Let me tell you a story.

I was board games camping (yes, that’s a thing) with a slew of friends, and five of us decided to play TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS after dinner. By the dim light of a lantern, we delved into the Book of Stories: drinking, laughing, shrieking with delight and wailing in sorrow as we swerved our way through the seemingly endless paths that our choices led and our destinies dragged us – a world filled with magic, disguises, tribulations, victories, and mystical unknowns. More than once, other campers wandered by asking “What on earth are you people playing? I’ve never heard anyone have this much fun with a board game.” When we finally pulled away for a moment, we realized that five hours had passed.

Not one of us cared. We ended the game just so we could sleep. Nobody had won and still, nobody minded. We simply wandered our separate ways into the night to bunk under the stars and play something else in the morning. And let me tell you, this was not the first time that has happened.

Arabian Nights is, and I suspect always will be, unquestionably, My Favoritest Game Ever. It has raised the bar so high that the bar can no longer be seen. You’d need NASA to find it for you. Now, I was raised on Choose Your Own Adventure books and D&D. The imagination is my natural playground, and believe me this game feeds every adventurer’s fiery need to explore the vast world around her and all its many treasures. And yet, I’ve played this game with friends and relatives who have vastly different upbringings and game experience, and without exception all have enjoyed it. Until my father discovered Dominion, Arabian Nights was our family game. (To be fair, Dominion is excellent, it’s just not story-driven like Nights, and I love stories.)

All right, I’ve talked your ear off enough. How do you play?

GAMEPLAY

The board is a map, stretching from Western Europe to the far Eastern “Sea of Darkness” (the Pacific) and down into Africa. Each player chooses or draws a Quest and three special skills, such as Weapon Use, Acting & Disguise, or Magic. This is your character. The rest of your story is created by your choices. Your Quest will sometimes lead you toward a specific location, but fairly often you just choose a direction and forge a path of your own, allowing the fates to reward or punish you. Each turn you encounter… SOMEthing. It could be a hunchback, or an Efreeteh (fire demoness), a mysterious artifact, or one of SO many bizarre or mundane things. Then, you are given a choice of actions. Your choice, plus a roll of the die, plus the skills your character has, determines which of the 2000+ miniature stories in the Book of Tales is the next step in your journey. The possibilities are frankly too numerous and varied and wonderful to describe. Suffice it to say, you would have to play for months uninterrupted to possibly encounter all of them, and even then I’d wager you’d have missed a few.

According to the rules, you’re supposed to gain a certain number of Destiny and Story points out on your adventures before returning to Baghdad and winning the game, but honestly, shut up. No one gives a damn about your silly “winning conditions.” We all know that’s in there just so people who have to work in the morning have a reason to stop playing. We all know exactly what would happen if we were left to our own devices. We all know that you’re looking out for our safety, but kindly go away right now, I’ve just encountered an Impudent Hag and I’m trying to decide whether to Enrich her, to Hire her, or just Avoid her, and NO I am not going to Beat her, I don’t care that it’s an option because she could easily be a princess in disguise and that would be an obvious misstep on a moral level, not to mention a tactical one. I HAVE PLAYED THIS GAME AND I KNOW THE RISKS, DAMMIT!

Emotional outbursts aside, this is an astounding game. There are only two valid complaints I have heard. One: Heavy reading. Yes, this is a story game, and you’ll want to bust out your bifocals. Two: The results of your choices are TOO random – sometimes they don’t at all match the outcome one would expect, given the circumstances. You might do exactly what you feel is right and just and holy and find yourself brutally punished. On the other hand, you could behave as a ruthless, amoral, bloodthirsty marauder and end up rewarded beyond imagination. You can’t control the outcome in Arabian Nights, because you can’t know what will happen in response to your choices, and YES! The people who voice that concern are absolutely right! This is inescapably true, and no matter what you do or whose side you take or what goals you pursue, the game can easily swoop in and do whatever it wants, regardless of your hopes, or dreams, or expectations.

Sounds a little bit familiar, doesn’t it? Perhaps a bit too familiar?

That is exactly why there is no possible way I can overstate how utterly, unspeakably perfect this game is. Tales of the Arabian Nights is, quite simply, everything.

11 out of 5. Yeah, that’s what I said.

Get this game. Right Now.

 

KAIBOT HOUSE RULES:

  1. For the first several games, don’t use the written rules on setting the winning goals. Instead, make the goals 7 Story points and 7 Destiny. Two reasons: Keeping players’ goals a secret doesn’t really affect the game, and shaving off just a few points from the those in the rules can keep the game from feeling too long.
  2. When drawing Quest cards for the first game, it’s best if everyone has a Quest that involves a particular destination (which is set by other players). Some of the Quests encourage random exploring, which is completely fine. However, beginner players may feel this is aimless wandering, and therefore a less balanced game than one with specific targets.
  3. There are time tokens: Morning, Midday, and Night. These are supposed to rotate every round, but it’s just easier to rotate them whenever you draw an Encounter card that uses them. If you rotate them every round, it’s just one more thing to keep track of, and nobody ever wants more of those.

Enjoy Arabian Nights! Tell me about your favorite encounters in the comments!