Belkar FTW! We Play The Order of the Stick Adventure Game

Marc stopped by tonight and we played a “quick” game of Ape Games’s The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan.

 OOTS is based on the incredibly funny gaming comic of the same name (if you’ve never seen it before, you really don’t need to waste your time reading this. View Rich Burlew’s work and be entertained in ways I can’t even begin to compete with). It’s constructed on the same model as Talisman, Runebound, and even Munchkin: a bunch of adventurers wandering around a dungeon killing things and taking their stuff. OOTS takes the questing element of the first two and combines it with the humor and backstabbing of the third, and the result is a very entertaining but often very long game. We played the “short” version: three levels plus Xykon’s Inner Sanctum. It took us about four hours. I shudder to think what an 8+ level game must be like.

Marc drew Durkon (crusty dwarf cleric) and I got Belkar (psychotic halfling ranger), and we descended into the depths of the Dungeon of Dorukan in search of loot, short women, and the evil but amusing Xykon the Lich.

Multiplayer OOTS is a haggler’s dream: you trade the treasure you acquire for help from the other players. Two player OOTS is more a straightforward acquisition race: amass as much stuff as you can to trade in for bonuses (it’s almost impossible to beat tougher creatures like Xykon, Redcloak, or The Monster in the Darkness without aid of some kind). It’s also a much more unrestrained environment for cards that mess up your opponent, as you don’t need to worry much about building alliances and maintaining goodwill.

Belkar’s built for combat, albeit primarily combat against other players (as I said…he’s a psychotic halfling ranger), so I had a fairly easy time negotiating the first level of the Dungeon on my own. Durkon, who has good healing abilities but little combat capability at first found it tougher going. Because of this I got and maintained an early lead on loot. Eventually though, Marc figured out how to properly finesse the aid system and began to catch up. Once Durkon gets the Thor’s Hammer schtick (which Marc did), he can compete fairly well with most of the combat geared characters.

Belkar had significant problems dealing with Redcloak and a Lumber Hulk, and Durkon got stomped on repeatedly by Zzt’dri and some kobolds, but eventually we made it past the hordes of supporting characters and into Zykon’s inner sanctum. Belkar dispatched The Monster in the Darkness and Xykon’s Orc Bodyguard, while Durkon took on a horde of zombies and eventually slew the Lich himself. The final score at the end:

Belkar:

• Loot: 26
• Schticks: 15
• Total: 42

Durkon:

• Loot: 15
• Schticks: 11
• Bragging Rights for Killing Xykon: 8
• First Out of the Dungeon: 1
• Total: 35

A handy victory for the Halfling, though Durkon got a major boost for destroying the Lich. It’s a fun game, and the general hilarity of the cards and the need to contribute monsters to battle your opponent eliminate a lot of the downtime which plagues Runebound. It is, however, a long game and definitely deserves to be on the “all-nighter” shelf next to Twilight Imperium and StarCraft: The Boardgame.