Shadows has engendered a curious response from me. I want to like it alot. I want to love it alot and the first couple games I've played I have. But I can't figure out why. Why did I enjoy this game?
I'm a sucker both for anything Arthurian and innovative game mechanics and Shadows has both of those in spades; but is the game PLAY really that good?
I've certainly had fun and enjoyed it...but I'm not sure why. Ultimately the actual game play is pretty drab. You go on a quest for Excalibur and it plays like this "discard card, move excalibur. discard card, move excalibur. discard card, move excalibur. Uh oh black card, move excalibur back. discard card, move excalibur" You quest against the treacherous Lancelot and it plays like this "play a 3. play a 3. play a 3. play a 5. Oh oh someone played a Lancelot card face down. play a 5. Add a bunch of numbers"
Written like that it hardly seems like a formula for fun. It seems extraordinarily dry and tedious. Yet I've had a blast playing it. I'm worried that that fun will last only until the novelty of the mechanics wears off and that underneath we'll be left with a game that has very little actual zing to it.
The thing that ultimately seems missing to me is the "Killer Move". All successful Euro Style games that I've played live and die by the Killer Move. Because lets face facts, most Euro Games are rather mechanically dry. Place some colored cubes, move a vp marker around. Whether its Ticket to Ride, or Puerto Rico, or Tigris & Euphrates, or Amun Re, or Princes of Florence, or El Grande all of those games have one thing in common. Turn after turn of routine somewhat dry mechanical play punctuated by that one game turn where you pull out the stops, the complection of the whole board changes and you rack up a big score. In Tigris & Euphrates I live for the moments when someone catches the one tile play that will unite two huge empires and trigger a cascade of destruction that leaves them with tons of victory cubes, a treasure, and a firm position in control of the new empire with everyone around the table acknowledging "man, that was a killer move".
I haven't seen this in Shadows. EVERY turn seems to be largely the same routine of play a single card...play a single card...play a single card. Each quest is unique...but ultimately they are all the same...play a single card...play a single card. This is made even worse by the rule that says you can't take two moves in a row of the same type. One game we played where we accidentally neglected that rule there was at least some opportunity for minor killer moves. The knight who waited until Excalibur was 2 away from victory and then burned a life to move it the last 2 spaces and "steal" the sword away from the other players who'd done most of the work. The near suicidal labor of a pair of knights determined to get the grail at all costs burning life every turn to play 2 grail cards at a time to overcome a never ending string of despair. But now, playing with the proper rules, you can't even do that. Play a card...play a card...play a card...
It should be a game of never ending tedious drudgery. But its not. Its hella fun. And I don't know why.
I have seen killer moves in Shadows, they're just cooperative moves rather than singleton moves.
Last week we had a game where (suspected traitor) Mike B. had been mucking with Excalibur most of the game. He'd gotten it somwhat near the shore at a time where I realized that lots of us were somewhat free. Hey, I said, how about if Chris A. moves to Excalibur and drops a card, then Brody moves to Excalibur and drops a card, then I do the same and capture the sword. Mike B. had recently had clairvoyance as well, so that we knew the next couple of cards were free of Excalibur moves.
This gave us the opportunity to quickly grab Excalibur before it could move away again, and also allowed us to keep it out of the hands of Mike B. who was playing very suspiciously (and we didn't come up with the plan until *after* his turn, so he couldn't mess it up).
Ironically, the one other player, Mike A., turned out to be the traitor, but he was sitting between me and Mike B., so he couldn't do anything either.
Going from Excalibur being far away to suddenly having it in my possession was definitely a killer move.
...
In any case, I do agree with you that the pure mechanics in ShoC are pretty dry. I think the game has two major points going for it which help it rise above this.
The first is the socialization, which is an aspect you often don't find in German style games. This is the working together to make the game work, the figuring out how to balance (not entirely known) resources, and the whole question of trying to discover and out the traitor.
The second is the tension, becuase you're not just trying to succeed at a single quest, but also figure out how to keep on top of all the rest. So you're having to think a couple of turns ahead at any time, and worry about a number of different problems.
If you think about the individual unit of play not as a turn ("play a card") but instead a round of play ("the players work together to do some stuff"), it becomes more obvious why it's fun.
Love this game. Great theme, tense game play, the mystery of the potential traitor, and the "ticking clock" of siege catapults makes for great game play.
There's not a lot of strategic depth to the game, but seeing as how its a cooperative and collaborative game, I find the dynamics of the group and game play interaction to trump its lack of strategy.
Probably one of the best boardgame purchases I have ever made.
The first is the socialization, which is an aspect you often don't find in German style games. This is the working together to make the game work, the figuring out how to balance (not entirely known) resources, and the whole question of trying to discover and out the traitor.
The socialization is obviously a key factor. I've struggled a bit with the "table talk" restrictions the rules put in place, however. First they are entirely too vague to be effective rules. Secondly they are entirely easy to circumvent "If I only had THREE more men-at-arms, I could defeat the vile Picts". And third they tend to squash the socializing as players are worried about whether their casual kibbitzing is actually violating the rule. On the other hand I can see the desire to not turn the game into a colorless number crunching exercize (which sometime LotR can become if you play it to win hard core). To what extent do you follow those rules when you play. It sounds from your "drop a card" example that you are pretty free about discussing things in game mechanics terms.
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The second is the tension, becuase you're not just trying to succeed at a single quest, but also figure out how to keep on top of all the rest. So you're having to think a couple of turns ahead at any time, and worry about a number of different problems.
The tension has been the most memorable part of play. It is really stressfull to KNOW that there is no way you can beat a given quest and just watch it slowly tick closer and closer to another pair of black swords.
My concern there is that there may well be mechanical ways to reduce the tension. After just a few games we've already hit on a couple of ideas that should make future games easier to win (like group rushing quests to win them with as little delay as possible, putting Sir Kay and the knight with Excalibur on early catapult duty. Ignoring the Black Knight Quest as a time waster which has little penalty for losing. And doing flybys on the invasion quests to keep them primed. To what extent can you come up with "standard operating procedures" that can largely defeat the automatic mechanical opponent and deflate some of the tension by making the game too easy?
So far it hasn't been easy. I think the difficulty scales up nicely with numbers of players and a good Traitor, of course, makes a world of difference. But games that rely on tension and stress to be fun tend in my experience to have lower replay value.
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If you think about the individual unit of play not as a turn ("play a card") but instead a round of play ("the players work together to do some stuff"), it becomes more obvious why it's fun.
That's a pretty good way of viewing it, although I think the table talk rules discourage this sort of thing by making it difficult to really coordinate a killer combo like that. Technically your excalibur trick (a good one) is against the rules (at least how I read them). I think next time we play I'll suggest relaxing the table talk limit and see if that spices things up.
All in all, lest I sound too down on the game, I'm loving it. I've been tempted to rate the game a 9 over at BGG. But I just have these niggling concerns that after 5 or 10 more plays it really won't be a 9 any more.
No solution for that but to play the 5 or 10 games and find out.
What a terrible chore...how will I ever manage to slog through it ;-)
To what extent do you follow those rules when you play. It sounds from your "drop a card" example that you are pretty free about discussing things in game mechanics terms.
I suspect we weren't quite as mechanistic in our discussions. More something like: "Friends, if we each were to rush to the lake and cast our offering in at once, Excalibur would be ours, and our friend's clairvoyant talents have assured us that we will catch the forces of evil by surprise if we move with alacrity."
I actually struggle to keep as much game mechanics & specifics out of the talk as I can, but in most games I've played there's at least one player who tries to push the line.
Some discussions that have occurred around my board which I consider generally appropriate:
"The black knight currently appears weak" (as a black knight card is placed face-down).
"I could use the support of your military m'lord if I am to complete this quest" (to Arthur, while putting down cards on one of the wars or the black knight).
"I fear I must soon leave this battle, for my forces grow weary" (again, related to one of the wars)
"If you were to have detritus to cast into the lake, it would be most useful, m'lord" (again, to Arthur, from a knight questing for Excalibur)
Not appropriate:
"I wouldn't say the black knight is very weak, but he is weak" (because that pretty much identify that a "3" was played)
"In two years time I will no longer be able to fight this war" (because that says that the knight doesn't have the n+2 Fight card)
Pretty much, if it identifies a specific card, that's what I consider too much. But, like you, I find the entire rule a bit awkward.
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My concern there is that there may well be mechanical ways to reduce the tension. After just a few games we've already hit on a couple of ideas that should make future games easier to win (like group rushing quests to win them with as little delay as possible, putting Sir Kay and the knight with Excalibur on early catapult duty. Ignoring the Black Knight Quest as a time waster which has little penalty for losing. And doing flybys on the invasion quests to keep them primed. To what extent can you come up with "standard operating procedures" that can largely defeat the automatic mechanical opponent and deflate some of the tension by making the game too easy?
I dunno; as I said in my review I've had some of these exact same concerns, but haven't seen them play out. It's entirely possible that this is a game that will fade out with too many plays, unlike LotR. On the other hand, for now, I like it better than Knizia's cooperative game which always seemed a bit sterile to me.
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That's a pretty good way of viewing it, although I think the table talk rules discourage this sort of thing by making it difficult to really coordinate a killer combo like that. Technically your excalibur trick (a good one) is against the rules (at least how I read them). I think next time we play I'll suggest relaxing the table talk limit and see if that spices things up.
I wouldn't see it as such because the rules allow for the discussion of intentions, but not exact cards. We definitely didn't talk about exact cards, just a very specific course of action.
Of course we also won the game 9 swords to 3, and only that because we purposefully let quests quickly fail to get the last black swords on the board and complete our 12. But then we had an inexperienced traitor too.
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All in all, lest I sound too down on the game, I'm loving it. I've been tempted to rate the game a 9 over at BGG. But I just have these niggling concerns that after 5 or 10 more plays it really won't be a 9 any more.
That's the difference between a 9 and a 10 at BGG. At a 9 you always want to play it, and at a 10 you're confident that'll always be the case. Which is why my rating there is a 9 too.
Re: [Board/Tactical Game]: Shadows over Camelot, reviewed by ShannonA (5/5)
I was actually a little disappointed by this one. The host of my monthly boardgame group picked it up and I was eager to try it. I've got most of the other Days of Wonder games and my family really enjoys them, so my group gives me the opportunity to try before I buy.
We've played cooperative games before (Lord of the Rings), so this one looked fun and the components are gorgeous. We played with six players. At first, the game was pretty cool -- we worked together to thwart the Pict horde and to recover the Grail.
But then midway through, it just got kind of stale. As soon as we got seven white swords on the table, the traitor was successfully unmasked. From that point on, it was simply a matter of keeping the catapults at bay while we waited for the remaining quests to fail and fill in the five remaining sword slots with black swords. The revealed traitor had little to do but mechanically place a catapult and steal a white card from someone. It was a little tense if someone missed their roll to destroy a catapult, but overall, it was pretty anticlimactic and it bugged my roleplayer aspect. Strange as it may seem, we won when the Saxons came sweeping in from the sea.
It may be that this was just an isolated case. If the traitor had remained concealed longer (we were all first time players), obviously things would have been different. Unfortunately, we probably won't play it again for a while since there are too many good games out there for us to repeat any right away.
-- Matthew Gabbert
Last edited by Matthew Gabbert; 07-13-2005 at 12:00 PM..
Re: [Board/Tactical Game]: Shadows over Camelot, reviewed by ShannonA (5/5)
This is a game I too wanted to really like, but couldn't quite for many of the reasons put forward by Valamir. I found it to be decent, but not great.
I think getting the amount of table talk right is very important to enjoying the game, but the rules provide frustratingly vague guidance. Specifically, I think you need to have a lot less than what fans of Knizia's Lord of the Rings may be used to; communications should be kept quite vague. For example, I don't think that you should be able to mention specific cards when trading with Arthur, although trying to work out what might/might not be allowed by the rules in this case becomes a maddening exercise in trying to channel the designer's poorly-communicated intent. In practice, I think a given play group will have a preferred style, and if your style happens to match the designers', you're good, otherwise, there may well be balance problems and there likely isn't much you can do about it.
Whether or not the game is actually interesting with a much lower level of player discussion than Lord of the Rings is a separate question.
For me personally, Shadows has too many annoying deficiencies when compared to Lord of the Rings to really succeed. In Lord of the Rings, the different boards (with something of a reset button in between) prevents bad luck from spiralling out of control, which has lots of beneficial side effect - in Shadows, once you're on the reverse slope, you seem hosed and the game gets pretty tedious. The concrete communications rules in Lord of the Rings don't hurt your brain just to think about. The more flavorful and varied events give a much stronger theme, and the event tracks (as opposed to random card draws) let you do more interesting planning. The endgame is more exciting than the grinding affair it can be in Shadows, with too many players spending too much time fighting holding actions and not enough actually driving the game.
Shadows of course has the Traitor, which is quite cool, but for me that doesn't cover for the other problems.
Anyway, I have a review of my own which you can find here and which I've been meaning to submit to RPG.net also ...
Re: [Board/Tactical Game]: Shadows over Camelot, reviewed by ShannonA (5/5)
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Originally Posted by cfarrell
The more flavorful and varied events give a much stronger theme, and the event tracks (as opposed to random card draws) let you do more interesting planning. The endgame is more exciting than the grinding affair it can be in Shadows, with too many players spending too much time fighting holding actions and not enough actually driving the game.
Ironically, I find Shadows much more thematic than the comparitively dry LotR which feels almost entirely abstract.
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Anyway, I have a review of my own which you can find here and which I've been meaning to submit to RPG.net also ...
Definitely. Just hop over to the reviews page and submit(!).
Re: [Board/Tactical Game]: Shadows over Camelot, reviewed by ShannonA (5/5)
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Originally Posted by ShannonA
Ironically, I find Shadows much more thematic than the comparitively dry LotR which feels almost entirely abstract.
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I've heard that from a number of folks and I just can't get my head around it (I'm not saying it's wrong, just that try as I might, I can't see it that way). In Shadows of Camelot, you've got either poker hands to defeat the Black Knight/Lancelot/Picts/etc., or you have simple tracks, and the rewards/penalties for quest success/failure are largely the same for the majority of the quests. In Lord of the Rings, you've got quests with tracks that actually have some thematic flavor and payoff (Gimli advances you on Fighting, moving along the Friendship track gets you Allies, Hiding avoids Nazgul, etc). The events are more varied (Gollum), with a much wider variety of rewards and penalties that make some thematic sense. Sure, the underlying game is still fairly abstract, but a fair amount of effort went into making sure the trappings work. Under the hood, Lord of the Rings and Shadows over Camelot are almost twins. But it seems to me a lot more effort went into Lord of the Ring's superstructure (not to mix metaphors).
If you played Lord of the Rings the boardgame having no exposure to the books, you'd probably come away with some idea what the books are about. The same can't be said of Shadows over Camelot.
And I should say too that I wish that Shadows over Camelot had come with an overview section, similar to what Lord of the Rings had, which had a plot summary of the legend. I'm certainly not ignorant of the stories (I got 9/10 on their BGG giveaway quiz), but I still felt like I didn't know what was going on with the boardgame most of the time and would have appreciated a summary.
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