I wrote
a blog post in August about why I do not want to buy Destinies . On Saturday, however, I bought the game, as well as the expansion (at 70 euros, less than it would cost me to buy online) at the Spiel store in Essen. And on Sunday I played a game with my wife to see if we would like to play together and if I would prefer to play alone. In the end, we both liked it and decided to play together, but we did not like it, I will tell you later.
But first I want to talk about why I changed my mind about Destinies. Because it has to do with understanding what I'm looking for in games. In Spiel I had the opportunity to play
Paper Dungeons , a "dungeon scroller" that you can spin and type. And it didn’t really excite me. Not that it's a bad game, but because of the main game cycle, this game shares most of the games I saw at the Spiel convention: at each stage, by combining random elements and player decisions, each player manipulates the elements of the game and writing. they (usually in the "fold and write" or "twist and write" genres, the voice is written on a piece of paper, while in other games the voice is represented by meeps and dice on the board); at the end of the match each player changes his record into points; the player with the most points wins. Although Paper Dungeons is technically a prison exploration, there is no narrative experience or step-by-step exploration here.
When you see
Spiel Essen's hottest game on BoardGameGeek , it all works that way. There are many different mechanics such as worker placement, mapping, tile placement or engine / office building. But always the decisions of the players change the elements of the game, which are converted into points at the end of the game and whoever has scored the most points wins. I do not really like. I play to gain experience, not to "beat" someone. The most popular convention game, Cueball,
looks like this . Difficult, right? The "game" is to figure out these complex graphics and make the move that will ultimately maximize your points. Paper dungeons
look like this , both of which are completely different, but again the same task: to understand the complex state of the game and to be able to make a move that will ultimately maximize your points.
How to win in such a contest? There is usually little chance, but if not everyone also understands the game, the degree of understanding is the best indication of who is winning. If you play one of these games for the first time against someone who has played it three times before, that player will almost certainly win. The consequence of winning by understanding is that no one explains their movements; you do not want to tell other players your strategy and why you think doing this or that action is better than what they did. And because of the complexity and ignorance of other players' strategy, you are often surprised by the end result; you thought you were having fun, but you ended up last, or vice versa. You barely understand the full implications of the move you just made, and usually much less than the move other players make. It's all very abstract and all the big surprises end when the points are counted.
I prefer games where every move is an experience, preferably shared with other players. And at least at Spiel, which is a European board game convention, these "American" themed games are rare compared to abstract "euro" point games. I did not buy Destinies because I thought it was the perfect game, but because there were not many games in the style I liked. It's better to buy a game with a strong story every turn and some disadvantages than an abstract European game where the story is not part of every turn I do.
The good news is that Destinies is extremely narratively strong. Almost every turn is a sequence of discoveries, descriptive decisions, throwing the dice to determine success, and discovering the consequences of combining your decision and the results of the dice. This fits in with the description of an "RPG in a box" where the application acts as the pastor. There is also some value in seeing other players' movements, as long as each result is read aloud, as what the other player encounters can give you clues about your goals.
The bad news is that the narrative experience of Destinies is somewhat at odds with the game designer's decision to make the game competitive. To explain it better, the rest of the post will contain heavy treats for the base game entry scenario, you have been warned! Destinies is primarily designed for three players, each playing one of the three main story characters. Each player / character tries to fulfill their "destination". But the fates are mutually exclusive. In the opening storyline at the beginning of the game it is reported that the village is threatened by a wolf and that the mayor has gone missing. Each player has additional hidden information: the nobleman wants to look just like a hero defeating the wolf; the witch is the mayor's mother and believes the wolf is her son, cursed by the witch; the hunter is the witch's lover and knows she wanted to get rid of her husband by turning him into a wolf, this spell only worked half. Each character has two different ways to achieve their fate: the nobleman can collect silver items to get silver weapons to kill the wolf, or organize a mob to help the villagers; the witch can help the villagers to help her break the curse or collect ritual objects to break the spell itself; and the hunter could raise money to kill a wolf with a silver weapon or collect ritual objects to help a witch cast a spell. Therefore, by designing the story, one player's victory prevents the other player (s) from reaching the goal.
In a three-player game, player 1 can choose between paths A and B, player 2 can choose between paths B and C, and player 3 can choose between paths C and A. Ideally, each player chooses a different path. . But according to statistics, if everyone chooses a path at random, in 75% of cases two players will choose the same path and get in each other's path, and the third player will win without resistance. You can change paths in the middle of the game, but you will definitely waste time, which will reduce your chances of winning. In a two-player game, the chance is fifty percent that both players have the same or different goals. And since everyone can see when the first player gets their first silver / ritual / resident item, the second player can change targets if necessary. So for me the game works better with 2 players than with 3.
At the beginning of the game, however, you have no idea where the items you need to collect are located unless you have already played the script. And I would not recommend playing the same scenario twice, the game works best when not all players know what scenario they are playing and everyone has a sense of exploration and discovery. But if no one knows the scenario, then the "victory" of the game has a pretty big chunk of luck. Yes, sometimes you have suggestions, for example if you want to gather the villagers, it makes sense to stay in the village and talk to the people there. But more often than not, you do not know where the items you are looking for are hiding, and you end up more or less randomly deciding which direction to go. I don't usually care about randomness and dice rolls in RPGs, but it's for cooperative games where random outcomes are just added to the story and you "fail". In Destinies with Mutually Exclusive Destinies, if one player wins, the other players are "punished" by having a poor story ending, which they have to endure passively. Only the winner has the pleasure of seeing his story to the end.
If you want, you can just play Destiny. Or you play on a timer, which means if you do not arrive at your destination on time, you can play the scenario again by doing the information you have already learned, and almost automatically do better. Or, if you do not like to do anything over, play in scout mode, which simply means there are absolutely no losing states, and play until you reach your destination. The storylines are interesting enough to apply the game to a single player. but in terms of pure game mechanics, none of the single player options feel satisfying.
Since the base game has 5 scenarios and the expansion has 3, and the script editor and player-created content have yet to be released, my plan is to play this game 8 times in 2-player mode with my wife. Since every move is interesting, the only downside is the pain of disappointment that one of us will inevitably experience when the script is missing. But, since it is "competitive", there are not many opportunities in the game for one player to ruin the other's game, except to accidentally reach the first base, when both players have accidentally chosen the same path. So in general we both do not play competitively or together, but enjoy exploration and discovery at the same time. And that joy of discovery is strong enough to keep the game going, so it does not bother us too much when one of us inevitably fails to fulfill our destiny. We would like to have a fully collaborative version where players work together more towards a common destiny. Yet Destinies is a fun game for both of you.
