Lords of Ragnarok and the Decline of Crowdfunding

I've never seen a game so confidently shoot itself in the foot and then attempt to run a marathon is something I said to a reviewer a friend of mine when describing Lords of Ragnarok who then said to me that is a great line was that Elijah Wood anyway I thought let's use that line to open the review but then I thought it's a bit cheesy so let me do this instead in all my time reviewing board games I've never felt so sure in saying this is a terrible game wait just to be clear I'm not saying any of this because I've never played the game I don't want any responsibility in case you're wrong Africa you know what I'm saying oh my god grow a backbone Elijah in Lords of Ragnarok players take on the role of mythical heroes from Scandinavian in folklore Laurie Dory bori gory fourie and snorri that last one is real and also a name I used to sleep under in addition to your hero you'll have armies a ship and some priests and the big twist is that there's future Tech so uh naughty glazers yeah sure okay why not not only is Lords of Ragnarok a troops on a map game a genre where you move armies around hoping to control various territories you know risk but is also a sequel to a game that is moderately well regarded greasy lasers with this genre so established and an existing framework it's hard to imagine how we got here like that at worst I was expecting this game to be mediocre uninspired dull not busted so let's take a look at how it works the goal of every game is to be the first person to reach one of the three winning conditions nice clearly signposted territories that we have to fight over this makes sense lands are these big regions of a single color and together freelands make up pretty much half of the board to achieve this your opponents would have to be one babies two asleep three too busy to pay any attention to the game because they're currently piloting an airplane theoretically this is possible practically you have nine territories you have to defend and only six pieces to defend them with thank you in every game there is a boss if you have just a core box it's Loki but if you like me sadly pledged for foreign you have other choices for game bosses this this going to need a bit more work to entangle so here are some condensed rules let's contextualize things the objective of the game is to mostly control territories but this win condition says destroy the big dork and you win instead which again in theory is sound it's like political leverage if you get too many votes I'll post incriminating Deets that sort of thing naturally a third of the game's mechanisms tie around this concept and a third of the game's Miniatures as well you can't just attempt to defeat Loki first you need to defeat two other monsters or partially defeat monsters I'll spare you the details biting either starts a whole minigame of playing combat cards covering up wound slots getting rewards is this even a good mechanism imagine three people engaged in a fight over territories and one person ignores all of that plays their own game which you can't affect and then just wins is that fun well sadly there's just no way of knowing because practically this isn't doable no really you can't do this first of all there isn't enough time to achieve this and I'll explain why in just a little bit but also whilst defeating monsters is a moderately fun and marginally rewarding activity defeating Loki himself is so preposterously hard that it might not actually be possible as in I tried to do this outside of the game by cheating and maxing out all my stats and I still couldn't do it but don't take my word for it according to a review by Charlie Thiel on player elimination there was at the time of publishing no known instance of someone being able to achieve this foreign now imagine me telling you none of that matters I guess you don't have to because I just did because it doesn't these free win conditions are rendered meaningless because most games of loads of Ragnarok do not end by someone achieving them at some point the game just throws a tantrum as if upset by your audacity at attempting to enjoy it and just says it's over and in Acts [Music] this is idrisil and it's not a territory it's the action disc the weird thing about this game is that what your armies do and what your hero does are sort of separate things armies can move about fight other armies control territories that sort of thing your hero can also take control of a territory but mostly trundles around the map collecting resources building temples making alliances with neutral factions fighting monsters these are called special actions and your hero gets to do one each turn by placing a disc on one of the slots on idrisil or take taking off all the desks and then building the next part of a giant miniature representing one of the game's free Gods buff man buff man or wisdomless lady [Music] are we doing this are we are we still really doing this like I said idrisil isn't really a territory but if Ragnarok happens then the territory is adjacent to idrisil become the only thing that matters because whoever controls most of them becomes the winner of the game there are five Ragnarok cards each featuring a condition like building one of these Monument Miniatures or maxing out one of your attributes if three of these conditions are ever achieved then Ragnarok is triggered and players have one more round to scramble for the territories near idrisil but note that the original free win conditions are also represent on these Ragnarok cards but the Ragnarok version is achieved earlier if for some reason you're trying to win by killing Loki then you need to defeat two monsters first but defeating two monsters will immediately flip one of the Ragnarok cards before you can even try to defeat Loki and other Ragnarok cards like building one Monument just sort of achieve by themselves during the course of play or in other words for most of the game three things matter and thankful doesn't but then in some place the three things that mattered stop mattering and the thing that didn't matter now does which means in 95 of the games trying to achieve the three standard win conditions including one that has a bunch of Miniatures and mechanisms tied around it does not matter does that make any sense to you okay imagine you're playing football or soccer if you're American adjacent it's minute 89 it's nil nil for some reason no one seems to be able to score for a goal your coach calls you over hands you this and says right I need you to score a three-pointer and in that moment you realize your entire career was meaningless and now you're tired this isn't worth it you want to go home our general review philosophy is that we don't just want to recite the rules to the game we want to highlight how the game feels what are the highs what are the lows what is the experience but my only experience of Lords of Ragnarok is how it's incomprehensible I mean I understand the rules I just don't understand why they are the way they are like what are they doing what's the point and there are cool rules in Lords of Ragnarok and I've deliberately admitted explaining the majority of this game for example when you place Loki somewhere armies can't go into that territory and that immediately sounds cool because it's derivative of a little Grande and you think oh it's the El Grande bit where you can block a region but for most of the game that doesn't daughter because the other cool rules like the whole idea of the game doesn't function none of these elements cohere into anything interesting it's just pushing Miniatures around for hours for no reason whatsoever that's just the thing that happens with board games sometimes plenty of designers swing wide and apologies for extending the sports ball analogy not every one of them's a home run but it's one thing to have a Plucky go and another thing to sell me something that looks like it's going to come with a four-wheel drive all leather interior and a six liter engine this box is just more monsters a whole box dedicated to a win condition that's incompletable I know that we've been fairly critical of publisher awaken Realms in the past so let me say two things here first I promise you that the next time we cover an awakened rounds game it's gonna be a positive one second I don't want to make it seem like I think they maliciously designed a bad game it's pretty clear that many of these weird mechanisms are just design responses to perceived flaws of loads of ragnarok's predecessor Lords of helles but this this this this this this this this and this that all takes time and effort that's diverted from just making the core rules enjoyable we did way too much there are instances Miracles where you get five boxes and it's good but in most cases and clearly this case the Publishers did not leave themselves enough time to actually deliver the game that they are promising so no I don't think anyone wanted to make a bad game but it is clear that awaken Realms never figured out how these changes actually play out in practice nah was not their priority this on the other hand and it's happening more and more and naturally you could feel frustrated because you chucked upwards of 250 euros into this thing depending on what options you selected in the crowdfunding campaign but to be brutally honest well of course they're doing that that is the literal business model make big boxes with lots of extra boxes and then to sustain growth they need to make even more big boxes with extra boxes faster and they'll keep doing it and they'll keep cutting Corners as long as you keep buying them in isolation loads of Ragnarok is an Emporium of mistakes in context it's a symptom that this whole crowdfund a dubai-sized board game gimmick is unsustainable and will eventually stop producing games that are playable and you can append it by either not backing these projects or choosing to only back the core box fight with your wallet not with angry comments if you leave an angry comment or even a displeased one you're just opening the door for a we hear you whereas if your wallet says I want less boxes and more game then therefore to rethink their business model if you want an alternative recommendation for cool troops on a map game Kemet is still good ankh is the big many box experience that's somehow actually great and inish is a neat example of what if this genre but weird where's Lords of Ragnarok has as much credibility as a floating carrier bag trying to pass as a seagull it Rams every ounce of its box with high street chic but it never stops itself to think why it's entirely possible that this video saved you some money because you did not back the crowdfunding campaign and instead waited for independent board game media like us to review it first how we independent you might ask well because we don't have any Financial ties to board game Publishers and instead rely on support from viewers like yourselves via a website called patreon where you give us a bit of money every month and in exchange you'll get bonus episodes of a podcast talk cardboard and a nice community space on our Discord server the link is in the description or instead you can just subscribe and get more videos we post videos every other Monday and we post a podcast every other Monday so if you click subscribe I'll see you on Monday goodbye I've got no pun included that's the end of my contribution to your work

Channel: No Pun Included

Views: 168,459

Keywords: no pun included, board game, review, npi, boardgames, boardgamegeeks, brettspiel, brettspiele, jeuxdesociete, tabletop, games, juego de mesa, gamenight, bgg, best board game, good board game, dice tower, shut up and sit down, susd, watch it played, easy board game, small board game, light board game, winner, 2023, big board game, miniatures, cool minis, awaken realms, big minis, huge minis, lords of hellas, lords of ragnarok, tom brewster

Id: XyEffhRyQFI

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2023