Lord of the Rings (board game)

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Lord of the Rings

Designer	Reiner Knizia
Publisher	Kosmos Fantasy Flight Games 999 Games
Players	2–5
Setup time	5 minutes
Playing time	45–75 minutes
Rules complexity	High
Strategy depth	Medium
Random chance	Medium (Cards, Dice)
Skills required	Cooperation

BoardGameGeek entry

Lord of the Rings is a family board game designed by Reiner Knizia based on The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. The game was published in 2000 by Kosmos and Fantasy Flight Games, and won a Spiel des Jahres special award for best use of literature in a game. It features artwork by illustrator John Howe.

The board game is unusual in that it is a cooperative board game — each player plays a hobbit in the party, and the party will succeed or fail as a group to destroy the One Ring, thus winning or losing the game.

Game play is centered on advancement through series of scenarios corresponding to the adventures of the books. Players turn tiles and play cards in order to move forward, and collect and spend tokens to avoid advancement toward the dark lord Sauron. In dire situations, tokens may be spent to call for the assistance of Gandalf, or the One Ring may be used to speed advancement at the cost of moving closer toward Sauron.

Two expansions currently exist, the 'Friends & Foes Expansion' and the 'Sauron Expansion,' in which one player takes the role of Sauron and plays against all others. A new expansion, 'Battlefields', is currently in development, although Knizia previously stated that it was in his drawer and would "never come out".

[edit] Limited Edition

The game was released in a "Limited Edition" version, limited to 250 German and 500 English copies. The set features a box signed by the game designer Knizia and illustrator Howe, as well as an art print limited to 750 copies, also signed by Howe. The game board and pieces are identical to the standard version, except it has pewter character pieces and a 22-kt. gold One Ring.