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How Does Legacy Of Dragonholt Work?
Legacy of Dragonholt follows the same pattern as most adventure RPG’s. The game starts when players create their own characters, and proceeds by presenting the players with an open world to explore and several quests to complete.
Character Creation
The character creation in Legacy of Dragonholt is quite simple, but still offers players a lot of freedom. Players choose a race, such as Human, Elf or Orc, and a class, such as Thief or Knight. Players also choose some of their key skills and equipment. Who you are and which skills you have, determine which choices you’ll be able to make throughout the story.
Further, players also create their own back story, which can include anything they want. Their hopes and fears, their dreams or childhood memories, their odd obsessive compulsive disorders. These factors don’t put any hard restrictions on what the player can do, but they’re fun to create for roll playing sake.
An Open World
The world in Legacy of Dragonholt, Terrinoth, is truly open. Even more so than in traditional RPG’s like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), because other than in D&D, there’s no Dungeon Master that dictates the events that happen. Instead, the players are presented a series of choices and scenarios that determine how their adventure unfolds.
All events in Terrinoth are also connected, and things can change even without your active involvement. Quests, stories and encounters can unfold differently based on your reputation, who you befriended, which items you carry and who your enemies are.
Quests
Legacy Of Dragonholt features six quests that thrust players into the different aspects of Terrinoth. Some of the quests feature a lot of combat, others about discovering new places and solving puzzles, and yet others about persuading the inhabitants of Terrinoth. The quests can all be completed in numerous different ways so they don’t limit the freedom of the players.
The To New Roads quest is the tutorial quest that players are nudged to do first. To New Roads introduces the players to all the major mechanics and rules of Legacy of Dragonholt in a pleasant way. This tutorial quest is fun and very well done, and it’s yet another reason why Legacy of Dragonholt is a great pick for beginners in the RPG board game genre.
Although the quests are the major activites in Legacy of Dragonholt, they are by no means the whole game. Apart from these six main quests, Terrinoth is full of other mini quests, and players are always free to come up with personal quests, such as seducing the Dwarf bar tender in the inn.
Mechanics
The extremely simple mechanics of Legacy of Dragonholt are another reason why it appeals to RPG beginners.
The whole game functions like a choose your own adventure novel, with multiple books that have many text entries.. You read the entry of where you’re at, and it gives you multiple choices.
For example, you might be searching a dungeon and hear voices at the end of a hall. You’re given three choices: try to sneak up on the voices, yell out to the voices, or take a different path around the voices. Each of the choices sends you to a different entry in the book where you read what the consequences of your choice are and what happens next.
The choices that are available to you and their consequences often depend on your skill level. For example, you might learn that your sneak attack failed because your sneak level was too low. Or you might be presented with an option to shoot at enemies from a distance provided that you have a bow and an archery level of at least 25.
The Good, Bad and Ugly Of Legacy Of DragonHolt
Now that you know the basic rules and mechanics of Legacy of Dragonholt, it’s time for our review. Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of Legacy of Dragoholt.
The Good
First of all, it’s the only board game RPG that we know off that has novel quality writing. The game is mostly text based and the text has been done very, very well. That’s one of the reasons that many people find the game great even with only 1 player; it feels like you’re reading a fantastic fantasy novel (and you’re a part of it!).
Secondly, as we touched on many times in this review, the game is simple. And that’s actually quite rare for board game RPGs, as those are often targeted at the very hard core board game community. But with its easy to understand mechanics, minimalist rule set and pleasant tutorial quest that explains everything you need to know, we think that Legacy of Dragonholt is the best RPG board game for beginners.
Thirdly, most RPG board games require some kind of game leader or Dungeon master that guides the game but doesn’t actually play. Legacy of Dragonholt doesn’t require a game leader. This is nice, as all players get to actually play, and you don’t need an experienced player who can lead the game. So if you’re with a group of beginners, Legacy of Dragonholt is one of the only RPG board games you can comfortably start with.
The Bad
There’s nothing truly bad about Legacy of Dragonholt. But, for the same reason that it’s a great RPG for beginners, it’s kind of not as good for seasoned RPG gamers.
If you’re used to the 360 degrees of freedom and 500 page rule books of RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, you’ll be disappointed by your options in Legacy of Dragonholt. It’s just not that kind of open world in which you can do anything at all, as you can only choose among the options that the game gives to you.
The Ugly
Legacy of Dragonholt is not ugly, but it’s minimalist, so it’s important to manage your expectations about what you get. The game is text based. It doesn’t come with figurines or other apparel. It’s just a map, books and the stories within them. If props are essential to you, you want a different game.
Legacy Of Dragonholt: Is It Worth It?
To summarize our review, we’d say you need to consider these factors to decide whether Legacy of Dragonholt is worth it for you:
- Are you a beginner in the RPG board game genre? Then Legacy of Dragonholt is the best place to start your adventures. If you’rea veteran in the genre, you might enjoy another options with more freedom and complexity more.
- Do you enjoy reading fantasy novels? Legacy of Dragonholt is like a great novel that you’re a part of. The writing is actually excellent, and with its character creation and leveling, Legacy of Dragonholt offers more than your standard choose your own adventure novel. But if you don’t enjoy reading, this is not you’re game.
- Do you play solo? This is not a requirement, as Legacy of Dragonholt is also fun to play in groups. But, it’s one of the only RPG board games that’s still great to play solo, due to its novel quality story writing. So if you play solo, Legacy of Dragonholt is extra recommended.
Depending on these factors we say: yes, Legacy of Dragonholt is worth it!