The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game Review
boardgamequest.comAs we approach two-plus years of the Trickaissance (the resurgence of interest in the game hobby of trick-taking games, highlighted by such hits as The Crew, Cat in the Box, and even the heavier space opera Cole Werlhe opus Arcs), we’ve now seen quite a few variations on the popular mechanic. The Crew was an early and popular representation of cooperative gaming; Brian Boru showed how it could be the driving mechanic in the broader Euro.
Inside Job did a wonderful job introducing hidden roles into the mix. And this doesn’t even go into the wide variety of mechanical variations such as must-not-follow, trick avoidance, contracts, and more. So now comes the inevitable: Popular IP. The Lord of the Rings, with potential disputes from Star Wars or Marvel, is the King Kong of IP in board gaming.
In The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game, the first in a trilogy of games based on the three Lord of the Rings books, we get a The Crew-like cooperative trick-taker for 1-4 players from designer Bryan Bornmueller and publisher Office Dog. Does the IP enrich the game and contribute something new and exciting to the genre? Dear reader, the long-expected party is about to begin, let’s find out.
Much like The Crew, The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is a cooperative, mission-based game. That’s the headline here. That’s what will be mentioned in every review of this game. This is, in many ways, a reimplementation of The Crew. But while each mission in The Crew lacks any real theme, Fellowship’s missions each represent chapters of the book and tell the (deeply abridged, obviously) story of the first book of this epic fantasy saga.
Starting at the Shire with Bilbo’s Eleventy-first birthday and progressing through the well-worn events, players begin each mission by reading a Chapter card, which briefly outlines what’s happening thematically, lays out which characters the players can or must choose from, and gives them the win condition (which usually consists of
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