Lord of the Rings is an impressive adaptation of the classic story to boardgame format. The Lord of the Rings books, as beloved as they are, don’t quite fit the normal boardgame mold and could easily become a game with little more than a Tolkienesque flavor. Luckily for us, world renowned game designer Reiner Knizia decided to tackle the challenge. The result distills the essence of Tolkien’s epic into an innovative, engaging, and exciting experience.
The Lord of the Rings is about fellowship and courage in the face of overwhelming evil. These themes are explored through an epic journey, starting in the comfort of home and venturing out into the heart of darkness. Without these core elements, you don’t have the Lord of the Rings story, no matter how many elves and orcs you put in.
Consequently, what Knizia created is a cooperative game, where the players take on the roles of hobbits setting out on their quest. Sam and Frodo are always part of the team, but additional players bring Merry, Pippin, and even Fatty. (Who makes it all the way to Mordor in this version, instead of never leaving the Shire. It’s a small liberty in exchange for getting a five player game.) Other characters from the story will aid you in overcoming challenges along the way, but they aren’t vulnerable little hobbits, and in the end it’s the hobbits who must face the Dark Lord, Sauron.
As a cooperative game, you and your friends are playing "against the board," represented by Sauron and his minions. Your goal is to get through the Mines of Moria, Helm’s Deep, Shelob’s Lair, and ultimately to the top of Mount Doom before your luck and time run out. Each step of the way you’ll have to try to stay ahead of the various negative events that occur. It’s impossible to avoid them all, but most of them can be counteracted or sustained without losing. Balancing cost/benefit scenarios is the heart of the game. For example: Is it better to have Sauron move one step closer to killing us all, or have Frodo move two steps closer to being personally corrupted by Sauron, or should we use our sole opportunity to summon Gandalf to avoid this whole problem?”
In order for a game to be cooperative and stay exciting, it needs a strong element of chance. Knizia does a good job of controlling the random factor (through a linear set of challenges that follow the story, guaranteed resources in addition to random ones, three difficulty modes to adjust to your preferred level of risk, etc.), but Sauron can still just get lucky and wipe you out. It’s frustrating when that happens, but on the whole it’s rare. The upside is that the game stays suspenseful; even when you’ve got the strategy down, you never know when your well-laid plans will fall to ruins.
Ultimately, Lord of the Rings lives and dies on its cooperative gameplay. The theme, source material, and even artwork are all top notch, but those are reasons to buy it, not reasons to play it. The reason to play it is because it stands apart from other board games. Lord of the Rings isn’t Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, or Carcassonne. There are many, many highly competitive, very complex, excellent Eurogames out there, but only a handful of high quality cooperative games. Because of this, groups will return to Lord of the Rings time and time again. You will even find friends and family drawn in who normally avoid the competitiveness of boardgames. These first timers will make the game new all over again, as the veterans coach them through the pitfalls of the journey. When you triumph over the darkness, or are crushed under its weight, your names will be recorded on the Hall of Fame sheet for posterity, and maybe you’ll all agree that you should try it on a harder difficultly level next time; just to spit in Sauron’s eye.
Was it the first?
I was having a discussion with somebody about this - was it the first totally co-operative game?
There has been a short wave of them since - Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot, Battle Star Galectica (the last two have traitors which might not make them truly co-operative).
But what was there before with co-operative game play? The only example I can think of was republic of rome - and that was co-operative to a certain point and half the game was judging when you had to stop working for rome and start working for your self in order to win.
I realised this game was something special when in one of the first games it had gone very wrong. Everybody apart from Sam and Frodo where dead, the eye was two spaces from them, and we where no where near mordor. They had to move two spaces to move forwards - and Sam offered to sacrfice himself something I'd never thought I'd see in a board game. But then Frodo refused "No Sam - I don't want to die alone....." as they both took one step forwards
the theme lends really
the theme lends really perfectly to a cooperative game: the fellowship are individually weak, but they are a fellowship, they stand together; sauron is powerful, but he stands alone.
there need to be more cooperative board games (in much the same way that there need to be more cooperative videogames). i've heard good things about pandemic.
hi, john!
Not the First
Lord of the Rings was my first cooperative boardgame, but it's definitely not the actual first. The original version of Arkham Horror came out in 1987 and was purely cooperative. That's just an easy example though, it isn't the earliest either.
I do think it's fair to say that Lord of the Rings has led a new wave of cooperative games. Still, there are a lot more "mostly cooperative" games than there are purely cooperative games. I like both a lot though. In fact, I was recently entranced by this actual play account of a Battlestar Galactica game (http://fortressat.com/index.php/Articles/Analysis/The-Unbearable-Lightne...), and now I've got to try that.
Hi dessgeega!
While Knizia's board game
While Knizia's board game captures the sense of woefully unprepared hobbits setting out on a perilous journey and having to cooperate with each other, I found the fun was substantially diminished by its brutal difficulty. The game also cries out for a house rule allowing free information sharing between players; with this implemented, the game was still tense, but at least we could finish.
Cooperative games are hard, but there is a special kind of fun that comes from planning without worrying about small-group politics.
Power Corrupts
How do you test one's character? Give him or her, a little power and watch how people change. Play this game with your friends and see how their issues come to the surface. Lord of the Rings is a fascinating experiment in human behavior.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely
--Lord Acton 1887
Knizia was able to capture that Tolkien theme into a most brilliant board game mechanism of a corruption chart.
I am not sure if there is any game out there that teaches people to be selfless and be wary of power. This is a masterpiece that for me is even higher than Sid Meier's Civilization, in the educational perspective.
This game is like Sid Meier's Civilization to me, a fun game that is also highly educational. Like Sid Meier's Civilization, people will play Knizia's Lord of the Rings for fun and not realize that they are learning something.
BTW
For those interested in game design, the Lord of The Rings was one of case studies in a game design book.
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
0-262-24045-9
A FAQ and details about the game is here, presented by one of Knizia's playtesters:
http://freespace.virgin.net/chris.lawson/rk/lotr/index.htm
Features, Not Bugs
In reply to
"While Knizia's board game"
Submitted by Robyrt on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 21:05.
"...small-group politics."
Learning to cope and working with the politics is the GAME. Lord of the Rings is just not team vs. Sauron, it is also team vs. personal ambitions--just like the Tolkien movies/books.
"...house rule allowing free information sharing between players..."
Knizia says not to be careful about this in the rulebook because the game will become a cooperative puzzle. It is great talk about info but just don't play with cards face-up. Being too liberal with the information and you remove the tension of the game of working with people's egos.
"...its brutal difficulty."
The the game has a built in difficulty setting. You can set-up Sauron farther or closer to the hobbits to make the harder of easier. In fact, for my first game, Sauron started off the board.
Like I said, Lord of the Rings is a fascinating experiment in human behavior.
The game has also been
The game has also been analyzed academically:
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~jp/Papers/Zagal%20et%20al%20-%20Collaborative%...
And yeah, it's all about the internal politics! Great game!