Lord of the Rings Co-op, first play

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I picked this up on eBay several years ago for $1. Having now played it, I like it a lot more than I thought I would. One of the online forums has a small but extremely vocal number of people who intensely dislike the game, characterizing it as "boring" and "abstract."

With these comments in mind, I felt reluctant to set it up, and once set up, getting started playing.

Thankfully, once into the gameplay, it's great! It's super easy to set the game up and take turns intermittently while doing other things. I play a lot of other kinds of games exactly this way, so not only do I like the game more than I thought, I may put it into regular rotation.

Couple of things for the next play:

  1. I didn't really use the shields at all, not sure what they are for.
  2. I didn't use the card powers effectively, which made the game end much earlier than it should have, I'm sure.

Here's the end of the game:

Lord of the Rings Game 1

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.