[cfarrell]

Originally Posted by ShannonA

Well, ultimately this is going to an entirely personal call, as to what one person finds evocative and what another doesn't.

I certainly agree that's true ... to some degree. But there are reasonable points of discussion. SoC I agree has much more attractive (if marginally less functional) graphics, and the very nice minis help too. And mechanics can reflect the theme. It's not entirely arbitrary.

Sorry to try and pick and choose when quoting your article, but trying to err in favor of brevity:

Originally Posted by ShannonA

But, to explain why I find ShoC more thematic than LotR:

LotR has never risen to be more than a symbolic game for me....

I'll believe you that good choices were made as to what names went with which icons, but the game doesn't draw me in enough to actually see those connections.

This is all worsened by the fact that so many of the icons are so abstract that I feel like they have no basis in reality. The icons for the various tracks have perhaps the most basis in real theming, but are still paper-thin to me. What's the wild icon supposed to represent? The power of the Ring?

I'm actually not unsympathetic to this argument. But ... you can say exactly the same thing about SoC, except with less gloss ... instead of actually having fighting, hiding, friendship, or travelling to talk about, all you've got it "fighting" or "grail". Why do the Picts require a straight? What does this represent? Why is Lancelot a full house? The Grail quest is totally abstract. While I think the overall theme in SoC hangs together all right, when you drill down to the details they are every bit as abstract as, if not more than, Lord of the Rings. When you look at the things built on top of them, there's no question to me that Lord of the Rings pays more attention to the theme.

Originally Posted by ShannonA

Contrariwise, I find the thematic/mechanic connection on ShoC much more meaningful. Each of the quests is so unique, that even if they do use abstracted mechanics, you can't help but think about each of them differently.

I think this is highly debatable from the mechanics perspective. The Black Knight, Lancelot, and the Dragon are all fundamentally the same. Excalibur and the Holy Grail are very similar; except for the cards played, you approach them in the same way (ones a track that advances from either end; one's a track that starts in the middle and moves towards either end). The Picts are identical to the Scots of course, but are essentially the same as the Black Knight but for requiring a different pattern of cards to be played.

Compare to the real differences in how the Moria, Helm's Deep, and Mordor boards play because of the course of the events on each board. They are far more similar mechanically than the different quests in Shadows, but they actually play more differently.

Originally Posted by ShannonA

I also feel like the game is closer to the source material. Running off on all these quests seems quite Arthurian. I suppose the slow, dangerous slog against Middle Earth feels somewhat Tolkienesque, but it also leaves out a lot of the epic aspect of the books.

It's certainly true that Lord of the Rings leaves a lot of the books out, and everyone has a favorite bit that they'd like to see in there.

Originally Posted by ShannonA

I'm a lot more conservant with the Arthurian mythos, given that I've written & published short stories & roleplaying books set in the genre; that probably makes a difference too.

And I guess I'm a bigger fan of Tolkien than I am of Arthurian stuff I'm sure this is a non-trivial factor.

I also wonder how much of the general response is tied up with the fact that Reiner Knizia seems to have accumulated a reputation for being lousy with theme, a reputation I believe is entirely undeserved.

Interesting that with all the complaints about the brown tokens in Puerto Rico, nobody has yet complained that in Camelot, all the good guys are men and virtually all the women are portrayed negatively. It's true that all the main characters in Tolkien are men, but at least you've got Eowyn and Galadriel