The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game Review

So many of us nerds (and maybe even normies) have a very special place in our hearts for The Lord of the Rings. Be it the books, the movies, or simply just the lore and characters. Personally, when I see something that has The Lord of the Rings emblazoned upon it, I am immediately interested. Not everything is a banger, as we all know, but I took a chance at picking up a copy of The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game. This is the third in the Adventure Book Game series (The Princess Bride and The Wizard of Oz being the predecessors), and I have not played the others. What adventures can really be played out on a book? Does it hold true to the story? Is it any good or fun?

The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game, henceforth called “this game” for brevity, is an adventure game with several blended mechanics for one to four players. In it players are attempting chapters within the cardboard book in a campaign-style game setting. Each chapter can be played individually or as a campaign (which is how I play it). Each chapter has a win condition and a lose condition, and each can be fairly difficult as the game progresses.

To setup, open the book to the chapter to be attempted, follow the written setup instructions included in the chapter and you are ready to play! Each chapter has different setup instructions and goals, all which are written on the chapter margins.

On a turn, a player has a bevvy of choices to make and some actions to take. Firstly, the MOVE action must be taken. The active player chooses any character on the board to move zero, one, or two spaces along the illustrated path. Characters are shared between all players, and movement can be split between two characters.

Next, the active player has several choices in this STORYTELLING step. Play within this game is reliant on management of a hand of cards, and this step uses these cards many ways. The active player may trade one card with another player. They may also discard cards from hand in order to add another movement space per card discarded. This is almost crucial in some chapters. Along the way players may acquire Special cards from a specific deck, and may choose to play a Special card in order to enact its ability. These can be very powerful, and are kept in the main deck throughout the campaign, assuming the chapters are won every time. Along the right side margin of the book page are challenges that must be completed before winning the chapter. The active player may complete a challenge during this step by assuring all challenge requirements are met. Finally, the player may also use a One Ring card from hand in order to activate the chapter’s unique ability found at the bottom of the page. These are usually very powerful, but usage of the One Ring cards come with a hefty cost.

In addition to using the One Ring card for its chapter ability, the card may also be used as a wild to complete chapter challenges, or even discarded to add movement to a character on the board. Each time a One Ring card is used in one of these ways, the player will also need to increase the value on the Corruption Track. There are 15 spaces on the Corruption Track, and if the One Ring token ever enters the final space, the entire campaign is lost. Frodo has succumbed to the corruption of the One Ring and shall never be able to cast it into Mount Doom. Along the path of the Corruption Track are certain check points where an Eye of Sauron Card is drawn and resolved. These are bad for the players, so usage of the One Ring card is always a heavy decision to be made.

Once all Storytelling actions have been played, the active player then DRAWS two cards from the main deck to their hand. Each chapter also requires a deck of Plot cards nearby, and after the player’s draw step, they must draw and resolve a PLOT card. These Plot cards can end up being nothing, or can advance an adversary along their path, or generally wreak havoc on the players.

Finally, the active player signals the end of their turn by DISCARDING their hand down to six cards, and play passes to the next player. Turns continue this way until either all challenges have been completed and players can continue to the next chapter, or evil has prevailed and the chapter is lost. When playing a campaign game, the chapter can be attempted again, but any Special cards gained this chapter are returned to the Special card deck and the Corruption Track remains at the level it was last left.

Components. This game has a host of components and all of them are of very high quality. While seven character miniatures come in the box, I do wish more main characters were miniaturized (specifically Gandalf and Gollum), but I do indeed understand why they are cardboard tokens instead – these characters only appear in two or three chapters. The adventure book is awesome, and the art is incredibly well-done and thematic. The only things I would improve, or may improve on my copy, is painted miniatures (completely unnecessary), an upgraded One Ring token to be an actual ring (also unnecessary), and some sort of functional insert for the box. As it stands, I have all tokens in one baggie and sorting through them each chapter is a bit too fiddly. As some tokens are re-used for different chapters, the possibility to setup different baggies or boxes for each chapter is impossible.

So did this Lord of the Rings game impress us? Absolutely. Never having played a game like this I was uncertain if I would enjoy it, but when Laura and I played through the first chapter, we immediately played the next. And the next. And then we lost. So, we will be playing through the entire book eventually, and I may also introduce this to my children eventually. I love so much about this one that it is hard to pick out just a few items, but it looks amazing on the table, the basic rules are very easy to understand, and each chapter is wildly different, which adds to the replayability of it. I mentioned how much we appreciated the artwork throughout – it’s beautiful. Gameplay is varied and sometimes difficult, and we had a blast the entire time we were playing. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one an emphatic 10 / 12. Maybe our scores will improve as we play more, but we are both happy with a high 5 for now. Go grab yourself a copy and have fun playing in Middle Earth!