Tales of the Arturian Knights - it is happening !!

Wow, what happened here ? Where have the true Devotees gone ?

"Tales of the Arabian Nights" have always been put down for its length, length that is very dependent on the number of players. Two Players is about 90 minutes-120 minutes. 4 players will take you to more than 180 minutes easily, so nothing new with this game.

I am a big fan of the two first editions of "Arkham Horror", I have a first edition signed by Richard Launius himself and the complete expansions of the second edition (with two core boxes, just in case !).

But I must have missed something : where in "Arkham Horror" do you get changed into a monkey, have your gender reversed, or become the father of a beautiful child with a face "as round as the moon" ?

"Tales of the Arabian Nights" is a masterwork of imagination, one that gets discovered and re-discovered again and again by old and new generations for more than 30 years, way longer than "old classics" like "Catan".

As far as imagination, atmosphere and stories go, it is unmatched, this is a boardgame that is up there with the works of fantasy masters such as Tolkien, Jack Kirby, Ray Harryhausen or Georges Méliès. On this point, it is unmatched, brilliant.

One of its features is that it is a non competitive (frankly, who gives a fuck about whoever "wins" ? Only the stories matter) and a non cooperative game (you are not supposed to help each other, and you can't).

Like "Talisman" it is a game that is very easy to pick up and play with non gamers people. The rules are explained in five minutes, as long as you handle the matrix work for the others, you can play with new people of all ages. They don't need to know a geeky subculture such as Lovecraft lore to understand what is going on. You just need to know vaguely who are Alibaba, Schéhérazade or Sinbad...

I've played for the first time with my 11 year old niece this summer and she liked this game instantly. If she had her way, we would have played it non stop for two weeks !!

You just need a good crowd : cool and open-minded people who like books and stories, with a rich innerlife and a good sense of humour.

I have tried it with many different people. Yes sometimes, it flops. But more often than not, it is a hit. Even today, in our era of so called "modern boardgames".

The key is that it is a rare example of a games made by and for litterature people. When boardgames are mostly made for math and statistics people - even more with the Eurogame wave.

The dedication that was put into re-releasing this game by Z Man (crazy proofreading !) in 2007 and the arrival of this new Arthurian Game just proves that this game has something that others have not.

So, it will be a day one buy for sure for me !

“ You just need a good crowd : cool and open-minded people who like books and stories, with a rich innerlife and a good sense of humour.”

That is no small feat!

I'll be the scapegoat here.

TOTAN is boring and pointless. I do not want to be read at for three hours.

I liked the concept but it just didn't groove when we were playing it. Given the overhead I would prefer to just do a traditional role playing game instead.

Yep. Wouldn't go so far as to call it "pointless", but Sag is right. If the "game" is essentially an RPG, you might as well just play an RPG. As I said, I liked Arabian Nights in principle, but in execution it fell way behind other shelf possibilities.