I've been looking at "Descent: Journeys in the Dark II" as an inspiration to merge wargames and RPG.
What's to stop someone from using their own/RPG rules for "Quick and Dirty" games?

Say you wanted something outside of the player characters but that they could influence.
Or you wanted to test some conflicts before the characters lives depended on them.

How is "Descent: Journeys in the Dark II" as a game on its own? Worth the investment? Reusable?

Any good Actual Plays or reviews?
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Descent 2e is a good fantasy skirmish game, though not its focus is on combat, rather than exploration. It uses story elements and structure well, both inside the scenarios (many scenarios aren't simply hack and slash) and over multiple scenarios (to form a coherent storyline with consequences).

Can it be used as the basis of a fantasy RPG? Yes, you could. But it wouldn't be that good IMO. The character creation has some customisation but its relatively limited and the focus is clearly on combat ability. There are many fantasy RPGs that do a better job at being fantasy RPGs than trying to shoehorn a fantasy board game into one.

Warhammer Quest had bits of this, but the advice in the campaigns book was basically "wing it", "roll a d6 for it" and "roll on these tables when characters aren't getting lost in the dark".

I like Descent...but it takes to damn long to play. I played lots of Descent I and a couple games of II, but I wasn't impressed with the changes.

Warhammer Quest is my favorite RPG/board hybrid game, but its too freaking costly on eBay. HeroQuest is an okay substitute, but also costly.

TSR put out a nifty game called Dragon Strike with a hilariously bad VHS. The actual game was surprisingly good and you can sometimes find it on eBay at decent prices.

DRAGONSTRIKE
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1149/dragon-strike

The hilarious DVD is on YouTube...almost as bad as the D&D movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k018khYq8Do

Another personal favorite in the RPG/board is Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel which plays fast and dangerous. It's often on eBay at good prices.

SIEGE OF THE CITADEL
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1621/mutant-chronicles-siege-citadel

Yeah, Warhammer Quest does it best. Descent, if you have plenty and plenty of time, is fun, but there's just no way to make that a full RPG.

Warhammer Quest had some hilarious "out of the dungeon" role-playing elements, which is fine if you're into goofy RPG fun. The problem with Descent is the power scale is vertical. You start out fairly capable of one-shotting any monster but the absolute most powerful (which might take 2 or 3 rounds), and four hours later, you can smash rooms full of the most powerful monsters, no problem.

Warhammer Quest as a RPG has a better power scale; I actually ran a campaign until 6th or 9th level (been 20 years, so a little vague). It's quite playable, but rather collapses under its own weight. That's not a serious criticism, since many RPGs collapse under the rules even with thousands of pages of rules to them. WQ has like one rulebook, and manages to cover a huge amount of ground.

Mutant Chronicles is pretty fun, too, but it's more sci-fi, and the RPG elements are very light (better than Descent, but no WQ).

Its worth noting that Descent 2e cuts down the play length considerable from 1e. Most games take between 60 to 90 minutes.

I agree that WHQ was the best in terms of trying to integrate roleplaying elements into the board game. But its board game elements are lacklustre and I don't think it ever came close to being a good RPG.

Quote from: Skywalker;800447But its board game elements are lacklustre and I don't think it ever came close to being a good RPG.

I'm looking for something that is close to a convention game with pregen characters. There are plenty of RPGs if full blown RPG was the requirement.

I like the board game elements but with the ability to identify with the character being played.

I've thought of using Savage Worlds Showdown rules to create my own board game emulation but if I can find it already in a box ...
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Descent 2e would be a good choice IMO. The characters are customisable and have a lot of character potential from a RPing POV