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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game box art

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game

Game ID: GID0328445
Game Info
Year
2022
Collection
Rating
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Description

ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SKYRIM!

Before the Dragonborn came to Skyrim….

You are surviving members of the Blades, a legendary group who long protected the Empire of Tamriel! Abandoned by the empire, you must work together to thwart a plot that threatens the whole of Skyrim

Build a unique character in the world of the Elder Scrolls. Choose between a Nord, Dunmer, Imperial, Altmer, Khajiit or Orsimer. Equip your character with a wide range of weapons, spells and armour. Travel across the Holds of Skyrim to places like Riften, Solitude, Falkreath and Whiterun. Attempt a huge range of evolving quests that change the game with each decision, Explore the wilderness. Gain side quests from mysterious characters. Delve into ancient ruins and tombs. Battle Draugr, Frostbite Spiders, Dragons, Dwemer Constructs and Daedra. The deeper you delve, the deadlier your foes will become. Gain experience and amazing treasures. Upgrade and enchant your gear. Level up your character with a wide range of unique skills and abilities. Play through six chapters of two huge campaigns spanning 25 years in the history of Skyrim in this endlessly replayable boardgame.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game is a 1-4 player co-operative game of adventure and exploration across Skyrim. Players take the roles of heroes involved in epic quests, working together to defeat their enemies and exploring the vast expanse of Skyrim. You will be able to choose character miniatures like the Khajiit, Nord, or High Elf; plan your strategy with weapons or spells; and fight your way through forgotten mines, Draugr-infested tombs, or ancient Dwemer cities to find ancient treasures and increase your power.

The players must keep an eye out as the threat increases across Skyrim as Dragons, Daedra, Trolls, and more roam the lands and wreak havoc across the holds. Players need to work together to keep the lands free, whilst balancing the demands of their most important quests.

The base game is divided into two campaigns of three chapters each. The decisions the players make from their first turn have a distinct effect on the unfolding story and encounters, making the whole campaign experience different every time you play. You can even save your progress after each game and start the next chapter with the same character, equipment, and skills.

With the numerous choices of characters, gear, magic, and skills matched with the many decisions each player makes through their quests, there are literally hundreds of hours of gameplay, with some stories not even seen based on your early decisions. The face of Skyrim can change during the game, impacting the course of the players' experience in subsequent chapters. At any time, the players can simply reset, choose another character and play style, make different choices, and experience things differently. Alternatively, pick a chapter that sounds fun and drop in to just play that adventure as a one-off.

Key mechanics:

A Living Board
The game board represents the province of Skyrim. Players move their characters — represented by 32mm scale plastic miniatures — across the region, visiting Strongholds, exploring dungeons and meeting interesting characters as the story unfolds. But they are not the only ones there; roaming monsters appear, blocking roads and threatening the peace in Skyrim. Several game effects could lead to the fall of a Stronghold so players need to keep an eye on the state of unrest and the active dangers across the board.

Customizable Characters
There are no classes in Skyrim. Each character has a different starting innate ability and additional abilities that are unlocked as they learn specific skills, but that doesn’t mean that they are tied to a gameplay style. For example, even though Nords shine when they are developed with a focus on warrior skills and equipment, a player could decide to make their Nord a spellcaster, or a summoner, and still retrain midway through the game after finding an amazing sword they really want to use. Players can change their progression path mid-game, and enjoy many different play styles.

Upgradeable Equipment
There are plenty of equippable items: weapons, pieces of armor, trinkets, etc. Most of these items can be customized; by either Enchanting or Upgrading them in a Stronghold. When Upgrading or Enchanting an item, the player draws an Enchantment/Upgrade card, and slots it underneath the item, altering its properties. A piece of armor can be Upgraded so it becomes better against Heavy Attacks, for example, and it can also be Enchanted so it helps the character regenerate Stamina faster. When learning the Smithing and the Enchanting skills, the players get to draw more cards and choose between them, making the experience of customizing equipment richer and letting them focus on the playstyle they prefer. Furthermore, when playing in a group, one player can specialize their character in Enchanting or Smithing and upgrade all their allies' items by meeting in a Stronghold, adding another layer of cooperative gameplay.

Quests in Cards
The story in the game is told using Quest cards. Players draw Main Quests — those that push the narrative forward — and Personal Quests — side stories gained by exploring the vastness of the province of Skyrim. By completing or failing them, the story progresses. Many of these Quests give the players a choice at the end. This choice chains the Quest with a new one, creating a branching story that changes every time the game is played. Failing a quest doesn’t mean losing the game; instead, failure often becomes another way of choosing. The cards are organized in a way in which, if a card is removed as a result of Quest being failed or a game effect is triggered, the next card will take its place, dramatically changing the story.

Combat System
With an assortment of weapons, ranging from daggers to bows, players will be able to engage in combat with dangerous enemies, whether they be in a dungeon or part of a questline. Each weapon and spell will inform the player what attacks it can perform and how much Stamina or Magicka they’ll have to spend to use them. The player will roll the custom dice and attempt to overcome each weapon’s specific Skill Tests; hitting with heavier weapons is bound to be harder than hitting with lighter weapons. Combat is fast, exciting, and deadly, although strategy is a key factor to success. Some enemies, in fact, will employ unorthodox tactics, including the ability to heal themselves or wear nearly impenetrable armors.

Dungeon Crawling
Players can visit increasingly dangerous caves, mines, tombs, ruins, and Dwemer cities across Skyrim. Dungeons are built with cards each representing a major threat in that area of the dungeon. It might be a terrifying Draugr or a surprise trap that, if you’re lucky, one of the characters may be capable of disabling. As the characters level up, the lower-level adversaries are discarded, scaling the difficulty of the dungeons along with the player’s level. The more you visit a certain type of dungeon, the more likely you will see its more fearsome denizens, albeit with better rewards!

Cooperative
The whole game is fully cooperative. Players are encouraged to discuss their strategies and to collaborate to advance in their own storylines. Each player will be following their own storyline, joining together at the end of each chapter, when their plots are woven together into an epic finale for the whole party.
There are some situations where characters, even if they have the same overall goal, find themselves on opposite sides of a struggle, and may interfere with each other as they progress. This gives an interesting layer of light competitive gameplay, whilst still keeping the cooperative nature of the game in the forefront.
Expansions
The Dawnguard expansion will add a third campaign with three additional chapters to play through, new characters, dungeon adversaries, treasures, events, and more. One of our expansions will make the Ghosts of the Blades haunt you throughout Skyrim during the first Campaign of the game and another threatens devastation to Skyrim in the form of a great dragon! There is much more to be revealed through the Gamefound campaign. The team has planned for a massive upgrade kit converting all the wandering monsters over to 32mm scale plastic miniatures which are all compatible in scale with the miniatures game The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms. More information will be revealed in the run-up to the launch of the board game

All in all, the Elder Scrolls Skyrim Adventure Game will offer players dozens and dozens of hours of adventure exploring the game world. Expansions will ensure there’s even more Skyrim to be had.

Description

ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SKYRIM!

Before the Dragonborn came to Skyrim….

You are surviving members of the Blades, a legendary group who long protected the Empire of Tamriel! Abandoned by the empire, you must work together to thwart a plot that threatens the whole of Skyrim

Build a unique character in the world of the Elder Scrolls. Choose between a Nord, Dunmer, Imperial, Altmer, Khajiit or Orsimer. Equip your character with a wide range of weapons, spells and armour. Travel across the Holds of Skyrim to places like Riften, Solitude, Falkreath and Whiterun. Attempt a huge range of evolving quests that change the game with each decision, Explore the wilderness. Gain side quests from mysterious characters. Delve into ancient ruins and tombs. Battle Draugr, Frostbite Spiders, Dragons, Dwemer Constructs and Daedra. The deeper you delve, the deadlier your foes will become. Gain experience and amazing treasures. Upgrade and enchant your gear. Level up your character with a wide range of unique skills and abilities. Play through six chapters of two huge campaigns spanning 25 years in the history of Skyrim in this endlessly replayable boardgame.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game is a 1-4 player co-operative game of adventure and exploration across Skyrim. Players take the roles of heroes involved in epic quests, working together to defeat their enemies and exploring the vast expanse of Skyrim. You will be able to choose character miniatures like the Khajiit, Nord, or High Elf; plan your strategy with weapons or spells; and fight your way through forgotten mines, Draugr-infested tombs, or ancient Dwemer cities to find ancient treasures and increase your power.

The players must keep an eye out as the threat increases across Skyrim as Dragons, Daedra, Trolls, and more roam the lands and wreak havoc across the holds. Players need to work together to keep the lands free, whilst balancing the demands of their most important quests.

The base game is divided into two campaigns of three chapters each. The decisions the players make from their first turn have a distinct effect on the unfolding story and encounters, making the whole campaign experience different every time you play. You can even save your progress after each game and start the next chapter with the same character, equipment, and skills.

With the numerous choices of characters, gear, magic, and skills matched with the many decisions each player makes through their quests, there are literally hundreds of hours of gameplay, with some stories not even seen based on your early decisions. The face of Skyrim can change during the game, impacting the course of the players' experience in subsequent chapters. At any time, the players can simply reset, choose another character and play style, make different choices, and experience things differently. Alternatively, pick a chapter that sounds fun and drop in to just play that adventure as a one-off.

Key mechanics:

A Living Board
The game board represents the province of Skyrim. Players move their characters — represented by 32mm scale plastic miniatures — across the region, visiting Strongholds, exploring dungeons and meeting interesting characters as the story unfolds. But they are not the only ones there; roaming monsters appear, blocking roads and threatening the peace in Skyrim. Several game effects could lead to the fall of a Stronghold so players need to keep an eye on the state of unrest and the active dangers across the board.

Customizable Characters
There are no classes in Skyrim. Each character has a different starting innate ability and additional abilities that are unlocked as they learn specific skills, but that doesn’t mean that they are tied to a gameplay style. For example, even though Nords shine when they are developed with a focus on warrior skills and equipment, a player could decide to make their Nord a spellcaster, or a summoner, and still retrain midway through the game after finding an amazing sword they really want to use. Players can change their progression path mid-game, and enjoy many different play styles.

Upgradeable Equipment
There are plenty of equippable items: weapons, pieces of armor, trinkets, etc. Most of these items can be customized; by either Enchanting or Upgrading them in a Stronghold. When Upgrading or Enchanting an item, the player draws an Enchantment/Upgrade card, and slots it underneath the item, altering its properties. A piece of armor can be Upgraded so it becomes better against Heavy Attacks, for example, and it can also be Enchanted so it helps the character regenerate Stamina faster. When learning the Smithing and the Enchanting skills, the players get to draw more cards and choose between them, making the experience of customizing equipment richer and letting them focus on the playstyle they prefer. Furthermore, when playing in a group, one player can specialize their character in Enchanting or Smithing and upgrade all their allies' items by meeting in a Stronghold, adding another layer of cooperative gameplay.

Quests in Cards
The story in the game is told using Quest cards. Players draw Main Quests — those that push the narrative forward — and Personal Quests — side stories gained by exploring the vastness of the province of Skyrim. By completing or failing them, the story progresses. Many of these Quests give the players a choice at the end. This choice chains the Quest with a new one, creating a branching story that changes every time the game is played. Failing a quest doesn’t mean losing the game; instead, failure often becomes another way of choosing. The cards are organized in a way in which, if a card is removed as a result of Quest being failed or a game effect is triggered, the next card will take its place, dramatically changing the story.

Combat System
With an assortment of weapons, ranging from daggers to bows, players will be able to engage in combat with dangerous enemies, whether they be in a dungeon or part of a questline. Each weapon and spell will inform the player what attacks it can perform and how much Stamina or Magicka they’ll have to spend to use them. The player will roll the custom dice and attempt to overcome each weapon’s specific Skill Tests; hitting with heavier weapons is bound to be harder than hitting with lighter weapons. Combat is fast, exciting, and deadly, although strategy is a key factor to success. Some enemies, in fact, will employ unorthodox tactics, including the ability to heal themselves or wear nearly impenetrable armors.

Dungeon Crawling
Players can visit increasingly dangerous caves, mines, tombs, ruins, and Dwemer cities across Skyrim. Dungeons are built with cards each representing a major threat in that area of the dungeon. It might be a terrifying Draugr or a surprise trap that, if you’re lucky, one of the characters may be capable of disabling. As the characters level up, the lower-level adversaries are discarded, scaling the difficulty of the dungeons along with the player’s level. The more you visit a certain type of dungeon, the more likely you will see its more fearsome denizens, albeit with better rewards!

Cooperative
The whole game is fully cooperative. Players are encouraged to discuss their strategies and to collaborate to advance in their own storylines. Each player will be following their own storyline, joining together at the end of each chapter, when their plots are woven together into an epic finale for the whole party.
There are some situations where characters, even if they have the same overall goal, find themselves on opposite sides of a struggle, and may interfere with each other as they progress. This gives an interesting layer of light competitive gameplay, whilst still keeping the cooperative nature of the game in the forefront.
Expansions
The Dawnguard expansion will add a third campaign with three additional chapters to play through, new characters, dungeon adversaries, treasures, events, and more. One of our expansions will make the Ghosts of the Blades haunt you throughout Skyrim during the first Campaign of the game and another threatens devastation to Skyrim in the form of a great dragon! There is much more to be revealed through the Gamefound campaign. The team has planned for a massive upgrade kit converting all the wandering monsters over to 32mm scale plastic miniatures which are all compatible in scale with the miniatures game The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms. More information will be revealed in the run-up to the launch of the board game

All in all, the Elder Scrolls Skyrim Adventure Game will offer players dozens and dozens of hours of adventure exploring the game world. Expansions will ensure there’s even more Skyrim to be had.

Ask a Rules Question
All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 3
This page: 3
Sentiment: pos 1 · mix 1 · neu 0 · neg 1
Mentions per page
Showing 1–3 of 3
Video hD4Hxf3N1cs Playthrough at 3:42 sentiment: positive
video_pk 68991 · mention_pk 165289
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game video thumbnail
Click to watch at 3:42 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
  • The flexibility of playing campaign games at one's own pace and stopping/starting sessions without rigid structure.
  • The availability of community members to help clarify rules and strategies during the stream.
  • The satisfying feeling of successfully acquiring new items and upgrading character abilities.
  • The thematic integration of the Elder Scrolls world into the gameplay.
  • The host appreciates the community's input on game choices and rules clarifications.
Cons
  • The initial setup and cleanup process for campaign games can be time-consuming.
  • Some rules and keywords in the game can be obscure or require careful interpretation.
  • The host expresses frustration with not finding a specific two-handed weapon needed for his character build.
  • The game's complexity requires careful attention to rules and can lead to mistakes.
  • The potential for side quests to be disruptive or not align with the player's current needs.
Thematic elements
Comparison games
  • Too Many Bones
  • Frost Haven
  • Aridia
  • Fate Forge
  • Chronicles of Con
  • Arkham Horror: The Card Game
  • Gloom Haven
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
  • Campaign play — The host discusses playing through a campaign, stopping and starting streams as needed, and how the game's design allows for flexible session lengths and saving at any time, which he prefers for managing his schedule and avoiding the setup/cleanup burden.
  • Character progression — The host mentions spending experience points (XP) to upgrade character abilities, specifically considering acquiring a new two-handed weapon die or improving stamina and health stats to enhance combat effectiveness.
  • Dice rolling — The host frequently refers to rolling dice for various game actions, including combat, skill checks, and determining outcomes, highlighting the importance of specific dice results (e.g., tenacity, blanks).
  • Dungeon Delving (Uncover) — The host explores a delve, drawing tiles, collecting shards, and encountering enemies with specific keywords and abilities, noting the objective to collect shards and retreat successfully.
  • Encounter resolution — The core gameplay loop involves setting up and resolving various encounters with different enemy types, abilities, and objectives, which the host details throughout the playthrough.
  • item acquisition — The host talks about visiting towns to find and acquire new items, specifically looking for a two-handed weapon, and discusses the process of drawing items from decks and managing them, including the rules for discarding items from shops.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • I'm trying to fix that for myself cuz they become um it's like a huge roadblock and and I sometimes resent wanting to play them if it involves all the setup, getting it out, relearning it, like like adding cards to decks, shuffling cards, decks, cleaning up after.
  • It's like we all can learn from that, which is nice. It's like no matter how confident you are with a game, somebody always knows some weird rule or interaction that you don't know.
  • This is like my own personal experiment for my own sanity.
  • When in doubt, it's your game, do what you want.
  • It is not explicit. I know it's not there and you guys know I'm one for that where I I get frustrated. It it I talk about this before. This is exactly a problem and playing games and reading rule books like this.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video sAOXDIXEwjw AzureDeath | Solo Board Gaming Review at 0:19 sentiment: mixed
video_pk 5242 · mention_pk 115711
AzureDeath | Solo Board Gaming - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game video thumbnail
Click to watch at 0:19 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
mixed
Pros
  • Excellent component quality and highly painted-looking miniatures
  • Large, impressive board and intricate organization options
  • Engaging character progression and loot/crafting
  • Encourages exploration and gives a sense of a Skyrim-like world
Cons
  • Rulebook is highly flawed; incomplete, lacks examples, frequently raises questions
  • High price tag; expansions are expensive
  • Argonian race not included in base game; expansion-exclusive
  • Dice mechanism can feel punishing due to symbol distribution
  • Exploration tokens poorly visible on board; fiddly experience/gold tokens
  • Game may require a large table; components massive
Thematic elements
  • open-world exploration, hero progression
  • Tamriel, Skyrim-inspired fantasy world; exploration-driven adventure
  • campaign chapters with world and personal quests; narrative exploration
Comparison games
  • Dungeon Degenerates
  • Valley of the Dead King
  • Gloom of Kilforth
  • Runebound (Second/Third Edition)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
  • Chapter state maintenance — Board state roughly remains between chapters with added chapter-specific cards
  • Character boards and progression — Double-layer character boards with starting stats, gear, and skills that improve as you progress
  • Combat and dice — Monsters have their own dice; combat resolves via dice tests with different symbol distributions; possible to push luck by rolling more dice
  • Combat: Dice — Monsters have their own dice; combat resolves via dice tests with different symbol distributions; possible to push luck by rolling more dice
  • Event deck and threat tokens — Draw event cards to add threat tokens; two per player limit; threat tokens accelerate looming failure on main quest
  • Events — Draw event cards to add threat tokens; two per player limit; threat tokens accelerate looming failure on main quest
  • Looting, crafting, and leveling — Gain gold, experience, and materials; craft and upgrade items; level up and gain skills
  • Movement and routing — Move up to four spaces per turn (five with a horse); use carriage to traverse between fortresses
  • Personal quests — Roam to acquire personal quests from town or wilderness decks; help mitigate threat tokens
  • Player Board | Main Board — Double-layer character boards with starting stats, gear, and skills that improve as you progress
  • Quest progression — Campaigns consist of chapters with world quests; standalone scenarios available; chapters conclude with specific quest cards
  • Resource management — Manage gold, experience, and materials; tokens used to track resources; some tokens fiddly to handle
  • World exploration — Explore land, dungeons, towns, and wilderness; narrative exploration as alternative to questing
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • this monstrosity right here this is one of the worst rulebooks that I've had the displeasure operating F minus absolute fail unacceptable rulebook
  • the rulebook is absolutely unacceptable
  • the price it's a hundred and forty dollar a game how is it possible
  • do not spend your money on this
  • this is a deal breaker for me
  • there's much better adventuring games
  • the game captures the video game very well
  • the exploration tokens don't stand out
  • Argonian race is not included in the base game
  • expansions cost almost the same as a full board game
  • the rulebook is incomplete
  • I would avoid this game
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video Tsj4XMxFCPY AzureDeath | Solo Board Gaming Top List at 0:50 sentiment: negative
video_pk 2192 · mention_pk 123202
AzureDeath | Solo Board Gaming - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game video thumbnail
Click to watch at 0:50 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
negative
Pros
  • There are a few redeeming elements in the IP adaptation.
Cons
  • Extremely poor rulebook and learning curve.
  • Rules questions arise immediately with little help from the rules.
  • Price point is absurd for what is inside.
  • Base game content omitted (races) and polishing/support is lacking.
Thematic elements
  • Adventure / IP adaptation, quest-based exploration
  • Tamriel, Skyrim region
  • campaign-like with scenarios
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
  • Campaign — Character progression across multiple encounters and quests.
  • campaign/quest progression — Character progression across multiple encounters and quests.
  • cooperative exploration — Players collaborate to explore and complete quests within a shared world.
  • Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game — Progression occurs through a sequence of scenarios that unlock content.
  • Scenario-based progression — Progression occurs through a sequence of scenarios that unlock content.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • the rule book is just one of those uh cases where it makes you go through so much work learning it and there's just no reward
  • it's a very poor use of the IP
  • I hated that why don't you just let me keep using my assassin
  • this game is confusing to learn
  • these tiny epic games are not known for that
  • the rule book is atrocious The Learning Experience is atrocious
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
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