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Kniza's Lord of the Rings: An interesting divide

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17 Apr 2015 15:07 #200990 by Hex Sinister
After winning the game once I've never felt compelled to return to it. My girlfriend didn't even want to play it and she's more forgiving than I. I recently sold it to a newb for $20. (He also paid premium price for my LNoE - it was a good day for shelf turds!)

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18 Apr 2015 18:33 #201032 by SuperflyPete
I played it twice, and I ~think~ I played it right, but the rules sucked a bit so it was hard to tell. I can tell you that I really thought that it did something different with the setting than other games had, which is admirable, but the execution was weak. I keep thinking "maybe if I buy it again, it will be better", but for the LotR setting, you cannot possibly make a better game than War of the Ring. You just can't. So, I will probably never buy or play this again, because I gave it a fair shot, but it just didn't seem like it was any fun whatsoever.

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18 Apr 2015 20:57 #201038 by MacDirk Diggler
Nope, Pete you are flat out wrong.

There is a superior LOTR boardgamegeek to War of The RIng.


It's called War of the Ring collectors edition.
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19 Apr 2015 19:47 #201064 by Ancient_of_MuMu

Erik Twice wrote:

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: It fails the Frank Branham test (this is me, those are mine), so you have to make very big logical leaps to work out the theme.

Do people really care about owning something? Perhaps I play too much 18XX but I don't see anything wrong with not having a "my guy" but "our guys".

The Frank Branham test is more about how a theme is conveyed in terms of having an in-game persona, and how overt this is (can someone who doesn't know the game wander up ask you how the game is going, you say "This is me, those are mine", and straight away they get a vague sense of the game). This is not true for LOTR, and while that may not be important to some people, for many it is. The same is true of Imperial, which while a great game, can take people several sessions to understand the theme. For me, a fantasy quest game and the Frank Branham test go hand in hand.
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20 Apr 2015 12:48 - 20 Apr 2015 14:54 #201115 by Egg Shen
So as I mentioned in the Now Playing thread, me and a couple of friends played this for the first time over the weekend. All of us loved it. We broke out some LOTR music and set out to rid Middle Earth of The One Ring.

For those that think this game is themeless...you're outta your mind. There is so much stuff from the books jam packed into the game that we were really all surprised. Yes, some of it is fairly abstracted, but it all makes sense. It felt like we were journeying through the books. I mean Christ, the game forces you to play friendship cards so that you can form the fellowship. Yes, the game lacks little flavor text blurbs, but the struggle...the journey of the hobbits was very real.

The game forces teamwork, playing selflessly, self sacrifice for the greater good and more . Turn after turn we all discussed our options and the game felt like a team effort through and through. Many times you're required to make a smart safe choice or go for a riskier bigger payoff.

We ended our journey along the final path to Mount Doom in Mordor. Pippen as the ring bearer had to roll the die and was unable to avoid becoming corrupted by the ring. The Ring found it's way back into its Master's hands and Sauron proceeded to shit all over Middle Earth.

We discussed why we all liked it so much afterwards. You can really see how almost every popular co-op game cribbed elements from LOTR. It's DNA is far reaching and still felt throughout boardgaming today. We liked how the game follows a strict path. At first this seems restrictive, but it really is the only way to properly tell the story and convey the theme. Another positive is that the game offers reprieves to the players. You might draw several helpful event tiles in a row. In most modern co-ops it's usually just a relentless slog of the game shitting on you. For example, in Ravenloft...every turn a monster or terrible event is going to pop off. Same thing in something like Pandemic or Defenders of the realm. With LOTR you never get that sensation that the game is just dumping on you constantly. For us, the game didn't really ratchet up until Shelob's Lair and Mordor...which felt exactly right! Another reason the game shines is because of it's simple turn structure. It doesn't overload you, but each turn you still have plenty you can do. The addition of summoning Gandalf gives even more options to think about.

I can see why people wouldn't like the game. It does come off as a bit antiquated after all this time. I happen to like it's more abstract nature and simplistic gameplay. Co-ops are a huge genre now and there is lots of white noise out there. For me LOTRs has easily withstood the test of time and should be more relevant than it currently is. It's a fun co-op with gorgeous artwork, lots of teamwork and doesn't overstay it's welcome. I'm a big fan.

FFG has really fucked up by not releasing expansions for it's recent incarnation of the game. That led me to track down an older/big boxed copy of the game. I also got my hands on Friends and Foes which I'm eager to try out.
Last edit: 20 Apr 2015 14:54 by Egg Shen.
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20 Apr 2015 13:01 #201117 by Shellhead
I played three times, about a decade ago. I think all three games included the Friends & Foes expansion. I really enjoyed the first game, except for the bossy player problem and people sharing too much information about their cards with really blatant hints. The second game was okay, but didn't seem quite as fun. The third game, I realized that the linear nature of the boards made the game more scripted than I wanted it to be, and the gameplay just wasn't entertaining anymore.
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20 Apr 2015 13:53 #201121 by Erik Twice
So now the question is: Why is it scripted? And why does that bother you guys? I know you guys love Arkham Horror, which barely has any strategy at all, so what's making you guys find it bothersome here and not in other games?

It's also kind of weird because I see a lot of guys like Shellhead, who played it three times and got less and less excitement each time but also lot of guys who have played it 50 times! And there's no obvious "Oh these guys are great strategists, those are not" divide so it intrigues me.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: The Frank Branham test is more about how a theme is conveyed in terms of having an in-game persona, and how overt this is (can someone who doesn't know the game wander up ask you how the game is going, you say "This is me, those are mine", and straight away they get a vague sense of the game). This is not true for LOTR, and while that may not be important to some people, for many it is. The same is true of Imperial, which while a great game, can take people several sessions to understand the theme. For me, a fantasy quest game and the Frank Branham test go hand in hand.

I haven't played Imperial, but I play similar games and I always feel quite immersed because the manipulative tycoon is me!

It seems a bit that you seek more of an avatar, a representation of yourself in the game. For me, what matters is not so much who I am, but what I do, I don't need to be the Specialist in Pandemic as long as I do Pandemic-like things and it feels I'm really cooperating. Not sure if that makes sense. I mean, I do like having "my guy" and I prefer bad things didn't happen to "my guy" but I'm fine with treating them like flavoured pawns all players can move if I allow it.

By the way, where does the "Frank Branham test" come from?

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20 Apr 2015 14:02 #201122 by Shellhead
I like a sense of narrative and theme in a game, but if the narrative becomes too predictable, it makes the game less interesting to me. Arkham Horror offers enough thematic encounters that players can easily perceive a narrative even if it's just a series of random encounters in the semblance of a story. LotR is more heavily scripted because the boards are laid out in such a way as to follow the same basic story outline every time.

The Frank Branham test comes from Frank Branham, of course. He is a long-term FAT:tie and has been playing boardgames with Barnes for many years now. IIRC, the Frank Branham test can even be applied to purely economic games. For example, Acquire passes the Frank Branham test because your pile of cash and stock shares clearly puts "you" in the game as the guy who owns a pile of cash and stock shares. A co-op game can fail the Branham test if the teamwork is too easily dominated by a bossy player, reducing the "you" part to little more than a subset of "we" in terms of role.

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20 Apr 2015 15:35 #201126 by Egg Shen
I can understand how people would feel that the game is scripted. The boards all come out in the same order. Each game you're getting the same cards from Rivendell and the scenarios offer the same feature cards. I'll try to provide updates as I continue to play and explore the game, but I don't foresee it being a real problem for me. I suppose if you played with the same group of guys and one player was always barking about "the right way to play"....or making everyone follow what he feels is the correct strategy...then I can totally see it feeling scripted.

As it is, I'm still thinking about yesterday's game. I'm thinking about what we could have done differently or if we wasted cards when we should have held on to them. Were we all using our special abilities wisely? Did forgetting to use the ring at Helm's deep ruin us?

For me the game is no less scripted than any boardgame that has a static setup each game. For example: does War of the Ring feel scripted because the units on the board are the same every game? Plus on top of that you know where the fellowship will start and where it must go to win? Does this lead to scripted gameplay where the same things occur each time? Perhaps. I think part of the allure of any game is trying different stuff. I feel like you could play War of the Ring dozens of times and see the scenario play out completely different each time. Then again it might not. It might devolve into two players approaching it from a Chess like level where they anticipate each other's moves.

Part of the problem with adapting a book or movie is the fact that you NEED to follow things in a linear, narrative path. The many popular TV show based board games don't seem to suffer this problem. Mostly because the games don't try to emulate the narrative of the show. They simply place you in the games universe and let you experience the thematic beats of the program. Playing a game of Firefly doesn't feel like you're experience the narrative of an episode. It DOES however feel like you're in that shows universe. You're getting jobs, trying to keep your crew happy, making money. It feels like you're the captain of a Firefly class ship with a crew. At no point does it feel like the episodes, "Out of Gas" or "Our Mrs. Reynolds". With War of the Ring and LOTR the game design is to specifically bring the narrative of the books to the players. Making things static or to have game elements occur the same way each time seems like the clean and logical way to approach the design. In the end it helps put the players into the story and connect with the source material. Which is what I imagine fans of the LOTR books/films are looking for.

If FFG were to make a Star Wars co-op game based on "A New Hope" I would imagine it would need to be just as linear to keep fans happy. You'd have to meet Han n Chewie at the Cantina, you wouldn't have Leia until you rescued her and Obi Wan would always have to die at the same point. I think this is why you don't actually see many boardgames try and directly translate films/books into games. It's hard to do. It's more common to see videogame adaptions rather than boardgames.
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20 Apr 2015 17:11 #201134 by southernman
What Egg said, both of his last posts.
I've always enjoyed playing it, enough theme in there for LotR fans plus just trying to beat the game for gamers in general - probably one of the few German games I still play (when I get enough players). Yes, some of my mates do complain that once you know when to play the yellow cards it's easy to win but I point out that we don't win that much, the draw of the tiles can screw you over and, in the end, what's wrong with winning if you have fun. Alternatively you just start Sauron closer to the fellowship and then see how good your crew is.
But, after that, I do prefer playing it with the Sauron expansion - extra theme and fun having someone (usually me) go out of their way to burn the Hobbits, and it is a well designed (imo) expansion. I'm not going to do a review, just to add my pure-FAT vote to give this game a good pass.
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20 Apr 2015 20:38 - 20 Apr 2015 20:41 #201145 by Josh Look

Egg Shen wrote: If FFG were to make a Star Wars co-op game based on "A New Hope" I would imagine it would need to be just as linear to keep fans happy. You'd have to meet Han n Chewie at the Cantina, you wouldn't have Leia until you rescued her and Obi Wan would always have to die at the same point. I think this is why you don't actually see many boardgames try and directly translate films/books into games. It's hard to do. It's more common to see videogame adaptions rather than boardgames.


Dude, we really should play Aliens: This Time It's War sometime. It's the original version of Revolver, I managed to get a copy made before they pulled the files down. The way it handles the events of the film without sacrificing a certain level of freedom in the gameplay is truly remarkable. Revolver may be a more polished effort and the underused western theme is welcome, but that game was meant to be Aliens.
Last edit: 20 Apr 2015 20:41 by Josh Look.

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21 Apr 2015 10:08 #201166 by Egg Shen

Josh Look wrote:

Egg Shen wrote: If FFG were to make a Star Wars co-op game based on "A New Hope" I would imagine it would need to be just as linear to keep fans happy. You'd have to meet Han n Chewie at the Cantina, you wouldn't have Leia until you rescued her and Obi Wan would always have to die at the same point. I think this is why you don't actually see many boardgames try and directly translate films/books into games. It's hard to do. It's more common to see videogame adaptions rather than boardgames.


Dude, we really should play Aliens: This Time It's War sometime. It's the original version of Revolver, I managed to get a copy made before they pulled the files down. The way it handles the events of the film without sacrificing a certain level of freedom in the gameplay is truly remarkable. Revolver may be a more polished effort and the underused western theme is welcome, but that game was meant to be Aliens.


Yeah...we definitely need to play that! It sounds awesome. Now you've got me very curious to see how it plays!

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