Where the board game meets the table - the world of Root

On a board game table lies a forest full of animals at war. Cats occupying the woods, birds wanting their old empire back, a rebellion bubbling up from the clearings. You do not control a character, you control a whole faction, from above, like a commander shifting armies. This is Root, and it is one of the finest strategy board games of recent years.

And yet there is one figure in that forest unlike the rest. Not an army, but a single soul. The Vagabond, the wanderer who moves between the factions and belongs to none. There is a roleplaying game that takes exactly that one figure and builds a whole world out of it.

From board to forest

The board game Root appeared in 2018 from Leder Games, designed by Cole Wehrle. It was praised for something unusual: each faction plays completely differently, as if four people were playing four different games on the same board. The cats build and produce, the birds follow a growing decree of orders, the rebellion smoulders and erupts. And then there is the Vagabond: not a faction, but a loose adventurer who runs errands, trades, and sabotages, binding themselves to no one for good.

In 2019, the publisher Magpie Games took precisely that figure as the starting point for a roleplaying game. Root: The Roleplaying Game appeared through Kickstarter, where over six thousand people together raised more than six hundred thousand dollars. The invention lies in the choice. Where the board game has you steer whole factions, the roleplaying game has you play that single outsider. Surveying the board from above became: standing in the middle of it, with a name, a reputation, and something to lose.

What the board game and the roleplaying game share

Beneath both lies the same world: a forest in a state of war, in which no side is wholly right or wrong. In the board game you feel that as tension between players. In the roleplaying game you feel it as tension within yourself, because you must choose whom to walk with, and every choice has a price.

That sits in the rules. Root: The Roleplaying Game runs on Powered by the Apocalypse, the system we met in the history series as the engine behind a whole generation of narrative games. You roll two six-sided dice, and the interesting outcome is not success or failure, but the middle ground: you get what you want, but a complication comes with it. On top of that, the game tracks your reputation with each faction. Help the birds, and the cats remember it. You are not a hero without consequences, you are a wanderer who leaves traces everywhere.

So the roleplaying game translates the heart of the board game into something personal. The board game is about who controls the forest. The roleplaying game is about what it is like to be small in a large conflict, and to matter anyway. The mood is that of Redwall or Watership Down: cute animals, but a world that is anything but sweet.

Where it grinds

Honesty first: the bond with the board game is looser than it looks. Several reviewers note that beneath the fur you really find a solid fantasy roleplaying game, in which the characters happen to be animals. Anyone who plays the board game for its sharp faction struggle will not find that fight here in the same way, because you play precisely the figure who stands outside it.

And the book is wordy. Where Powered by the Apocalypse is known for light, fast rules, Root piles more on top: wear on your equipment, separate tracks for exhaustion and injury, and a reputation system that is not always clearly explained. There is much that is good in it, but it takes patience to fish it out of the book. Anyone who wants a game they can explain in ten minutes may stumble here.

Who should try this

If you have ever played a board game and wondered what it would be like to truly be one of those little pieces on the board, you already understand Root. Where the earlier pieces in this series set a game beside a book, a record, a drawing, or a film, this one does something different: it sets a roleplaying game beside the board game it grew out of, and shows how you turn a commander into a wanderer. Open the book, choose your Vagabond, and step into the forest from the ground.

The board remains the same forest. You simply no longer look at it from above, but from below, where it is dangerous, and where the story lives.

Root is a forest at war, all conflict and choice. The next piece trades the battlefield for a language, and asks what it means to understand: where language meets the table.