Tales of Arabian Nights Board Game Review
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Tales of Arabian Nights awaits you with adventures, quests for glory and funny situations. You will wander through magical lands, meet sultans and beggars, and sometimes thieves. Difficult tests of your skills await you, because the goal is to build your destiny with your own hands and bring the story of the greatest adventure to the Book of the Arabian Nights.
COMPONENTS
Among the components of the game, the Book of Stories immediately draws attention to itself, which looks like ancient game books. This fat volume weighs perhaps 75 percent of the total volume of the game. Its constant and important companion is the table of reactions.
Also in the box are 4 decks of cards (encounters, treasures, statuses and quests), reference sheets, skill tokens, fate and glory point markers, 3 time of day tokens and a playing field. Plus cardboard characters for each of the players (up to 6), wealth tokens, origins, objectives and a character sheet. And three cubes: one is a fate cube, the other two are ordinary cubes.
The illustrations are very beautiful, the quality of the components does not cause complaints, except for the slightly curved field.
GOAL OF THE GAME
The real goal of the game is to immerse yourself in the story of your adventures, but there is a formal winner: the first person to complete their goal by accumulating both fate and glory points in a certain amount, and then return to Baghdad, wins.
PREPARATION FOR THE GAME
The game unfolds quite quickly and simply. Everyone takes their character sheet, matching markers, and a cardboard figure and places it in Baghdad, and the Wealth, Fame, and Fortune markers on the starting divisions on the track to the side of the playing field.
After that, everyone draws a quest card. All of them are different and require the fulfillment of certain conditions. For example, visit certain places, learn certain skills, or return home after being enslaved. Completing quests rewards fame and fortune, and sometimes wealth or skills.
Then decks of encounter, treasure, quest, and status cards are placed next to the field. It is better to arrange the latter in alphabetical order face up in order to find the ones you need faster. A morning marker is placed next to the encounter deck.
The players then take turns secretly choosing how many Fame and Fate points they need to win (the total is always the same), and take and place the corresponding tokens under the character sheet.
Then a roll of dice determines who goes first.
Finally, starting skills are chosen: 3 talents for each player. Skills are two-sided: on the one hand, it's just a talent for something, on the other hand, it's mastery in something.
GAME PROCESS
The course is divided into 6 phases:
- Books of stories.
- Activating treasure and status effects.
- Moving the character.
- A character's meeting with someone.
- Playing cards and fulfilling the conditions of quests.
- Activation of the winning condition.
More details:
1) The story book is passed to the player on the left, and the reaction table is passed to the player on the right. One will read the paragraphs describing the meeting and its outcome, and the other will look in the table for the paragraph that corresponds to the chosen action for that meeting.
2) Many treasure and status cards have special effects that affect before the start of your turn. For example, which allow additional movement or open access to a special location.
3) The character's movement speed depends on your wealth and whether you are traveling on water or land. You can move to the maximum, to a part of the speed or to stay in place altogether.
There are ten special locations on the map that can only be accessed through certain encounters. In this case, a goal marker is placed there and you can enter it while moving.
4) After movement, the meeting card is drawn (or immediately go to the corresponding paragraph, if you are in a special place). There are three types of them: characters, terrain and city. They show who or what you have met. All but city cards are reset at the end of the encounter phase.
If a character card is drawn, you see what time of day it is now, after which your neighbor reads a paragraph from the Storybook corresponding to the time of day and the character.
If a terrain map is drawn, the choice of paragraph depends on the terrain where the character is standing; brown - mountains, blue - seas, gold - deserts, green - forests, and blue-green - islands.
If a city map is drawn, then before the actual meeting — the paragraph printed at the bottom of the city map — you roll a die and receive one of the bonuses listed on the map. Sometimes city meetings turn into a meeting with a certain character.
As for special places, they do not have their own cards; the paragraph number is printed right in the margin.
The process of playing out an encounter is divided into four stages: finding out who or what your character encountered, choosing a reaction, determining the effect of fate, and resolving the encounter.
First, your neighbor looks at the encounter table and determines with a die roll (plus the number printed on the location or city where the character is located, plus 1-2 from the fate die) exactly which ifrit you met, for example: vengeful, sad, etc.
The player then decides how to react. The person reading the reaction table looks at the letter of the alphabet that corresponds to the adjective describing your encounter, which reaction options you have. After that, the storyteller reading the Book finds the corresponding paragraph.
For each reaction option, there are three possible outcomes—three adjacent paragraphs. After rolling the dice of fate, which can give 0, +1 or -1, the corresponding paragraph is read. Thus, even encountering the exact same creature as before and reacting in the same way can result in a different outcome.
At the end of each paragraph, a code notation like [D1 / S2 / W+1(Max: Respectable) / Wisdom / Respected] describes how many points of fate, fame and wealth, as well as what skills (if any, the talent turns into a workshop possessions) or statuses gained or lost by a player. There are various statuses, both useful and not very useful. For example, with the "madness" status, another player decides for you how you will react to encounters. Players can also receive random or specific treasure cards or some special effect from the encounter.
It's also worth noting that the outcome of the encounter differs depending on whether you have a certain skill (which can be applied or not applied at will before you know the result), status, treasure, etc. Generally, applying a skill leads to a more profitable result.
Sometimes it happens that the character dies. But that's the end of the game; in this case, the player takes the brother or sister of the deceased and begins the journey again in Baghdad - keeping, however, the glasses of glory and fate.
END OF THE GAME
When someone has accumulated enough fame and fortune to fulfill their secret goal and reaches Baghdad, they declare victory. After that, it's up to the others to complete their goals and return to Baghdad. One of the potential winners with more total points wins.
IMPRESSION
Tales of the Arabian Nights is definitely not a thoughtful game; what happens to you is mostly out of your control (or completely out of your control if you go crazy). The essence of the game is to listen to the adventures of the characters that are formed during the game. I had a lot of funny and memorable stories. Who wins is essentially irrelevant; the main thing is laughter, smiles and friendly shaking of heads when someone's character goes to jail again (like me for six turns in a row).
As an option, you can use the home rule "you can have no more than one status at the same time"; with it, the game runs faster and smoother - there is no need to keep in mind the effects of five statuses in addition to your goal.
Even in the game, IMHO, playing your character is welcome; For example, Sinbad should fight (attack) more often than steal, and Scheherazade should prefer conversations to fights. Getting used to the role of your character is easy and interesting.
By default, the game is designed for a large number of participants, but it works great for two. It is simple, so even people who are unfamiliar with tabletops can easily join the process. So come quickly to the glorious city of Baghdad, good traveler, and enjoy the Arabian nights.
