Does the overlord has to read to the heroes his own winning conditions? For exemple, how many goblins have to escape in the introduction.

Yerazald said:

Yes.  On the first page of the Quest book, there's a little box titled "Public Information," which reads:

"These quests are all written with the assumption that all players know all the rules and victory conditions - in short, unless noted, none of the information is secret."

Page 2 of Quest Guide:

"PUPLIC INFORMATION"

"These quests are all written with the assumption that all players know all the rules and victory conditions - in short, unless noted, none of the infrmation is secret"

Doh, beat me to it.

 Odd, here I thought it was similar to D1e where you only told the heroes what was in the description boxes. So should the heroes look over the current quest encounter as well if they want too? I fell that kinda ruins the fun of being a hero and not knowing all the details.

 I think they made it a point to have everything public knowledge so that there is no question that this is a tactical grid based game rather than an RPG.  While I can agree that it might be more fun to have surprises and secrets, in D1 there was a lot of times where the lines were blurred mostly to the detriment of the heroes and the game would just end because if only the heroes had known… 

Also, when these thins happened, I tended to agree with one hero that complained, 'It's ok if they want it to be a D&D type RPG, or they want it to be a grid based tactical game, but you can't have both.  This way, it's clear.

Coldmoonrising said:

I see that you are a fan of Mansions of Madness, which has that sort of play expierence.

Certainly, you and your friends could try playing Descent that way, but I don't think it would work very well.

KristoffStark said:

I have made it a point to make sure that key items are explained as to what they are and how to interact with them (e.g. the cardinals plight phase 2 and the altar). Also, it seems that the description is very clear as to how to finish the current encounter and what the OL needs to do to win. It just feels like there is more mysticism for the players if they only know the important facts. I will offer this up to my players and see how they decide to play.