One Mechanic Review: The Lord of the Rings, The Card Game

Mr. White wrote:
Do you feel the same way about Knizia's LotR or do you feel you have more control over how well you do?

Personally, I think that LOTR dodges this bullet because the Bad Things happen to you in a very specific order, matching the narrative progression of the story. These events go from bad to really bad, though along the way, and depending on the game state, some of the "bad things" aren't nearly as bad.

So yes, a run of event tiles can be harmful, but you essentially need a run of them on one board for the worst of them to happen, and the run needs to be all on the same board. Can it happen? Absolutely, of course it can, anything is possible when dealing with random chance. But because of the structure of the Bad Things, this tends to happen less often, and more importantly, much less notably.

Good going having the balls to trash a mechanism. I don't have too much problem with the red shirt strategy of the game. It's frustrating and hard and i wouldn't play this with kids but as a difficult solo game it still works for me. Pathfinder, an easy co-op is great for playing with the family would bore me to death to play solo.