A Wayfarer's Tale - Roll and Write Hexploration
Transcript
Hey folks, welcome back to the Dungeon Dive. Daniel here. I hope you're doing well and if you're not, I hope you are soon. Okay, today on the channel, something a little different. This isn't a fantasy adventure game involving combat or gathering loot. This isn't a dungeon crawl. It's not some kind of post-apocalyptic science fiction game. This is a game called A Wayfarer's Tale: The Journey Begins. Now, a few years ago, this was a successful crowdfunded print and play game and I was a backer on that, but I never actually took the time to play it. I think at the time, I lacked a printer at home and so I never printed it out to play it, but I saw this while browsing on Amazon, which I'm doing more lately, so I can avoid crowdfunding and being hit with surprise tariff bills uh before I get my game and I thought this game looks really cool and it's interesting and it has some good gameplay and I think it does still have a small sense of adventure because what you are doing in a game of A Wayfarer's Tale is you are playing as a group of companions who are exploring this map and trying to chart the most efficient paths from one location to the next, trying to unlock sets of things, trying to visit certain towns or taverns and just being good at exploring this region and as you're doing that, you're gaining victory points. So, the main focus of this game is on a competitive level, but it also does have solo rules.
And when you're playing solo, you can play through this little solo campaign, which is really just kind of eight standalone scenarios in a row. You can skip around. You don't have to play. There isn't some grand huge story or anything really interesting going on, but each scenario will give you some different things that you have to overcome. Now, I've only played the game solo and throughout this video, I'm going to be using the solo game as my main examples of play because there are some slightly different rules to follow between the solo and the competitive game. But, let's take a little look at the back of the box. I think this game looks amazing. It has great art, vibrant colors and it just really pops on the table.
So, this says that being lost is not always the burden it might seem to be. Some of us were born for the wild unknown, but few who live for the sights unseen and the paths untrodden, but our journeys are not made alone. We find strength in our companions and courage in our friends. The journey awaits. So, I think if you are a fan of roll and write games and especially games like That's So Clever, you might get a lot out of this. I think it does some different things for a roll and write game. Here is an example of a map that I have finished on my last game. This was the first scenario and in that scenario, I had to visit all of the towns and on the first map, there are 11 towns with a score at the end of the game of 50 points or more. So, I scored with 63 points.
When you're playing, you will start in one of the starting towns and from each town, you can travel in any direction and you're trying to get to other towns. On each one of your turns from a town, you can continue can choose to continue or to travel in a new direction or you can continue traveling along a path that you've already been traveling on. There are four different maps in the game. So, we have map one, we have map two, map three and map four. And as you progress through the maps, the maps get more dangerous, they get more varied and there are more things to do. When you're playing a competitive game, there are things that you will score after the game, but you can ignore those additional scorings when you are playing solo. I think there's a little more going on in the competitive game than the solo game, but I think it does play pretty well solo and I've had fun with the few games that I've played.
Let's take a look at the companions, but before we do that, we can also take a look at the tray here. I think the production of this game is fantastic. We have a tray for everything. We have a tray for our little town uh chips there, our town meeples. We have our little quest tokens. Uh the merchant in the game can get these special treasure chest tokens and these shield tokens and that can help them gain more points. Each of the players will choose a color and you will use these cubes on your board to keep track of things. You will also use these small D12 in order to keep track of certain things and the game comes with some pens to write on your map. The game also comes with a number of additional companions and in the competitive game, when you visit a tavern, you will draw a card from a tavern deck and those will unlock a new companion that you can add to your board for an additional way to explore the map and gain experience points.
Now, speaking of the tavern deck, I think it's um this is a little unfortunate in that most of the cards in this tavern deck are not used in the solo game and I don't typically like it when games have cool components and they remove those for the solo play. I really don't understand that. As a game designer, I would just encourage or as a game player, I should say, I would encourage game designers to design their solo games to be played with everything that the solo player buys. But, these are kind of random little encounters that you can have when you visit a tavern. You can unlock different quests and that is also a way to unlock some of these additional companions. However, the solo play does have deck of four cards that you will use when you are five cards, one, two, three, four, five cards that you will use for the tavern deck and sometimes you will mix a companion card into this small solo tavern deck depending on the scenario that you are playing.
For instance, on scenario five, you will use two of the solo cards and the mercenary and so with solo five, you have to find that mercenary and then use that mercenary in your game in order to win. But, let's now take a look at the companions that the players will be using to explore all of these various maps. Let me go back to uh map number one here, which is underneath here. And so at the beginning of the game, each player will roll a D6 and they will start in that town. And so, I rolled a one, so I would start in this town here. And so, we could mark that as my starting town and now I have to explore from this town until I reach another town. Once I reach an additional town, I can start exploring from that town or I can go back and continue exploring along any routes that I've already started.
One thing to keep in mind is you can never revisit a hex that you've already visited. So, it's very important to have efficient lines of travel so you can reach as many places as possible and score as many points. And so, on your player board, you will have five different companions. You will have the coachman, the merchant, the guide, the adventurer and the sailor. And each one of those companions can move into different hexes. The coachman can move into mountains and plains, the merchant, deserts and plains, the guide, swamps and deserts. The adventurer, mountains and swamps and the sailor can only move through sailboats or through water and the water has to be outlined by a hex. They can't use the ocean around the island to explore far. They can only go into these water hexes.
Each one of those companions has a different way that they operate depending on the dice that you roll. So, in the solo game, at the beginning of each turn, you are going to roll three dice, two white D6 and one red D6. The red, you can use, but if you choose to use the red, you have to take a point of damage. At the beginning of each scenario, you you will have a health total and at the beginning of the first scenario or the first scenario, you will start with 10 health. That kind of acts as a limiter on how many times you can use your additional D6. But, after you have rolled all three of the D6, you will choose two and take the combination value and then choose a hex that you want to move on to while following the rules for the companion that you have chosen. We get a handy player aid that tells how each of the different companions is used. So, the coachman, numbers equal to or greater than the number before it. So, as the coachman is moving along his track, each subsequent number has to be equal to or greater than the previous roll and you will use a D12 to keep track of each roll.
Along the tracks of many of the companions are these gems. When you land on a gem, you will gain the total of the dice that you used to move that in victory points. You will also see these monsters. These monsters will take you will take a point of damage when you land on those monsters and those act a little differently in the multiplayer game. And the coachman, again, can only go into mountains and plains. Additionally, the coachman wants to stop at taverns in order to get a drink on his journey. And so at some point in the game, you are going to have to vent move into a tavern hex in order to unlock that tavern in order to open that tavern so that the coachman can continue along on his path.
Now the sailor the sailor is only triggered when she rolls doubles. So requires numbers composed of double dice values. So if you were to use two threes and you wanted to move into the water from this town here, you could start the sailor on her journey and then you would keep track of her track here using a cube. And again, as the cube moves down as you explore more water using the sailor, you will find gems, but you will also find and have to deal with monsters. Now the merchant is a little different because the merchant doesn't just generate a flat amount of victory points. The merchant there is a little bit of pressure luck. And so you will fill in the merchant's grid here, the merchant's matrix. And by filling in these spots with cubes that align with the dice that you have rolled. So a six here, you could fill in this column.
If you rolled an eight, you could fill in this row. A three, this column. A nine, this row and so on. And as you fill up a row or a column, then you will get to do a treasure roll. But each row and each column also has a monster which will take away some of that treasure and thus preventing you from getting the full amount of victory points. However, the merchant can also use shield tokens that they've gathered by visiting shield icons on the map and treasure tokens by visiting treasure spots. And they can use those to block damage or to double the amount of treasure after you've completed your rolls. So with the merchant, you can get a lot of points, but there is some pressure luck. Now the guide can go into swamps and deserts. And the guide you have to use dice totals that are equal to or greater than the number printed on their little companion block here. So you have to start with greater than five, equal to or greater than seven, and then equal to or greater than nine getting a gem. And then you continue zigzagging along that path.
I think the adventurer here, the mountain climber, is one of the most interesting in that they are climbing they are ascending and descending certain mountain peaks. And when you do that, the totals of your D6 have to be greater and then less than. And then you go on to peak number two. Greater, greater, greater, and less than. Greater and less than. It's really cool. And at the top of this third peak here is a double treasure value. So that's really cool. That's a really interesting and fun way to get victory points. You also have a small little expansion, a little micro expansion that comes with the game. And that is the fortune teller. And you can use this in solo or you can also pass one of these out to each of the players. And the fortune teller you can use three times and you can add a value or subtract a value from one of the white dice. So that is another kind of just a little thing that you can add to make the game a little more interesting.
But let's play let's play a sample turn just so you can get the gist of it. And you don't really need to do much setting up. At the beginning of a scenario for solo play, you will start with 10 health. So I'll go ahead and put 10 health there. And let me go ahead and move this over here. Now you're also trying to visit towns. And as you visit towns, you will take a town meeple and you will add it to your town section. And visiting all the towns is one of the main ways to trigger the end of the game. At the beginning of the game, you're going to start in a town. So we are going to start in town five. I let's say we I already marked on two. So let's say we're starting there. We will automatically add a town token here to our board. And there are only 11 towns on this map. So we will block off one of these.
Now in the solo game, the one big difference is that these town meeples here, you can use those. You can spend those as a currency to help augment some bad luck. You can use those to reroll dice and you can use those to add a third white D6 to your dice pool. I really do like that. I like that addition in this solo game. So we are here. So we are in this town here. It's in the desert. Surrounding this town are three desert hexes and three plains hexes. So in reality, I'm really only going to be able to use either the coachman, the merchant, or the guide. I won't be able to use the sailor or the adventurer. So let's go ahead and roll our three D6 here. And if you ever roll all three values the same, you reroll. So we have a one, a one, and a three. Well, this is a really good example here of a of a using the red die.
So I will choose to use the one and the one. Because I chose to use that red die, I do take a point of damage. So I'm down to nine health. There are ways in the solo player tavern deck to gain health depending on which card that you have drawn. And this is a great value here to start the coachman on because it's low. The coachman you want to go from low to high. And so we have a value of two. I'm going to find the two on my D12 there and place that in that slot there. So my next roll, my next use of the coachman can be a two or a three. That was a great starting roll for the coachman. So we're moving into the plains. We have to kind of [clears throat] look and see where we want to go. Uh maybe I want to go up in this direction to reach this town. That would allow me to pass through that shield and gain a shield token for the merchant. Or we can move over into this territory here and go into that town. Maybe come this direction here so we can pass through that that treasure chest and get a treasure token for the merchant.
Um let's see. I think I'm just going to go straight ahead. And so that is our next turn. Okay, so let's roll our D6 again. And a four, a six, and a three. Now I can choose to continue along this path or I can go back to the town here and start in a new direction. It's really up to you and how efficient you want to be. Do you want to have a really long path or do you want to branch out and go into different directions? Um let's see here. So with the two white dice, I have a nine. I think I will use the guide. And the guide can explore through the desert. So I'm going to send the guide down into the desert there using a nine. And on the guide, her first track here is a five or higher. So I will place a cube there. So now I have used my guide.
Let's do one more here. Okay, a one, a three. Okay, so this is pretty good actually. Um let's see here. Let's the coachman can go through mountains. And so I will use a value of four to continue on this path going up into the mountains. That will give me a shield token that I can add to my merchant there. And the coachman now progresses here with a value of four. So in order to continue progressing the coach next, I have to get either a four or a five. And depending on what I roll, either a four or a five when I land on that gem, I will gain that many victory points. So yeah, this game is cool. I I genuinely generally I enjoy rolling right games, especially under, you know, ideal circumstances. They're not games that I want to turn to all the time, but I do find them fun with friends. I have a buddy who really likes them. And so I'm looking forward to playing this game with him cuz I think he's really going to dig it. And I do love maps, you know, as fans of of fantasy adventure, so many of us like different maps. We like drawing maps and exploring maps. And so using your dice and your different companion abilities to explore this map in an efficient and fun kind of puzzling way is a lot of fun for me. It does scratch that fantasy adventure itch just a little bit. Having to deal with some of the bad luck of some of the monsters is cool.
And in those solo games where you do finally get to use the different companions, the diplomat, the globetrotter, the mercenary, the nomad, and the charlatan, this adds a little bit of complexity, a little bit of variety. I do really wish that they would have thought of a way to use all of the tavern cards in the solo game because I think these just add a lot of variety. And I think you could use most of these if you were just playing kind of your own kind of sandbox solo mode where you were score chasing, you know, trying to beat your last high score by using everything. You probably couldn't use the storm cards because these do require other players to draw on your map. And so if you were to draw this desert storm card and then you were playing competitively, I believe the rule is that you pass your map to the player to your left or right.
And then they will mark three hexes, adjacent hexes. And then in those hexes is a storm. And so you have to avoid those hexes. And so that's how the storm cards work. It does add a little bit of player interaction, a little bit of take that. And you know, a lot of rolling right games don't really have a lot of that kind of direct player interaction. So I do think that's interesting. But overall, I I A Wayfarer's Tale is quite good. I'm glad I bought it. It wasn't very expensive. It's available now. You can get it in stores. You can get it on Amazon. I think it was around $50. And I've had quite a bit of fun with it. It's pretty easy to learn. There's a lot going on. And I think it plays well solo even though it doesn't use everything. And it should play very well competitively, too. Especially because people are using the same pool of dice. And so you're kind of playing simultaneously like how most rolling right games are. So, anyways, I hope you enjoyed this brief look at A Wayfarer's Tale: The Journey Begins. We will talk to you later. Bye-bye.