You might not think of a trick taking game as having a narrative element, but Lord of the Rings: Trick Taking Game makes it work!
Continue the fellowship’s journey with The Two Towers expansion! Players take on the roles of new heroes and villians of Middle-earth with two storylines. It can be played as a stand alone and has solo, 2-player, and “The Road Goes Ever On” mode that offers flexible options and settings for up to 4. The expansion offers 17 chapters with new mechanics tailored to Tolkien’s book.
The middle book is split into two sections. The bulk of the story follows Aragon, Legolas, Gimli, Merry, and Pippin and introduces Treebeard and the kingdom of Rohan and then we get to catch up with Sam and Frodo in the latter part. Since The One Ring doesn’t have much of a presence, the game makes some adjustments to honor the story.
The Two Towers serve as two trump cards. A tie-breaker occurs when the both towers are played in the same trick – they cancel eachother out. The expansion also adds three orc cards as dead cards in a player’s hand that pose a threat if they are not handled with care.
Lord of the Rings: Trick Taking Game Overview
For whatever reason, I’ve never been able to fully wrap my head around trick taking games. It’s a simple concept, but I just can’t figure them out. It seems like it should just be a matter of matching the suit, but every time I play a game, I get destroyed. I’m clearly doing something wrong.
So what if, instead, it was a cooperative, narrative campaign? Well then, I might have a chance.
Lord of the Rings: Trick Taking Game is, as you might expect, a trick taking game. A trick taking game is a style of game like Hearts or Euchre; two games I’ve never played since I’m not 85 years old. In trick taking games, a deck of cards is fully dealt out to all players.
Each round, a player plays a card the center of the table, then each player, in turn, plays a card matching that suit. Highest card wins and takes the pile. If a player can’t match the suit, they can play any card, but it won’t win the trick. Unless it’s the trump suit, in which it always wins. Something like that, I think. Like I said, I’ve never fully understood trick taking games.
Lord of the Rings: Trick Taking Game plays exactly the same but with extra mechanics. For example, each player has a specific character role, Frodo, Gandalf, Bilbo, etc. Each character has their own win condition. But, players are working together, and they only collectively win if all character’s win conditions are met at the end of the round.
The Fellowship of the Ring version has only one trump card in the game. I’m sure you can guess what the one card is. Plus, each chapter of the 18 chapters introduces new mechanics and characters as well. It’s up to the players to work together to complete each chapter in order to move onto the next. There’s also rules for playing with just two players, or even a solo mode as well!
Please note that BoLS may earn a commission when you purchase through links on our site.
Don’t Miss:
Matt has loved games of all kinds his whole life: board, video, war, roleplaying, and card. He’s worked as a writer for BoLS since 2017.
Managing editor and pop culture writer that has been on the BoLS team since 2012. Vertigo Comics, Batman, and dystopian sci-fi fan. Enjoys bad movies, LEGO Technic, and the internet. Hates rom-coms. (she/they)
Read more at this site