There’s a new Bardsung game that’s just been announced.
I’m really happy to hear about this. Bardsung was one of the most underrated dungeon crawls I’ve played in the last 3 years. It met with less than stellar reviews when it released as it had a pretty rough rulebook that worked well as a tutorial but was terrible as a quick reference, and had an enormous oblong box and a larger than normal board which made both storage and play more difficult than necessary. Besides that, the biggest most oft repeated complaint I saw was how grindy it was - which was a valid concern with how parts of the first campaign was laid out and structured.
The core system, however, was smooth, fast, with a very short TTL(time to live) for enemies, resulting in quick battles as you push through a dungeon room by room. I was playing this about the same time I got introduced to Arena the Contest, and the difference was stark when bouncing between games where one had enemies with 1-2 hp vs another where enemies had 35-70 hp.
And it used a full suite of dice! d4-d20 isn’t something you see often in board games and getting to play with whole rpg dice sets was a nice bonus. Finally, it took place in an actual dungeon! It’s funny when that’s a big selling point, but I personally appreciated it. Oh, and the minis were on point! The terrain pack also had some of my favorite dungeon terrain I’ve seen in a dungeon crawler.
We played the heck out of it for a long while.
But the game seemed to just disappear off everyone’s radar. Resale value dropped off a cliff as everyone started chasing newer more critically acclaimed games. Interest dried up. It looked like the game was dead.
I certainly understand. With such a plethora of dungeon crawling campaign games, choosing a game with known flaws is a harder decision to make.
But as can be seen with Machina Archana 3rd edition or Shadows of Brimstone Revised, sometimes a polished revision of a game can bring new life into a system.
I think Bardsung had some great potential in its bones, so I’m happy to see the team that made it look to implement what they’ve learned and continue with a new edition.
Didn’t hear about this. I bought the game new a few months ago off Amazon but haven’t gotten a chance to play it. I’ve heard the rulebook is not the greatest but bought it anyways. I always hate when what I have is being replaced. It would have been nice if they just offered an updated rulebook instead of making you buy an entire game to experience the new system. Even Dragori offered an upgrade kit to the original Tanares Adventures.
The Bardsung rulebook is available for free on the SFG website so I’m sure the follow-up game’s rulebook will also be available without cost if that’s all you’re looking for.
Upgrade kits can work all right if it’s just updating the same game and ironing out details or cards with errata
Complete overhauls, major revisions, and sequels on the other hand, I find they work less well and often not at all.
Shadows of Brimstone for example, really went to a second edition when Forbidden Fortress hit. Way later when actual revised versions came out, the stated plan was to bring the original core sets up to the FoFo standard. An upgrade kit to change the original core sets to FoFo was obviously not possible here, and that seems to be the direction Bardsung is going. It’s a sequel with improvements to the system so while I do hope efforts are made to make as much as possible cross compatible, I wouldn’t know what an upgrade kit would even look like without them completely redoing the original game’s campaign book.
If it’s treated like an expansion or I can use my original components somehow then that’s cool.
Best example I can use was when FFG created Descent Journeys in the Dark and came out with 2e but then created a conversion kit for 1e to be used with it. I was so appreciative of that.
I feel you on the board size. Wasn’t a problem for me, but would have been on the majority of tables I have owned over the course of my life.
And yeah! Would love some ability to integrate parts of the old game in the new like in Descent, Mansions of Madness, or Massive Darkness! Curious to see what they come up with
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