An adventure board game is a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a ...

in which a player plays as a unique individual character that improves through gameplay. This improvement is commonly reflected in terms of increasing character

attributes Attribute may refer to: * Attribute (philosophy), an extrinsic property of an object * Attribute (research), a characteristic of an object * Grammatical modifier, in natural languages * Attribute (computing), a specification that defines a pro ...

, but also in receiving new abilities or equipment.

History

1970s

Adventure board games often integrate various

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

mechanics Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objects ...

, such as

experience point An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Exper ...

s and

character creation Character creation (also character generation or character design) is the process of defining a game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a ...

into the board game format. The origins of these two types of game are related. In the early 1970s,

Dave Arneson David Lance Arneson (; October 1, 1947Minnesota Department of Health. ''Minnesota Birth Index, 1935–2002'' atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2004. – April 7, 2009) was an American game designer best known ...

introduced his role-playing game, Blackmoor, to a group of players. One of those players,

Gary Gygax Ernest Gary Gygax ( ; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') with Dave Arneson. In the 1960s, Gygax created an ...

, collaborated with Arneson to create ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (T ...

'' (1974). Another member of that gaming group,

Dave Megarry David R. Megarry is a game designer most notable for the board game ''Dungeon!''. Career Early gaming and Blackmoor Dave Megarry was a member of the Midwest Military Simulation Association (MMSA), along with Dave Arneson, David Wesely, Ken ...

, translated the experience into the board game, '' Dungeon!'' (1975), the first adventure board game. In fact, the term "adventure gaming" in the 1970s referred to what later became known as

tabletop role-playing game A tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participan ...

s, and only later became associated with board games.

1980s

The genre saw a particular boom in the 1980s, when its key subgenres had been codified by three major releases of the decade: * Competitive fantasy adventure games, codified by ''Dungeon!'' and particularly

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are '' Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and '' Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake, ...

's ''

Talisman A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...

'' (1983), * Cooperative investigative adventure games, pioneered by

Chaosium Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include ''Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game), Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', R ...

's ''

Arkham Horror ''Arkham Horror'' is a cooperative adventure board game designed by Richard Launius, originally published in 1987 by Chaosium. The game is based on Chaosium's roleplaying game ''Call of Cthulhu'', which is set in the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. L ...

'' (1987), and * Cooperative fantasy adventure games, a combination of the other two directions, first produced in GW and

Milton Bradley Company Milton Bradley Company or simply Milton Bradley (MB) was an American board game manufacturer established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the l ...

's ''

HeroQuest ''HeroQuest'', sometimes written as ''Hero Quest'', is an adventure board game created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop. The game was loosely based around archetypes of fantasy role-playing games: the g ...

'' (1989).

1990s

In the 1990s, both adventure board games and tabletop RPGs saw a sharp decline in popularity in the wake of the collectible card game boom and bust.

2000s

Fantasy Flight Games Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is a game company based in Roseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, card, and dice games. As of 2014, it is a subsidiary of Asmodée Éditions. History Fantasy Flight Publi ...

has brought all three subgenres back into the market with their ''

Runebound ''Runebound'' is a high fantasy adventure board game created by Martin Wallace and Darrel Hardy and published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2004. A second edition was published in 2005. A third edition was released in 2015. In ''Runebound'', one t ...

'' (2004), the second edition of ''Arkham Horror'' (2005), and '' Descent: Journeys in the Dark'' (2006), respectively. Other companies published their own takes on the genre, such as Atlas Games' card-based '' Dungeoneer'' (2003) and Pegasus Spiele's ''

Return of the Heroes Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...

'' (2003), which was one of the earliest examples of the genre to employ

eurogame A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical compone ...

mechanics — something Fantasy Flight Games also embraced in their own later games.

2010s

In the 2010s, the adventure board game genre had returned to its roots when

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidi ...

, the new owners of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' IP, began publishing their own cooperative fantasy adventure games based on the fourth edition of ''D&D'': '' Castle Ravenloft'' (2010), ''

Wrath of Ashardalon ''Wrath of Ashardalon'' is a 2011 cooperative board game Cooperative board games are board games in which players work together to achieve a common goal rather than competing against each other. Either the players win the game by reaching a pre-de ...

'' (2011), ''

The Legend of Drizzt ''The Legend of Drizzt'' is a series of fantasy novels by R. A. Salvatore that began in 1988, and consists of 38 books as of August 9, 2022. They are based in the ''Forgotten Realms'' setting in the dimension of Abeir-Toril on the continent Fae ...

'' (2011), etc.

Notes

{{Tabletop games by type