The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game Review: An Epic Journey Brought to Life Via Mini-Games

By Christian Hoffer

Ravensburger's newest Adventure Book game brings The Lord of the Rings' movie trilogy to life on the tabletop. The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game is the third in Ravensburger's popular Adventure Book game series. Similar to the previous two games, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game players will play through a series of scenarios by moving characters to certain locations and completing challenges, this time re-enacting iconic scenes and sequences from The Lord of the Rings movies. While easy enough to be played by the whole family, the new Lord of the Rings game has enough of a challenge to keep players of any age engaged and challenged as they undertake the epic quest of taking the One Ring to the fires of Mount Doom. 

Each of The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game's eight scenarios take place within the Adventure Book, a bound set of boards that contain just about everything you need to play through the scenario. Each scenario uses the same set of base rules – players can move one character two spaces or two characters one space and then complete a number of actions such as playing cards from their hand to complete challenges or to move characters additional spaces. After a player is done taking actions, they draw more cards, reveal a "Plot Card" that usually advances enemies or pushes the scenario closer to its end condition, and then move on to the next game. 

To complete a scenario, players have to complete certain challenges, which is typically completed by getting certain characters to certain locations and then playing specific card combinations. Players earn rewards for completing challenges (usually drawing cards or adding special cards to their hand) and all challenges have to be completed to win a chapter. 

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One major wrinkle in The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game are The One Ring cards, which add a new mechanic to the Adventure Book Game system. Players draw One Ring cards and hold them in their hand just as they would any other card. These cards can be used as wild cards for completing challenges or they can be played to activate scenario-specific "One Ring" abilities that usually push back or delay certain loss conditions. However, every time a player uses a One Ring card (or discards them from their hand), players have to move a Ring token across a Corruption tracker. Not only can the Corruption tracker trigger certain unfavorable wrinkles in the game, the players lose if the Corruption tracker ever reaches its endpoint. What's more – the Corruption tracker doesn't reset after chapters are completed or restarted, so players have to deal with the endless balance of having your hand slowly clogged up by more Ring cards and the temptation of using those cards to finally complete the challenges. The Corruption tracker adds a fun challenge to the game which prevents the game from feeling too easy and helps teach a valuable lesson about the dangers of taking the easy path to younger players. 

While the game is billed as being for Ages 10+, my (admittedly board game-savvy) 7-year old had no issue managing most of the rules of the game. I loved how the game really engaged him mechanically and that it had him asking questions about The Lord of the Rings which is one of my favorite fantasy books. While the Adventure Book Game can rightfully be called "lightweight" due to its easy-to-follow and straightforward rules set, this makes it a great game to introduce the cooperative style of game to more casual or younger players. 

My biggest criticism of The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game is the overuse of one-use tokens during different scenarios. There are over 50 different counters and tokens in the game which are jumbled together in a single plastic bag and are typically used for one or two scenarios at best. It's a minor complaint, but the tokens felt a bit too fiddly and disorganized at times. One scenario used four wound tokens, six goblin tokens, a Balrog token, and a Gandalf token, many of which were never used in another scenario again. While I liked how the each scenario felt different thanks to some of these tokens, I honestly felt like I spent as much time sorting through the bag of tokens to get the correct ones out for each scenario as I did actually playing through the scenario. 

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Like other cooperative games, the true challenge for The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game is making the game feel truly cooperative. It's set up in a way that strategy can be dominated by one voice, with other players feeling like they're just completing the plans of whoever the dominant strategizer is. Other popular co-op games like Pandemic also face this potential issue, so I think the key is setting clear boundaries and communication at the table. 

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There are a ton of Lord of the Rings board games out there, with most leaning hard into the complexity and depth of Middle-Earth. The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game opts for a lighter experience while still remaining true to the movies. This isn't a cheap movie tie-in, it's a game actually built around certain movie scenes. While some players might wish for a bit mechanical heft or complexity, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game is designed for a fun few hours around the table without the need to constantly refer to a rulesbook. 

The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Book Game is available at Target for $34.99.  A review copy was provided by Ravensburger for review.

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