FFGs LotR Games

Put me down on the "like it" side. For me, the whole essence of the game comes down to the various "screw yourself over a lot, or screw everyone over a little" decision points. Should you keep yourself alive because you have the most to contribute? Or take it for the team? And are you second-guessing yourself? That, to me, feels the most thematic.

The criticisms here are valid, but depend mostly on the group I think. We don't play it a lot, and so we aren't good enough to beat it regularly.

I like LotR quite a bit. I think it captures much of the essence of the books (loyalty, cooperation, danger, exploration, etc.) about as well as that sort of cooperative game possibly could. I won't argue that there aren't times when it comes dangerously close to seeming like a math exercise, but, in my experience, that is easily outweighed by the fun.

I've played with the base game and FF, for those keeping track. I own all four boxes, but those are the only two to ever hit the table.

I didn't like it. It didn't feel thematic to me. It is all combining stuff with other people and when I have played a leader seems to emerge who will tell everyone else what to do. It plays like Shadows over Camelot or Pandemic if you have played those. It is very abstract but you don't have the fun of the traitor in the base game. For an abstract the strategy is very straight forward: you just react to whatever type of event gets turned up.