Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Prophecy

In ancient times peasants huddled around campfires would whisper of a prophecy telling of a time when the ultimate fantasy roleplaying experience would be translated to the board gaming world. Over the ages there have been many who have claimed to be the game foretold by prophecy: Dungeon, Talisman, Heroquest, Runebound, Descent, Return of the Heroes.... the list goes on.

Now from the far off land of the Czech Republic comes the game entitled Proroctví or, in English, Prophecy, claiming to be just such a game! I just received my copy yesterday, and I predict I will try to talk a few of you into playing sometime soon.

The game centers around each player being a potential long-lost descendant of a prince, destined to rise to glory by driving out the demons and monsters who took over the land and killed the original royal family during a civil war long ago. There are already two expansions released for the game in its native land, apparently focusing on underwater adventures and dragons. Reviews so far for the game on BGG have been very positive.

8 Comments:

At 2:23 PM, September 06, 2006, Blogger Ben said...

The map board for this game is strangly similar to that of AH's Dune.

Speaking of AH's Dune, I successfully plotted the new super-homemade upgrade map last night. It looked fatastic until I was suddenly rained on while carrying it to the car. Apparently plotter ink is not waterproof... I wish I had better quality paper to put in my plotter, but after lamination what I have should work.

Now to make some better cards...

 
At 4:51 PM, September 06, 2006, Blogger Rob said...

Have never heard of it, but count me in.

 
At 5:52 PM, September 06, 2006, Blogger Brian said...

Is it in English?

 
At 6:26 PM, September 06, 2006, Blogger Simon said...

I still haven't even played Runebound yet! When can we table that sucker along with this one?

 
At 8:03 PM, September 06, 2006, Blogger Ben said...

Yep, its in English.

Heck, my Runebound set totally feels unloved. I'll bring it next time!

 
At 8:31 AM, September 07, 2006, Blogger Rob said...

I've never played Descent or Runebound. I believe Descent was played in one of those gaming sessions that I missed before summer.

 
At 10:07 AM, September 07, 2006, Blogger Ben said...

I read the rules to Prophecy last night. The game looks quite fun. The theme is very close to Runebound but with a much tighter (perhaps more elegant) euro-style to it.

Both games involve picking one out of a number of heroes (ten to choose from in Prophecy); and guiding them from young punk to Arch Mage/Uber Warlord level by killing lots of monsters and gaining gear throughout the world.

In Runebound, you can pretty much cruise all over the map, taking on quests in any order you feel like, perhaps getting slaughtered in the process if you get too big for your britches. Prophecy has a smaller map board with specific events popping up each turn in various places, so there's a bit of a race to complete the particularly juicy good events. Moving faster (i.e., via magic or horses) costs more, so you have to balance cost/benefit.

Runebound emphasizes player vs. player action quite a bit, particularly with the expansion decks that allow you to drop bad monsters/events on your opponents to slow them down. Runebound also allows you to recruit allies and pets which adds nice flavor.

Prophecy seems to be a bit friendlier, except for the endgame. One interesting aspect of the game is the fairly involved system of eight (I think) guilds which players receive new skills from as they progress.

Runebound is a race to kill a big bad guy. Prophecy is a race to kill four of the five big bad guys. If no one hero kills four bad guys, then there's hero vs. hero rumble at the end, ala' the WoW boardgame.

 
At 9:39 PM, September 07, 2006, Blogger Ben said...

Here's a thread on BGG with the same discussion:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/110746

 

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