The game is mostly a worker-placement game, a common mechanics in European boardgames, but not one I’ve previously seen in a D&D-themed game. As I really, really enjoy worker placement games, I can’t wait to actually play it. Over the next few days or weeks, I’ll be playing it with my friends, posting session reports on boardgamegeek.com, and eventually reviewing it properly. 

The game is for 2-5 players and plays in about an hour; as your number of Agents (workers) is dependent on the number of players (more for fewer players), it looks like the game time will be fairly constant regardless of the number of players – between 8-10 moves per turn, not counting extra time for finishing quests, setting up, and all the other things that contribute to the length of a boardgame.

The game begins with nine basic actions available – which are themed as Buildings, much like Caylus or Deadwood, and include such buildings as Aurora’s Realms Shop from which you get 4 gold, and the Grinning Lion Tavern, which allows you to recruit two rogues. Further buildings (and thus, actions) enter play by people choosing the Builder’s Hall action which allow them to construct from a selection of three buildings. There are 24 advanced buildings in the game, and they become available in a random order, thus ensuring the game doesn’t play the game each time. (Compare to Caylus where all buildings are available for purchase and some very definitive strategies have come to dominate play).

Victory points are scored at end of game for the adventurers you’ve recruited and the gold you’ve acquired, but more significant are the points you’ll get for your hidden victory condition (depending on which Lord of Waterdeep you’re playing), and the points you achieve for quests during the game. Quests generally require adventurers and gold to complete, and reward you with VPs, gold and/or other unique rewards.

Interfering with each other’s plans is more prominent than in similar games. Of course, you still have the old standby of taking the action space another player wants, but each player also has a hand of Intrigue Cards, which range from an Ambush which causes characters to lose rogues from their tavern (supply), to Tax Collection which gives you money but allows other people to spend money to gain VPs, to the Mandatory Quests which require another player to complete them before they can complete their better-rewarded quests. It will be interesting to see how the chaos this creates plays in the game.

There are 50 Intrigue cards, 60 Quest cards and 11 Lords of Waterdeep cards. 

It all looks very promising and I hope to get my first game of it tomorrow… and likely several more over the next few days.