How to Play The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game

The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game is a cooperative trick-taking game where you play through chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring. Each chapter is going to give you different characters that you play as, and possibly additional objectives as you play as well. I don’t want to spoil what those are, so we’ll talk about chapter one.

Set-Up

Firstly, you deal out all the cards except one which is taken out of the game. So fewer players, the higher number of cards you have total, this matters for some of the goals, kind of. There are five suits, hills, mountain, forest, shadow and rings. Players do the normal thing of sorting their hand, and then it’s where the fun comes in.

The player who has the one ring is Frodo. They take that card and it goes clockwise from them with each player picking one of the other characters. Some chapters are going to have specific required characters, in chapter one, for example, Gandalf is a required character. Just because they are required doesn’t mean the next person need to take them, it just means someone else might be stuck taking them.

Then specific characters let you pass cards. You go in order from the left of the Frodo player to the right. Players chose to exchange cards per the rules on their cards. And not all cards are going to have an exchange. Also, some cards might have additional set-up instructions, which you see in chapter 2.

Trick-Taking

Then trick-taking is going to go in a pretty standard way. The lead player, for the first trick in the first chapter Frodo, plays out a card. Everyone must follow suit if they can. You do this until either everyone completes their objectives – which often requires all hands being played, or you can’t win.

There are special rules for the ring cards. The ring cards cannot be led out until they are broken. This is a mechanism that is similar to Hearts. Once it is broken, then rings can be led. However, while the other suits go from 1 to 8 the ring suit is only 1 to 5. The One Ring does have a power, though, it allowed the player of the ring to declare they win the trick.

Now you are very limited in communication in this game. You aren’t allowed to tell people what you have in your hand. Now, in trick taking there is often not much communication, so that is not a massive difference as each player needs to infer information from the cards played.

Winning

As I said already, you win when all the objectives are met and none can be broken. This might be a character who wants only zero or one tricks. If you still can play out tricks, you need to verify that player can’t win anymore before stopping the hand. But if you know that, then you don’t need to play out the full hand.

After you successfully complete the challenges of a chapter you go onto the next one. This is going to give you some flavor as to what you are playing through and the set-up and characters for the next chapter. Some characters will go between chapters, Frodo for example. So you shuffle up and play the next chapter and as many as you want in a night.

What Doesn’t Work

This game does change with different player counts. And while they do a good job of trying to balance it, I think it is simpler with three than it is with four. Mainly because some of the challenges require taking a number of tricks, and if it’s a higher number, Bilbo needs three in the first chapter, then it’s trickier with fewer cards. They try and balance it out, but more variables, the trickier it is.

What Works

Theme

Firstly, I think they do a very good job with the theme in the game. That little bit of reading is great. And the fact that every chapter changes is very good. Now only does every chapter change, it very closely follows the book. And I like that attention to detail for the game. It’s going to be fun for people who have just seen The Fellowship of the Ring as a movie, but more fun for those who know the books as well.

And I just want to talk a bit more about that. I think that they do a good job of changing up the characters as well. So it’s not just that little blurb of text that you get. But the characters who you can play as change as well. The first chapter has Bilbo, Merry, Gandalf, and Frodo and is themed around the party and Frodo getting the ring. Then you don’t have Bilbo for the next chapter because he leaves to do his own thing.

Ease and Speed of Play

The game is easy to learn and play, which is good. Though, it is a trick-taking game. I say that not as a negative, but as a be aware because the more you know trick-taking the easier it will be. Mainly because there are things you do in trick-taking to demonstrate or share information. Or it could be techniques like short suiting yourself that newer players might not know.

I also like how fast the game is. A good trick-taking game should be fast. I don’t want it to be a slog as I play through a lot of hands to get through a chapter. So one chapter being one hand means that you can easily get through it in a handful of minutes, I think on average probably 10 to 15 when you know what you are doing. With setting up the chapter, maybe twenty. And each chapter is fast to set-up as well, so it never adds or changes too much.

Cooperative

The cooperative nature of the game is great as well. Now, I don’t think you could do a Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, for more than two, and make it competitive. At two you could have Mordor versus the free lands. But in this case, it’s a nice element to the game, and because it is trick-taking, you can’t alpha game it. So that is something that makes is nice for a cooperative game where you win or lose together, but no one person can run it.

Who is The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game For?

Firstly, I think the fans of Lord of the Rings are going to like The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking game. Even if you don’t know trick-taking, it could very well work for you. And I think for gamers who know trick-taking, I think the changing challenges work well. So this is a game for most people, and I think it’s easy enough for a non-gamer to pick-up the rules and learn the game. Again, it helps that there is a bit of Hearts to it because a lot of people have played that on the computer.

Final Thoughts on The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game

I really like this game. I already know that I like trick-taking, so the Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking game, combining a theme and mechanisms I like I knew it’d likely be a hit. That said, I am really pleased with how it is directly tied to the book. Those bits that are glossed over are nice to have here and gives for some very fun chapters.

And I think the variety in chapters and characters are good. And without that, it’d be just an okay game. The characters are all fun and different. But when you get a really different chapter to play, you understand the detail that went into the game. It is truly a game for fans of Lord of the Rings. And this one is just The Fellowship of the Ring, so that means we should be getting at least two more.

This is game also with a solo mode. So I want to get it played solo, and it might be a game that I play solo on Malts and Meeples. I suspect it is going to be better with more, but either way, it’s nice to have a solo mode.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B-
Strategy Score: 7 (out of 10)
Luck Score: 5 (out of 10)

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So how close are Hobbits to Halflings?

Very close, Halflings are the fun loving, food loving, and generally not the most adventuresome. However, if you’re playing a halfling, like Bilbo Baggins, the ones you’ll play are generally the more curious ones. Also, like Bilbo Baggins, you can be a solid thief with the dexterity bonus that halflings always get. The other biggest mechanical feature is that you are lucky, so when you roll a 1 on an attack, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll, but you have to use the new number. That is one of the best class features.

So how about role playing a halfling? Is that going to be like playing Bilbo Baggins as well? I would say that it’s pretty similar. You like your comforts, but there’s more of a big world out there that you want to explore. You are a halfling that is very curious and ready for adventure. I also think that with your diminutive size you’re going to be overlooked as a threat.

Halflings also generally have a positive disposition and interaction with the other races. So the other races are going to overlook you and treat you as their friend. For that reason, Halflings can get into areas that other races might not be able to, and a halfling who is lying to you or up to something wrong is generally going to be suspected less than a Human, Dwarf, or Elf. I’d personally lean into that aspect, not going with an evil halfling, but a jokester halfling who isn’t always doing the right thing, but generally does the right thing and does unexpected things.

I’ve compared them a lot to Bilbo Baggins, but I think that would be a good comparison for how you’d want to create an adventurer. Merry and Pippin also provide good examples of that almost naive curiosity that shows up well. Even Samwise would make a solid example for an adventurer, someone who is extremely practical, but is willing to go out adventuring because they need to, not because they necessarily want to.

Let’s get into what I consider the fun part, that’s looking at backstory ideas.

There was a time in my life that I was innocent, life was pretty boring. If I had my way, I’d go back to that. Like a lot of teens, I was bored and decided to find something fun to do. I should have known better than to trust the stranger in the town, but they seemed like a nice person. So as I got talking, I made a deal to help with some troubles that they were having. Turns out you shouldn’t make deals with random strangers in a tavern. I have gotten some interesting things out of my bargain, but until I complete the mission for them, which is way harder than I thought, I’m an outcast and don’t feel like I can rest in my own town or any town for that long.
Class: Warlock
Alignment: Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral
Background: Guild Artisan/Custom

I thought my town was a nice little place growing up. There was a quaint little church, and everyone in the town would go gather there. We weren’t as solitary as some halflings, but that was fine with me as I got to see the world and visit places with my family. It wasn’t until later that I realized that what we were doing wasn’t as legal as I had thought. Nor was the church as nice as I thought. It turns out that we might have been the bad guys, though on the surface our town was so nice. I didn’t like it, so I grabbed something that I knew my parents had worked hard for, ran off to the big city, sold it, and started a new life, but now my town has found me and I’m pretty sure they don’t mean me any good.
Class: Rogue
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Background: Acolyte/Haunted
Note: Haunted is a background from Curse of Strahd that could work quite well. There are also some homebrew Cultist/Reformed Cultist backgrounds you could use on D&D Beyond.

The outdoors, they are so beautiful and amazing. I could spend hours outside, and growing up I did. Playing in the rain, helping my parents garden, climbing trees, I loved them all. When I grew up, I knew that I wanted to study about nature, so I went around to a number of places learning what I could from other halflings, humans, and elves. Every spot I went, I heard stories of Shangri La, and after I had learned all I could, I made it my goal to be the first ever halfling or mortal to make it there, or at least the first in hundreds of years.
Alignment: Neutral Good/Neutral Neutral
Class: Druid
Background: Sage

What do you think about halflings? Would you play one in a game?

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