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An adventure board game is a
board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a comp ...
in which a player plays as a unique individual character that improves through gameplay.
This improvement is commonly reflected in terms of increasing character
attributes
Attribute may refer to:
* Attribute (philosophy), an extrinsic property of an object
* Attribute (research), a characteristic of an object
* Grammatical modifier, in natural languages
* Attribute (computing), a specification that defines a proper ...
, but also in receiving new abilities or equipment.
History
1970s
Adventure board games often integrate various
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
mechanics
Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objects r ...
, such as
experience point
An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experi ...
s and
character creation
Character creation (also character generation or character design) is the process of defining a game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a ...
into the board game format. The origins of these two types of game are related. In the early 1970s,
Dave Arneson
David Lance Arneson (; October 1, 1947Minnesota Department of Health. ''Minnesota Birth Index, 1935–2002'' atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2004. – April 7, 2009) was an American game designer best known ...
introduced his role-playing game,
Blackmoor
Blackmore is a village in Essex, England.
Blackmore or Blackmoor may also refer to:
* Blackmore (name), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
* Blackmoor, Hampshire, a village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England
...
, to a group of players. One of those players,
Gary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax ( ; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') with Dave Arneson.
In the 1960s, Gygax created an ...
, collaborated with Arneson to create ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'' (1974). Another member of that gaming group,
Dave Megarry, translated the experience into the board game, ''
Dungeon!
''Dungeon!'' is an adventure board game designed by David R. Megarry and first released by TSR, Inc. in 1975. Additional contributions through multiple editions were made by Gary Gygax, Steve Winter, Jeff Grubb, Chris Dupuis and Michael Gray. ...
'' (1975), the first adventure board game.
In fact, the term "adventure gaming" in the 1970s referred to what later became known as
tabletop role-playing game
A tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participa ...
s, and only later became associated with board games.
1980s
The genre saw a particular boom in the 1980s, when its key subgenres had been codified by three major releases of the decade:
* Competitive fantasy adventure games, codified by ''Dungeon!'' and particularly
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''.
Founded in 1975 by John Peake (gam ...
's ''
Talisman
A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...
'' (1983),
* Cooperative investigative adventure games, pioneered by
Chaosium
Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon'' ...
's ''
Arkham Horror
''Arkham Horror'' is a cooperative adventure board game designed by Richard Launius, originally published in 1987 by Chaosium. The game is based on Chaosium's roleplaying game ''Call of Cthulhu'', which is set in the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. ...
'' (1987), and
* Cooperative fantasy adventure games, a combination of the other two directions, first produced in GW and
Milton Bradley Company
Milton Bradley Company or simply Milton Bradley (MB) was an American board game manufacturer established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the ...
's ''
HeroQuest
''HeroQuest'', sometimes written as ''Hero Quest'', is an adventure board game created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop. The game was loosely based around archetypes of fantasy role-playing games: the ...
'' (1989).
1990s
In the 1990s, both adventure board games and tabletop RPGs saw a sharp decline in popularity in the wake of the
collectible card game
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in ...
boom and bust.
2000s
Fantasy Flight Games
Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is a game company based in Roseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, card, and dice games. As of 2014, it is a subsidiary of Asmodée Éditions.
History
Fantasy Flight Publish ...
has brought all three subgenres back into the market with their ''
Runebound'' (2004), the second edition of ''Arkham Horror'' (2005), and ''
Descent: Journeys in the Dark'' (2006), respectively. Other companies published their own takes on the genre, such as
Atlas Games
Atlas Games is a company which publishes role-playing games, board games and card games. Its founder and current president is John Nephew.
History
When Atlas Games did not have the finances to publish '' On the Edge'' (1994), they partnered with J ...
' card-based ''
Dungeoneer
''Dungeoneer'' (ISBN 0-14-032936-6) is the first of the three rule books that make up the Advanced Fighting Fantasy roleplaying game. It was written by Marc Gascoigne and Pete Tamlyn, illustrated by John Sibbick and was originally published in 19 ...
'' (2003) and Pegasus Spiele's ''
Return of the Heroes'' (2003), which was one of the earliest examples of the genre to employ
eurogame
A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical componen ...
mechanics — something Fantasy Flight Games also embraced in their own later games.
2010s
In the 2010s, the adventure board game genre had returned to its roots when
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for ga ...
, the new owners of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' IP, began publishing their own cooperative fantasy adventure games based on the
fourth edition of ''D&D'': ''
Castle Ravenloft'' (2010), ''
Wrath of Ashardalon'' (2011), ''
The Legend of Drizzt'' (2011), etc.
Notes
{{Tabletop games by type