Hexplore It: The Valley of the Dead King. First thoughts.

 

Dare you face the Dead King?

If you crave a fantasy-themed overland adventure, then one game you should take a look at is Hexplore It: The Valley of the Dead King. 

Released in 2017, this was the first release in a multi-game series by Mariucci J. Designs. It was followed by The Forests of Adrimon, and then The Sands of Shurax. The latest release is The Domain of Mirza Noctis. Each contains a separate adventure and features a different theme, (although the content can be combined.) 

As you can see from the map above, the Hexplore It series focuses on (wait for it)...hex crawling. In other words, moving across a map as a single hero or party, solving quests, battling enemies, and desperately trying to level up to face a challenge. In this case, an undead king hell-bent on dominating all life in the valley. 

As a group of adventurers, you know that sooner or later you must face your nemesis, but how will you prepare yourselves to do so? The valley is strewn with cities for you to visit, ancient ruins to explore, quests, and powerful enemies for you to combat. You will be using these experiences to level your characters and grow rapidly in power, all the while accruing the wealth and means to battle the Dead King. After dominating every city, he will eventually turn his cold, dead eyes on you - a growing threat to his total dominance.

I have the 2nd edition of VoTDK. I played my first solo game the other day. Here are my first thoughts.

Things I like.

I'll put my hands up at this point and say I'm not an experienced overland adventurer. I haven't played Barbarian Prince, or Runebound, or any others aside from Mage Knight, so I don't have anything to compare to, but I did enjoy the following about my initial playthrough of VoTDK.

1. Gorgeous map to explore with lots of detail. I found a real sense of excitement when seeing the valley laid out before me on the table - and that was just with the four main hexes, not even including exploring off those.

The valley stretches out before you.

2. A tonne of classes and races to mix and match, even just in the base box. More than 20 races and 20 roles to combine. This allows you to explore in just the ways you always wanted to when you were playing your first RPGs as a teenager. Want to be a Pixie Berserker? Go crazy! An automaton cartographer? Sounds cool! If you have an imagination, it is incredibly fun to come up with a simple backstory for each character. Just take those two examples. 

In my first game, my party consisted of Conrad Bottomhill, Halfling Apothecary, and Kyshk-Ishyk, Lizardman Brute! How did these two meet up? The mind boggles...

Conrad Bottomhill. 'Drink this...it'll only feel bad for a moment...'

Kyshk -Ishyk. 'Ssss - grrrkuk? MrrrrkBrup?'

3. Interesting circumstances and quest decks to explore (and content with). Above and below the map sit two special areas, populated by circumstance and quest cards. The former are events that you will run into as you explore the valley, the latter quests that you can seek out. Both offer rewards for successful completion and play a part in the growth of your characters. 

Circumstance cards (center) and Power Up cards (right)

Five quests to follow - or ignore.

Two examples of quests. A bounty seems like a fun thing to do!

What I like about these is that you get lots of them - 54 of each - so you won't run through either in a single runthrough. Five cards of each sit in front of you, and you'll choose which to deal with (quests) or encounter randomly (circumstances). These will be replaced as you do them (or turn them in at cities in the case of quests.)

4. Dry-erase reduces chits and paper. You can see in the images in this post that Hexplore It makes use of dry-erase boards for bookkeeping. The box includes seven markers with erasers to facilitate this, and the rulebook includes useful info on how to keep your boards clean. 

Dry erase hero board (included pens are black.)

In practice, you'll be constantly writing and erasing on these boards throughout the game (and if you are clever, taking care not to erase any text with your sleeves...)

The positive is that you don't have to manage lots of carboard tokens in your play area. No more writing notes on pieces on sticky notes that you brush onto the floor, or loose pieces of paper. As you can see in the image above, the stats and key info are pre-printed, and you'll use the included pens to add numbers, block-in sections to show progress and stores.

5. One box, one adventure. I like the fact that in VoTDK you are not embarking on a grand campaign that will stretch on for multiple day, weeks, or months. There are plenty of games that do that, but it isn't always easy to get together a group to play through them. Also, some players simply aren't big fans of the commitment that campaign games bring with them.

In VoTDK, you know what the adventure is going to be, and that the end-game is to face the Dead King. While some may find that limiting and fear it damages replayability because you know the overarching story, I think it offers some groups and players a nicely self-contained session. Once you have the system down, it can be playable in a few hours. If you do want a campaign, that is accommodated by 'Klik's Madness', a campaign for VoTDK that can be downloaded as a PDF or purchased as a huge (gorgeous!) hardback book.

6. Light on minis - heavy on cardboard. I'm not down on minis (just look at the content on this blog!) but I now prefer standees, or games with very few minis. I don't have to take time to paint lots of minis in order to get a game ready for the table (I'm one of those people who in general won't 'play with gray' plastic). 

The Dead King runs down the party. How will this end?

In VoTDK you'll find just two miniatures. One represents your party, and the other your nemesis, the Dead King. These are pretty nice miniatures by Reaper. They get the job done marking your place in the world. That's it! I for one am happy to get more content out of the price I pay over less content to cram in more plastic.

You can see that there is a lot to like, but there are a few negatives to consider.

Adventure, but not for everyone.

Circumstances that your party may face, fail at, or profit from!

As you can see from the images in this post, there is plenty of land to explore in the valley. Travelling from place to place offers opportunity and adventure at every turn. However, this isn't a game for everyone, and I'll explain a few reasons why that may be the case here:

1. There is a lot of randomness and dice-rolling in some elements of the game, most notably, completing quests. If you are unlucky, that might mean you are stuck on a hex for several turns as you try to pass a roll, or you roll up a circumstance with an enemy way beyond your level. If the dice gods are truly against you, the Dead King will show up at the end of turn 1 of the game, drastically increasing the pressure on the players.

2. In the early game (before you can improve your stats), there are elements that can beat you down and leave a sour taste in the mouth. A good example? Managing food and rations. You can only carry so much, and as you travel, each turn you must scavenge for food. As your stats aren't great in the beginning, there is a good chance you will fail these rolls (see no.1 above), using up your supplies and possibly resulting in bad side-effects. To avoid this, you may find yourself managing trips to cities to pick up food - hardly the stuff of grand adventures!

3. Combat is deterministic, and can feel more like a maths mini-game than an exciting battle against evil. If you are someone who wants to capture the rpg feel of your youth, smack talking with your buddies and rolling a D20, the combat here isn't for you. Your character's options are limited to a choice of four actions. You know exactly what damage you are going to do from these attacks, and what health your enemy has. To work out the results, you will use a dry erase battle-mat to do some battle-math until your enemy succumbs - or you do!

My friends, let us run towards the battle...mat!

To be fair, there are ways to mitigate some of these issues, but you'll have to spend (in game) money to do so. For example, you can purchase luck stones. These handy charms are plentiful and cheap in the valley, which is a good thing as they allow you to re-roll a single die (among other things). 

You can also choose to move more cautiously each turn in the early game, allowing you to discard or avoid a tough circumstance if you draw one from the five on offer. 'Phew, I'm glad we carefully picked our way through this forest, that <insert random high level enemy here> would have been the death of us!'

To better deal with food issues, make sure you carry the maximum amount of rations, and that you spend some more gold to improve the appropriate stat when you start out, increasing the chance that you will find food on your travels and avoid depleting your stores.

To me this feels no different from stocking up on potions in any other game, but it does take the shine off the experience and leave you feeling a little railroaded into how you spend your cash at the beginning.

More adventures await.

Although it took me a good weekend to play through my first game I enjoyed my journey through the valley. Armed with the knowledge I gained I am looking forward to my next game - supplemented by the Living Card Deck for even more adventures!

Thanks for reading!