TDG: The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game
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Transcript
Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the discriminating gamer. You know, I recently read that protons have mass. I didn't even know they were Catholic. Ladies and gentlemen, today we're going to go ahead and take a look at the Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game from Ravensburger.
In the Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game from Ravensburger, one to four players take on the roles of various characters from the Lord of the Rings books as they essentially play through scenarios based on what happened in the books as they try to get all the way to that kooky Mount Doom. All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is an adventure book game. Essentially, what that means is you have a book, you open it up, and the first page is the game board. Now, there are different game boards that represent, as I say, different aspects, different moments, different scenes from the Lord of the Rings uh books. For instance, in the first game, you are the Hobbits and you're in the Shire, you're trying to get away from the Nazgûl that are hunting for Frodo. In the second scenario, you're at the Council of Elrond at Rivendell, and you are essentially trying to get all of the characters kind of to the center of the board or to their spaces on the board rather, while Elrond is moving around kind of resetting everybody. Uh the third one, you are fighting the Balrog in the cave and all the goblins are. So, there's different scenarios throughout the book that again reflect different ideas from the game. There's all sorts of tokens you're going to use. Uh and then as I say, you've got some minis and some other tokens that will you'll be using for the main characters there.
But, there's a lot going on in this game based on those stories from the book. Now, basically how the game works is you don't play individual characters like one character is an Aragorn or another is Gandalf. Essentially, all players can manipulate all of the characters on the board however they see fit, but they're going to be taking cards for themselves. They're going to have to play at in in certain times and in certain sequences again depending on the scenario. But, basically you can move characters, you know, one or two spaces for an action. You can trade cards, you can give cards to other people or you can discard cards. You can play some special cards for special abilities even the One Ring card which may give you a very special ability in that scenario. But, critically you're trying to complete the story missions. And here maybe you have to play certain cards in certain locations in order to complete the story missions as you're trying to play through there. Next, kind of after you've done all your actions, you're going to draw two story cards into your hand. And then you're going to draw a plot card. Now, the plot card is generally kind of the story playing out.
In some ways it's the game playing against you. It's going to provide challenges or depending on kind of how far you're going or how many cards are out, it's going to set the stage for things that are going to happen in that Now, above the game you do have a corruption track. Now, every time you are forced to discard a One Ring card, you must move the corruption track up one space. Now, that's not per scenario, that's during the whole game. So, no matter how far you get in the game, every time you are forced to discard or choose to discard a One Ring card, the corruption track moves up and that's going to make things harder as the game progresses. Now, as you play through the scenario or chapter, you complete it and you move to the next scenario. But, that corruption continues to move forward, it is not reset. Players are going to go through all of the various stories, they're trying not to lose and if they can complete the final chapter, then they win.
The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game. We'll get back to the review in just a moment. I want to take a minute to ask you to check out my other channel, that is Cody Carlson PhD, where we talk about history, books on history, military history. I even post some of my lectures for my classes on there. Please check that out. Please subscribe to that channel. And now, back to the review. Several years ago, I played The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game with George and Holly. Very similar. It's a very similar game, but there you're playing through the Princess Bride. But, it worked It was a worked incredibly similarly similarly to this game here. And I really enjoyed that one. I enjoyed playing through it. But, I felt like by the time we reached the end of that one, I didn't necessarily want to go back and play it again. I really enjoyed it while I was playing it, but I didn't play like I said, I never really revisited it.
Now, I haven't played through all of the scenarios here. We played through several of the first scenarios, three or four of them. And I got to tell you, I I really enjoyed this. I had I had fun with it. We kind of failed the last scenario we did, so I'm thinking, "Ah, maybe I'll go back and and and play it all at some point." But, then again, I may not. I like this game. It's a fun game, but I kind of feel like it's a little light. Uh I feel like this is a game that maybe families or younger people or or people kind of newer to hobby gaming might appreciate more than seasoned gamers. But, your mileage may vary. If you're a big fan of Lord of the Rings, you may get a big kick out of this. Now, I got to admit, I really did like this game. I had a lot of fun with it. Um but, I and I may like I said, I may even finish it at some point. Probably will.
But, I don't know once I finish it that I'll be coming back to it. I don't know that the replayability is super high. I mean, you could do it, but again, I think seasoned gamers might grow a little tired of it. It's a fun game. It's an interesting game. The individual scenarios are very thematic, and they do have some fun intense moments in them. Uh overall, I enjoyed it. I'm going to go ahead on the Cody scale, I'm going to give it a 6.5 out of 10. A really good game, but again, I just I worry about the replay value for more of seasoned gamers like myself. Thank you once again, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us today on the discriminating gamer. As always, we'd ask you to please leave a comment here on YouTube, on BoardGameGeek, on our Facebook page, on X. We'd love to hear back from you. I'd love to hear what you have to say about these games or anything else you want to comment on. Uh please like this video and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you do really like what we do here on the discriminating gamer, I would humbly ask you to check out my other channel, that is Cody Carlson, PhD, where we talk about history, military history, books on history, fun things like that. I even post some of my lectures on that channel. Please check that out and subscribe. It would mean the world to me. And if you do really like what you see here, I would humbly ask you to click on the super thanks button and leave a tip.
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