutely! When done right, The Adventure Zone is brilliant. It’s so funny, the stories you create are elaborate, twisting and crazy, and it’s such a good way to spend time in the company of people you like. We’ve spent hours playing games of this when we might otherwise have been staring at a screen. That’s an absolute godsend at times like these when we’re all stuck at home with the same people.

This next part is important. If you’re going into this game expecting some kind of dungeon crawl experience, rolling dice, casting spells, you’ll probably be disappointed. I can’t stress enough that this is a game for making stories, it is not a standard board game. Set your expectations accordingly.

That being said though, this game will have a permanent place in my collection now, for The Future Times. I can see this being such a good ice-breaker for new players to a group, or for groups springing up after the pandemic. If you don’t like a rule, leave it out, or cheat and roll again. Who cares? Along the way you’re going to meet Barry Bluejeans, Steven the Goldfish, and go shopping at Fantasy Kostco, and you’re going to have a great time doing it.

Designers: Keith Baker, Jenn Ellis
Publisher: Twogether Studios
Art: Hari Conner
Players: 2-5
Playing time: 60-90 minutes

Review copy kindly provided by Twogether Studios. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

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