From: casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE)
Subject: Re: Lord Of The Rings boardgames?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 21:31:00 GMT

In article <1k196oINN9a5@uwm.edu>, bruno@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu writes...
>From article <1993Jan23.150005.6410@ips.cs.tu-bs.de>, by koch@eis.cs.tu-bs.de (Andreas Koch):
>] What boardgames (_not_ role-playing games like MERP) 
>] are dealing with the Lord Of The Rings theme by J.R.R.Tolkien? 
>] Aeons ago (-1984), there was a large game made by SPI that enabled 
>] players to recreate the trilogy (if I remember correctly, maybe 
>] someone else knows more). Any info is appreciated!
>] 
>I have the War of the Ring and two related games.
>The War of the Rings is interesting but needs a lot of work. The Nazgul are
>very wimpy. The full game is pointless to play since it takes a lot longer
>than the character only game, but has little affect on the outcome. This is
>mostly because seiges take very long compared to what is going on with the
>characters. It is a good idea to get Gandalf killed, since you know he will
>comeback as the better Gandalf the white.

Yeah, I once (ten years ago) made up about 20 pages of corrections to SPI's
War of the Ring.

Actually, I thought the Nazgul were a bit too powerful, since they can easily
track the Fellowship of the Ring.  The way the game was set-up, the Nazgul could
all be waiting on the eastern side of Moria and there would be a massive battle
which might go either way.  Basically, it seemed to turn into a battle of
character attrition.

In the army game, it was possible to show mathematically that the Dark Power
did not receive enough shadow points to move forces to all the places needed
for a military victory and attack them.  Contrast this to the situation in the
book where the military situation was supposed to make Desert Storm look like
a even fight.

Also, sieges could drag on for months with extremely light losses - whereas the
sieges in the book lasted matters of hours (Helm's Deep) or days (Minas Tirith).

Also, the Dark Power could stack orcs and Nazgul throughout Mordor, making a
destruction of the ring well-nigh impossible.

In short, the game, despite being a good starting point, as you say needed a
lot of work.  The 'historical' realities were reversed - Dark Power military
victory and Fellowship ring victory were both hopeless.

Aside from a lot of 'flavor' type rules, the main things I would fix are:

1) Hidden movement.  Absolutely necessary.

2) Shadow points.  The Dark Power needs many more.  I figured about 3 extra per
turn, which is about a 30-40% increase.

3) Siege combat.  The ability to withdraw from siege combat after one round
makes sieges last far too long.  Make siege combat last a number of rounds
equal to the attacker's leadership advantage, including sorcery effects (but
always at least 1 round).  Even this may not be enough, but at least it means
Minas Tirith will fall quickly to the Lord of the Nazgul if Gandalf isn't there.

4) Victory Conditions.  Tolkien points out on many occasions that Sauron's
uncertainty over the aims of the West was the major factor in the success of
the quest.  But in the game, Sauron always knows and expects that an attempt
will be made to destroy the ring.  It seems to me that the only way to recreate
this uncertainty, other than by massive and unwieldy restrictions on what
Sauron can do, is to allow the West to attempt the kind of victory that Sauron
thought they were going for.  In other words, allow Aragorn, Gandalf, and
perhaps the Gondorians to claim the ring and use it to defeat Sauron militarily.

The game's rules prohibit this, since use of the ring quickly turns the user
into a mindless slave.  In the book though, Tolkien continually emphasized that
the likes of Gandalf or Aragorn could have used the ring and become Sauron's
equal or near-equal.  I'd allow the Fellowship to decide before the game,
secretly, whether to go for a ring victory or military victory.  If they go for
military victory, allow the more powerful western characters to use the ring
without suffering its ill effects (at least within the time-frame of the game).
The ring should confer much greater army combat benefits, as well as reducing
Sauron's power once it is claimed by one of the powerful Westerners.

In this way, the Dark Power player would have to weigh the dangers of putting
too much effort into finding Hobbits and the strategy of military decoy leading
up to the Battle Before The Gate would be viable.

I realize that turning Gandalf into a new Dark Lord won't sit well with some
Tolkien fans, but I think it would improve the game.

In fact, frequently I think many games suffer from the same problem of each
side knowing the other's objectives in advance.  In many cases, a side's
objectives only become clear as their own actions reveal them, within a much
larger scope of potential objectives.  I can't think of many historical games
that incorporate this element - only Wacht Am Rhein (Battle of the Bulge
monster) comes to immediately to mind.


Dave

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