In dire situations, tokens may be spent to call for the assistance of Gandalf, or the One Ring may be used to speed advancement at the cost of moving closer toward Sauron.
Players turn tiles and play cards in order to move forward, and collect and spend tokens to avoid advancement toward the Dark Lord Sauron. Game play is centered on advancement through a series of scenarios corresponding to the adventures of the books. The board game was highly unusual when it was published, because it is a cooperative board game - each player plays a hobbit in the party, and the party will succeed or fail as a group to destroy the One Ring, thus winning or losing the game. A slightly revised version was later published by Fantasy Flight Games.
It won a Spiel des Jahres special award for best use of literature in a game and in 2004 it won the Games Magazine Games 100 Honor in the Family Strategy category. Published in 2000 by Kosmos in Germany, Wizards of the Coast in the U.S., and Parker Brothers in the U.K., the game is designed by Reiner Knizia and features artwork by illustrator John Howe. Lord of the Rings is a board game based on the high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. Game designed by Reiner Knizia Lord of the Rings
