"Jeff, let me try and answer your question about how Defenders of the Realm Legends Retold is different from Freedom Five, and really any game in the Defenders line of games.
One of the things I try to do with each design is make it thematically heroic. As such, each game in the line focuses on the theme in story and heroics but also grows the scope of the experience, or at least that is part of my objective, so that playing each one feels different even though they share some base mechanics.
In Defenders of Last Stand I wanted to expand the apocalyptic feel of the game, so not only with character skills and visuals, but with with the addition of radiation, mutations, and most of all story encounter cards.
With Freedom Five, I wanted the feel of comic book heroes, so the addition of character cards with unique powers, the change in how skill and combat rolls worked in that they were based on character ability ratings and not the just the color of the villain or henchman, and since comic book stories are all about the villains and.masterminds, their henchmen are more like a hinderance that if left unchecked power up the mastermind’s evil plot, but can’t really beat the heroes, as they can in the other Defenders games. In Freedom Five, each game is a comic book, with a mastermind, multiple villains and henchmen, each story with different objectives, that may not be clear at the start of the game, not a battle for territory where a single location must be defended (though the heroes never want to lose their headquarters, but it does not cause them to lose). Freedom Five is all about defeating the mastermind, and is an evolution of the Defenders of the Realm game, but never intended to be Defenders 2.0.
It was during the evolution of Defenders into Freedom Five that I decided to design a new version of Defenders of the Realm, and not just a slightly updated version since I love the original and will always migrate back to a game of it just like I do with the original Arkham Horror from 1987 - their is a certain magic for me in those games that will always draw me back, but I also see that there are ways to create an even more heroic and cooperative experience so I want to design and play that as well. This, Defenders of the Realm Legends Retold.
Defenders of the Realm Legends Retold is that newest revelation, and I am thankful to Darrell Louder and his team for the vision they brought to it as we elevated it to the next level, with a focus on heroic play (more and more heroic play was my mantra during development) and evolving things like charging minions rather than overrunning. So, we migrated to simultaneous play as one of the ideas from Darrell and his team. Oddly enough, it was a mechanic I had put in an unpublished game that was a predecessor design to Defenders of the Realm entitled Assault of the Dark Lord where a game turn was simultaneous for the heroes and they lost if all the walls were destroyed or the Dark Lord entered the city. That design rests with many of my unpublished designs on my shelves of unwanted games (it is my Island of Unfit Toys, like in the old Rudolph TV special when I was a kid _ yeah I know, I am old). In my new Defenders of the Realm design, I brought in story cards in a mix with quests picking up the thematic game play introduced with Defenders of Last Stand, and even though I initially did not bring in character decks as with Freedom Five, Darrell introduced the idea of how we should (and every player that played Freedom Five suggested they be in Defenders of the Realm as well) and that they be tied to actions, health and could enable the cooperative turn by cards generation Darkness and then the Darkness deck would trigger with several minion placements, generals moving and special abilities as well as the events I had already built it. I must admit, that I thought the cooperative play and Darkness track might not work, but in the first (very unbalanced) play of the cooperative turn with the Darkness track - it worked, and it opened the game play to new levels of strategy, excitement and fun. So, we have spent months developing and revising the character decks (each time more heroic than the last) and the darkness deck values and actions of the generals. We have drawn from the best of all previous Defenders games; character specific hero cards, adventure encounters, unique generals with specific Darkness cards that can easily be mixed to form different battles and experiences as new generals become available, and evolving play into hopefully what players will feel is a greater cooperative experience. But at the same time retaining the heroic feel of each character, the thematic fantasy universe of the realm, evolving minions movement and threat, and even though there are a lot of new and expanded things in the game, keeping the game easy to learn and play.
At the heart of it all, we have tried to make a new edition something that players of the original will enjoy, and that it is different enough that like me they will still appreciate and enjoy playing the original from time time to.
In the end, you all will be the true judge of how well we succeeded, but I think people that get Defenders of the Realm Legends Retold will be very pleased with the game, the quality of the art, miniatures, and most importantly game play.
Thank you for your consideration."
