Oath Review: A Sprawling, Ambitious Game That's Not For Everyone

[@mrp4242]

I was excited to get Oath, and gifted it to my Daughter for Christmas. It is beautiful, and there’s enough elements here to ponder over. That said, it has been onerous to get to the table. We played the first game, with the instruction manual, with one of the players being my youngest son, who is 10. Took us several days to get through it, as we paused after every few rounds or so. My youngest son has played several games with me, like Root, A Feast for Odin, Terraforming Mars and others, and he’s fine with this one, but likes to take breaks from it. We left it set up on the game table. My daughter plays complex games all the time, ranging from TI4, Dominant Species and War of the Ring…and she was a smidge glossy eyed with it. I think the game has good potential, but its lack of accessibility may keep it from getting to the table very often. I am not only unsure if this game’s staying power at our house, I’m worried it will collect dust and be a wasted opportunity. I still hold out hope.

[@mrp4242]

13:22 I agree. I tend to use the word ‘feature’ rather than flaw or problem. I may not like a game’s ‘feature’ because it’s not my thing. ‘Flaw’ or ‘Problem’ insinuate that it’s the game’s issue. Like break-ups: It’s not you, it’s me!

[@chrisdunn6096]

Great review and discussion! It mirrored our group's reaction exactly. 1/2 hated it, 1/2 loved. All agreed it was a great game, but only 2 players want to play it. And so, it languishes on the shelf, full of promise and variety and wonder. (Did I mention I was on the "pro" side in the debate?) The game it most closely resembles for me is Vampire Masquerade: Heritage, wherein the choices you make about clan affiliations and which vampires to promote to ancilla shape the world that you and your rivals will be playing in for all future games. The thing, I think, which cause many players to disconnect from such games is the purpose. It is no longer winning-vs-losing, but more watching the world develop based on your choices, victories and even failures. You can't really "lose" oath. You'll be in the next game, perhaps out living with nomads in the outlands throwing stones at the new chancellor, shaping the path of the campaign and perhaps ascending to the thankless job of trying to rule OR you'll "win" and have to struggle to hold together all you previously built. Eventually, you realize Oath isn't about you. It isn't about your times on top and your times under the heel. It is, what it says it is. Chronicles of Empire and Exile. Chancellors come and go. The Empire is eternal!

[@RollforCrit]

Beautifully put!

[@tyasbank]

It's too bad! I was so hoping for a legacy-like game that doesn't have kingmaking in it. My gaming group is very competitive, backstabby and cutthroat. I love that group because the tension is always high and it's kinda fun to screw someone over and we expect it from eachother so we do not get too salty. Games that work well for this group are games that reward individual competence, cater to different playstyle/allows for individuals to craft their faction/characters and still allow people who are not playing perfectly to do come-backs and influence the board. They don't need to win, just to feel like they matter. From what I read in these reviews my group would not be able to just play for the story and would get frustrated min-maxing the thing. Do you or @Roll For Crit know of any good legacy games suitable? We already love wargames such as Twilight Imperium, Root and Civ. I have been thinking about getting the Remastered Dune boardgame but I kind of want to balance war and story more. @UCN8P_-_oxHxcx6c45Pndnpg

[@elmeeplezombie]

I got my copy of Oath a few weeks ago, took me forever to descide to acquire it because I saw so many bad reviews and people complaining about how King making is a thing in this game, but, the more I read about the game and actually downloaded the game rules from Leder games site, I realized that the game is not complicated, I have a gaming group nd I think we have gather for more than 25 years.... and after playing so many games we developed this mechanic of always trying to stop the player that is wining... so bad that sometimes a player wins because everyone elses just ran out of cards/resources to stop him... so King Making is part of Our culture I guess... About trying to fit this game in a category... well I see it like a Le Havre Game where you interact with several buildings (Denizen) that belong to you or the board, but you have several ways to end the game with the several win conditions... maybe im wrong but thats how I feel this game is... and as Le Havre and games a like the hard part is to actually remember what all denizens do in order to get the maximum beneft from it.. Anyway... Great review as always guys I love you channel!

[@Latronibus]

The kingmaking "problem" in Oath has to do with people having nothing to do to advance their own interest. Games often end up with a situation where the players have just three choices. You can chase the leader to drag the game out, hoping to come up with a way to turn the game around with more time. You can just ignore the fact that if no one intervenes this round then you will lose, hoping someone else will take care of it, or even just accepting that you've lost and using this moment to establish that people can't punt problems to you in future games. Or you can contribute to deciding who wins among people who aren't you. None of those are very satisfying. You would hope that a game with this sort of chronicle system would have something for you to do to engage with that instead of trying to win, but Oath doesn't really have that. It technically does have that: you can always take a site from the leader and then it'll be gone next game. But it realistically doesn't, because there's no real reason to prefer one way or the other whether a site survives. There's a variant on BGG called Suit Wars that attempts to address this "the chronicle doesn't really matter" vibe.