| User | Rating | Min. Age | Adults Too | Comment |
| Mark | 9 | 12 | Yes | Great exercise in cooperation. Too hard for younger kids, unless they don't mind not participating fully in the decisions. |
| basl | 8 | 12 | Yes | |
| erik2point0 | 8 | 10 | Yes | My 10 year old BEGS to play this game. He doesn't have any problems playing at all. My 8 year old also really likes the game, and the cooperative nature makes it easy to talk through if he is unsure. He has never drawn the traitor card though, and I am not sure he could handle it. |
| pikkusiili2000 | 8 | 10 | Yes | Since it is cooperative, you can help coach the kids through their turns. |
| shawndumas | 8 | 12 | Yes | Good game for pre-teens and teens. No half naked women, gore, cursing, very slight morbidity. |
| The Unbeliever | 8 | 12 | Yes | Cooperative game. |
| corross | 7 | 8 | Yes | I recently played this game with my two children (ages nearly-8 and 5.5), and we loved it. The big plus was that it was cooperative -- my children (due to age, temperament or both) tend not to be enthused about games with a take that element, so working together for a common goal was really fun.
Another thing we loved about the game was the narrative element -- I thought it did a wonderful job of tracking the LOTR story line and feeling like an epic journey (resources handed out early, challenges growing progressively tougher, etc.) My kids know The Hobbit and have heard snippets of LOTR, and we treated the game as a quasi-role-playing experience, which added to the fun.
I think that most younger elementary-aged children would not be to play this independently, and if I were rating on that basis I would put a minimum age of 10-12. With at least one adult/teen involved, though, I think that younger children are fully capable of participating and enjoying this.
My kids are I are enthused about playing this again soon . . . if repeated plays change my views, I'll come back and revise them. |
| Yollege | 7 | 8 | Yes | I tried it with my 5 and 9 yr olds one night. I figured a co-op game would work well. My 9 yr old had no trouble (but he had played it before with me) and we talked the 5 yr old through her turns...
I'm not sure if it was who we had playing, or the fact that what could possibly go bad did, but we didn't even make it to the third board. We had fun, but I think it would work best with older kids :). |
| Thommy8 | 6 | 12 | Some | |
| reapersaurus | 5 | 12 | Yes | This is not a good game for kids, 14 and under.
There are hundreds of games here that would be better.
That said, LotR is a good cooperation game, for adults (and mid-older teens) who like non-standard gameplay and enjoy the theme/story. |