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| Gandalf, researching in Fellowship of the Ring |
I have reviewed a few Lord of the Rings board games in recent months, and others in the past. I am on a quest to find a satisfying game experience based on this franchise; there are good options out there but I am finding the 'perfect' experience elusive. That is, in part, due to the nature of the stories.
Tolkien created a world, complete with history, languages, and more. Collections of his voluminous writings are still being published, decades after his death. The main stories (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) are of course the best known, but even in those, there is an impression of depth impossible to ignore. Middle Earth is big and ancient. There are many stories therein. How can one game encompass it all?
Tolkien's goal wasn't just "make an amazing place." He also incorporated a lot of wisdom into his stories—something the fantasy genre is uniquely suited to convey. (I discussed this concept, focusing on Tolkien and Lewis, in this post.) Wisdom requires judgment, which in the gaming world means meaningful decisions. It also involves dealing with chance, as nobody has all the information when making those decisions. A good game should have a blend of choice and chance. This means following a well-known story creates a problem.
In sum, the challenge with any game set in Middle Earth involves these two factors: scope and story.
Putting these in question form:
- Do I want an epic experience or a tactical adventure?
- Do I want something that involves all of Middle Earth, or a 'skirmish' focused on specific elements?
- How immersive do I want either to be? The more immersive, the longer the game.
- Do I want to experience in The Lord of the Rings story, other stories in Tolkien's writings, or simply enjoy the Middle Earth setting?
- A game focused on The Lord of the Rings story will be familiar to players but constrained; to be faithful to the texts, it must follow a specific track. It is hard to incorporate meaningful decisions into that construct.
- A game simply set in Middle Earth can more easily feature meaningful decisions and encourage exploration of the map. It hits against other challenges: should it include familiar characters or not? Should it incorporate other Tolkien writings? Should the goal be something familiar to players, or completely independent? Answering 'yes' to any of these will make it feel more authentic, yet also inject constraints similar to that mentioned above. Answering 'no' to all of them gives the most freedom, but at that point, it becomes a generic fantasy setting with no tie to the books.
As I reflect on this, I realize the problem: I want it all. I want to capture the epic nature of the books, but in an immersive way that "zooms in" to specific portions. I also want meaningful decisions, so I'm not treading a familiar road each game, but I don't want it to violate the spirit of Middle Earth's story. These things are all in tension with each other, and no game can deliver on all fronts. Each game must make high-level choices.
A final factor is the dual nature of the books. They feature both large-scale battles and the individual journey of Frodo & Sam. It is hard to capture both in one experience.
There are 350 games tagged 'Tolkien' on BoardGameGeek, but that number is misleading (it includes updated edisions of the same game or expansions of the same game system, for example). Still, it shows how often this property has been explored. Here is the list, in rank order.
I have reviewed seven Lord of the Rings games on this blog, played a few others in my pre-blogging days, and am aware of other popular options linked above. Below I list 12 games, covering both the well-regarded and/or the most available, and categorize them using the following delineations:
- Epic or Tactical: Epic games try to encompass all of Middle Earth. Tactical ones focus on specific elements.
- Story or Setting: Story games follow events from The Hobbit and/or The Lord of the Rings stories. Setting games are set in Middle Earth but make little or no mention of them.
Epic/Story games:
(Link goes to BGG site.) I used to own this but never played, as I was overwhelmed by the complexity and play time (3+ hours). This is sort of like Risk, with armies clashing across the map of Middle Earth, but with a separate component to feature Frodo & Sam's journey. It is very highly regarded, and I would love to try sometime, but doubt I will find anyone with enough time to do this in one sitting.
This simplifies and shortens the aforementioned board game, but remains a medium/heavy complexity experience. It is solid, but constraining it to the story and limiting what cards characters can play at a given location makes it frustrating at times.
(Link goes to BGG site.) I have never played this highly-regarded two player game. It plays quickly and looks a bit like Stratego, with a heavy bluffing/deduction component.
This simple cooperative game takes a [literally] novel approach: break the epic story into 8 tactical skirmishes, each with unique rules and objectives. It is possible to play this in one sitting or do a few chapters at a time. While it doesn't capture the large-scale battles well, this unique approach does have value, and makes for an enjoyable, light/medium-weight experience.
(Link goes to BGG site.) This cooperative game is similar to the Adventure Book Game, but with 4 game boards instead of 8. The focus is on the hobbits.
This very simple cooperative game follows the fellowship through the major locations of the books, forcing them to face familiar foes along the way. It is less faithful to the texts, and has a heavy luck component, but remains a light and fast experience, suitable for the whole family. It is very hard to win.
There's not much to this game, which tries to re-create the movies as simply and quickly as possible by rolling lots of dice. It is a "push-your-luck" racing game. Not recommended.
Tactical/story games:
(Link goes to BGG site.) From the makers of War of the Ring comes a game focused on the final battle in The Hobbit. Like its parent game, this is complex and takes a long time (up to 4 hours). It is for two players only and is highly regarded.
(Link goes to BGG site.) Also from the makers of War of the Ring, this one-vs.-many game focuses on the Hobbits' flight from the Nazgul in The Fellowship of the Ring. It is complex and takes 2-3 hours to play.
This story-driven collectible card game was done well, though you had to select (and build decks to) only one book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here, for the book you chose, there were 9 locations that your fellowship would travel, with your opponent trying to stop you at every turn. No longer produced, it is hard to collect today.
Epic/setting games:
This app-assisted cooperative game is epic (over many play sessions that make up a campaign) and not tied to the movies (though it features familiar characters). It is a fun way to experience Middle Earth.
Tactical/setting games:
This cooperative living card game has many expansions, each set in a different region of Middle Earth. The goal is to complete a quest, encountering varied threats, before your threat level increases beyond a certain point. It is fun.
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There are many other games I could mention, many of which have The Lord of the Rings theme pasted on an existing game system (like Risk, Monopoly, and so on). The above are the 'original' games players can try if you want to enjoy Middle Earth.
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