The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
| Designer(s) | Mike Reynolds, Chuck Kallenbach, and Tom Lischke |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Decipher, Inc. |
| Players | 2 or more |
| Age range | 13 and up |
| Setup time | < 5 minutes |
| Playing time | < 60 minutes |
| Random chance | Some |
| Skill(s) required |
Card playing Arithmetic |
The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game (a.k.a. LOTR TCG) is a collectible card game produced by Decipher, Inc. Released November 2001, it is based on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the J. R. R. Tolkien novel on which the films were based. Decipher also had the rights to The Hobbit novel but did not release any cards based on it. In addition to images taken from the films, in 2004 Weta Workshop produced artwork depicting characters and items from the novel absent from the films for use on cards.
The game also has an online version that maintains identical gameplay as well as a market economy. However, since the game's print run has ended, sales for online cards have been stopped and the servers closed in June 2010.
In 2002, LOTR TCG won the Origins Awards for Best Trading Card Game of 2001 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game 2001.
The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game is a game for two or more players, each of who uses his or her own deck consisting of equal numbers of Free Peoples and Shadow cards, with a minimum of 30 of each. On a player's turn they are considered to be the Free Peoples player and their Fellowship and Free Peoples cards both in their Support Area and on their characters are active. A player uses his Free Peoples cards to attempt to traverse the site-path and destroy the One Ring by reaching the ninth site. Each of his or her opponents, the Shadow Players, use their Shadow cards to prevent this by attempting to kill or corrupt the ring-bearer, or by forcing the Fellowship to slow down long enough for their Fellowship to race to victory. At the end of each turn the position of Free Peoples player rotates to the next player in turn. The game is won by the first Free Peoples player to survive to the ninth, and final, site or the last player whose Fellowship is left alive or when you corrupt the opposing fellowships ring-bearer.
An innovative mechanic called the twilight pool is used as a costing mechanism for cards. Each card has a numerical cost (which can be zero). When the Free Peoples player plays a card, tokens are added to the twilight pool equal to the cost of that card. The Shadow players, however, remove twilight tokens equal to the twilight cost of their cards in order to play their cards. Thus the more powerful cards the Fellowship the Free Peoples player plays, the greater the threat from the Shadow players.
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