Introduction and Initial Thoughts on CL

Paul: Hi, everyone. This is Paul Burkhard, a gamer from Colorado. I am a big fan of Camelot Legends, having originally picked it up based upon Tom's good review posted on Boardgamegeek.com.

Actually, it was not at all the sort of game that I would ordinarily purchase. I tried playing Magic: The Gathering many years ago and found that I just didn't like the idea of playing this card to nullify that card and combining these cards to give me some other power, etc. I had a great deal of difficulty keeping track of What was What and Who was Who. So, for the most part, I stayed away from CCGs and other similar games.

But I am a sucker for theme, nice artwork and King Arthur, so I bought the game.

For a "non-card-game-with-variable-powers" person, such as myself, the first look at the cards was a little overwhelming. Lots of text and lots of numbers. However, I talked my 11 year-old into trying it with me. We stumbled through the first couple of games and found that we liked it! Soon, my wife and father-in-law learned to play as well and it was declared a big hit.

As many have mentioned, the game is high on theme. There are a ton of Character cards, each extremely well illustrated by a number of renowned Fantasy artists. The game's designer has done an excellent job of formulating character skills and statistics that are true to the stories and legends surrounding King Arthur.

Gameplay consists of forming Questing Parties from the character cards in your hand. These cards are played into each of three play areas: Camelot, The Perilous Forest and Cornwall. As the game progresses, Quests are revealed for the play areas. For the most part, the completion of a Quest requires a combination of skills and abilities across a number of characters in a party. Some quests will require characters with Chivalry, some with Cunning, etc. When a player completes a quest he is rewarded with Victory Points and (sometimes) extra skills and abilities.

As I previously stated, I am not much of a fan where "This Card" cancels "That Card," but for me, Camelot Legends works, on many levels.

I had fun too and will look forward to doing another in the future.

And Chad, you came across just fine, and raised good points.

That was fun!

I had a fun time in my second musings as well. I don't do a lot of reviewing, so it's kind of intimidating when I'm arguing against more prominent reviewers such as you guys. I hope my writing was up to snuff!

I'd like to participate in one in the future where I actually like the game. I think the last one I did was Aladdin's Dragons, which was another game I dislike!

Thanks to Tom for setting these up! I always enjoy reading them.

Chad's Bio: Chad Krizan is an avid board game player and a regular at BoardGameGeek. He is a member of a number of game groups, including the Kansas City Kingmakers and the Tabletop Blockheads. Outside of board gaming, Chad enjoys his job as an urban planner for a small architecture firm in Lawrence, KS, and also enjoys frisbee golf, ultimate frisbee, and thrifting/garage saling.

Chad: Overall, I just need to feel like I'm making more important decisions if I'm going to devote this much time to a game. If Shadows was a light, fluffy, 15 minute game, I'd be happy with the number of decisions invloved. But, as a game that takes 1.5 hours to play, making four meaningful decisions the whole game just leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

I'll agree that this game was sort of fun the first time or two I played it, and that the game will probably appeal to a lot of people. I also agree with Mike, however, that this one will quickly wear out it's welcome after about 5 plays or so.

Chad's rating: 4/10

Off Topic:

A pleasure talking with you all on this Musings.

Mike, in relation to your question on Tom's recent blog: I thoroughly agree with his sentiments, and it's much the same tactic I take when reviewing.

Some games are broken, no question about it, and those I will harsh in a review. However, I entirely agree that there are many games that might be appreciated by different categories of people, and I do my best to highlight those, if I fall into the group (and think it was great) or if I don't (and was less enthusiastic).

Some philosopher once said that the job of a reviewer was to say what the creator attempted to do, then say how he succeeded at the goal, then say whether it was worth doing. No where does personal preference enter into that, and although it's a lot easier for me to review a game I really liked, even if I didn't like the game, I try and identify if that was personal preference, in which case someone else might like it, or if it was just a core problem with the game, in which case it probably wasn't worth doing.

Shannon: I can see Shadows dropping off over time too, but it hasn't happened for me yet, and the color & fun level both remain great. I expect this to remain high on my less-strategic playlist throughout the year, and it's the exact type of game that I'm more likely to play with less experienced gamers.

Thus far I think Days of Wonder has had an astounding record at producing games. Not only is this one no exception, but it's also not a carbon copy of their other successes, but rather a very different type of game.

I rate it an "8" out of "10" and am pretty sure it'll always be an above average game.

--

My Bio:

Shannon Appelcline is a game player, reviewer, and kibitzer. He's written over 200 reviews to date at RPGnet, and continues to add to them on a weekly basis. He was also a developer for the Mythos CCG, brokered the recent reprint of Arkham Horror, and is currently working on a few game designs of his own. Shannon's fondness for the Arthurian genre, demonstrated by his published Pendragon game books and the short story "Keystones", no doubt influences his continued enjoyment of Shadows over Camelot.

Shannon: I will agree with some of the concerns that other folks have had.

Chad is quite right, and the experience of Shadows for a new player can be daunting. I think the whole traitor mechanic doesn't work that well for a new player. My suggestion there is simply to have a new player always be loyal. Then he doesn't have to deal with figuring out how to be a good traitor with no experience (my concern), nor does he have to deal with being accused of the same (Chad's concern). This isn't elegant, nor does it work if you have more than one new player in the game, as that chances throwing the dynamics too far off, but it does solve the problem in most cases.

And, like Mike, I do have some concerns with the game's ultimate replayability. My brain says that this will get played out. However my actual gaming experience says that every game has continued to be great fun, and that's what I have to go with at this point.

I think that calling Shadows the same game as Werewolf is largely hyperbolic. There are actual game systems in Shadows and because of those game systems you have real basis to make decisions about other peoples' actions, something often missing in Werewolf. However I'd agree that if you don't like the style of play of Werewolf, you're at least somewhat less likely to like Shadows because they are kin.

This ain't Tigris & Euphrates, and that isn't a fault; they're just very different styles of games that will probably appeal to very different people.

Chad: I'll agree that arguing is great fun, but I can get into much better arguments by calling up my mom about coming to pick up all of my crap that I left at her house, or by belching in front of my girlfriend without saying "excuse me". From what I've heard from you guys so far, it seems to me that people enjoy the player interaction in this one much more than the actual gameplay, and the awesome bits and stunning presentation are what are getting people to buy it to start with. If not for the bits, this game would boil down to a game of Werewolf. This might partially explain why I didn't enjoy this game; I hate playing Werewolf!

Anyways, on to another problem I've noticed with this title, which is the introduction of newbies to the game. I can't imagine how frustrating and annoying it would be as a newbie at this game when playing with people that have already played Shadows. In all of the games I've played, the newbie rarely gets to make a decision of his own. All of the experienced players tell the newbie what to do, because they've played the game before and "know how to play the game" because of it. If the newbie listens, all of the fun is sucked out of the game for him since he doesn't get to make any decisions. If he doesn't listen, he is accused of being the traitor which will probably hurt everybody. Talk about a sucktastic game experience!

Shannon: I suppose the best way that I can explain why I like this game is to outline what excites me during a turn.

To start off with, there's a decision point as to what evil action to take. *This* is the important decision during an individual turn, not the putting down of another card. I constantly measure and second-guess this, based on whether I think there's a traitor in the game or not (as siege engines are a lot more dangerous with a traitor than without). If I decide upon a black card draw, there's a lot of tension here. Am I going to have something bad or something really bad happen?

The heroic part of my turn can be relatively set, but every three turns or so I feel like I have to make a decision as to what to do next.

Then, on other peoples' turns there's constant kibitzing as to what people should or shouldn't do. Compared to tactical games, which often have terrible downtimes, this is another place that the game really shines.

Finally, if I ever have a bit of breathing space where I'm not putting down my next card, not figuring out my next move, and not plotting with other players, my brain will wander as to who might or might not be a traitor in the current game, with a full accounting of their actions runing through my head.

With all that said, I can understand your not liking the game, but I think it has to do with what you're looking for. I came in looking for a social experience with great Arthurian color. I got it, and I assure you my speech is full of flowery prose when I play. It sounds like you're coming in wanting a deeper system, with more important decisions that you can personally make each turn, and by that criteria Shadows clearly fails.

Chad: Oh great! So I have to argue against two good reviewers, how fun!

Anyways, I see your point about the larger strategic decisions being made every four or five turns, but it still seems to me that I'm not doing a whole lot on my turn. Most of the time, I'm going to flip a black card, and then a play a card according to which quest I'm on. That's the majority of the game, outside of the large decisions that you refer to which only happen once every half hour or so. That means it takes a full half hour of fairly mundane turn-taking before you come to a point where the players need to make any meaningful decisions again. I feel like I'm being forced to watch the fight against the black knight frame-by-frame, rather than seeing any exciting action take place.

Even though I do agree that there are those grand strategic decisions to be made, they are entirely driven by the game, and not the actions of the players. If I draw a hand of grail cards, I'm most likely going to the grail to monotonously spend my next few turns there. It's not like I did anything to get good at grail-finding; the game simply handed my a hand of grail cards. In this way, it feels like the game is essentially playing itself.

Shannon: I've heard the complaint that there aren't a lot of decisions to be made on a turn, and I think that's because some people mistake what a turn is in Shadows over Camelot. You make decisions, but they're big things, what are usually termed strategic (as opposed to tactical) decisions. You discuss player's various strengths (within the limits of the game) and then you decide: Kay's going to fight the Black Knight, Arthur will continue the Grail Quest, etc. Afterward you have a few chances to play cards, and then because of your success or someone else's impending failure another big set of decisions comes along.

I think you could use Spades, Hearts, or most other traditional card games as a good analogy. Most of your turns are rote, but every three or four turns, as the overall picture slowly changes, you have to make some new plans. It's these meta-turns and their meta-decisions where the gameplay really occurs-in Shadows over Camelot, in Hearts, in Spades, and in a lot of other games.

Overall, through four games thus far, I've found Shadows to be great. It's got wonderful theming, wonderful production, enjoyable gameplay, good socialization, and great anxiety thanks to the traitor. I'd never call it the most strategic game I play, but it's definitely one of the most colorful with one of the most interesting social aspects.

Chad - I'll admit that I, as well, was initially very excited about Shadows over Camelot for all the reasons you mentioned, Tom. I have played and really enjoyed Days of Wonder's last few big box games, including TtR and Memoir '44, so another big hit was to be expected. Shadows over Camelot seemed as if it would continue in this lineage of rich theme, stunning production quality, and engaging gameplay. However, after a few plays I have to say I'm not very impressed. While they nailed the theme and production quality on the head, the gameplay is just plain boring. It seemed as if there were little to no decisions to be made on each of my turns, and that the game was essentially playing itself. I will agree with Tom about the traitor aspect being interesting, but rather than being the icing on the cake, it is Shadow's only saving grace. Even with all of the game's glitz and glamour, in the end, it just seemed like a complicated Werewolf variant.