How to play The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game

The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game is a cooperative, hand-management game.

Title: The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game

Year Published: 2023

Designer: Jay Little, Ryan Miller, Marcus Ross

Publisher: Ravensburger

Players: 1-4

Game Time: ~20 mins per chapter

Set-up Time: ~1 minute

Ages: 10+

Theme: The Lord of the Rings

Mechanisms: Hand Management

How to win: Complete all 8 chapters of the game

Game Description

Sauron’s shadow has fallen across Middle-earth, and the One Ring must be destroyed. In order to complete their daunting quest, players need to work together to help cherished Lord of the Rings characters journey from The Shire to the fires of Mordor, all while avoiding the Eye of Sauron.

How to play The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game (Spoiler Free)

Learn how to play The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game spoiler free!

Main Mechanisms

Hand management really. I think that’s pretty much it!

USP

Neither The Lord of the Rings nor Adventure Game Books are unique. This is the third in the series of adventure gamebooks after all.

Theme

Following the route of the story via the 8 chapters is good fun. Each chapter has the locations, characters and events you would expect to see.

Setup & Rulebook

The setup is fine, it’s mostly in the book itself.

The rulebook does the basics OK but a lot of the rules are a judgement call. The rulebook doesn’t handle specific examples very well. Not just little rules that don’t occur very often, but big game-changing rules that occur several times a game.

Where DO special cards go when you lose a chapter?

Components & Artwork

The book itself is nice and thick. The minis are OK, the tokens are fine and the card stock is thin.

The art is nice, you could see it used in an illustrated novel, but it is using the characters from the film trilogy.

Ease of Teaching

I’ve only played it solo and BGG recommends it as a solo game too.

So, while I haven’t taught this to anyone, I don’t think it would be an issue. Most of the rules are in the book and on the reference card.

Similar Games

I mean, the co-op (in teams) War of the Ring: The Card Game follows the LotR story with cards.

Personally, if I’m going to play a card game to make minis move and do things I’d much prefer to play Marvel United.

The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game Summary

On the plus side, it’s easy to set up and play which is what I want from my solo games. You can leave it set up after a chapter and go back to it which is nice.

Sadly, the game isn’t really that interesting.

I mentioned Marvel United where every villain turn feels really important. Here you just go through the motions to get back to your turn again.

Round-Up

Much like Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure Begins, this would be a fun activity to do with children.

Rating

I give it 4/10