In the age of collectible trading card games, it's sometimes seemed that self-contained card games have suffered. Illuminati went out of print to make way for a collectible trading card version. Who knows what other collectible games were originally conceived as stand-alone? For that reason, it was exciting to see Gamewright's Quests of the Round Table, billed as an adventure card game. Unfortunately, although this game is more sophisticated than the rest of Gamewright's line (including Frog Juice, Mummy Rummy and Slamwich, based on Casino, Rummy, and Slapjack), its flaws make it unlikely to appeal to serious players.
The game comes with two decks of cards. The story deck determines what happens on each player's turn— a quest, a tournament, or a special event. The adventure deck holds the allies, foes, weapons, tests, and amour cards which get dealt and drawn into players' hands. Players begin the game as squires with a lowly battle strength of five and, by earning shields, try to be the first to progress through knight and champion knight to become a knight of the round table.
On her turn, a player turns up the top card in the story deck and shows it to all players. If it is a quest, that player has the opportunity to sponsor it— to create the obstacles other players will have to overcome. Each quest consists of two to five stages. To sponsor a quest, a player must populate each stage with a foe or a test from his hand. These cards are played in a row face down on the table. Each foe has a value indicating its strength in battle. Some foes have two values. If these foes are used in the appropriate quest (ie, the dragon in the Slay the Dragon quest) their higher value counts. Weapons can be played to augment a foe's strength. The total strength of foes in each stage must be higher than in the previous stage, so as the quest unfolds players can get an idea of what they might be facing.
When the quest has been created, the other players in turn announce whether or not they're going on the quest. Those who do draw a card. This is actually a non-decision— there's no penalty for trying a quest and losing, and you always want to draw new cards to try to improve your hand. As far as we can tell, there's no reason to stay home from a quest, and it seems silly to offer a choice.
Players now have the opportunity to augment their own strength by playing weapons, allies, or amour cards. Weapons are discarded after each stage of a quest. Amour cards place the power of love on a player's side, which in this game is worth a mere ten points, and last the entire quest. Allies lend their arms in battle and only get discarded if targeted by Morded (more on him later) or recalled to Camelot by an event card. When all players have played their cards (or elected not to play any), the sponsor reveals the cards in the first stage. Any players whose strength (including all bonus cards) is less than the total strength of the revealed foe is knocked out of the quest. Anyone still remaining draws another card from the adventure deck. All weapons are discarded, and players move on to the next stage.
If a stage contains a test, the procedure is a little different. Players in turn bid for the right to continue on the quest. Whoever makes the highest bid must discard that number of cards from their hand. Amour cards and some allies contribute free bids, reducing the number of cards which need to be discarded. Only one player can ever continue from a test stage, leading one to ponder the best time to play them. Played early in a quest, more players get knocked out and are prevented from drawing new cards at the start of each future stage. Played late, players will have gone through a few other stages and may have used up their good weapons, leaving them weaker for future contests. Again, however, we found this choice to be illusory. It's always a bad idea to let opponents draw cards. Playing a test first seems the best approach. If you think opponents have good weapons and you want to get rid of them, invariably they just draw more.
All players who make it through the last stage are triumphant and earn one shield for each stage in the quest. This may allow a player to advance to the next rank, increasing their battle strength. The sponsor gets to draw new cards from the adventure deck— one for each card they used to set up the quest, plus one for each stage in the quest. A player can never hold more than 12 cards, and any excess must be played or dropped.
If quests represent the battle of man versus nature, tournments pit man against man. When a tournment arises, each player in turn announces whether or not they're competing, drawing a card if they are. Unlike quests, there is a very good reason not to compete if you don't think you can win: the winner earns one shield per participant. If only 0-1 players compete, the tournament is cancelled.
Players joust by laying cards just as in quests, adding weapons, amour, and allies to their totals with the highest total winning. Cards are played simultaneously, so you have to decide ahead of time how much of your resources to commit. I'm not sure which is more frustrating: riding into a tournment on a war horse, sword and lance in hand, an entourage of allies at your heels only to find your opponents alone and unarmed, or leaving your dagger behind and losing by just five points.
The story deck also holds event cards, and these are where the game really goes awry. Events are random effects which cause subtle yet dramatic changes in the game's balance. Events can double the payoff for the next completed quest, cause players to draw or drop cards, send allies away, or add or remove shields. The cards sending allies away are needed— the only other way to get rid of someone's ally is to use Morded, a foe of strength 30 who can instead be sacrificed to kill any ally in play. Other events, however, tend to throw the game off kilter. The shield-related events are particularly guilty. It is extremely dismaying to use your resources to beat an opponent in a tournment, then have that opponent get some shields for free. Most such cards are designed to help players who are trailing, but players are often tied. Would you be happy if you were winning until the other three players, all tied, gained shields from an event card and left you in last place?
Another problem we encountered was the Mexican standoff. In one game, everyone was only a couple of shields away from winning. Nobody was willing to sponsor a quest, afraid that their hands weren't good enough to prevent opponents from winning. Nobody wanted to enter a tournament for the same reason. If nobody sponsors quests and nobody enters tournaments, nobody draws cards unless the right events come up in the deck— and there aren't very many of those. That game ended via one of the other event cards, which gave one player enough free shields to win. We could have just rolled dice at the beginning of the game and saved an hour.
What it boils down to is, despite the obvious attempt to incorporate bluffing and psych games via card choices, Quests of the Round Table is feels pretty random. If you get a bad hand, you can only improve it slowly by drawing your free card at the start of quests, or quickly by hosting a quest other players will probably complete and earn shields from. The art is quite attractive, but there's no beef. The game may be too complicated for the family crowd and it's certainly not meaty enough for serious players. In the end, Gamewright gets an A for effort but a C for execution. I'd play Quests of the Round Table again, but there are plenty of other games I'd pull of the shelf first.