wahoo
4881
What’s the opnion of Knizia’s cooperate Lord of the Rings? I have Pandemic and Arkham but alwasy looking for a good cooperateive game. It’s at the local store and reviews are mixed.
When it came out, as the first(?) of the modern wave of co-ops, it was brilliant. Since then, it’s been eclipsed; and what once felt very thematic now feels somewhat dry. It’s still technically as good as it ever was, but if you’ve played Pandemic and Arkham and Ghost Story, there’s little to recommend it.
Yeah, the whole rules thing is a bit tricky for boardgames. I have the same problem and anytime something seems odd I look it up. Aftet a while I find that solves the problem. Kinda a pain though.
I admit it’s been awhile since I played. Certainly, some of the joy of it at the time it came out was that it was a rare co-op experience. But its also a co-op experience married to the perfect source material. It’s abstracted, so it’s not going to feel like a reenactment of LOTR. But, it’s weird, it includes all these little breadcrumbs of the story inside it–even if it’s just a card called Shadowfax or a space showing the faces in the dead marshes–they’re like little invocations that summon up a splash of drama that only the Lord of the Rings can provide.
The artwork is fabulous, even by today’s high production standards of boardgames.
I don’t even know if they still sell the expansions, but although they’re cleverly integrated, each one’s a little more awkward than the next (not to mention difficult-ifying).
Anyway, I would recommend it.
apost8
4885
I thought it was very novel when it was released. (“A Co-op boardgame? Really?”) And I certainly had fun with it.
However – I think Pandemic is better in every way, except as a footnote in board game history. Even if you are into Lord of the Rings as a theme, the game feels pretty abstract.
I have to say Battlestar Galactica has ruined most co-op games for me. It’s hard to play things like Pandemic, Arkham Horror, and the Knizia LOTR without that added psychological element of BSG’s traitor mechanic. :(
There is, however, a Sauron expansion for LOTR that basically adds a single Sauron player going up against the Fellowship players. I’ve only tried it once and I don’t recall being too impressed with it. Have you guys played it that way much?
-Tom
You like the hidden traitor mechanic. I guess there is some of that in administrating a forum as well.
I see the rules enforcement role as something postive. There is something undefinably fun about it and that is lacking in computer games where it is done for you.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud! Am I the only person who’s yet to play this game? And I own the bloody thing! Now that “even Tom Chick has played it,” I feel more inadequate than ever. LA road trip?
serling
4890
Oh for fuck sake. Are you really going there?
Anyway, we played our first game of BSG with both expansions this weekend. I’ve always stuck with Exodus because it covered an issue I had with the base game with its excellent Cylon tracker. I never really bothered with Pegasus in the same way, though recently I bought the thing and decided to include some of the stuff from it.
I love the game to death, but as I’ve added expansions and played the game over the last year, it just dawns on me how much of a horrible mess this game is. It’s kind of the same deal with Arkham Horror. Somewhere in there, there’s a freaking magical and fantastic game waiting to come out every time you break open the box. In reality though, it’s far too unbalanced and unstable to offer any kind of consistent experience. It annoys me how they’ve chosen to implement so much excessive stuff from the TV series, when they’ve actually managed to create a beautifully functioning game concept in and of itself.
With the Pegasus expansion we didn’t really notice any big shifts in balance. The Pegasus board is great, with some neat effects oriented towards gambling with high stakes. I question the treachery cards though. New characters are always welcome, and our last game actually featured a female only cast! :D
Meanwhile, King of Tokyo is still a favorite as a cool down thing after a long session of the big games. We finally killed of Wu-Feng in ghost stories, with a final score of 21 points. I’m not sold on Galaxy Trucker, though I’m definitely giving it another chance. Also, Cyclades and Eclipse is still perched, unopened, on top of my shelf. Hopefully we’ll get something going next weekend again.
Worst game I bought since Munchkin. So bad that I now avoid anything with Knizia on it. I am embarrassed that I ever bought it. It was that its mostly an abstract game with very little attachment to the theme that turned me off.
peterb
4892
Hey, you left yourself logged in and now someone is using your account to post dumb things. Thought you’d want to know.
Battlestar is awesome for two reasons. First, it reminds me of how much I actually liked that show in the first season. A good game will make me feel like I’m in an episode of the show and I know that sounds incredibly dorky but it’s true. The second reason is that it sidesteps the inherent problem with co-op games (mostly the fact that they are easily ruined by a bossypants type) by not really being a co-op game for about 80% of the time. In a good game you don’t find out who the Cylons are until very near the end and at that point the remaining humans develop a real bond. Like yeah, we’ve been through the shit (a.k.a. 2.5 hours of eating Cheetos in your basement) and now we’re gonna do this thing! At least, that’s how the game makes me feel. Those other humans, those are now my best friends for life, so a little bit of bossypants at the end is OK because we’re all in this together.
Space Alert is the only other game I own that is as good at mitigating bossypants as BSG is because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want him on that space wall, you need him on that space wall. Space Alert makes bossypants an asset. The problems with Space Alert are that you have to find three or four other people who are all excited about the kind of game Space Alert is and that the first time you play it is going to be a 2.5-3 hour tutorial (although at least you do the tutorial by playing the game so it’s not so bad). However, if you do find the right group for it Space Alert is the finest co-op game available to humanity.
I still like Arkham, though. It’s true that Arkham doesn’t do anything about bossypants but for me the setting and the variety of things that can happen in that game–especially with expansions–make it worth playing. I also like the mini RP element you get by having people read each other their encounter cards. Plus, I kind of am the bossypants for our group so it’s harder for me to ruin that game for myself ;)
Where do you guys find the time to play BSG all the time? Seriously? I like it, but it always strikes me as being much more convoluted and much longer than it should be. I can play Pandemic in a third of the time.
Also, is ti still a co-op game when there are guaranteed to be two sides with typically more than two players?
(I will say BSG has given me one of the best gaming stories ever, when we misdealt the identity cards and ended up with the lone human Admiral Adama versus a ship full of very confused Cylons.)
I recall thinking that the Sauron expansion was mechanically good but I felt it destroyed much of what was enjoyable about LOTR, which is the plotting and planning between the player. With Sauron at the table, you have to be careful what you say. That may appeal to some people (and admittedly there are now plenty of other games that you can get that from), but for me it spoiled the co-oppiness.
It has theme in spades. Maybe you can explain how the corruption track doesn’t fit in with the theme. Or how the way the One Ring is used doesn’t fit in with the theme. Or how the tension ratcheting up and then being momentarily relieved by visits to Rivendell and Lothlorian don’t fit the theme. Or how the core gameplay element of forced sacrifice, or how Frodo and Sam’s abilities actually fit with their characters, or how the importance of Gandalf don’t fit the theme. Yes it’s abstract, but the fact that an abstraction can capture the essence of LotR so well is a testament to Knizia’s design abilities. The Friends & Foes expansion further cements it. The Sauron expansion was not that great.
As a game, I don’t think it stands up well to today’s stuff that incorporates traitors. It would be interesting to see Knizia create a version that adds a Boromir element. But for a game that evokes LotR with the barest of elements the only thing even remotely in its league is Knizia’s LotR: The Confrontation.
It’s pretty sad you’d write off one of the best game designers of all time because you’re unsatisfied with one of his games. Missing out on Modern Art, Ra, Tigris & Euphrates, Taj Mahal, Samurai, Through the Desert, Lost Cities, Battle Line, Amun-Re, Blue Moon City, Medici, and dozens of his less-known games is your loss, most definitely.
Its been years since I played, so its mostly the impressions I remember more than the details. Mostly what I remember is that it was one of the most boring games I have ever bought. The linear track never gave a sense of location beyond the background art. The entire time I played, I felt like I was moving bits around on a board arbitrarily as the rules told me to, but without any sense of adventure or investment in my character or environment.
What I mean by avoid is that now I research his games a lot more closely than I do others. He seems to favor mechanics that I find arbitrary, removed from the theme, and convoluted. I see this in his other games as well so I don’t buy them. Its not that I see his name and run. I see his name and then scrutinize the mechanics looking for the things I don’t like. This happened most recently with Star Trek: Expeditions, which looks horrible IMO. Its a preference thing and we all have our own preferences.
Lorini
4898
For the most part I’ve moved on from Knizia as well. His Tigris and Euphrates game is certainly his best. But Uwe Rosenberg does engine optimization better, and Chad Jensen does Euro interactive better. I’m glad Knizia was there for me at the start, but most of his games are basically heads down puzzlers and I’m no longer interested in those.
Not to say he’s a bad designer at all, he’s just no longer for me.
dtolman
4899
Its a great cooperative, that scales nicely from 2-5. The base game is fun, but you’ll want to get the Friends and Foes expansion (advanced game), and Sauron Expansion (two expansions in one - more advanced event system, and addition of a player actively controlling Sauron).
The thing about LOTR that I like is the delicious tension you get as you approach the end - when you can get people arguing over what direction, and the group threatens to splinter… thats an experience that is hard to get in other games (including other newer coops)
The linear track is called The Doom Track for a reason. It’s not a blow-by-blow simulation of the books. It’s there to show you how boned you are. If you were bored with it, fine, but your claim that it isn’t themed well is bunk.
I guess I don’t understand how you can move on from Knizia. He’s published more than five hundred games in wildly different genres, many of which are masterpieces. Describing most of his games as “heads down puzzlers” (whatever that means) is kind of ludicrous considering he’s designed stuff ranging from Lost Cities to T&E. Rosenberg and Jensen are great designers, too, but Knizia’s best will always have a place on my table.
