Reddit mentions of Tales of the Arabian Nights

You're welcome to your opinion and can easily down vote this post since you don't think it's worth letting others know, but I've had a price alert on Amazon for this game since Sept 2013. It's the first time since then it's been this cheap. I wouldn't call that every day pricing.

Edit: http://camelcamelcamel.com/Tales-Of-The-Arabian-Nights/product/B002HU4YXA?context=browse

If he really likes abstract strategy games, you can check out the following:

Go - The obvious answer. It's been around longer than chess and is just as awesome. You can get a set for $18 on Amazon.

The Duke - Chess with a twist. I've never played it but I've heard nothing but good things. $35 on Amazon

If you want more of a traditional board game:

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - A classic and great game. Very easy to learn, and you get to make wonky castles. $38 on Amazon

7 Wonders - This game plays up to 7 players and its also easy to learn. A full game takes 30 minutes or less, but still offers some good strategic decisions. Looks like it's out of stock on Amazon right now. You may be able to find it at Target. It should only be $20-25.


Tales of the Arabian Nights - A super fun storytelling game. Plays up to 6. $45 on Amazon


Forbidden Desert - A cooperative game about trying to survive being stranded in a desert. $20 on Amazon


These are just my recommendations. There are so many good choices, but all of these are solid games. Good luck!

I spent a fun couple of hours playing this gane with a friend from work tonight. I've had dinner and I'm settling in for an evening of Reddit and Ru Paul's Drag Race.

How's the new house?

Laser Kittens has an approach that might work, though it is not strictly 'no-GM'. The game has a mechanic for rotating out GMs each scene. The GM is responsible for setting up the premise of the new scene, playing any NPCs, describing the results of any failed PC actions, and ending the scene. Next scene someone else gets the opportunity to run through that.

The next thing is more board game than RPG, but is still pretty close. Tales of the Arabian Nights has you roll for an encounter each turn, while someone else reads out of the story book, presents your options, and reads the consequences. When the player ends his turn he gets the storybook.

One of the mechanics from FATE is a step in the direction you want. Players can make skill rolls to declare that something is true about a character or a scene. Expanding that concept a little may be enough to get you close to where you want.

Regarding encounters, various board games run D&D like games without a DM. Each monster in the adventure has a set of rules governing it's behavior. You follow the rules and have no problems with issues of impartiality. One of the Ravenloft board games had a set of two or three rules on the card for the monster. Kingdom Death: Monster uses a deck built for the monster that has the actions the monster takes, including how to prioritize targets.

Dungeon World has a large focus on the mechanics following the fiction, and should be very easy to pass the DM duty around the table. You could also create a table of events that happen in your world to roll against at the start of each session, just to shake everyone up.

Regarding the party being split into two at cross purposes, it is beginning to sound like you want to look at rules for wargames and boardgames. Not many RPGs are really built with a head to head mentality in mind. That is a situation that is best ran with a neutral arbitrator to handle how the parties interact and handle any hidden information. That brings you back to playing GM instead of playing a party member. To be honest, some times wargames that are built to be played head to head are still better with a neutral third party. let us know how you manage to balance this all out.

This board game, Tales of the Arabian Nights is one of my favorite board games, and is played in a splendid choose your own adventure style.

It's definitely a board game and not quite a tabletop rpg. Halfway between a board game and a text adventure computer game, but with 2 or 3 people playing at once.