Players: 1-6*
Time: 2-4 hours
Difficulty: 4 (of 10)

* Starts to feel like a stretch over 4 players due to downtime issues.

This is a revision of my review of Runebound First Edition. It's been thoroughly updated, and I also talk about what I think of the rules changes in the relationships section.

The Components

Opening Runebound gets you:

• 1 map
• The Dice:
  • 5 movement dice
  • 2 10-sided die
• The Cards:
  • 12 hero cards
  • 84 adventure cards
  • 84 market cards
• The Cardboard:
  • 60 wound counters
  • 54 exhaustion counters
  • 58 adventure counters
  • 60 experience counters
  • 50 gold counters
  • 6 undefeated adventure counters
  • 8 doom counters
• 12 plastic heroes
• 1 rulebook

Map: The board is a four-panel map, printed on solid linen-textured cardboard. The main section of the board shows a map of the Runebound world, from the Crimson Forest in the northwest to the city of Vynelvale in the southeast. I thought the original edition of the map looked computer generated, and this one uses the same graphics, but somehow the linen-texturing of the board (new in this edition), softens that look, and improve the overall imagery of the board. As with the previous edition, however, I still had some problems telling hills and forests apart because they're each somewhat indistinct.

Around the map are spaces for cards of all sorts. To the right are those market spaces for the towns. Each one is color- and icon-coordinated with one of the towns; the coloring makes it pretty easy to see which belongs to which. To the left are spaces for the four decks of adventure cards, the market draw pile, and the current event cards. Across the top are spaces for undefeated adventure cards. It's nice to have specific areas for all of these cards, rather than having them scattered about a table.

I was pretty happy with this second edition of the map. It's fairly attractive and easy to use, other than an occasional hill/forest confusion (which I did once in my review game).

Dice: The 10-sided dice are fairly standard, white with indented numbers inked in black. The movement dies are six-sided dice, each side of which has a printed, indented sticker which shows the icons for two or three different types of terrain. I personally think that the icons are easy to figure out within the first 15 minutes of your first game, but at least a couple of our players had problems figuring out the forests v. mountains and plains v. roads well into the game.

The Cards: All the cards are printed on fairly thick cardstock at regular card size. The cards all make use of five standard icons: life, stamina, mind, body, and spirit. In addition a lot of care has been taken making sure the various rules-phrases on the cards are relatively standardized. Overall, these make the cards easy to use. Besides various rules, each card also features artwork that fills about 40% of the face of each card. It's all color fantasy art and runs the gamut from average to quite nice, though some of it feels like it's reproduced just a bit small.

Each card type is also laid out a bit differently, which makes it quite easy to distinguish between them. Some of the other cards have icons for cost (allies & artifacts), and icons which list when to use them (artifacts), and these are again done quite well, and they generally make the game easier to play. I'll talk more about the various card types when I get to The Gameplay.

The Cardboard: All of the cardboard bits are printed full-color on thick, linen-textured cardboard. They generally look nice.

The wound and exhaustion counters are big hearts and tears, in clearly distinct shapes and colors.

The adventure counters are shown in four colors for the four types of adventures: basic green, intermediate yellow, advanced blue, and expert red. One side just shows a colored sphere, the other the value of the adventure (1, 2, 3, or 4). Two of the colors were indistinguishable to the colorblind member of our group back when we played First Edition, but we just flipped everything over to the numbered side, and they worked fine.

The experience counters use the normal icons for mind, body, spirit, life, and exhaustion to show gains in those stats.

The gold counters show 1, 5, and 10 gold piece bits in different sizes, and each with the appropriate roman number (I, V, X). However, because they're fairly similar colors (gold shades), I wished for a little more differentiation.

The undefeated adventure counters just let you link up the six spaces for undefeated adventure cards on the side of the board to six spaces on the map. They're numbered 1-6.

The doom counters each show a skull and are used for a game variant.

Plastic Heroes: Each of the 12 heroes is molded as a plastic figure. They very nicely match the portraits on the hero cards. I did have some trouble distinguishing between them (especially when searching for a hero's figure) because they're all molded in identical, plain gray plastic, but some variation in poses does help here, and if you take the trouble to paint them you'll probably be very happy.

Rulebook: The rulebook is a 12-page full-color book. It has a fair number of illustration and icons and was easy to learn the game from (though I've previously played the first edition, so I went in with a lot of info). Some of the organization, particularly of the combat section, made it a it hard to reference during the game until I really became familiar with where everything was in the box.

Box & Tray: The box is a medium-sized square box. There's a tray inside with two spaces for cards and two other compartments, one large and one small. Sadly, the spaces for the cards aren't nearly deep enough, and so you'll have 30 or 40 cards overflowing. In addition the big tray spaces aren't adequate for sorting the hundreds of components. I ended up placing the cards in both the card slots and the small compartment, though I have to flip the box to get the ones out of the small compartment. I have plastic bags in the large compartment to keep everything sorted.

Overall, the quality of the components varies from average (the cards) to very good (the cardboard bits, map, and figures) In addition, the game shines on usability, because a lot of care has been taken with standard icons and good card layouts to make games run smoothly. Thus, Runebound earns "5" out of "5" for Style.

This is an improvement over the original, because of some nicer, linen-textured finished on the cardboard and maps and some improved usability on both the board and the cards.

The Gameplay

The object of Runebound is ultimately to be able to face the most difficult, "red" encounters in the game, but to get there you must build up a set of items and allies to help you out.

Setup: Each player starts out by taking one of the twelve character cards. He also takes three gold and places his hero counter in the town of Tamalir.

Meanwhile, the board is setup. The adventure counters are placed on the board (about 50, spread across the board in color-coordinate spaces) and one card is placed face-up in the market of each town other than Tamalir.

Characters. Each character is a unique and evocative fantasy character defined by a number of different elements. First, each character has a name, a picture, and a quote. They're nice color. Next, they have a life value and a stamina value, each of which will slowly be worn down during the game (through wounds and exhaustion). Then, statistics define how well a character will do in challenges: mind, body, and spirit. Each of these statistics is also associated with a type of combat (ranged, melee, and magic) and also has an associated damage for that type of combat. A set of skills, such as Hide, Sneak, Tinker, and others, are listed as well; they can sometimes be used to modify task rolls. Finally, each character also has a special power, most of which require taking exhaustion tokens to activate.

Wound and exhaustion tokens are piled on a character during the game. Usually, wounds are done as damage in combat and exhaustion is voluntarily taken to use abilities.If a player has hit his stamina exahaustion limit, additional exhaustion can't be voluntarily taken, and if a player is forced to take them, he instead takes wounds. If a player has taken his health wound limit, he is knocked out (more on that in the adventure section).

Skill Tests. These are the task resolution system for the game. They generally list a stat (e.g., body), a skill (e.g., Swim), and a target number (e.g., 13). To make a skill test, you add your stat , your skill bonus, and the results of 2d10. If the total is equal to the target or more, you succeed.

The Map. The map is a wilderness overview. It's made up of a number of terrain types including 9 towns.

Scattered throughout this map are 50 adventures, ranked as one of four difficulties: green (easy), yellow (intermediate), blue (tough), and red (terrifying). Each one is marked by an adventure counter, which you'll later take to mark that the adventure is done (and to get experience). Some of the adventure counters are marked by a "starburst" space on the board, which means it gets refilled whenever an event comes up, which helps keep the game moving.

Each town, meanwhile, has a market associated with it. This is a pile of cards to the right of the board which highlights things you can buy in that town. It includes Allies and Items.

Allies. These are market cards which represent helpers. They have pretty much the same info as your main character: life value, stamina value, and the three stats, as well as some special abilities. They each also have a cost. You can only have two allies at a time.

Items. These cards help your character out in various ways. Most modify one of the three types of combat, but others have more far-reaching powers, including the ability to remove health or exhaustion counters, reroll dice, etc. Items are labelled as Runes, Artifacts, Weapons, and Armor. What Runes and Artifacts are exactly, I don't know. You can only own one armor and two weapons at a time.

Some cards must be "activated" to be used, which means they're flipped upside down, and not available for use again until the next round. There are some limitations to activations: you can activate once during movement, once during market, and multiple times during combat (once "before combat", then once in each round of combat).

As you'd expect, each item has a cost too.

Order of Play: Each player plays in turn, taking the following actions:

1. Refresh
2. Movement
3. Adventure
4. Market
5. Experience

Refresh: Reactivate any face-down cards by turning them face-up.

Movement: To move you roll the movement dice: 5 if you're unwounded, 4 otherwise. Each movement die face shows either two or three terrain symbols. These define the moves you're allowed to take on your turn: for each space you move, you must use up a die displaying the icon for that terrain. Clearly this means you can never move more than 4 or 5 spaces in a turn, and often less because the dice don't cooperate. Some terrains are notably harder to move into than others (such as swamp and mountains).

There are a few exceptions to this general rule, including: you can use any die face to move into a town; you can choose to roll less than your allowed dice, removing one exhaustion for each die removed; and you can choose to move one space to any terrain rather than rolling.

Adventure: This is the heart of the game. If you end your turn on a space with an adventure counter, you can choose to face the adventure. (You'll want to face lower difficulty adventures at the start of the game, higher at the end.) Once you decide to face an adventure, you draw a card from the appropriately colored adventure deck. You might first meet encounters or events, but eventually you also face a challenge.

Encounters. Encounters are usually bits of good luck that happen to you. Sometimes you make an immediate skill test to gain some award. Sometimes you can gain an award later by visiting a specific space or a general type of terrain.

Events. Conversely, these are usually bad. Each event represents an ongoing occurrence which generally affects gameplay. They're also numbered "I", "II", and "III". You can never replace an event with a new one that has a smaller number, which means that the storyline keeps going forward in a somewhat linear manner. In addition, whenever an event goes into effect, some adventure spots on the board are refereshed, as noted above.

(Whenever an encounter or event is drawn for an adventure, the adventure is redrawn afterward; you always keep going until you find a challenge.)

Challenges. And these are the hearts of the adventures. Generally, you must fight stuff: each challenge has many of the same stats as any character, including: life rating, and stats for the three types of combat: mind, body, and spirit. In addition, challenges tend to have "before combat" info and "reward"s.

Every combat starts off with the before combat stage. First, you do anything required by the before combat section of the challenge (usually a skill test which may benefit you if you succeed or hurt you if you fail), and then you may choose to use any before combat sections for your own items or allies (most often, free attacks). You can also activate one item during before combat, as appropriate.

Next, combat is conducted in rounds, each with four phases: escape, ranged, melee, and magic. You can also activate one item in each full round of play.

Escape gives a player the chance to get away, if he wants. He makes a Mind skill test and must equal or exceed the Mind of the challenge. If he fails he takes one wound and may try again. If he succeeds he gets away (and the unfinished adventure card is set to the side and marked on the board).

The next three phases are the main parts of combat: ranged, melee, and magic. Each phase a player chooses himself or one of his allies to attack or else himself to defend. Each character can only attack once per round and only one person (the main character or an ally) can attack in each phase. So, for example, a character on his own only gets to attack on one phase of a round and must defend the other two, while a character with one ally will probably attack once, have his ally attack once, and defend during the third phase.

Once a decision has been made about who's attacking (or if the main character is defending), the player then has that character make a skill check against mind, body, or spirit, depending on the phase. If he fails to meet the challenge's target number for that skill, he takes damage from the challenge, as shown on the challenge card. If he succeeds, and he was attacking, he applies his own damage; if he succeeds, and he was defending, he just avoids damage.

Many items will list a certain phase of combat during which they can be used; these tend to increase damage or otherwise influence the skill tests. There are also many types of armor which can be used to reduce wounds taken.

Many challenges don't have damage ratings for all three phases; if a player chooses to have his main character defend during a phase where the challenge can't actually do damage, then that phase is just skipped that round.

For example, the "Nest of Bane Spiders" is "Mind: 10/0; Body: 12/1; Spirit: 11/0". The player must exceed 10 to win at Mind and 12 to win at Body or 11 to win at Spirit. The Spiders can only do damage (of 1) during the Body phase. Wusses.

Whenever a player beats a challenge by doing a number of wounds equal to the challenge's Life, he wins. He takes any Reward listed on the challenge (usually gold, sometimes items or allies) and also removes the Adventure Counter from the board; it's worth 1-4 experience, depending on the level of challenge.

Conversely, if a player is beaten by having his main character reduced to 0 Life he's knocked out. He loses all his gold, his most expensive ally or artifact, and is relocated to the nearest town. Again, the adventure card is set to the side and marked on the board.

(Allies, apparently less hearty, are just killed if they are reduced to 0 Life.)

Attacking Other Heroes. If you move into a space with another hero you can alternatively decide to face them. This is conducted much like normal combat against a challenge, except that the other player gets to add a die roll to each of his stats before you roll your target number. He also activates or uses any appropriate cards at this time. In addition, after each round of combat, the "attacker" and "defender" swap spaces, giving everyone the chance to make the "decisive" roll.

Beating another hero lets you take one of their allies, items, gold, or an adventure card (meaning mainly the "red" adventure cards, which you keep as trophies).

Market: Any player ending their turn in a town now goes to market. They flip over one new market card, add it to the market stack for that town, then may buy any items and allies in the market with their gold. It's worth noting that there are a huge number of market cards; you're only going to see a small fraction in any one game.

A player can also heal in a town, which costs 1 gold for one wound or 1 gold for all the exhaustion off the player or an ally.

Experience: At the end of his turn a player may decide to spend his experience. The number of experience required to increase stats varies from 3-5, depending on the number of players. A player spends the appropriate number of points, discards the adventure counter/experience points, then takes a +2 in a stat of his choice (mind, body, or spirit) or a +2 in Stamina or a +1 in Life. The last also restricts which adventures you can do as an additional penalty. (If you take one life gain you can't do green adventures, two and you also can't do yellow, etc.)

Winning the Game: The adventure in the basic Runebound game requires you to either beat Margath or else collect three dragon runes. These are all related to red adventure cards; essentially you must either defeat the toughest red adventure card or else three of the others (or else wait till other players do and steal the very powerful dragon runes they win from them).

Just to offer a bit more explanation, High Lord Margath is a challenge with 8 Life and the following stats: "Mind: 19/4; Body: 21/5; Spirit: 20/5". Not nice.

Variant Games: There are a number of alternative rules for Runebound in the rules. A few basically make the game more challenging, by putting a time limit on things (using those doom counters), and introuducing wandering monsters. If you play this game casually, you won't need the rules, but if you really like it and want to make it harder to win, they should do that job well. Personally I suggest the "shorter Runebound" rules, which make experience gains a little cheaper, and therefore speed the game up.

Relationships to Other Games

Runebound (2004/5) is most like one of the classics of the genre, Talisman (1985); they both center around improving your character against a broad landscape so that you can eventually defeat a final task. Dungeoneer (2003) is another recent example of this type of independent adventure game, though that's a card game restricted to a dungeon.

The aforementioned games are all fairly competitive; in contrast another classic of the genre, HeroQuest (1989), was fairly cooperative (and quite tactical as it happens).

Games from some other genres of speculative fiction have been released in the category of adventure games as well. These include Arkham Horror (1987), a cooperative adventure game of Lovecraftian horror, more recently released by FFG in a new edition, and Smugglers of the Galaxy (2004), a competitive science-fiction trading game with adventure overtones.

Finally, apparently Runebound has done decently well for Fantasy Flight. Besides this new edition of the game they've also got a stack of supplements planned for it. Most are small packs of cards, but there is also a large upcoming supplement called The Island of Dread which includes new heroes, a new board, new cards, and rules for sea travel. In addition they seem to be expanding the world with Descent (2005), a new board game set in the Runebound universe, but curiously using the Doom: The Boardgame (2004) ruleset instead. I'd guess an RPG isn't that far behind (2006?).

The Game Design

Runebound is a nice new entry to the adventure gaming category. Here's some of the best features:

Great Color: The theming of the game is well-done, and really implies a strongly backgrounded and consistent world. This in turn makes the game colorful and more enjoyable to play.

Very Replayable: The 12 characters and 84 market cards each contribute to making the game quite replayable, as does the randomization of the adventure locations for any game. You're likely each time around to see things you've never seen before and that helps make the game worth trying again.

Some Strategy, Nice Tactics: Adventure games tend to be somewhat short on strategy and tactics, but this game does include some. The strategy is mainly centered around the advancement of your character, improved in this edition by the possibility to increase Life or Stamina, but you can also make some long term movement plans if you have a specific goal across the board. There are a lot of options for tactics, including deciding when to go to market, when to heal, when to take exhaustion counters (though this possibility is somewhat reduced in the new edition), and when to attack other players..

In the original edition I had some questions about item balance, which seem to have been largely or entirely corrected now, and I didn't entirely like the die variance, where the way the new system works is entirely fine. I did have one other fairly neutral comment:

Interesting Movement System: I'm not entirely sure about the movement system. The idea of rolling dice to show what terrains you could move onto was overall pretty neat. it gave movement variance, but at the same time allowed some opportunity for tactical thought, as you tried to figure out alternatives for movement based on what you'd rolled. On the other side, it was a little complex constantly counting and recounting spaces to figure out where you could go, and was definitely one of the things that contributed to the downtime (more on that momentarily). In any case, a very interesting design.

Here's some of the problems I had with the game:

Little Player Interaction: The player interaction was quite minimal, except in the case of attacking others, which was really most important only at the end of the game.

Long Downtimes: Turns took a while, thus you could expect quite a while to go by in between your turns (which interacts badly with the low player interaction, because it means you don't have a lot to do while you wait, other than watch). The downtime was long enough that I thought it made the game pretty undesirable to play at 5 or 6. It was somewhat OK when I played First Edition with 4 players. I played this Second Edition game with 3 players and was quite happy with the results: 3 players using the "faster Runebound" rules resulted in a 2.5 hour game, even with two off the players being new to the game.

I feel like the two biggest issues in the game (little player interaction & long downtimes) are fairly endemic to this category of games. When players are bouncing around, apart from each other, and engaging in their own little stories, then these issues are pretty likely to come up. So, I can't fault Runebound too much for them, though I still note them. Beyond that, Runebound is very cleanly designed, original, colorful, and a fair amount of fun. I gave the original Runebound a "4" for Substance. This new edition is clearly an improvement, and so I've modified my rating to a high "4" (which is usually my code for "4.5"). I think there's still some room for improvement in this category of games, but this is a great example of the genre.

Conclusion

When I reviewed the first edition of Runebound I said it was "a worthy new contender to carry on the banner of big-box adventure games." This new edition has numerous small tweaks, all of which represent really good development work and a clear improvement of the original game design. The game still has some issues with downtime and interactivity, but overall it's a very clean and well-designed game that has a colorful background and is fun to play.

If you have the original edition, and play it with any regularity, buying the new edition is a very worthwhile investment just for all the subtle improvements to the game system.

In 3 reviews, average style rating is 4.67 and average substance rating is 4.67.