One of the most influential games in modern culture has to be Dungeons and Dragons. Since the 70’s, players have been swinging swords and slinging spells. For imaginary money, of course. Drop down to the tavern. Find someone who needs help. Make fun of their silly fantasy name. Go kill a monster. Get paid. The formula works so well that the game continues to see new editions even after 43 years. But what of these quest givers? What is life like for a noble or guild leader, sending these adventurers out on dangerous missions? This question is answered by Lords of Waterdeep.

Lords of Waterdeep is a worker placement game set in the Dungeons and Dragons’ world of the Forgotten Realms. More accurately, the whole game takes place in the harbour city of Waterdeep. In this economic center, players take on the roles of secretive lords, who are constantly making bids for more power. You do this by taking on quests, then hiring a bunch of rubes to do it for you. These rubes are represented by cubes. Rube cubes.

So how do we do… anything? Lords don’t like to get their hands dirty, and certainly don’t wanna go around saying “Hi I’m the leader of the Harpers; a secretive order of elves that has been manipulating the populace in a neutral-good manner for hundreds of years. Give me some money” Instead, players will act through their agents. These meeple boys will be placed in the marked zones on the board. Doing that gets you all sorts of cool things. These cool things include quest cards you pick up at the tavern. Quests give out resources and victory points, but their requirements have to be met first.

Example: The quest “Heal Fallen Gray Hand Soldiers” is more of a chore you need 2 clerics and a wizard to complete. Throw them away with 4 gold pieces and in return you get 6 victory points and 6 fighters at your disposal. The edge of the board has a nifty tracker you use to show off who is winning, and by extension who is overdue for a good shanking or two. There are always 4 quests on offer at the tavern, and players can grab as many quests as they like. Particularly conniving players know how to leverage rewards of one quest to feed into the requirements of another. Those fighters you just earned could be stored up for the end game scoring, but they could be put to better use questing.

But where did those clerics and wizards come from? Placing your agents at The Plinth and Blackstaff Tower are good starts. That is of course if someone else’s agents didn’t get there first. See, if an opponent saw you take up the aforementioned quest, they could simply block you with their agent for that round. A heavy-handed way of solving this would be sending an agent to Castle Waterdeep, so you act FIRST on the next round! That, or just build new buildings…

Yes, those blank spaces around the sides of the city are open spots for new construction! Each building you buy will be placed in an open space with your guild symbol. If anyone but you sends an agent there to get its resources, you get a bonus too! “But wait”, I hear you say. “I Don’t want to help people. I want to ruin them!” Now I may not agree with your questionable ethics, but I defend your right to have them. The intrigue deck is full of jerk fodder. Among other cards that give resources, some Intrigue cards let you steal things from opponents. More nasty are the ‘Mandatory Quests’ you hand out to opponents. Players can’t complete other quests until these have been slogged through. They generally give a low reward, and have rather awkward requirements.

Overall, Lords of Waterdeep is a well put together game. The mandatory quests and block-blocking in the early game are a bit ‘Take-that’. Designers need to be more careful with that mechanic. Aside from this, the building mechanic is a great form of interaction. Earning resources as a reward for filling the needs of opponents is fantastic design. Gameplay is fairly simple, with only a few complex buildings and cards on offer. Many internet goblins also highly recommend the “Scoundrels of Skullport” expansion, that features the don’t-let-me-see-you-with-that-at-game-end ‘corruption’ resource.

Just be very careful. This game is a gateway drug to more intense D&D.