Gather round! Pull up a chair and let me regale you with a few tales of adventure, intrigue and heroism… Or was it conflict, magic and villainy? The stories tend to differ slightly every time they’re told. Fret not, they will be entertaining just the same! And who knows? Maybe this time it’ll be your version that gets chiselled into the corridors of history!
The Witcher: Path of Destiny is another beautiful board game from the world of the much loved franchise created by Andrzej Sapkowski and further developed by CD Projekt Red. The game gives you the opportunity to play through three stories from Sapkowski’s novels. The catch is that each player will have an opportunity to influence certain decisions made throughout the narrative, thus influencing the outcome and ending.
The Aim
The aim of this game is to earn enough victory points by the end of the story to declare yourself the protagonist of the tale. You can do this mainly by investing enough actions into a chapter to take your preferred path, but there are other ways to do this such as levelling up your character, completing side quests and unique ways from the particular story being played through.
Gather round! Pull up a chair and let me regale you with a few tales of adventure, intrigue and heroism… Or was it conflict, magic and villainy? The stories tend to differ slightly every time they’re told. Fret not, they will be entertaining just the same! And who knows? Maybe this time it’ll be your version that gets chiselled into the corridors of history!
The Witcher: Path of Destiny is another beautiful board game from the world of the much loved franchise created by Andrzej Sapkowski and further developed by CD Projekt Red. The game gives you the opportunity to play through three stories from Sapkowski’s novels. The catch is that each player will have an opportunity to influence certain decisions made throughout the narrative, thus influencing the outcome and ending.
The Aim
The aim of this game is to earn enough victory points by the end of the story to declare yourself the protagonist of the tale. You can do this mainly by investing enough actions into a chapter to take your preferred path, but there are other ways to do this such as levelling up your character, completing side quests and unique ways from the particular story being played through.
The victory points are scored at the end of each chapter but it’s anyone’s game until the story ends, so strive to be the main character in your chosen tale and solidify a narrative that suits you, whether it aligns with the written canon for the Witcher, or not!
The Game
This game can be defined as a tableau building card game which puts the focus on the stories being told. You select your character, with their personalised starting decks, and play cards to commit actions towards the outcome of the active chapter. These 4 actions are: diplomacy, exploration, magic or combat. A chapter will possess 2 (of the 4) active actions, each corresponding to a different outcome, and it is up to each player to decide which path they are destined to take.
Each tale is made of 3 chapters which take 3 turns each to complete. This means that a whole game should last 9 turns for each player. The turns are divided into 3 phases as below:
1) Drafting Cards
2) Playing Cards
3) Determining Destiny
Every player will carry out the first phase during which they will select new cards to add to their hands. Once every player has completed this phase, play moves to the second phase in which each player will select cards to play to their timeline and do so simultaneously. It is during this phase that the actions (diplomacy, exploration, magic and combat) are committed to the story for each player. During the final phase, the active actions are tallied for each player, determining whether a player is destined for one path or the other. Once all players’ individual destinies are defined, the overall Path of Destiny for the round is decided. As an example, if 2 of the 3 players have had a majority of diplomacy actions for this round, the first turn has taken a step towards diplomacy.
Why does this matter? The players score victory points if their individual paths and dedicated tokens align with that of the chapter destiny, and score experience points - used for levelling up your character and unlocking unique abilities - for any action tokens aligned with the path not taken. Once 3 turns have been played, the overall path of the chapter is decided and the story progresses.
This process is repeated twice more for a total of 3 chapters to conclude your selected tale declaring one of you as the protagonist of this complete (albeit possibly twisted) version of the story.
As can probably be noted from the descriptions of the turns and gameplay, the most heavily utilised components throughout this game are cards. The main focus is constructing a deck which will provide you with the opportunity to commit as many of your selected actions as needed during the telling of the tale to influence the direction in which the story is headed. You’ll be looking at these cards for most of the game, so it helps that they are aesthetically pleasing to look at. They’re made of top quality paper and the artworks are stunning (drawing heavily from the Witcher video games graphics). The card faces present the main image of a character on parchment with a few brushstrokes of colour as though they are not finalised, like a story still being told, or parts of a hazy memory trying to be recalled, which is a stroke of genius on the designer’s behalf. Just as our story is not set in stone and still fluid, the images on the cards and board seem to accentuate this theme.
The tale cards and the way they are presented are also well thought out. Being slightly larger cards, each set (divided by story) is neatly packed into individual cardboard boxes which resemble the faces of a hardbound book. As you turn over each card, you can also note the faces (back and front) resemble pages of a book which strengthens the theme and your accompanying characters.
The Flame
These are a few things which make this game special and worth playing time and time again:
- Replayability: You can have around 23 endings across the 3 tales meaning you can play the game that many times and have a different experience every playthrough. This is especially true if you select a different character each time. Playing with a different number of people each time will also change the dynamic, providing a slightly different experience.
- Aesthetic: Once again, the team at CD Projekt red have smashed this one out of the park. Although the main components used in the game are cards, they really go all in to provide beautifully crafted scenes and images to draw the players into the world of The Witcher.
- Mechanics: Having played many games, I’ve not come across a deck building game quite like this. Playing cards to gain actions and directly influence the course of the game (and story) is a very appealing concept. Usually games would require you to directly influence your opponent’s cards with no real narrative, however here, you are affecting your opponents via the game’s outcome which is another neat trick to get you hooked on the narrative aspect of the game.
- Narrative: I think this game is also great as it introduces people who aren’t familiar with the stories of the Witcher to some of the main stories the games and books touch upon. The little bits of narrative between each chapter as well as the start and end of each tale are detailed snippets of story which is fun to listen to and be a part of. They say the deovel (or sylvan depending on your exposure to Witcher materials) is in the details and this game is certainly delightfully detailed.
- Time: For a new style of game, I was surprised at how quickly we got through it. Our first playthrough took approximately 2 hours but after that we immediately played again and clocked 40-50 minutes. I think it’s safe to say that for such a complex game, it’s possibly one of the shortest which encourages multiple playthroughs.
The Lame:
Just as a this game has a lot working in its favour, there are a few aspects which were not as appealing:
- Complexity: The term complexity can be very scary in most cases, however here I’m only referring to learning the game for the first time. Being a rather new type of game utilising a few different mechanics, it can be slightly overwhelming until the first game is completed. Our first 2-player game lasted approximately 2 hours till we learnt the ropes, but as mentioned above, it’s like riding a bike, daunting at first but it gets easier every time.
- Choice: Although the game is all about making choices in each chapter to progress the story, it sometimes feels as though the choice is being made for you. What do I mean by this? In a few instances, although I wanted to take one path by committing as many actions of the corresponding type as possible, there just weren’t enough cards available to let me do that. It could very well be a case of improper shuffling of cards or some other act of randomness, however in the many times I’ve played this game, for at least one of the chapters, I would personally want to pick one path, but due to the cards available, was forced to pick my least preferred option if I wanted to win the overall game. Not a huge issue overall but in my opinion it goes against the main theme of the game, which is that we can pick our own destinies.
The Claim:
The Witcher: Path of Destiny is a unique story-driven game which is a must have for fans of the franchise. For those not exposed to the world of the Witcher, beware as this game has the potential to be the gateway to a new obsession shared by so many millions around the world. It utilises interesting mechanics, coupled with excellent craftsmanship and artistry, making it a family favourite in our household. A small hill to climb when learning it for the first time, however the bright side is that for a seemingly complex game, it is relatively short and can be enjoyed without the need to carve out a few hours from your day. Which path on each tale will you take? Will it be different the next time round? How close to canon did your characters play their parts? The curiosity of the unknown coupled with so many possible paths keeps you coming back for more! (not to mention the possibility of additional stories and add-ons sold separately!)
