Vantage

• Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
• Publisher: Stonemaier Games
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 14+
• Time: 120-180 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4n02eOl 

The history of narratively-driven adventure board games goes back at least to the 1980s with Tales of the Arabian Nights. Games like this use chart lookups, dice rolls, and, most importantly, a giant book of outcomes based on the choices you make. These outcomes are often memorable, whether good or bad for your character. And those memorable moments resonate for gamers who are fascinated by the open-world and creative possibilities of RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, but don’t want the demands placed upon the players in terms of time commitment or world-building. Being able to quantify winning and losing likely plays a part as well.

But there are drawbacks. A randomized series of events doesn’t grant the same narrative cohesion that well-written RPG adventure has. Some players are also frustrated by a lack of player control. Sure, you want to enjoy the story and maybe even revel in some schadenfreude when it comes to your opponents, but if outcomes are purely unpredictable, there isn’t much of a game.

There have been attempts to mitigate those drawbacks in similar designs since the ‘80s. 2011’s Fortune and Glory ditched the adventure book in favor of an easier-to-manage deck of cards. 2012’s Agents of SMERSH opted for a co-operative approach to increase player investment during other people’s turns. 2020’s Forgotten Waters used an app to manage the story beats, allowing for a more cohesive narrative. And all of these games are reasonably enjoyable and successful in their goals. But no game has managed to so thoroughly answer these common complaints as Vantage.

Each player takes on the role of an astronaut who has taken an escape pod to the same planet. Having all landed in different locations, each player’s stories and discoveries will be different. Yet the co-operative aspect is maintained by allowing “radio contact” in which the player whose turn it is can describe what they see and ask for input, but cannot show the other players the illustration of their location.

Fascinatingly, while the locations are represented by cards, they are far from random. It would be possible to construct a full map of the world’s roughly 800 locations. They are truly adjacent. But you cannot stay long in one place. After making a single choice, you will be forced to move to some adjoining location. Because adjacent locations are thematically (not just geographically) connected, this makes each player’s adventure feel like a cohesive story, rather than a simple series of unconnected events.

The choice you make at each location will be dictated both by your personal preferences, as well as by the skill tokens you currently possess. There are six types, each one indicating a broad answer to the question “what do you do?” These options include Move, Look, Engage, Help, Take, and Overpower, and each has matching skill tokens you can acquire to increase your chances of success when choosing that option. These skill tokens are also an inspired design choice. Instead of providing ongoing bonuses that constantly improve, they are a consumable resource. This creates tough choices about when to save them versus use them to help yourself or your teammates. But it also incentivizes choosing a variety of options over time, rather than, for example, “I always fight everything I see.”

Making only a single choice in a given location can sometimes feel deliciously difficult. Even if you go back to the same location later, you aren’t allowed to choose an option at all, you just need to move on. Granted, you may find yourself there again on a future play of Vantage, in which case you’ll be able to try something different. Which still leaves four of the six options unchosen. It would take a very large number of plays to explore everything that’s here. As Robert Frost put it, “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”

In similar games, the other players mostly just watch when it isn’t their turn. This has a certain entertainment value, but Vantage provides a very simple mechanism for the other players to be involved. Skill checks are made by rolling dice. The harder the skill check, the more dice are rolled, since the dice can only ever provide penalties. However, bad rolls can be mitigated by spending skill tokens or storing dice on your character board, and in many cases that can also be done during other players’ turns. This is extremely quick and simple in practice, allowing for personal investment in the other players’ adventures without bogging down the flow or compromising the decision-maker’s agency.

It’s not possible to actually fail an attempted action. You will always succeed at what you are trying to do. But rolling poorly and failing to mitigate the bad roll with skill tokens and powers will cause your character to lose health, time, and/or morale as a penalty. If any one of these tracks hits zero for any player, all players lose. And it is quite rare to be able to heal, meaning the state of the trackers gives you a pretty good idea of how close the team is to losing. This too is an excellent design decision, eliminating the “feel bad” moments that are so common in games of this type and instead encouraging careful resource management.

Assuming no one dies, eventually, someone will achieve their individual goal (destiny) or the group goal (mission). At this point, you can call it quits with a minor victory. Or you can push onward, trying to achieve both the destiny and mission, in hopes of a major victory. This decision will likely be made based on how close you are to dying, but it does also provide a nice “short game” stopping point if you’re just pressed for time. Regardless of the outcome, you’re likely to be left with a feeling of wanting, nay needing, to play again very soon.

Despite these improvements to the formula, Vantage still may not appeal to players seeking out crunchy strategies full of careful calculation. Yet there are actual risk management and resource decisions here, uncommonly so for the genre. Stonemaier has delivered another winner with Vantage. It is full of surprises and resonant narrative. It demands to be played again and again. It’s best-in-class for this type of game and a likely contender for my 2025 Game of the Year.

Thoughts from Other Opinionated Gamers

Nathan Beeler: I’ve only played once, a four player teaching game. The experience was absolutely riveting. I enjoyed following along on other players’ turns and, within the bounds of our limited ability to communicate, trying to help coordinate us toward our goals. I’m a big fan of Tales of the Arabian Nights, and even more so of the newer Tales of the Arthurian Knights. Both of those technically work with four players, maybe more. But the narrowed decision and outcome spaces compounded with the fact that they are competitive means those games can only hold my attention on other players’ turns for so long. They don’t work for me at higher player counts. While Vantage did not clip along with four either, the game was so immersive that it didn’t matter. In fact, once we secured a major victory we collectively decided to keep playing simply because we wanted to see some larger arcs play out. There are larger story arcs within the game! Just an amazing design. Time will tell if it holds up to repeated plays, but I’m excited to find out.

Tery N: I have played 3 times, and I have enjoyed all 3 plays and can’t wait to try it again.  Our first play was with 5, and it was a little rough; we were trying to learn from the rules (which leave much to be desired as far as getting started, IMO), we got some things wrong, and not everyone was into it – but I still enjoyed it and immediately bought a copy. The next 2 plays, once with 4 and once with 3, were terrific. Is there a lot of randomness? Yes, but it is part of the experience of the game and adds to the gameplay rather than detracting from it. I really like the story aspect, and the wide variety of experiences that are available so that games will feel different. On one of our plays we could easily have ended it, but players chose to keep going because we were having so much fun and we wanted to see what else we could find out. 

Ben B: I’ve played thrice. Its like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ board game except it wasn’t particularly challenging on any difficulty for us. The choices are driven by the fun artwork and story that you might engage with BUT its very multiplayer solitaire. Your only real contribution is looking up other people’s card descriptions and choices and reacting to their rolls. I enjoyed my plays but I am not exactly wanting to play it anymore. 

Dale Y: I have now played four times; twice at 2p and twice solo.  It is really a great exploration game, and it will likely replace 7th Continent as my exploration game in my collection.  Each time, you start somewhere new, and you do the best you can to figure out the best path.  I love the way that the story always moves forward, you’ll always succeed at your task – but the question is how much damage will you take in the process?    I have yet to play at higher player counts, but I can see where the downtime might be too much.  Solo – it plays like a breeze, and I’m fully engaged.  With 2 players, we had a good time reading the other person’s passages – to get us a bit more vested in their exploration.  One other note about reading, I really liked using my phone (on Rulespop) to read the passages; much more convenient that paging through all the books – I also like the way that the webpage obscures the text a bit to prevent spoilers.  I am anxiously awaiting my next chance to play this one

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Josiah Fiscus, Nathan Beeler, Tery N, Dale Y
• I like it. John P
• Neutral. Ben B.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4n02eOl