Trashdome - Middle Earth Quest VS Lord Of The Ring

I haven't played Middle Earth Quest yet, but it sounds good, based on the descriptions here at F:AT. I have played a few games of Lord of the Rings, and I can't be bothered to play it again, ever. The LotR theme was starting to peel off due to the very unthematic table talk in each game. And LotR was so heavily scripted that I felt like I was going through the motions instead of playing a game after the first couple of plays. In fact, the script is right there on the boards, with only a couple points of divergence plus some variability due to the cards.

Vote: Middle Earth Quest

Though it looks and sometimes feels abstract, I think LOTR has some solid theme to it. Each scenario is like a journey or episode of the saga that needs to be written and/or rewritten as you go... Yes, the events are the same and that was a particular choice that none have really followed since (can you imagine if the Crisis events in BSG came out only in the sequence of when they happened in the series?), but when exactly the events happen will be a little different every time, and knowing certain things are coming gives your decisions some weight and makes the perspective of the original narrative consistent with the gameplay. It's very much a push-your-luck thing in some respects, but I think you can integrate the story of LOTR that you already know with what you experience in the game, and that's what counts.

The ring mechanic, where you put on the ring which allows you to advance safely along the path, but also puts you in danger of corruption, is brilliant and may be one of Knizia's most thematic mechanics. I also like how Gandalf is summoned and used, though the gathering of "shields" to do that is kind of gamey. I don't look at the cards as "foot", "sword", etc., but as representing the energy or will or ability to do those things (travel, fight), and you need to use what energy you have most effectively and try to help in ways where your fellow hobbits might be weak.

Few games, co-op or other, can match the tension in LOTR when you first hit Mordor and wonder if you can make it to dunk the ring, as strung out and stretched thin as you often are at that point. And it may just be a little black figure sitting on a numbered board, but Sauron looming close on the corruption track can give me a palpable feeling of dread. The game bits and some of the play of LOTR may indeed be very abstract, but what the game generates in the mind can be very much in line with the feeling that the story and films created (though of course much shorter and highly condensed and concentrated), and in that sense, I think LOTR the game is a great achievement.

TheDukester wrote:

Oh, I get it! We're talking about that kind of theme! The one where playing a game — any game — is somehow supposed to be exactly like real life. Silly me!

Wait, what? Of course we are. I kind of thought that was the definition of theme. What sort of theme are you talking about?

TheDukester wrote:

And, of course all of the pretty cards and counters in MEQ are infinitely preferable to the tiles in LotR. I see that now. Everyone knows that pretty cards and counters are much more thematic than mere tiles.

I said nothing about the figures, and my mention of the tiles was merely by way of mechanical explanation. There's nothing wrong with tiles. Indeed I wish more gamers and designers could find as much pleasure in well-drawn artwork on counters as they seem to be able to do in badly-sculpted plastic figures. Relying on plastic reduces the mechanical possibilities in a game.

VOTE: MEQ

Voting with my money here, since I'm eventually going to get MEQ, but never LotR. Haven't played either game, but if LotR sounds like what it is -- an abstract farce of a thematic game, like most euros are, then I'm out. Plus the fact that I dreadfully HATE co-ops.

Also, the combat system of MEQ sounds fantastic. I'm actually very excited to try it, whereas when I ear Knizia's name mentioned, my eyes gloss over. I loved Modern Art, but that was his only game where the theme even remotely made sense. Knizia = pasted on

Surprising to myself, I vote: LOTR.

With the Friends & Foes and Battlefields expansions, it is damn near imbeatable -- the way saving Middle Earth from the most powerful force of evil should be. The fellowship had a one in a million chance as it is, so I like the ricockulous difficulty.

MEQ is close in the running, but to get my vote, I would like to see a one time small box expansion that fixed the end-game and threw in some new quests for each of the indvidual heroes as well as some combined quests for the heroes and Sauron.

dragonstout wrote:

Vote: LORD OF THE RINGS

I'm enjoying Middle-Earth Quest so far, but Lord of the Rings is the king of the coop games for me, even above Arkham Horror and Space Alert. The tension, difficulty, and stress level are incredible. Anyone who says it's too easy needs to stop playing with Sauron on 12 or 15, or needs to get an expansion. Honestly, I thought the game was too easy too, before I started Sauron on 10. Not only did it make it harder, but it completely changed the game. It transformed from a game I didn't like to one of my favorite games. The decisions all became much more interesting and crucial, and real sacrifice was now necessary. Try it.

The reason why most people here at F:AT would rate Arkham Horror as a much better co-op than Lord of the Rings is the bossy player problem. LotR is simple enough that one bossy player may try to dominate the table, telling everybody what to do. Arkham Horror generally has too much going on at once for a bossy player to really command the table with conviction.

This thread made me realize...I want the Knizia back that designed Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, RA, Blue Moon, and Tigris and Euphrates...not the guy by the same name that's designing safe, unchallenging pablum these days.

Fun and challenging - and fricking hard (and vicious) with the Sauron expansion.

Vote: LotR

Ken B. wrote:

I want the Knizia back that designed Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, RA, Blue Moon, and Tigris and Euphrates.

Mathematicians generally do their best work before they're thirty.

S.

Shellhead wrote:

The reason why most people here at F:AT would rate Arkham Horror as a much better co-op than Lord of the Rings is the bossy player problem.

This is a fair point. I've been guilty of it myself a couple of times, but I've learned to reel it in and relax and just let everyone play. It's no fun to wake up the next day and realize that you've been a fun-murderer.

But, yes, LotR has the potential to fall into this trap. I suppose in that way it's pretty group-dependent.

Shellhead wrote:

dragonstout wrote:

Vote: LORD OF THE RINGS

I'm enjoying Middle-Earth Quest so far, but Lord of the Rings is the king of the coop games for me, even above Arkham Horror and Space Alert. The tension, difficulty, and stress level are incredible. Anyone who says it's too easy needs to stop playing with Sauron on 12 or 15, or needs to get an expansion. Honestly, I thought the game was too easy too, before I started Sauron on 10. Not only did it make it harder, but it completely changed the game. It transformed from a game I didn't like to one of my favorite games. The decisions all became much more interesting and crucial, and real sacrifice was now necessary. Try it.

The reason why most people here at F:AT would rate Arkham Horror as a much better co-op than Lord of the Rings is the bossy player problem. LotR is simple enough that one bossy player may try to dominate the table, telling everybody what to do. Arkham Horror generally has too much going on at once for a bossy player to really command the table with conviction.

I agree that the bossy player problem is an issue with LotR, whereas it's not with Arkham. However, I think that the decisions in LotR are difficult enough, and there's enough different overall strategies you can take (something I didn't see until I played it with Sauron at 10), that a bossy player alone isn't going to make it, and everyone needs to be giving input as to how they think things should be done. But if you have mostly new players and one experienced player? Fuggedaboutit; basically the experienced player has to decide to let himself be bossed around by the new players so that they can learn and it's more fun for them.

Lord Of The Rings = 8
Ken B.
dysjunct
Grudunza
TheDukester
dragonstout
Jason Lutes
Space Ghost
Southernman

Middle Earth Quest = 7
doubleozaphod
clockwirk
Aarontu
dave
MattDP
Shellhead
kookoobah


Somehow a Knizia game won this? I feel like Trashdome has gone deeper on the Fellatio-Scope now.

Mad Dog wrote:

Lord Of The Rings = 8
Ken B.
dysjunct
Grudunza
TheDukester
dragonstout
Jason Lutes
Space Ghost
Southernman

Middle Earth Quest = 9
doubleozaphod
clockwirk
Aarontu
dave
MattDP
Shellhead
kookoobah
Uba - Computer Problems
KingPut - HUNGOVER

Mad Dog wrote:

Somehow a Knizia game won this? I feel like Trashdome has gone deeper on the Fellatio-Scope now.

It was always going to be tough for a new game on the block (who's actually played it) against an old(er)timer, especially when it has a question mark over part of it.

Sorry Putt-lings - MEQ was already in the junkpile, with any unbroken pieces already scavenged, by the time your belated attempt at a fix came in.

Happy New Year.