THE LORD OF THE RINGS
"Gentlemen, here is the fantasy".
This could be the presentation for The Lord of the Rings. Many pages have been written about it and everything we can say has already been said in hundreds of tongues.
So I think it is possible to talk straight about the role games and – most of all – about the board games inspired by this saga.

As for the role games, it all began in 1984, with the publication of MIDDLE EARTH ROLE PLAYING (MERP) by Iron Crown Enterprises.
In 1993 the second edition was published, and has been published until their bankrupt in 2000 (today ICE brings on its activity under another property).
In 2002 Decipher published THE LORD OF THE RINGS ROLEPLAYING GAME.
Considering the huge market, thanks to the movies, very few has been published about this game, besides the base manual.

In Italy it was Stratelibri to publish in 1991 MERP with the title GIOCO DI RUOLO DEL SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI (GIRSA), while since 2003 25th Edition has published IL SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI - GIOCO DI RUOLO, adapting the Decipher products for the Italian market.

Talking about another genre, considering the high number of board games inspired by Tolkien’s book and the short space, we could have only made a list. So we decided to talk only about the products in Italian on market.

The first title of this list is LORD OF THE RINGS. Published in 2000, in its creative team there were Reiner Knizia (game design) and John Howe (artwork). Two expansions have been made for this game: FRIENDS & FOES (2001) and SAURON (2002). In Italy the game has been translated as IL SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI by Editrice Giochi, that has also published the expansion SAURON (while the publication of the other expansion hasn’t been projected yet).

IL SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI is a cooperative game for 2-5 players, each driving an Hobbit on his dangerous way from the Shire to Mount Doom.
The game is made of four scenarios (Moria, Helm’s Deep, Shelob’s Cave and Mordor) and takes place on two boards. The main one is made of the steps of the path and the Corruption Path, while on the second one there is the actual scenario through the alternation of the two sides of the double-faced board.
Object of the game is to destroy the ring, preventing the player who is carrying it from being corrupted by its power. It is a very good game that you appreciate more and more.
The first expansion presents two more scenarios (Bree and Isengard) and the second one allows another player to drive the Obscurity powers.

THE HOBBIT - THE DEFEAT OF THE EVIL DRAGON SMAUG by Michael Stern and Keith Meyers has been published in 2001 by Fantasy Flight Games. The Italian version is published by Nexus, that translated it with the title LO HOBBIT - LA SCONFITTA DEL MALVAGIO DRAGO SMAUG.
It is a path game, where 2-6 players act like Bilbo Baggins on his way from Hobbiville to the Solitary Mountain.
The funny part of the game is that, in order to win, you don’t have to finish the path, nor to defeat Smaug, but just to get 20 points, taking jewels and completing missions.
The game is strategically very simple and connected with luck, and probably that’s why many players didn’t like this product so much.
Actually the game is thought as the counterpart of a book that, far from the epic atmosphere of the main book, is good for kids, and, considering this point of view, it is indeed a good product.

LORD OF THE RINGS - THE CONFRONTATION, published in 2002 by Fantasy Flight Games, is another game by Reiner Knizia, illustrated by John Howe.
Nexus has got the Italian exclusive right, and published it as IL SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI - LA SFIDA.
The challenge is between two players, with rules like STRATEGO. The board is a rhomboid: at the corners there are Mordor and the Shire, in the middle the other lands that the Fellowship crosses. On this board every player puts nine characters from the trilogy.
Object of the good is to bring Frodo to Mordor, the bad have to kill him or bring four characters in the Shire. The main variants from the famous classic game are the special abilities that each character has and the possibility of changing the fighting values of each character through playing some cards.
In 2005 LORD OF THE RINGS - THE CONFRONTATION DELUXE EDITION was published; it was unpublished and contained all the elements of the base game, but larger (board and pawns) and added new characters with new artwork (pawns and cards).

LORD OF THE RINGS - THE DUEL is a game for two players by Peter Neugebauer, published in 2002 by Rio Grande Games and Kosmos, while the Italian edition, named IL SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI - IL DUELLO, is also by Nexus.
The players drive Gandalf and Balrog in their epic fight in the caves of Moria, in a game fundamentally played with cards. Every player has his own drawing rack and the game is made of four turns, at the end of each of them the winner moves his pawn one or more steps higher on the bridge (a cardboard structure to be fixed on the board). The player who gets to the top part or who gets higher on the bridge at the end of the four turns is the winner.
It is a very simple game as for rules and components, wonderfully illustrated by John Howe, but very good for players who don’t expect more than that.

For the last, but not least, game, we don’t have to go abroad, as it is an international Italian-born best-seller.
I am talking about LA GUERRA DELL'ANELLO by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, Francesco Nepitello (game design), John Howe (artwork) and Bob Naismith (sculpture), published by Nexus in 2004.
The components are very rich (204 miniatures and a 100x70 board) and the game, for 2-4 players, but better structured for 2, develops on two levels: on one side the war-game, with the fights of the armies of the Free People and of the Shadow, on the other side the route of the Fellowship towards the Doom Chasm to destroy the Ring, while Sauron is looking for it. There is this double aspect in the conditions for winning, too, as there are both for the armies and for the Ring.

Recently LA GUERRA DELL'ANELLO - BATTAGLIE DELLA TERZA ERA has been published, with the expansion CREPUSCOLO DELLA TERZA ERA, that introduces new units, characters, cards and a new rule set (Battaglie della Guerra dell’Anello), to recreate the siege to Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith (there is a new 50x70 double-faced board for this).
On the whole, it is the best game inspired by The Lord of the Rings produced in the last years, and a very good board game.
There are also some negative aspects. It is too long and complex for anyone who is not a hardcore gamer and it needs a lot of space to be played.

In the end it is definitely worth talking about another product, maybe less known, as it is not a classic game you can find in shops. The title is LA BATTAGLIA DEI CINQUE ESERCITI, a war-game on an hexagonal map for 2 players, ideated by brilliant Andrea Angiolino (it is his first published work), and developed by La voce del drago (1982), I Signori del Gioco and Q. It was then re-printed by the journal Kaos (number 50) in 1997.
As the title can easily remind to any fan, it is a game inspired by the last battle of The Hobbit, with the fight between men, dwarves and elves on one side and goblins and wolves on the other.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
For all the game fans, considering this term as vast as possible, there is no better known name than DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. It is the first and most famous RG ever, born in 1974, its creators being Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, who evolved the war-game with CHAINMAIL miniatures.
Also as for this game there would be too many things to say about the story of its publishing in the last 32 years, but there is not enough space, and there are so many sources for this information.
Let’s just skip to the board games inspired by D&D, considering that a selection has been made for this article, leaving out the games that can’t be exactly considered board games.

The first D&D game was published by Mattel in 1980, and its title was DUNGEONS & DRAGONS COMPUTER LABYRINTH GAME, but, in spite of the title, the PC was not involved; the name is due to the fact that the game is played on an electronic board.
Object of the game is to find the treasure and to carry it into the secret room (the starting point) before the opponents. You have to escape the attacks of a dragon running after the player who is carrying the treasure or the nearest one, and, once you get the treasure, you also have to escape your opponent’s attacks.
The map is randomly generated before every game and, every time you move your miniature, a sound reports the presence of doors, walls, the treasure or the dragon nearby.

In 1991 TSR published D&D TRIVIA GAME, a question game for 3-10 players, based on the core rulebooks of the 2nd edition (DUNGEON MASTER'S GUIDE, PLAYER'S HANDBOOK, MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM VOLUME I e II). Each player is a character or a monster, and can hurt the opponents’ characters or heal his answering the questions correctly.

DRAGON STRIKE, creato da Bruce Nesmith ed edito dalla TSR, è un gioco per 1-6 partecipanti. Fondamentalmente è uno dei tanti cloni di HERO QUEST che furono pubblicati in quegli anni, ma non mancano elementi di originalità.
Primo fra questi, anche se non direttamente utilizzato nel gioco, è una videocassetta che, in circa 30 minuti e utilizzando attori e computer grafica, introduce al gioco.
Viene poi data maggior varietà (più tabelloni, più magie, più personaggi, più tipi di dadi) ed introdotta la variabile tempo (se dopo un certo numero di turni non si è esaurito lo scopo dello scenario, arriva un drago ad incenerire tutto).

DRAGON STRIKE, by Bruce Nesmith, published by TSR, is a game for 1-6 players. It is one of the many clones of HERO QUEST published in those years, but it is also original. First of all, even if not used in the game, there is a videotape that introduces the game in about 30 minutes, using actors and computer graphics.
There is a great variety (more boards, more magic, more characters, more dices) and there is the new element of time (if after a given number of turns the scenario is not finished, a dragon destroys it).

“Who killed the archmage?”. Players (3 to 6) involved in CLUE - DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS (2001) have to answer this question. It is a fantasy version of the game known as Cluedo. The editor is USAopoly and the game is new in components, but largely identical in the rules. The only new element is the presence of a talon in some corridors. When a player goes on it, it means he has just met a monster, that, if defeated, gives a magical object that allows that player to use a special ability once in the game.

The most recent D&D board game is DUNGEONS & DRAGONS - THE FANTASY ADVENTURE BOARD GAME, published in 2002 by Hasbro and Parker Brothers.
This game too is a clone of the famous HERO QUEST, that has had a good success, even if it had no new element compared with the many similar titles of that period.
This brought to the publication of two expansions in 2004 and 2005: ETERNAL WINTER and FORBIDDEN FOREST. This means that the dungeon crawl genre is always modern, especially if a Master is involved, like in RG.
This game and its expansions have been also published in Italian by Hasbro Italy, with the titles: DUNGEONS & DRAGONS - UN'AVVENTURA FANTASY, LA FORESTA PROIBITA and L'INVERNO ETERNO.