Tales of the Arabian Nights - Review

I recently picked up Tales of the Arabian Nights from ZMan Games originally released in 1985 and remade in 2009.  In it you assume the role of one of several famous characters from various Arabian lore, such as Aladdin or Sinbad.  You trek across the Middle East, exploring landscapes and cities, and encountering challenges along the way.  The first player to come up with their victory condition, a combination of Story points and Destiny points that they determined before starting play, and end their turn in Baghdad wins.

But first, the unboxing

Opening up the plastic cellophane revealed a high quality box.  The cardboard is thick and laminated over the illustrations.  It's pretty, and it's heavy.  The game easily weighs a few pounds, but you'll understand why after you unpack the box.

More prettiness

Inside you'll find a well made board, a few sealed decks of cards, placards for up to six players, dice, and several sheets of punch out chits.  You'll also, of course, have a rules manual, a codex, and the Book of Tales, the real heart of the game.  You see, the encounters you face are fairly random in their nature.  The book contains over 2000 paragraphs of text detailing what happens during any particular encounter, sometimes branching beyond their own section to offer choices to the players.

This is a bit more than 1001 Adventures

As an added bonus, they included plastic bags to keep each characters tokens separate for easy distribution and cleanup.  I did have to supply one Ziplock bag myself for skills, but otherwise was very happy with everything included.

Not enough games offer enough storage for everything they come with

Our first game consisted of six players, the maximum available, and the box read that a game should take 2 - 3 hours.  This estimate is grossly incorrect, as with six players it took us six hours to play through.  A second game of two lasted two and a half, so they really need to make an adjustment on game length here.

After we all selected our characters, we decided on a random distribution of skills.  Since we didn't know what we were facing, or what skills could be useful, we thought this would be the easiest way to get acquainted with the game.  Little did we know how much we would be using Courtly Graces and Enduring Hardship, two options that came up for us more than any other in our games.  The game doesn't even attempt to explain what skills are used for what, they're just sort of there and you're left to your own devices to try to figure out what actions you should be trying while having the skill of Storytelling.

The stories were a LOT of fun.  In one encounter, one of the players stumbled over Local Customs, and decided he would use the Honor action, leading him to potentially getting married, but Local Customs dictated that when their spouse dies, they are buried alive with them.  He decided to go for it, and sure enough, his wife died.  Instead of accepting fate, he tried to flee, but since he didn't have the right skills, he was caught, wounded, and buried.  A week later another couple we buried with them, but the alive spouse would not share their provisions, so he finally passed out from exhaustion.  Fortunately, a grave robber dug him out and left him for dead, but gave him the opportunity to escape, inflicting him with more unfortunate statuses.

Our typical Board State

Statuses are effects that are imposed onto your character, some good, mostly bad.  Some, like insane (an effect where the other players decide your actions), made for hilarious storytelling, such as the time somebody encountered Holy Flame, and was directed to Drink It.  Others, like Grief Stricken (unable to use any skills) are just brutal, especially when two of the players managed to get it within just a few turns.  Top that with being thrown in jail and not use your skills to get out leads to some frustrating hours of game play.

From what I have read over at the BoardGameGeek.com forums, the original printing of the rules had it where you would only have one status at a time.  This makes much much more sense to me, and I would encourage using that as a rule instead of allowing five or six bad statuses pile up all at once (one player was unable to choose where they were going, what they were rolling, or what options they would take for several turns).  This should cut down the game length significantly, as well.

Putting the problem with statuses aside, this is a very entertaining, very well made game. If you like the Choose Your Adventure type of game play, and are looking for something epic and adventuresome, I highly recommend checking this one out with your friends.  Just be careful what skills you pick, I hear there's some Hardships you might have to Endure out there in the desert sands.