Players: 2-5+
Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)

Lord of the Rings is printed in Germany. Curiously, it's been published by any number of companies since its U.S. release. It was originally at Hasbro, where it was alternatively published under both their "Parker" and "Wizards of the Coast" lines. The current publisher is Fantasy Flight Games. Though this review is of one of the older Hasbro versions of the game, I suspect they're all identical, and thus have marked the current publisher in the review info.

The Components

Lord of the Rings comes with:

• Boards:
  • 1 master board
  • 2 scenario boards
• Plastic Bits:
  • 1 Sauron figure
  • 5 hobbit figures
  • One Ring
• Wood Bits:
  • 6 markers
  • 1 die
• Cards:
  • 60 hobbit cards
  • 35 feature cards
  • 5 character cards
  • 5 gandalf cards
• Cardboard Bits:
  • 23 event tiles
  • 11 life tokens
  • 32 shields
• 1 rulebook
• 1 hall of fame sheet

Boards: Each of the boards is two panels, printed in full-color on linen-textured cardboard. The panels for the scenarios boards are full-box size, while the master board isn't quite as tall.

The master board, as the name would indicate, ties everything together. Across the top it shows the seven locations of the game: Bag End, Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien, Helm's Deep, Shelob's Lair, and Mordor. Bag End, Rivendell, and Lothlorien are printed with specific instructions nearby, while the other four refer to scenario boards. The bottom of the board is a simple 16-part "Corruption Track" (labelled 0-15), with the hobbits starting on one side and Sauron on the other. There's nice art on the board showing the sights of Middle Earth.

Each scenario board is printed two-sided, with a different scenario on each side. There are four total: Moria, Helm's Deep, Shelob's Lair, and Mordor. There's a stunning, painted piece of art as a background on each board. (My favorite is Moria, which shows Gandalf and the Balrog fiighting). Down the left side of each scenario board is an event track, which carefully explains the results of each event. Running left to right across each board are "activity lines": one required main line and a few secondary lines. Players will advance across these activity lines during each scenario. Each space in an activity line shows what you gain for advancing into that space through clear icons.

Overall, all the boards are filled not just with color for the game, but also clear explanations of most of what should be done during the game, including great icons for additional clarity.

Plastic Bits: Each of the identical hobbits is molded in hard plastic in one of the player colors (green, yellow, blue, red, orange). They're well sculptured pieces, though it's a pity they don't have any variety.

The ring is sculptured in slightly softer, golden plastic. It's just a big donut, though there's elven script on one side. (My wife wanted to know why the script was visible when the ring hadn't been thrown into the fire.) The ring is a bit silly looking at its large size, but still a nice piece.

I'm not even totally sure that the Sauron piece is plastic. It's a big, black, heavy, tower shaped piece with an eye in the middle with its pupil painted red. Like the hobbits, it sits on the corruption track, and it looks properly daunting.

Wood Bits: The "markers" are simple white, wooden cones. They're used to mark current location on the main board, on the scenario's event track, and on the scenario's activity lines. They're not very interesting, but do stand out against the board, which was probably the point.

The die is a wooden die with unique icons for three different types of results: gain corruption, lose cards, or advance Sauron. These icons are easy to understand, and are used throughout the game across all the Components.

Cards: The cards are all normal card size. They're printed full color on sturdy card stock with rounded corners.

The hobbit cards allow movement along the activity tracks. Each is one of two colors (white or gray) and shows a single icon for one of the four activities (friendship, travelling, hiding, or fighting) or else a star for wild. There's some nice, but repetitive (and thus forgetable) art on each card too.

The feature cards are hobbit cards, but ones won on specific scenario boards. They're just like the rest of the activity cards, except some have two icons for their activity and there are also some yellow cards which allow special actions, and thus feature short, clear explanations. Each of the feature cards relates to a specific person or thing in the store (e.g., Aragorn, Arwen, Shadowfax) and has unique, evocative artwork.

The character cards simply relate to the five hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Fatty). Each one shows the name of the hobbit, his color, unique artwork, and text describing the character's special power.

Finally, the Gandalf cards each describe a special power that can be used during the game. The cost (5 shields) is clearly shown on the card. These are effectively hobbit cards too, just ones that you need to purchase.

Cardboard Bits: All of the cardboard bits are printed on thick cardboard. They're clearly printed in full color, but each bit only uses a couple of colors (e.g., the shields are mostly blue and black, while the event tiles are mostly green and black). Unfortunately all the cardboard bits show perforations when punched.

Each square event tile shows an icon for a specific result: some display an icon for one of the four activity types, while others show various bad effects. Some of the bad effect icons are a bit non-intuitive at first, but you catch on.

Each round life token shows one of the three life icons (heart, light, ring). These correspond to icons on the board showing spaces on activity lines where you gain these tokens.

Each shield token shows a shield on the back and a shield with a number between 1 and 3 on the front. These correspond to shield icons on the board showing spaces on activity lines where you gain shields. (There are actually two icons, "small shields" and "large shields", which are discussed more below and are easy to get confused during play.)

Rulebook: The rulebook is 16 pages long, printed in full color with lots of pictures and examples. It's unfortunately my only real problem with the Lord of the Rings components; I found it hard to follow and very bad for reference in game. (This has continued to be the case over many games.)

Hall of Fame Sheet: This single-sided, full-color sheet simply allows you to track your victories and defeats in Lord of the Rings.

Box & Tray: The box is a typical square German box size. It's sturdy , as you would expect. The tray has spaces for all the different pieces, including really nice slots for each hobbit and Sauron and the ring. For some reason, however, the card slots aren't deep enough to actually hold all the cards that come with the initial set.

Overall, the components for Lord of the Rings are attractive--beautiful in some cases--and make the game much easier to play with good inclusion of rules text and icons throughout the components. Thus I give the game a full "5" out of "5" Style rating.

The Game Play

The overall goal of Lord of the Rings is quite simple: to journey across Middle Earth and destroy the One Ring. How that works is a bit harder to describe because the game is quite unique in its construction.

Setup: Each player starts out by choosing the role of one of the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings: Sam, Frodo, Merry, Pippin, or Fatty. Who exactly is in the game depends upon the number of players (just Sam and Frodo for two players, everyone include Fatty for five).

The One Ring is initially given to Frodo, as you'd expect.

Each hobbit also has a special power. For example, Sam takes less damage from die rolls, while Frodo can use certain Hobbit Cards as wilds.

Component Explanations: A few components of central relevence to how the game works are: the master board; the hobbit cards; and the die. They deserve a bit of extra explanation.

The Master Board. The spine of the game is the master board. There's a corruption track along the bottom. Each of the hobbits places his individual figure at "0" while Sauron is placed at "15" (or "12" or "10" for more challenging games). As the game progresses, the hobbits will move upward and Sauron will move down. If they meet, it's a bad thing (more specifically: the hobbit is out of the game, and if he was the current ring-bearer, the game is over).

Across the top are 7 circles to represent 7 locations in Middle Earth: Bag End, Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien, Helm's Deep, Shelob's Lair, and Mordor. One of the cone-shaped markers is initially placed in Bag End. It'll move forward through the circles as the hobbits move inevitably toward Mordor.

Hobbit Cards. The hobbit cards are what will allow the players to move through Middle Earth. As already noted, they come in four activities (friendship, travelling, hiding, fighting) and the wild/star card. Players will get these card throughout play and they'll use them to move forward and to face certain tests.

The Die. Throughout the game players will be called upon to roll the die. This happens most frequently in relation to certain scenario-board events, but also when you cross certain spaces on the activity track. The die has 6 different outcomes: advance 1, 2, or 3 corruption spaces; advance Sauron one space; discard two cards; or nothing.

Bag End & Rivendell (& Lothlorien): The first two locations on the master board are special, because each one just instructs the players to do certain things. For example, here's the instructions for Bag End:

• Gandalf: Each player receive 6 Hobbit cards.
• Preparations: Ring bearer may [roll a die] and reveal 4 Hobbit cards face up for distribution.
• Nazgul Appears: One player discard 2 [hiding] otherwise [Sauron advances].

This is pretty typical for special main board spaces. Each one is described with a little text that explains what's being modelled from the books. Then, a particular effect is associated with that text. Note that the third event requires a player to discard 2 [hiding]: this simply means that a player must discard 2 hiding icons worth of hobbit cards: this might be a single card with two icons or two cards with one each or some combination with wild cards.

The Rivendell events are pretty similar: players get special Rivendell feature cards, which include more normal hobbit cards, but also a few special yellow cards which have various beneficial effects; players can pass a card to the left; and then each player must discard a Friendship card or else roll the die.

After going through these two locations and their events, players will then advance to Moria which is the first scenario board.

(Of brief note, the players will encounter one more location later on that has some simple instructions on the main board: Lothlorien. Here they can recover a bit from the dangers of Moria. The events here include: getting special Lothlorien feature cards; discarding a couple of shields for some Hobbit cards or moving backward a space on the corruption track; and discarding a wild card to avoid a die roll.)

The Scenario Boards: The main play of the game occurs on the scenario boards. Each of these has three features: an event track; 3 or 4 activity lines; and some number of feature cards.

The cone markers are used with both the event track and the activity lines. When a scenario board is revealed, cones are placed at the start of each of these tracks.

The Event Track. The event track is pretty similar to those events you encounter on the main board--except they almost all have the potential to be bad. Events at the top of the event track tend to fit the formula "meet this criteria or else a bad thing happens", while later events are just plain bad. For example, here's the events for the first scenario board, Moria:

• Speak Friend and Enter: Group discard [friendship] and [wild] or [Sauron advances].
• Watcher in the Water: Each player discard [hiding] or [roll a die].
• Stone in the Well: Active player must play two matching icons for Hobbit card revealed or Sauron advances and the next event occurs.
• Trapped?: [Sauron advances two] and ring-bearer [rolls the die] if the Travelling and Hiding activity lines are incomplete.
• Orcs Attack: Group discards 5 [fighting] or [Sauron advances two].
• Fly You Fools!: One player [takes three corruption] or everyone [rolls a die].

The event track is advanced through by flipping certain Event tiles. This is typically considered a bad thing. You don't want to advance all the way through the Event track, or you're in big, big trouble. However, if you get to the last event, you automatically complete the scenario board.

Activity Lines: Most boards have three activity lines; Mordor has four. Each one is marked with the icons of one of the hobbit card activities (hiding, fighting, etal.). In addition, one of the activity lines is numbered because it's the main activity line. There's, again, a bit of text on each line to provide color.

For example, in Moria, the main activity line is fighting, labelled "Battle against the wolves, the orcs and the balrog". The other two activity lines are hiding ("quietly advance through Moria") and travelling ("flee to the exit of Moria"). As it happens fighting is the main activity line for every scenario board except Mordor, where it's travelling.

Most of the main activity lines are 10 spaces long; most of the other activity lines are either 7 or 10 spaces long. Every space has an icon which shows what happens when you reach the space. These include:

• Small Shields. The most common icon. You get a "1" shield token.
• Big Shields. You get a random (1-3) shield token.
• Heart, Ring, or Sun. You get the appropriate life token.
• Feature Card. You get the depicted feature card.
• Die. You must roll the die.
• Open Circle. You step back one space on the corruption track.

To finish a scenario board, you must complete the main activity line. You'll typically want to complete other activity lines as well to get life tokens which are required for the continued survival of your hobbits. Sometimes completing secondary activity lines can also help you avoid bad events. More on this all momentarily.

Feature Cards. Every board includes at least a couple of feature cards. As with the ones available on the master board these are either high-powered (2+ icons) or yellow hobbit cards. You typically receive these cards by reaching certain spaces on the secondary activity lines, though in a couple of instances they're available from specific events as well.

Playing the Scenario Boards: Once you get to the scenario boards, play enters a regular rhythm, with each player taking his turn, one at a time. On his turn a player takes the following actions:

• Flip Event Tiles.
• Play Hobbit Cards.
• Or: Rest

There are also a few extra actions available to other players during your turn: using the One Ring, yellow cards, or Gandalf cards.

Here's the normal actions:

Flip Event Tiles. There is a pile of event tiles which are randomized at the start of every scenario. At the start of his turn a player flips the top one over. If it shows one of the activities, the player advances the marker on that particular activity line and takes the appropriate result (usually gathering a shield).

About half of the tiles are bad, however. Some require the marker to be advanced on the Event track, and the next Event to occur. Some advance the Event marker unless certain sacrifices (cards, life tokens, shields) are made. Others give out corruption to the hobbits and/or move Sauron. Worse, if you draw a bad event tile you must draw again; you don't stop until you get one of those activity tiles.

Play Hobbit Cards. Once done with the events the active player may now play hobbit cards. He may play one, or two if they're different colors (white and gray). Each hobbit card has one or more activity icons on it. The player advances the markers on those activity lines, taking all results from spaces he goes over.

Rest. Instead of playing hobbit cards you may rest. You either draw two hobbit cards or move back one space on the corruption line. However, this resting is dangerous because you still have to flip those event tiles first, and thus the dark forces of Sauron continue to close in on you.

Here's the extra/special actions:

Using the Ring. At any time the ring bearer may declare he's using the One Ring, though only once per scenario. He must roll the die and take any bad effects, but then gets to move any activity marker (usually the main activity marker) 1-4 spaces, depending on the die roll. The effects of those spaces do not occur. Most commonly this is used to try and jump over multiple "die roll" spaces.

Using Yellow Cards. Various yellow hobbit cards have beneficial effects, like removing corruption from a hobbit, letting people exchange cards, stopping an event result, etc. This can typically be played by any player at any appropriate time,.

Using Gandalf Cards. There are also a number of Gandalf cards off to the side of the board. These may be purchased by individual players for 5 shields each. These are effectively yellow hobbit cards, but with more impressive effects (e.g., heal a hobbit of two corruption, draw four hobbit cards, etc.) Like the other yellow cards, these can be played by any player at any time.

Completing a Scenario Board: A scenario board is completed in one of two ways: upon reaching the end of the main activity line; or, much less frequently, upon reaching the end of the Event track.

Upon ending a scenario, each player then looks at the life tokens he's gathered. There are three types; for each type that a player doesn't have, he takes one corruption point. All players then turn in their life tokens.

Whomever has the most ring life tokens becomes the new ring-bearer.

Then, the marker is advanced on the main board. From Moria you go to Lothlorien and do events listed on the main board. Then you move on to the final three scenario boards: Helm's Deep, Shelob's Lair, and Mordor.

Ending the Game: At the end of the Mordor track, players turn in their life tokens, take corruption, and see if they survive.

The ring-bearer then places the One Ring on Mount Doom. He must make a final die roll to destroy it. If he fails, die rolls continue around the table until either the ring is destroyed or the fellowship is.

The game can also end at any time if the ring-bearer meets Sauron on the corruption track (or, in Mordor, if you get to the last space on the event track).

Afterwards, a score is calculated based on the final space that the fellowship made it to on the boards. If the One Ring was destroyed, remaining shields are added to this total. This score, with a list of players, is then proudly printed on the Roll of Honor.

How the Game Plays

Lord of the Rings, if played to win, is a heavily social game. There's a constant ebb and flow of conversation, as people discuss what cards they have, what tracks they should advance on, and who will aid in this endeavor. Barring unlucky tile flips, things are pretty manageable in Moria. However, as players advance further and further into the darkness, things get tough. Hobbit cards become scarce and players begin moving too far up the corruption track, and thus turns must be spent addressing these problems, and the whole time the drum of events continues.

Despite its core abstractness, there is a lot of color to Lord of the Rings, thanks to the feature cards and the text and pictures on the various boards. You do get a genuine sense of advancing through Middle Earth and dealing with the dangers therein.

At the end, it's entirely possible you've lost a hobbit. (He'll still win if the rest of you do.) Careful calculations must be made as to how to advance through Mordor without succumbing to the darkness. Shields and yellow cards are spent wildly to try and hold the darkness back just long enough. And, if you're lucky, you might just make it to Mount Doom and be able to destroy the Ring. (Probably a good half of games end in failure, depending on the difficulty level you choose at start with Sauron's placement.)

Relationships to Other Games

Lord of the Rings is a cooperative adventure game, which is a fairly rare genre. Arkham Horror (1987) is one of the few other cooperative games of note; it was reprinted in a new form in 2005. Shadows over Camelot (2005) is a more recent entrant to the genre.

Conversely, there are tons of Lord of the Ring games. Just from the recent set of movies we have this game and its two supplements, Friends & Foes and Sauron, at least three two-player games (The Duel, The Confrontation, The Search) two other Reiner Knizia games (the kid's Lord of the Rings game and a card game that's been released in the US instead as King's Gate), and Fantasy Flight's War of the Ring, which is to say nothing of any number of trivia games, Risks, etc.

Traditionally, the Lord of the Rings has been a very rich setting for board gaming. Past releases include a whole set of ICE board games (including my favorite Riddle of the Ring) and SPI's original War of the Ring.

The Game Design

When you come down to it, Lord of the Rings is a very unusual and odd game. Because it's so unique, it's also a bit hard to assess the game design.

Largely, the game is a tactical game by consensus. You don't have a lot of opportunity to plan far ahead, and even your tactics will utterly fail if you don't communicate well with your fellow players. And, that's as it should be, given the social aspect of the game.

Related to that, the social aspect of the game can be a lot of fun because you really get to interact with other players in a much more meaningful way than with most board games.

A lot of the game is ruled by randomness, as the flip of the event tiles can either make or break a game. This also adds a constant sense of impending doom to the game. Any tile flip could be the beginning of the end--or an opportunity to make it through the end of the board.

Originally the abstractness of the game bugged me some, but I've since decided that the background of teh game is pretty rich, even if you're playing with some pretty simple, iconic pieces.

Overall, I'd say if you're looking for a social game, this one works great. It also does a very good job of acting as a cooperative game, which is a poorly represented, and poorly understood, area of game design. I've thus given it a full "5" out of "5" for Substance, which is an increase from my original rating of "4".

Conclusion

Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings game fits a rare niche in gaming: the social, cooperative game. If you're a fan of working together with your fellow players, this is a must-buy. As a Tolkien-based Lord of the Rings Knizia's design is OK. There's some beautiful color in the game that's provided by the rich Middle Earth background, but it's an overlay on top of a typical Knizia abstraction. Still, after a couple of plays the color will really come through.

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