A short revisit. Daniel (@dungeondive) wanted to know whether his earlier modern masterpiece call on Vantage would hold up across more plays — and the answer is a resounding no, he was not wrong. The game keeps surprising him.
Two pieces of news. First, the Rule Pop app for the storybooks: turn-to-passage lookups now resolve in a tap, the outcome stays hidden until you confirm, and the (already minimal) errata is rolled in. Daniel says flatly he will never play with the physical books again. An already fast solo game gets faster.
Second, the anecdote that prompted the whole video. Playing Jules the captain on an attain great wealth mission — needing 15 credits — Daniel assumed the path forward was the usual adventure-game playbook: invade, loot, sell, repeat. Instead a chance encounter with a red-cloaked sentient asked whether he’d ever considered living on the planet. That led him to a treehouse village, a destiny called set up a shop, a Pokémon-trading-card-style gambling minigame he hadn’t known existed, a vacant tailor shop he took over, garments he crafted, customers he sold to, and an economic victory achieved across three of the eight hundred location cards without a single act of exploitation.
Vantage, he argues, is the first tabletop adventure game he’s played where the answer to the prompt is genuinely don’t be an invader.
Daniel argues every other adventure game conditions you to be an invader — break in, kill, loot, sell. Which board games (if any) have you played that gave you a real non-exploitative path to victory?