The RPG-in-a-box board game has emerged as a full-fledged genre in recent years. Successful titles such as Gloomhaven, Descent: Legends of the Dark, and Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall seek to emulate the Dungeons & Dragons experience without the need for a Dungeon Master or any prep work. Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan is the new kid in the corridor, fighting with tooth and claw to carve out some space in a somewhat crowded setting. At first blush, it’s another heavily story-driven cooperative game that alternates between narrative passages and fight scenes. It has a secret weapon tucked in its sleeve, however, as the core framework is based on one of the best board game combat systems ever designed.
Designer Gordon Calleja brought Vengeance to the table in 2018. This little-known brawler allows players to recreate revenge action films like Oldboy and Kill Bill. The magic of that game is centered upon its dice-based action system. Instead of spending action points on your turn, you roll a small handful of dice that dictate what actions you can perform. The mechanic is ported almost whole cloth into Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan, as Calleja has teamed up with David Chircop to craft this epic work. The result is a fast-paced and fluid system where you can spend a movement symbol to leap into a nearby space, then expend a dagger to slash a thug, and an arrow to bullseye the thief at the end of the alley. There is a sense of freedom and creativity that establishes the foundation of the experience.
What’s particularly brilliant is in how these results are leveraged for big swingy turns. Various character abilities provide recipes that can be triggered. For instance, the Mercenary can turn a focus and movement result into a charge, allowing them to rush forward and attack. Some of these powers will simply convert dice values or add additional results to your pool, which can then be spent to trigger other abilities and compound in severity. Each character gains new abilities over time, resulting in builds that are dynamic and wild late in the campaign. This creates a very unique combination of thoughtfully puzzling out the results of a dice pool to perform action combos that unleash dramatic surges of power. It’s a visceral thing in practice, stunted only by the somewhat meager pace that new abilities are gained across the 30 hours of campaign play.
The most surprising facet is the quality storytelling. Set in the pre-established Fateforge RPG setting from Studio Agate, the prescribed narrative consists of the players traveling from their home forest in search of a missing person in a large foreign city. There are some really well-written twists here, including the core tenet of the opposing ruler being benevolent and beloved by his people. The companion digital application (for both PC and mobile platforms) delivers all of the narrative and handles layers of branching decisions, careening in various directions based upon the group and their agency in the world. It’s a fascinating adaptation of the app-based formula, something that’s been common in board games for nearly a decade now. But instead of using the app to roll dice and do math, here it’s helping to deliver big chunks of plotline — something that can be cumbersome at best when playing a physical board game. It’s a feature that has not yet been harnessed to its full extent in prior app-driven games, and this appears to be the first implementation that really relishes the advantage of tracking information digitally and outside of the players’ view.
Over the course of the X-game campaign the moment-to-moment action alternates between narrative passages and combat scenes. The latter form the bulk of playtime, taking roughly 40-60 minutes each. This tempo is wonderful, allowing for bite-sized sessions if so desired. The speed and flow of the dice system couples well with the narrative pace, making for a lively game that never drags. Most scenarios are also very interesting and offer unexpected developments. There are a number of different encounter structures and a meaningful expression of creativity. Each scenario is tense with external pressure provided in the form of a timer. Foes tend to clog your pathway and present obstacles that must be thwarted. This forces risk-taking as you need to push the pace in order to accomplish the objectives in the allotted number of turns.
There are many flaws inherent to this style of game and Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan manages to minimize the bulk of them. Bookkeeping, often a chore, is nominal. Storage between sessions is simple as characters are kept in their own tuckboxes and everything else is easily packed away. Setting up each fight takes some effort, but it’s much quicker than either Gloomhaven or Descent: Legends of the Dark. All of these quality of life achievements cause the game’s few blemishes to unfortunately stand out. This includes a lack of any narration by voice actors, and a tendency to require the same players show up week after week to play the game.. You can add new players mid-campaign, but this must occur between the three acts. Publisher Mighty Boards promises a single session battle mode, but that has not been released just yet. On the whole, these are minor complaints that don’t detract meaningfully from the game’s achievement.
Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan is not just another RPG-in-a-box. It’s a standout title that deserves to be recognized among the best of the genre. With a slick app, strong writing, and an electric combat system, this is a wonderful tabletop experience that begs deep exploration.
Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan is currently available as a pre-order. The deluxe edition runs $119, while the standard edition of the game is also available for $89. The game was reviewed using a copy provided by Mighty Boards. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships, but not with Mighty Boards. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
