variable player powers

Welcome to the Northern Expanse, a place where nature is still unexplored, mystical and dangerous. When the humans first arrived, they thought they found an unspoiled paradise, filled with bountiful forests, lakes swimming with fish and cold freshwater flowing from the mountains. But as their settlements expanded and the surrounding forests grew thinner, nature itself pushed back. Great creatures known as Beasts emerged, and with their fangs, claws and mystical powers, they proved an incredible threat to the humans. In order to protect the settlements, humans enlisted specialised hunters, tasked with tracking and killing the Beasts before too many of their kin perish.

The Beast uses a deck of direction cards to move over forests, swamps and caverns, using guile and deceit to hide its track from the hunters. However, whenever a hunter moves over a location where the Beast has previously been, a trail appears. Only when a hunter searches a location or the Beast itself attacks an unsuspecting target is the Beast's actual position revealed. More so, each hunter has but one chance of searching each round, making it a tense and difficult decision. Hunters seldom have full information whether the trail they’re pursuing contains the Beast’s actual location, or if the trail has already gone cold.

Each action you perform in this game is done by playing a card from your hand (up to a maximum of two cards per turn). This means that if a player wants to search, attack or move, they need to have a card in their hand that lets them do that. Before each round, both hunters and Beast participate in a draft for the most important cards. All action cards can be used by both Beast and hunters alike.

In order to win this game, you either need to cooperate every step of the way if you play as a hunter, or skillfully outmaneuver your opponents if you play as Beast. On their own, hunters are never stronger than the Beast. Only when hunters communicate, strategize and combine their actions can they bring down the Beast before it’s too late.

—description from the designer

First Ascent is a rock climbing-themed strategic board game. The goal in this medium weight, competitive game is to gain the most points by climbing the best route up the mountain and becoming the most skilled climber! Each player assumes the role of a unique asymmetric character, and throughout the game they will be building their route up the mountain, managing resources, achieving objectives, and increasing their efficiency by accumulating skills and gear! This game is for 2-5 players and takes 45-90 minutes to play.

Gameplay overview:
In First Ascent, the goal is to gain the most points by creating the best route! Points are gained in four ways:
1) Climbing pitches — use your climbing skills, gear, water, and psych to pay the requirements to move on to a tile "climb the pitch". Draw a climbing card and resolve the events that may involve resource management, board manipulation, or selfish vs altruistic decisions. Each tile is worth 1-5 points with higher point value tiles requiring more resources.

2) Objectives — achieve shared and personal objectives that relate to the path of your route. Plan carefully and manage resources to execute the path that will contribute towards achieving your objectives.

3) Technique bonuses — the climbing skills and gear cards contain symbols representing climbing techniques of precision, power, balance, and pain tolerance. Match three technique symbols on the cards you play to climb a tile and earn +2 bonus points. These can add up significantly, so choose your resources wisely.

4) Summit — reaching the top of the mountain is great, but climbing is about the journey. Gain +1 summit bonus point for reaching a peak.

If you don't have the required resources to climb, you can "risk it" by rolling the risk dice to climb a tile for one less resource. You may get away with a check mark and succeed without consequence, roll minus two cards and give them to another player, or roll minus one card and one psych which you give to another player. As long as you have the assets to lose, you will climb the tile, but at a price.

When you begin to ascend the mountain start in any tile on the first row. Next climb to any adjacent tile and leave your rope behind to mark the route you've climbed. Two climbers can not occupy the same tile, except for a summit, so you may compete with other climbers on the mountain for the prime locations.

As you climb the mountain you will practice your skills and become a more efficient climber. The engine building component of this game grants you an "earned asset" after you play four cards of a specific skill type or gear. These tokens stay on your climber asset board and count towards fulfilling the required assets of future tiles.

This isn't a race to the top, its about creating a strategic route that will reward your cunning and planning. The game ends when a player has used all seven rope lengths and climbed their eighth tile.

Do you have what it takes to create the greatest First Ascent?

Dungeons & Feelings is the strategy / social board game hybrid where the only way to conquer your dungeon is to open up, dig deep, and share your opinions, stories, and feelings. Dungeons & Feelings is inspired by classic adventure video games and distills their mechanics into easily accessible board game form.

In Dungeons & Feelings, you will proceed through a dungeon of your own design. Along the way, you will fight monsters, avoid traps, and discover treasure as you gain experience, level up, and acquire loot. When you are ready, you will fight the Dragon and emerge victorious!

You will have many items at your disposal to conquer your dungeon, but to craft them, you will need to ask your fellow players to answer an interesting, thought-provoking question about themselves. Laugh, cry, and start a deeper conversation with your friends in Dungeons & Feelings.

Dungeons & Feelings is a 3-4 player, non aggressive board game designed to be played in one sitting. It fuses elements of tile placing, crafting, role playing, with get-to-know-you ice breaker question mechanics quite unlike any game you've played before.

—description from the designer

The Red Dragon Inn 5: The Character Trove is a fast-paced, light-hearted card game for two or more players. You and your increasingly mighty party of adventuring companions have spent all day slogging through the dungeon, killing monsters and taking their stuff. Now you’re back in town, healed up, cleaned up, and ready to party at the Red Dragon Inn. Drink, gamble, and roughhouse with your friends. But don’t forget to keep an eye on your gold. If you run out, you’ll have to spend the night in the stables. Oh… and try not to get too beaten up or too drunk. If you black out, your friends will continue the party without you… after they loot your body for gold, of course! The last conscious adventurer with gold wins the game!

The Red Dragon Inn 5: The Character Trove is a standalone game for 2-4 players. It expands on "The Red Dragon Inn" family of box sets and single-character expansions called Allies. You can mix and match characters from any of these sets, letting you build the party composition of your choice! Each of the box sets includes four unique characters, a drink deck, gold pieces, and all the parts for 2-4 players to play right out of the box. Each of the Allies expansions includes a character deck as well as gold pieces and bits so you can add another character to a box set (thus making a 2-4 player collection playable by 2-5 players).

Sera the Fleetfooted: Sera is a stealthy rogue whose speed and agility allow her to take down roomfuls of bad guys before they even know what’s happening. The dungeon’s beefiest monsters are no match for her flying daggers! She didn’t get so skilled by slacking off, though. Even while she’s partying, she continues training to make sure she’s always at the top of her game.

The Good: She hones her skills by sparring with her friends.
The Bad: Sometimes she does this without warning them first…

Lizwick the Collector: Lizwick is a consummate problem solver with an unrivaled collection of gear. Her wondrous Bag of Holding contains rare and peculiar items of all descriptions. She is always on the lookout for the next amazing whatchamacallit to add to her collection. Lizwick has gotten The Party out of many a jam with the clever application of the wrong tool at the right time.

The Good: Lizwick’s collection is the envy of academies, guilds and hoarders alike!
The Bad: …and they’d like their stuff back.

Joran the Trickster: Joran’s penchant for pranks earned him a student “sabbatical” from the Mage’s Collegium. Fortunately, Zot saw some potential in the boy, and decided to take him adventuring for some valuable field experience. The young mage’s humor has proven to be mostly harmless to his new friends. He puts his clever brain to good use by pulling fast ones on the bad guys.

The Good: Joran’s talent for misdirection makes him the perfect weapon against enemy spell-casters.
The Bad: It also makes him the perfect weapon against his friends’ gold, their sobriety, their patience…

Zakhan the Drunken Master: Zakhan’s father is a solemn elven noble and a guru of meditative martial combat techniques. His mother was a rowdy barbarian warchief with a penchant for throwing wild parties. This unique heritage has allowed Zakhan to hone a seemingly reckless hybrid fighting style of his own. His opponents who underestimate his “drunken” martial arts do so at their own peril!

The Good: Zakhan’s drunken fighting techniques make him a formidable foe.
The Bad: Sometimes he’s actually just drunk.

But wait, there's more! The Red Dragon Inn 5: The Character Trove is also a massive storage solution for all previous sets (with room for more). You get a massive storage box plus dividers, new play mats for all previously released characters, updated tokens and more! Check it out:

6 Unique Decks (4 40-card Character Decks, 1 18-card Item Deck, 1 30-card Drink Deck)
29 Character-specific Player Mats (with replacements for all previous sets!)
35 Cardboard Deck Dividers
1 Cardboard Chi Marker
4 Glass Fortitude Markers
4 Glass Alcohol Content Markers
9 Remastered Cardboard Fortitude Markers
9 Remastered Cardboard Alcohol Content Markers
55 Remastered Gold Coin Tokens
9 New Platinum Coin Tokens
10 Foam Spacer Blocks
2 Cloth Drawstring Bags
Ziptop Baggies
Rules for playing The Red Dragon Inn

In Namiji, you are fishers from the Japan of yesteryear, navigating south of the Japanese archipelago, a few kilometers from the famous Tokaido road. You will need to have a fruitful day at sea to win the game.

To do this, you will have the opportunity to contemplate magnificent marine species, to fish with a line or a net to fill your racks with colorful fish, and haul in your crustacean traps.

You can benefit from stops to improve your fishing equipment, and you will also have to contend with the gods of the sea by setting offerings afloat, or by fulfilling their wishes that they express during your contemplation with the Sacred Rocks, for which they will reward you.

Namiji features gameplay similar to Tokaido. The action spaces are laid out on the game board in a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action, so players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces. What players are doing on the track differs from what they do in Tokaido.