Orderly Despot. Jimmy Carter. God of War. Exploding Birds. Imploding Birds. You've seen them all. This is something different. We call it...the Leroy Jenkins.

Setup: Commander. Take advantage of the fact that no clearing is 2+ away from enemy homelands to set up next to the Hundreds.

Turn 1: Assign a card matching the Hundreds' homeland to Build. March in. Ignore the Hundreds. Whack the Marquise's lone warrior upside the head. Build with the spare clearing slot and your rule that you somehow have there. Score a point. Draw a card. End your turn.

Turns 2+: Assign a card to Move. March over to the nearest mouse clearing, whack a Marquise warrior upside the head. Score points. Draw cards. End your turn unless you won.

I'm reading the Twilight Council "how to play" and I think that I found a mistake.

In place of "die" I'm thinking should be "dice". English is not my language, sorry.

Am I right?

...but this one is so cute and perfect, but was buried deep in the comments! All credits to u/Jack_Shandy !

(It better matches the size of the ther meeples, had vanilla-compatible minimalistic design, and is so damn cute. Deserves more recognition, that's all.)

Unless hirelings are given to a player that cant use them (like VB or Lizards) they will always be given to the player with lowest score and he will just use them to screw the highest and that just ruins the need to police early game certain factions or to plan your game ahead (because who knows what will happen if you get a hireling or your opponent will).

What title says, we played some root games (without the Eirye Faction, now we did, and sadly everyone was absolutely furious because of the 4th step of turmoil freezing the game, and leaving every single one of us (who played around 6-7 games of root already before we tried this faction) because of the wording and no definitions found on the rule-book about

-Rest: -> Go to Evening

Maybe we are all too autistic to understand such a non-definitive open phrase, but "go to evening" means one of the following, and we shouldn't be guessing which one is it, it should be defined somewhere or worded so it's not open to any interpretation.

1- You play a evening phase, then the rest play their day phase, and on the evening phase, you play another evening phase (giving you double points scoring/cards) and play another evening back-2-back, which makes no-sense for me

2- You play your eveningn phase and then "end your turn", the rest keep playing Day phases, until it's evening for everyone, and you.. skip it? since you already did it on your day phase due to Turmoil triggering it and lose your next "regular" evening phase? (i hope is this one)

3- You go to evening, end your turn, so after everyone ends their day phase, it's your turn again, you played evening last turn, so now you are playing the first phase? and put 1 card from your hand into a decree? essentialy being phased forward by 1 phase from everyone else for the rest of the game? (which literally is really un-orthodox and makes little sense from a game designer perspective)

For me, the one that makes sense, is N° 2, you lose your next evening turn, essentially skipping your next evening turn and waiting for everybody to start playing the first phase again to put a decree card.

But everybody argued that it's not defined, ANYWHERE on the rules (they did look for any definition for it in the book, and even online on Reddit, BGG, even youtube videos!)

This ended up, killing a 2hs long game, that was about to finish, which ruined the entire late-night for everybody, i guess this game even if cool and easy to play and learn, it's a bit loose on some rules definitions for the sake of being easier to pick-up, and imo needs a new print/edition that fixes all the loose ends it has on many wordings cause i've seen people ask for the most ridiculous stuff (i know this may look a bit like a fur-ball too) but it seems to call for a "stronger" more defined wording on some edges that could be tighter.

If Step 4 said: "immediately: end your daylight turn and do your Evening (only once this round)" it would be perfect

Pd: hope someone can clarify this so i can print it and sticker it on the game for future very late night games.

About half of the cards in the deck are items for the vagabond. 1/3 of the sites have ruins blocking spaces only they can remove. The decks would have been cooler with more powers or one off effects (like ambush) than so many crafting cards. I know people enjoy playing as the vagabond, but does anybody actually enjoy playing against them? As cool as the lone warrior concept is, I think they make Root a worse game.

As a heavy game with asymmetric gameplay for each player, it's going to be a difficult game to get into to begin with. But as I've bought and learned the rules of the game, reading through the manuals provided, I couldn't help but think that the rules could have been written better, or that the way the manuals are organized could have helped the players learn through better presentation.

For example, a key detail for the cards is how they are used once crafted: immediate effect versus persistent effect. The only detail delineating one from another is the colour box of the text; I feel even this is a little too subtle. But, when looking through the manual to learn more about the cards, it's a "blink and you miss it" box of information. Even more confusing are cards, with a "persistent effect", that you discard to use, not granting you a persistent effect, but a one-time effect.

I know I'm not the first person to ever rant about the difficulty of the rules. I frequently see posts about players asking for clarification of the rules. But if anyone has a resource where someone has re-written the rules in plain language, or more clearly, please let me know.

Does anyone have it or is that to much to ask. And when I say rpg pdf I would prefer the whole thing

Please

Let me be clear right away: I absolutely love this game. I've played somewhere between 10 to 15 matches, and the more I play, the more I enjoy it — especially when I'm with players who are on the same level. That’s when Root really shines for me: the negotiations, the convincing, the subtle manipulation.
Betrayal hasn’t happened much in my games yet, but I can already tell it’ll make things even spicier when it does. What I love most is the social layer of the game — the politics, the tension, the emotional reading.

Now, there’s something that’s been bugging me — not in a serious way, just a small thematic itch I can’t quite shake.

It’s about the Eyrie Dynasties and the Corvid Conspiracy.
They’re both bird factions. But lore-wise, there’s no clear connection or rivalry between them. And that breaks the immersion a little for me.

Personally, I think the Corvids could’ve been a different kind of animal entirely. Something sneakier — like snakes! The whole idea of sabotage, secret plots, terrorism… fits so well with animals we culturally associate with trickery.
But instead, they’re crows. So now the game has two completely separate bird factions — one imperial and structured, the other chaotic and subversive — with no direct link between them. And that feels a bit off to me.

To put it another way:
Imagine the game had a “Feline Empire” made up of lions, tigers, jaguars… and then they release another faction that’s just panthers.
Wouldn’t that feel strangely disconnected? That’s the same feeling I get here. Not game-breaking, not serious — just a little off.

And to be crystal clear:
- This is not a complaint directed at the designers.
- I’m not suggesting they should change it — obviously, that would be absurd.
- I’m not criticizing the faction — I actually love the Corvids.

I’m just sharing a small thematic reflection that popped into my head after a few games. I’m curious if anyone else has ever felt this way or has a different interpretation of the lore.
Do you think it makes sense for the Corvids to be birds, or would another animal have worked better?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Please stop telling people to split a 6 player game into 2 games. If I'm meeting up with friends for a game of root (which is not as frequent now as it used to be) we want to be playing a game together and sharing an experience together. NOT having an experience with a couple while three others have a different shared experience in the same room.

The game was designed to plays perfectly fine with 6 people. Yes a 6 player game is not for everyone they do take longer. Its a 6 person area control game, of course it will take longer than a 3 or 4 player game. Part of why it takes longer is we're socializing and making memories.

Root is a different experience with each player count, and different factions play very differently depending on how many players are in the game. Are rats generally dominant in a 2 player game? 100%! Are they alot harder to win with in a 6 player game? Definetly! As someone who enjoys rats I welcome the challenge. Winning a 6 player game as rats feels alot more satisfying than winning a 3 player game with them.

So please next time you see a post asking about good mixes for a 6 player game or advice for a 6 player game, it's because they have 5 other people they WANT to play root with. Let's give them advice on how to share a root experience with all of their friends. Especially when it involces new players, the goal of games with new players is to have them come back, I've managed to get every first time player back for more games after their first ever game was with 5 other players.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rant, hope you're having a fantastic day!

I'll outline some of the ones I'm more curious about

—Stanley Kubrick —Kanye West —David Lynch —Franz Kafka —Scott Cawthorn —Fyoder Dostoevsky

From my understanding despot infamy is that the vagabond is limited to 1+ VP in each battle and that most people use this rule including competitive to prevent the vagabond from being too OP. From my understanding this is not the official rules by LEDER GAMES.

However i disagree with this rule. From my understanding the moles and WA along with the rats are also considered very good on par with the vagabond. And the cats and corvids are considered the weakest. However these factions don’t get nerfed or buffed by the community so why does the vagabond

Personally I think this rule for the vagabond nerfs them too much. The trade off for being hostile is that you have to use two boots and can no longer get aid points and you get points for removing pieces. With despot infamy this is only a max of 1+ points. Now using two boots is big price especially on a millitant faction.

There are bound to be broken factions root is a game of asymmetry and the table has to stop each other that is what root is.

What I’ve been doing ( not on purpose by the way I misunderstood the rules ) is that they get a point for removing warriors but not one extra for cardboard.

What are your opinions on this

Just bought the riverfolk expansion whose im excited to play with and I know I have a lot to learn about it yet but it came with some extra tokens, do anyone know what they are used for?

I searched it in the how to play guide but did not found anything about it.

Smol mole specifically, the idea of being able to be the biggest threat on the board while not being able to be threatened themselves is insane

this meme is not meant to imply anything about people who play each faction. However it is a light humorous criticism of a few of the political parties mentioned. Feel free to disagree with my placings.

Man, I wish I had home internet access when all the discourse on the Bat meeples was going on. Feels like I missed the boat.

But yes, I think the Bat meeple needs a huge redesign. They should emphasize the wings. Have it act like a cape. Why do you think classic vampires came with capes, instead of huge ears???

Remembering this post: Which kind of shape would you like to see for the Bat meeples? : r/rootgame (reddit.com), something in between the left and middle designs would be perfect. But if the bottom must be flat, I suppose the left will do (could be fatter, though)

This is mostly off of my headcannon of faction lore. Didn't include homelands, because I'm not familiar with those factions.