Review: Adventure Party (Smirk and dagger)

Every fantasy adventure features the stuff of bardic songs: terrible monsters, dangerous locales, dastardly villains, and heroic deeds — and, of course, a tavern where our heroes gather and enjoy each other’s company. That sounds like a party to me!

Adventure Party from Smirk & Dagger Games turns the classic tropes and tales of fantasy roleplaying games into a rules-light story telling game where players narrate the action, roll a die, and describe how well or poorly things turned out so the other players can guess their roll.

Grab a drink and a snack from the kitchen and settle into a fantasy frame of mind as we delve into the top five things you need to know about Adventure Party.

Pick a Character and a D20

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An adventure needs characters, so players begin the game by choosing or randomly picking their character card, taking a D20, and drawing two magic item cards.

The game’s 12 basic characters cover the classic fantasy tropes like ranger, monk, necromancer, and rogue. Each card includes a portrait of the character, a brief description of them, and an outline of special abilities and standard gear. It also includes a guide for interpreting the die roll in your story. (More about how your D20 fits into this in a moment.)

Let’s Go Adventuring!

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At its heart, Adventure Party is a lightly structured story telling game. The first player becomes the Guess Master (yes, the GM). They draw and read an adventure card, showing the artwork to all players. The player next to the GM in a clockwise direction becomes the first adventurer.

For example, the GM’s adventure card says that the brave adventurer got kidnapped by pirates. The pirates set sail and put the character to work aboard their ship. Will the adventurer try to escape or will they join the band of cutthroats and call the sea their home?

Now it’s the adventurer’s turn. Drawing from the abilities and gear outlined on their character card — combined with a healthy dose of imagination — the adventurer figures out what their character will do to meet this challenge.

Telling the Tale

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The adventurer then narrates their plan. They describe how their character rises to the occasion, whether it’s dashing into battle with fists and spells blazing or stealthily sneaking toward their goal. If they use a magic item card, they play it face-up so everyone can see.

Your character’s story can be as heroic, humorous, or outlandish as the player wants. In the pirate example, maybe your character started enjoying the buccaneer life but something changed their mind, so they decided to jump ship at the next opportunity.

Guessing the Roll from the Story

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After describing the plan, the adventurer secretly rolls a d20 to find out how things actually went. Low numbers are bad and high numbers are good. Using the chart on the character card as a guide, the adventurer describes the outcome in a way that gives the other players clues about the hidden die’s number.

Let’s say you rolled a 12. The character guide says a 10 is “barely a success” — you made it, but things didn’t go entirely as planned. Your 12 is a little better than that.

You say that your acrobatic monk’s flying kicks surprised the pirates. You knocked out the captain and her first mate, grabbed a rope, and swung toward the dock and your freedom. Unfortunately, the rope was slicker than you thought. Instead of gracefully landing, you crashed into a stack of crates and landed in a fish barrel. You’re free, but fragrant.

The GM gets to ask one short question to clarify your story, then the other players set their dice to show the number they think you rolled. Everyone earns points on how close their guesses were to the actual number. The adventurer gets the highest point value that the players earned.

Adding Theme Music

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To make your story-telling experience even better, the team behind Adventure Party included recommended tracks and settings to play with the Pocket Bard app (Android, iOS, and Apple Silicon).

Download the app for free, then launch it and activate the free “fantasy essentials” and “seafaring” sound collections. There’s no sign-in or registration required, which made me very happy.

When a player draws an adventure card during the game, find the card on the soundtrack cheat sheet, call up the recommended track, and set the intensity and volume as shown. Feel free to have fun in the moment by triggering one-off sound effects like an explosion or a body hitting the ground.

Verdict

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Adventure Party could well be the next roleplaying gateway game. It gives everyone a chance to weave a tale and have fun, even the folks who normally feel shy or who object that they’re “just not creative that way.”

New players can feel intimidated and overwhelmed by roleplaying games. Remembering character details, grasping rule mechanics, and doing it all inside the whole “theater of the mind” thing creates a steep barrier to entry.

This is where the magic of Adventure Party lives. By presenting players with a bare-bones outline of their character, abilities, and the challenge they face, Adventure Party gives players permission to let their creativity run free as they imagine outlandish scenarios. The D20 roll adds an element of uncertainty that can lead to hilarious outcomes and memorable guesses.