Item - Night of the Nazgûl

This book, the first in the Middle-earth Quest series, takes place during the early part of the War of the Ring. Taking his cue from a side note in the first Lord of the Rings book, The Fellowship of the Ring, that Strider had used agents to warn the Shire of the coming of the Black Riders, the author weaves the story of a stablehand from the Prancing Pony who must bring his dire message to Hobbiton. Strider himself gives you your mission and your starting equipment.

The Middle-earth Quest series included a map card with each book, with numbered locations. Each location has a "Time" value to the upper right of the paragraph; in the Advanced Game, you were to keep a running total of this value to gauge the total time required to complete the mission. In Night of the Nazgûl, this is a key factor, since you are in a race against the agents of Sauron. The longer it takes you to get to Hobbiton, the better the chances that Sauron's agents will have beaten you there. In addition, the time used must be minimized to gain the maximum possible Experience.

Because Night of the Nazgûl has such tight time requirements, the utility of the map card is minimized. Playing the Basic Game, where time is not tracked, it is possible to explore the entire map board and have all the encounters; by playing the Advanced Game, you really have to choose carefully whether any potential encounter is worth the time wasted or not. Missing the target by as little as fifteen minutes is a real possibility, since you will not be able to avoid all the time-wasting encounters. This heightens the suspense dramatically.

Aside from this, there are a huge number of possibilities for exploration here. The map covers the Barrow-Downs, with huge numbers of dead kings buried with jewels and items of power; the Old Forest, the haunt of wild animals and Tom Bombadil; Green Hill Country, inhabited by elves; and the towns and villages of the Shire. Many areas have the potential for enriching the character, but again, time is of the essence.

All told, this is a strong entrance into the gamebook field. With a strong plot, the opportunity to interact with fairly well-known fictional characters, and a lot of semi-random encounters that may or may not be found, it has a lot of replay value. This is probably one of the best gamebooks made in the Eighties, a strong member of an interesting line.

More reviews by AlHazred

Night of the Nazgûl is a unique gamebook. Along with Lone Wolf and Fabled Lands, it stands out as being forward thinking and plays more like a computer game than a gamebook. Night of the Nazgûl (NotN) is the first in what was a planned series of thirteen Lord of the Rings gamebooks; because of licensing issues only seven got printed.

The story begins as Strider asks you warn the hobbits across the river of the coming of the Dark Riders, the Nazgûls. He would do it himself but he is waiting for Frodo and party. It's up to you to warn your village. Strider says to hurry but to stay off the roads. NotN is a great gamebook because of two things: hex-map movement and time pressure. Many gamebooks have maps as a reference, allowing you to look up your whereabouts occasionally. In NotN, by contrast, you move across the map and use the book as a reference, making movement like a top-down view of a computer game. Every space you move into takes time, and further exploration of each area also takes time. Because of curiosity, you will want to explore and make up the lost time via road travel. However the road is a perilous path, full of patrolling bandits.

The game system is also flexible in terms of complexity: you can play with Basic, Advanced, and RPG rulesets. In the Basic rules, you have limited stats, and no time pressure, while the Advanced rules have complex combat, spells, skills, and time pressure. Finally NotN can be played with the full tabletop roleplaying rules from its publisher, Iron Crown Enterprise -- the Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game system. So depending on your desire for realism versus of ease of play, you can play in any of three ways.

Managing the conflicting goal of exploring leisurely versus rushing towards your village is tense. It is amazing how one element, time pressure, can add such intensity. NotN is one of the best Lord of the Rings licensed games, and I hope it becomes an iPhone app someday.

Originally posted on Play This Thing!.

More reviews by chaosbreaker

This is an interesting game mainly for its unusual map-based approach.

The map is a fun element, and gives a much greater sense of agency than in most gamebooks. As well as choices in the text, you are making meaningful choices on the map constantly and this is fun. The writing is of reasonable quality; it very much relies on prior knowledge of the world but its job is placing you there. There are, 100%, lore conflicts but that's true in every LotR spin off.

There are 243 tiles; each has a unique description, but all other elements rely on 450 further paragraphs. As such, large areas effectively function as random encounter tables - more than 3-4 squares moving on the same terrain will strain the game's illusion. In order to accommodate having nearly 700 sections in only about 115 pages, there are very few sections of any length. This is an adventure of encounters, mechanics and incidents, not story. Indeed, the ending is one of the more underwhelming I’ve ever read.

Mechanically, there are issues. It appears to have lots of pages for rules, but it's partly due to having multiple versions, including an RPG conversion - the full advanced rules are around 15 pages. Combat is too slow to resolve (though better than FF), and character building should clearly be streamlined.

It uses a combat table, all rolls on which - except with excellent defense/offense ratio - carry a chance of an instant kill both ways. I recommend adjusting the tables or using the alternative formula without the instant kills; it's not a fun way to die. It's essentially a much worse version of Lone Wolf and I would consider it borderline unplayable as presented due to the above. The mechanics are otherwise ok, nothing more.

There are other instant deaths, but usually behind multiple rolls and not in all places you might expect such. It's not too bad as 80s games go; it will kill you but it isn't desperate to do so.

The other key mechanic is time. It's an unfortunate one. Using the time mechanic, the only logical choice is to just follow the road except where you avoid the bridge - the time given is not generous. This is not maximally fun - the agency that's the games selling point is totally lost, and you are avoiding all the most interesting encounters, which are off-road. I recommend either playing without it or adding, probably, about a full day to all time checks made on the west side of the river to allow for taking an alternative path. As is, the game punishes you harshly for trying to enjoy the better parts of its content.

The plot is paper thin, the writing is extremely terse and there's hardly a character to speak of. However, it does do an adequate job making you feel placed in Middle Earth able to quest freely. Fundamentally, this is more like a solitaire boardgame with a narrative somewhat enhanced by the gamebook - but below the level most gamebooks would provide. Combined with being quite short, it's still worth a look for any LotR and Gamebook fan.

More reviews by mulahey