The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era

Chip Theory Games has a formula, chunky poker-chip components, character building that feels like leveling a real RPG character, and a campaign structure that rewards a committed group over a committed dungeon crawl. I’d played Too Many Bones and liked it fine, but Betrayal of the Second Era takes that same bones and grows it into something I like a lot more, mostly because combat moved off a four by four grid onto an actual hex map, so positioning finally feels like a real decision instead of a formality.

The overworld is where this earns the RPG comparison for real. You’re choosing what to explore and how to grow your character on an open map, not railroaded through fixed encounters, and the skill trees are modular enough that you’re not locked into whatever premade build a character starts with. It’s the closest a boardgame has come, in my shelf anyway, to replacing an actual tabletop campaign, which is a strange thing to say about a game with no game master.

None of this comes cheap. I watched the pledge tiers during the campaign and the all-in bundle sat around $400 once you add the expansion content and the premium components, and I did the price-per-play math more than once before committing, landing on yes mostly because I know this specific group will actually run the full campaign rather than let it sit shrinkwrapped. The box footprint matches the price, this is not a game you set up on a weeknight without planning for it, full table, real setup time, the kind of thing you block out an evening for.

If you’ve got a group willing to treat a board game like an actual campaign commitment and the shelf space and budget to match, this is about as good as the genre gets right now. If you want something you can pull out casually, look elsewhere, this one asks for real buy-in before it gives anything back.