An adventure board game is a board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

 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 (role-playing games)

An attribute is a piece of data that describes to what extent a fictional character in a role-playing game possesses a specific natural, in-born characteristic common to all characters in the game. That piece of data is usually an abstract number or, in some cases, a set of dice...

, but also in receiving new abilities or equipment.

Adventure board games often integrate various role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

 mechanics

Game mechanic

Game mechanics are constructs of rules intended to produce an enjoyable game or gameplay. All games use mechanics; however, theories and styles differ as to their ultimate importance to the game...

, such as experience point

Experience point

An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...

s and character creation

Character creation

Character creation 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 largely fictional setting may include traits such as race and class...

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

Dave Arneson

David Lance "Dave" Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game , Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s...

 introduced his role-playing game, Blackmoor

Blackmoor

Blackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...

, to a group of players. One of those players, Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax

Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....

, collaborated with Arneson to create Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

. Another member of that gaming group, Dave Meggary, translated the experience into the board game, Dungeon!

Dungeon!

Dungeon! is a 1975 adventure board game designed by David R. Megarry, Gary Gygax, Michael Gray, Steve Winter and S. Schwab, published by TSR, Inc...

, the first adventure board game.