Dungeons & Dragons has surged in popularity in recent times, enjoying a glorious renaissance in the modern age thanks to the popularity of fantasy and board games. Finding the time to play through a campaign, however, remains as challenging as ever. Unless you and your friends are exceptionally organised, committing to a DND campaign is incredibly difficult. The ‘Call to Adventure’ series provides players with the story and character building of DND but without the need for hours upon hours of gameplay. While it is by no means a ‘DND-lite’, it hits a lot of the same beats and occupies a similar niche albeit in a short form manner as it puts a huge emphasis on the character crafting which is the bread and butter of a good RPG. Call To Adventure: Epic Origins is a standalone expansion to Call to Adventure that further concentrates these DND-lite elements.
DND has some heavy systems under its hood, for the DM there can be a lot to manage: all the different NPC’s, the stats of all the characters, the constant need to push the narrative forward, not to mention the balancing of all this so that it remains a challenging but fair experience. ‘Call To Adventure: Epic Origins‘ (CTA for short) has nothing as remotely complex as this, character creation is the first example of this simplicity, in CTA it takes a few seconds, as opposed to DND where an entire ‘session zero’ is required. At the beginning of each game, you will be dealt a heritage card, which will determine your species and then you will be dealt a further six cards: two Origin Cards, two Class Cards, and two Destiny cards. These represent the beginning of the story, your class and the end of your story, all you do to create your starting character is you pick one of each and then your story begins.
Now before I delve into the primary mechanics of the game, it is important to note I have already mentioned some differences between the Epic Origins version of the game and the original. Epic Origins introduces the heritage cards, which as I mentioned determine your species. Each different species will have a different heritage ability, so as well as roleplaying flavour, these cards add replayability and small asymmetrical player powers. The second difference is the Class cards, which have replaced the motivation cards from the original game, they behave slightly differently but essentially, they both provide a small bonus. The biggest and most sweeping change is that whereas the original Call to Adventure is primarily a competitive game with a small tacked on Co-Op element, in Epic Origins the designers have fully leaned into the Co-Op mode.
Dungeons & Dragons has surged in popularity in recent times, enjoying a glorious renaissance in the modern age thanks to the popularity of fantasy and board games. Finding the time to play through a campaign, however, remains as challenging as ever. Unless you and your friends are exceptionally organised, committing to a DND campaign is incredibly difficult. The ‘Call to Adventure’ series provides players with the story and character building of DND but without the need for hours upon hours of gameplay. While it is by no means a ‘DND-lite’, it hits a lot of the same beats and occupies a similar niche albeit in a short form manner as it puts a huge emphasis on the character crafting which is the bread and butter of a good RPG. Call To Adventure: Epic Origins is a standalone expansion to Call to Adventure that further concentrates these DND-lite elements.
DND has some heavy systems under its hood, for the DM there can be a lot to manage: all the different NPC’s, the stats of all the characters, the constant need to push the narrative forward, not to mention the balancing of all this so that it remains a challenging but fair experience. ‘Call To Adventure: Epic Origins‘ (CTA for short) has nothing as remotely complex as this, character creation is the first example of this simplicity, in CTA it takes a few seconds, as opposed to DND where an entire ‘session zero’ is required. At the beginning of each game, you will be dealt a heritage card, which will determine your species and then you will be dealt a further six cards: two Origin Cards, two Class Cards, and two Destiny cards. These represent the beginning of the story, your class and the end of your story, all you do to create your starting character is you pick one of each and then your story begins.
Now before I delve into the primary mechanics of the game, it is important to note I have already mentioned some differences between the Epic Origins version of the game and the original. Epic Origins introduces the heritage cards, which as I mentioned determine your species. Each different species will have a different heritage ability, so as well as roleplaying flavour, these cards add replayability and small asymmetrical player powers. The second difference is the Class cards, which have replaced the motivation cards from the original game, they behave slightly differently but essentially, they both provide a small bonus. The biggest and most sweeping change is that whereas the original Call to Adventure is primarily a competitive game with a small tacked on Co-Op element, in Epic Origins the designers have fully leaned into the Co-Op mode.
In Epic Origins players will work together to take down an adversary, after choosing an adversary and choosing their starting cards, the game begins. The act one cards are laid out and you will choose a card to add to your characters tableau, it could be a trait such as “tough” which might be good if you’re playing a strength build, or you could choose to attempt a challenge, such as “fight sewer rats”. While traits are conditional and can be only added if you meet the requirements, challenges are attempted by casting runes (which are essentially d2’s). If you complete the challenge, you gain the card and the rewards associated with it, which is usually a rune symbol, but can also be sometimes triumph or tragedy points (victory points that represent the paths of light and dark respectively) as well as a hero card, which provide special abilities. For every rune symbol you possess you can cast one rune of that type, more runes means that you will be able to complete harder challenges. In this way Epic Origins functions like an engine builder, collect runes to get better cards with more runes. Choosing to attempt the harder challenges with your limited rune pool also presents a light push-your-luck element to the game. The hero cards that can be added to your hand provide special abilities such as being able to flip a rune, add +1 to an attempt, or maybe negate an adversary cards effect, this provides a light hand management aspect. The adversary cards are played by the adversary when certain conditions are met and can make challenges harder, negate player abilities or force you to discard a hero card, so the adversary is not just an end game opponent, but a constant threat throughout the game.
Despite the engine building, hand management and push your luck elements that Epic Origins possesses, it would be a disservice to play this game as a merely a set collecting, dice chucking, engine building game. The beauty of Epic Origins (and by extension, the base game) is the epic tales it can create. The traits and challenges you complete all add to your hero’s story, and the variety of cards means there are endless ways for your story to unfold, especially if you combine it with base game.
Here is an example of a story that the game can generate:
I began as an adventurous highborn artist who assisted an Archmage, and was then trained to become his Paladin. He then led an expedition, however during the expedition he was captured, and he had to break out of captivity, after which he recovered stolen goods. In his later years he continued to study under the Archmage to become a Loremaster and afterwards, combining his arcane knowledge with the martial skills that he gained as a Paladin, he became an Eldritch Knight, he went on to become the head of his order and would rule wisely. He went down in history as the Peoples Champion.
I won this game, and I felt like a proud father when my hero defeated the final adversary. I haven’t plucked anything out of thin air in this story; every part of that story is verbatim from the cards in the game. See below.
This is just one example of a story that this game can create. As I added to my tableau, I could so vividly imagine this young artist going on to become a wise old paladin who specialised in defeating eldritch foes. It’s hard not to connect the dots between your cards, there was no actual link between the “Loremaster”, “Eldritch Knight” and the “Assist An Archmage” cards, but as the game progressed the link between them and the backstory it created felt so natural and really leapt out at me. I mean, of course my paladin became so wise in the ways of the arcane, he spent his younger years assisting and learning from a powerful Archmage. Creating those links in your story feels so satisfying and makes drafting cards and adding them to your tableau more than just an efficiency puzzle, it feels more like penning your very own fantasy story.
This game is amazing at providing you with epic fantasy stories and you will be surprised at how invested you can become as the game progresses and how the cards can link up in unexpected but meaningful ways. I often end up making suboptimal plays because I was thinking more about my characters story than making the most efficient move. Likewise playing this with others who enjoy the storytelling element adds an incredible role-playing layer to this game, the instruction manual even encourages that you each tell your story at the end of the game.
This story telling element is the primary reason for so many comparisons to DND, it acts as such an effective light, DM-less roleplaying game as you and your fellow players can regale each other with tales of your character, and because you don’t need a DM, no one is bogged down with all the housekeeping required in running the game. Call To Adventure: Epic Origins is quick to set up and quick to play, your turn merely consists of drafting a card, which means you can focus on your character building, a session can be over in an hour which means its brilliant for a quick sit down of roleplaying, without the need to commit eight hours of your precious Sunday to a DND session.
The simplicity of this game is also its main drawback, for those who are looking for a board game in which you deeply strategise and plan your moves ahead then this won’t really scratch that itch, the gameplay loop is essentially pick a card and throw some runes, and sometimes you might play a hero card. The depth of this game is created by the players themselves; the intangible element of storytelling is what turns the small trickle of gameplay into a glorious torrent of roleplaying.
The adversary system is also slightly questionable, it is more of a nuisance than it is a huge threat as it can be a bit of a pushover, (although I’ve lost quite a lot playing solo, but that may be more to do with my obsession with story crafting instead of optimum set collecting). Another drawback of this adversary system is that each one only demands two types of runes to defeat it, rendering all other runes obsolete, and in a game of limitless player choice this serves only to artificially limit the runes you are aiming to get, which is a frustrating restriction when you just want to focus on creating a character and forget about min/maxing. This is one thing the original does a bit better; the competitive mode has no such arbitrary restrictions as all the players are simply aiming for the highest score. It is still possible to play using the competitive rules however the hero cards are designed for co-op play, whereas the original Call to Adventure hero cards are designed for PvP. So, while Epic Origins is by far the better Co-Op experience, the original is far better for those who want to pit their creations against each other, without the restraints of an NPC adversary.
The absolute best way to experience both of these games is to combine them, and they can be combined seamlessly, not only does this provide two sets of hero/antihero cards for different gameplay modes, but by using the story cards from both games you end up with a staggering amount of content, and therefore a dizzying variety of potential stories. My completionist tendencies meant that I bought both at the same time and immediately combined them, I have at least ten playthroughs and I’m still finding new cards, the amount of variety that the combined sets provides is truly incredible and it means every single character and story is going to feel unique, and being able to choose the competitive mode or the cooperative mode gives you two entirely different ways of playing.
Both sets are designed to go with each other, so the artwork is consistent between both; artwork that is simply beautiful; epic fantasy paintings adorn each card and tell the story held within them. Upon choosing a card to add it to my tableau, I often just spend a minute or two admiring the gorgeous artwork, if you like epic fantasy art I can’t think of a single game that does it better.
Call To Adventure: Epic Origins fuses elements of roleplaying and board games to create unique tabletop experience that is easily accessible to all players. The quick set up and ease at which it plays, along with its beautiful art gets players story crafting together in no time, and the unique gameplay mechanic of casting runes instead of dice add to an already complete fantasy experience. While a bit light, ‘Call to Adventure’ does a tremendous job in creating a theatre upon which to stage endlessly fantasy tales, especially when combined with its predecessor.
