Debrief: The Hobbit: There And Back Again, A Roll-And-Write By Reiner Knizia

We share first impressions of The Hobbit: There and Back Again, a roll-and-write that blends dice drafting with a story you can feel across eight evolving chapters. From dwarf paths to riddles in the dark, we highlight why the theme lands, where solo stumbles, and how table tempo creates tension.

• components, setup, and how drafting works
• chapter variety and how goals change
• path drawing, bread, swords, and first‑to bonuses
• gollum puzzle chapter and ring scoring
• storm pass risk and pushing the endgame
• solo mode structure and why it feels off
• table interaction, sprint vs optimize styles
• rules clarity notes and hard mode options
• art by Lorenzo Colangeli and IP care
• follow‑up plan after all eight chapters

Go grab yourself a second breakfast and watch the Lord of the Rings and play The Hobbit: There and Back Again by Office Dog Games

Chapters

• 0:00 Cozy Intro And Game Overview
• 0:55 Components And How It Plays
• 2:27 Early Chapters And Theme Impressions
• 3:48 Gollum Chapter And Big Shakeups
• 6:31 Drafting, Racing, And Interaction
• 8:19 Chapter One Mechanics Deep Dive
• 11:06 Storms, Risk, And Scoring Pressure
• 13:26 Solo Mode Pros And Cons
• 15:22 Campaign Feel, Rules Clarity, And Art
• 18:17 Final Thoughts And Follow‑Up Plan

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. Back and better than ever. Joining me as always is the coziest little hobbit from his tiny hobbit hole. He just had second breakfast. He's got a sign on his door that says no admittance except for party business. It's Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

I'm doing great, Travis. I am excited to talk about yet another Kenizia game, a new one from Office Dog. There and back again. Uh, that's The Hobbit, there and Back Again. Sorry, sorry, I can't forget my prefixes or whatever the beginnings of things are.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

More specifically, The Hobbit, there and back again. The dice game of Bilbo's journey to the Lonely Mountains, spanning eight unique adventures by Reiner Kenizia. They say, not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall, and not idly do the boys of Operation Game Night convene. Today we are talking to Hobbit there and back again. A new dice rolling, dice drafting roll and right from the good Dr. Reiner Kenizia. In this game, you are going through eight unique adventures, plays one to four players, 30-minute playtime with a weight of 1.92 on board game geek. Uh what you're doing is you are going through these eight unique adventures. Uh the box has four different big, chunky cardboard roll and write books that you open up, and everybody opens to the same page. You open up the rule book to that same page that corresponds to that adventure. You are rolling five dice all at the same time, and you go around the table drafting one die at a time and drawing the according symbol on your book uh to advance the story. Every scenario is different, everybody, every scenario has different win conditions. It's really quite simple. It's really quite easy to understand. It's really quite simple to grasp the concept for the adventure that you're going on in that specific chapter of the book. And whoever completes the goal earns the most bonus point points. Um, you know, tallies up enough points at the end is the winner. Clayton, how far did you make it through these eight adventures?

SPEAKER_01: 2:32

Let me tell you, Travis, I've only made it through three. Okay, I've played it more than three times. I've played the first one three times, I've played the second one two times, and the third one one time. So I've been coming back to these adventures and playing them again with different people because they are so light and fun. I love the books. I it's making me want to watch The Hobbit. Oh, yeah. I would say read the Hobbit, but I'm not a reader. I mean, each chapter, you know, kind of follows the story of the Hobbit. And like in the first chapter, all the dwarves are arriving to Bilbo's house, so you're trying to draw lines that connect all the dwarves to Bilbo's little hobbit hole. And it's just Rolling Wrights generally are pretty a themeless affair, in my opinion. And this could have been too, but I think they've done a great job of drawing out a lot of theme, honestly, throughout this eight-chapter book. I'm excited to like turn to the next chapter. I know Gollum is the next one on my list, and it's called Riddles in the Dark. And uh, I'm just excited for that. What's your depth in this story right now?

SPEAKER_00: 3:48

So I made it all the way through the Gollum chapter, and I think that that is where things get really interesting. They've done they did some kind of unique things like your paths through the mountain with the the storm clouds and stuff on the chapter prior. Um, and then the one before that, uh, you are or I think it's the one with the storm clouds where you're fighting the goblins. Have you fought goblins?

SPEAKER_01: 4:13

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 4:15

The Gollum one really changes things up where you're no longer drawing paths, instead, you are filling out blocks around the different uh riddles that you're trying to solve. And whoever solves eight riddles first uh will finish the game, and you get bonuses for being the first one to complete each of the eight riddles. Plus, they have the big one ring up in the top corner. And if you finish that, you get uh a large amount of victory points. I can't remember the exact exact number. Um, but that one's really different and cool, and it really shakes things up. I I was a little concerned at first. Played the first chapter, which is fun, but it's like it's the same as, you know, uh what's the what's the railway one?

SPEAKER_01: 4:58

Railroad ink, yeah. Railroad ink, yeah. Big railroad ink vibes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:01

Big railroad ink vibes on the first adventure where you're collecting the dwarves. And while it is thematic, I'm like, all right, how much of this can I really do? Like, how much life is this game gonna get? And then you it starts getting a little more complicated every single time. Um, I played this all solo, except for the Gollum chapter. Played the Gollum chapter three times because I didn't understand it the first time, and then I played it correctly the second time, and then my mom joined me for the third time. And uh Office Dog Games, if you want to put this on the box, my mom's uh review quote you're welcome to borrow was wow, that actually has some strategy to it. So you're there you go, put that on your reprint.

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

Dang, you can also put this on your reprint while we're giving glowing reviews. Uh Mary and I had a game night on Thursday and Friday, okay, and we were chilling on Saturday night. Normally it would be beyond reproach for me to you know come to her and request to play a game on Saturday night. But I said, Hey, you want to do another chapter in that that Hobbit game? And she said yes. Wow, she did not stiff arm me. That made it three nights in a row of games for her, unheard of.

SPEAKER_00: 6:23

So you didn't even have to do any chores to like get no.

SPEAKER_01: 6:26

No, she agreed to play without fuss. That's a big deal. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00: 6:31

Uh so I think we should talk a little bit more about the specific mechanics. I want to refer specifically to the chapter one because that's has typically what you're looking at in some of the other chapters. Uh, while you are collecting the different dwarves and drawing lines between the dwarves to the hobbit hole back end, uh, there are additional symbols. And if you're watching the YouTube video, see them on here. There's some swords, there's loaves of bread, um, you have uh Thorn Oak and Shield up here in the corner, uh, covered up by the person's hand is Gandalf up in the other corner. And as you draw these lines, you cannot go through the spaces with the dwarves in them, but you are supposed to attach to them to the outside perimeter. And basically, as long as you have another path that meets back end, you can kind of just cross over that path to combine them in any sort of fashion. There are some dice that kind of some of the dice have uh like a T on them, and that T will connect you just as well as crossing that line. Um, and you're just trying to get these dwarves a path back to back end. Now, if you get a as you collect these uh loaves of bread, you're marking those off on your score sheet as well. When you connect the dwarves to back end, you can get bonus points if you have loaves of bread associated with those dwarves. I think the swords come in a little heavier on the later ones when you're fighting goblins and stuff, but you are precluding yourself from getting bonus points if you don't have loaves of bread associated with the dwarves that you're collecting. And then the first person to collect all the dwarves ends the game, and then you move on. You'll see up at Thorn Oak and Shield, he's got a little uh two in a little kind of starburst up here in the corner. If you are the first person to collect Thorn Oak and Shield, you get two bonus points. You can still collect him later if you'd like, but you don't get those bonus points because only the first person to collect Thorn gets those bonus points. And that's kind of how it goes. Um, as you go on and you start encountering the orcs and the goblins and the things that you need to fight, you're collecting these swords that then you are spending as kind of a resource to combat the trolls uh that turn to stone and the goblins as you race through the through the tunnels in the mountains. So kind of a cool kind of like race to collect resources and to get to the end. Uh, this first episode, first adventure, first chapter, you could really take your time with this, so long as nobody is like racing to complete all 12, you can really match this thing out. Later chapters, it really feels like a race, specifically the one where you're trying to get through the mountain pass. Uh, if you're hanging out in the storm field, you're rolling this big 12-sided die. And every time you hit a number, one through 12, you are marking off the associated thunder clouds um on this big kind of open space. And if you cross through those thunder clouds that have been activated, you start like losing health. I I can't remember the yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:38

So, I mean, yeah, if you don't go into any of those dangerous spaces, you get 15 points at the end. But every time you enter a dangerous space, you like lose a little bit of that 15 points. So the first time you go into one, you have to cross off the 15. Now you only get 12 points if you uh end the game right then and there. So uh just a lot of different interesting scoring criteria and things to think about as you go through each chapter.

SPEAKER_00: 10:03

Yeah. And I will say, uh, having played this solo, I would say that is not the correct way to play or not the favorable way to play. You can pull it out solo. I love how easy it is to set up. You pull out the rule book, you pull out your dice, you pull out one book and a marker, and you're ready to rock and roll. I love that. That's great for me. Uh solo is probably not the way to play because what what the solo rules do is instead of dice drafting, where I take a die, Clay takes a die, Jared takes a die, and then after they run out, the next person rolls it, and you just continue until the game is over. Solo, what you do is you roll all five dice, and you're supposed to group them according to where they land in relation to one another. So if there's two that are close to one another, that's one group. If there's two that are close to each other somewhere else, that's another group, and then you have one die that is solo. And those groups of two, you are only picking one of those dice to activate per group, if that makes sense. So you're activating three dice every time you roll, then you pick them all up again and you roll them. To me, I don't like having to make that decision on how to group them for something that like activate something in my brain where it feels like I'm cheating if I get a favorable like landing of the dice. Uh, I would much rather do a dice draft where I only pick one of the remaining dice and then move on with my life. But the grouping, it doesn't take long. It just to me it feels kind of icky to like group the dice accordingly, especially if they're like equally spaced out. Like, do I take the one that is advantageous to me? Do I take the one that's like less advantageous and make it harder on myself? I just I don't know, it just feels bad to have to make that decision, but it is so simple to pull out and play that this will probably get a lot of a lot of uh legs in this household. I will probably play this for a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

Yeah, I mean, I think I I have not played it solo, but I do think you're right that that probably wouldn't be the right way to play this because one of the big pros of this game compared to other roll and rights, which can generally be a pretty solitaire affair, I do feel like this game does add those layers of player interaction that make it stand out to me. So, like, like you mentioned, there's the you know, Starburst bonus points that you get for being the first one to do something. So there's like that race aspect there. And then the dice drafting is fun as well because you know you see the die get rolled, and you're like, oh man, I really need that bread. I hope they don't draft that bread. So, I mean, it's minimal interaction, but it's still there and you still care what other people are doing. And the best part about it is, and you touched on that a little bit, is you can really fiddle fart around and try and go like you can see, you know, you can score 180 points for this one section. And Mary, she loves to fiddle fart around and try and fight every single goblin to get all the points and do that. And I try to push the end game. Like, I if there's a path I'm trying to make to the end, I'm trying to make that path in the straightest line possible, not taking the detours and scoring all those extra points. And that puts the pressure on her to not, you know, fool around. Like in the second, in part three, there's a little cave you can go into. And if you really went around the cave, you can eat all this bread and you can score all these points at the end. But I had gotten out ahead of her and it forced her to have to kind of skip over that part to try and somewhat keep up because I mean, she could maybe still win if I got way out in front, but there's enough things that I would have gotten to score for that it kind of does put the pressure on you, and you have to pay attention to where other people are and you know what kind of points they might be scoring. So, yeah, I really love that part about this game.

SPEAKER_00: 14:01

Yeah, and they they try and make this like artificial pressure on the player by limiting the amount of rounds you play when you play solo. So every time you pick up the dice and you roll them, you're moving Bilbo. He has like a little token in the box, you move him forward one of the rounds, and on certain rounds, you will have to eliminate bonuses from the board, whether it's like the Thorn Oak and Shield bonus or the Gandalf bonus, or you know, crossing one of these lines bonus, uh, like here on the YouTube video. Once you get out of the like the storm field, if you're the first one to get through this line that divides the storms and the bread on chapter three or part three, you get two bonus points. I don't know why I zoomed in. But on certain rounds, you have to eliminate those bonuses, and then once you get to round eight or nine or whatever it is for that solo version, the game ends immediately. You tally up your score. The odd thing to me, besides trying to art artificiate this pressure on the on the player, is that there's no like comparative score. I really don't like games that do this where they're like, oh, if you scored 100 points, you are excellent, you're the top hobbit, and then if you score 10 points, you're a sackville baggins' or you know, whatever. I I don't like that. It doesn't motivate me to do better. Like, sure, if I keep a running log of all my scores, that might motivate me, but comparing it to some arbitrary scale never feels great to me. Uh, they don't do that at all in this game, which feels weird. They do have hard modes, like see it there, it alters the rules a little bit. I'm not gonna get into it because I don't know the specifics, but each of the adventures, it will alter the rules just a little bit to make it slightly harder. Um, you can play hard mode with your friends, you can play hard mode solo. I don't know a whole lot about that. I've only kind of just walked through the game itself, but it's cool that it has a little bit of replayability where you can really push yourself a little bit and see if you can overcome those challenges. Um, but I think for me, I think the real pressure comes from you versus the game, and that really starts to ramp up in part three where you're racing through the storm clouds because you don't want to lose points. You're racing through this like gauntlet of goblins at the very end to get to the exit. Like that felt like pressure to me. Uh, as you're running out of uh the swords that you're expending as you're fighting off these goblins, that felt like pressure, and that felt like pretty good to overcome. What do you think, Clay?

SPEAKER_01: 16:34

No, no, I I'm I'm just delighted again, just looking at this storm cloud episode and remembering that part of the movie. Like it it it seriously feels like the movie when you're going through that that troll cave, and then there's the big troll that you have to defeat, but the only way you can defeat it is you have to have had three magic hat symbols to get your Gandalf staff that can defeat the troll. So they do everything they can do to inject theme into a roll and write, and I'm I'm here for it. Like, roll and rights were a genre I like burnt hot and fast on when I first got into the hobby. I wanted them all, and then I quickly was like, Yeah, these kind of stink. Um, it's like a solitaire kind of boring experience, and I haven't bought any in a long time, and then this came out, and it's by Kenizia, so of course, and it has an IP that I enjoy. So I'm gonna give it a try, and I'm glad I did because this game is getting up there. One of my favorite games of all time, and I don't didn't mention it in the last one. No, not this game. I'm saying one of my favorite games of all time is My City. Oh, and it it was like a top five game for me in the year and years after I had played through that campaign. Um, because I loved just it was such a simple core gameplay, and it changed up just enough every single episode that it was engaging, and you wanted to see what was around the next corner. And that's exactly how I the exact same feelings I've been having playing this game. It's a light, you know, like 30-minute experience at two players, and the next episode. You said it's more complicated, maybe a little more complicated, but I think it's just a little different. Like the a lot of the a lot of things are similar about between the episodes, but it just tweaks it up enough that you just want to keep playing through it. And if I only play through all eight chapters, I think I'll still have gotten one of the better gaming experiences I've had in a long time. One, because Mary and I are enjoying it together going through each of these episodes. And that always, you know, means a lot to me when I have a game that we both like playing on a weeknight. It's easy to get out and it's you know fun to play a quick 30-minute game. So I I see this one being like at the end of the year, this is gonna be one I'm gonna remember. I'm already excited to do the Gollum chapter, especially after hearing you tell me like you don't draw paths. Uh, sounds super interesting. I will throw in one cave, like one bit of negative caveat here, and this might just be me, but I was a little confused by the path drawing. Um and I mean, I think I understand it, but as I stand here right today with five plays in, I could be convinced I'm not doing it 100% correct because you can like, you know, you can start from certain starting places and then you can obviously extend a path, which makes sense, but then you can kind of draw over other paths and like retrace lines and cross over old paths. And I think I'm doing it right, but it's not the most intuitive thing at first when you're doing that, like crossing over other paths. But you know, it's it kind of once you figure it out, it'll persist through the rest of the campaign, I hope. And yeah, is this a campaign game? I don't know. The rest of the story, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

I I think that they rely on that like deceptive simplicity of roll and rights, and they kind of under-explain themselves at some points. Like the golem one, I had to start over. I got like halfway through what I assumed was the chapter of golf, like the golem chapter, and I went like, I don't think I'm doing this right. And I had to like kind of reread the rules a couple times, just because they leave just enough ambiguity in the rule book where it causes a little bit of confusion. Um, they do have a couple videos out there to watch that that really explain it pretty well. You open up the rule book and boom, there's like a QR code to scan and watch and learn how to play. The one thing that I do want to shout out is the artist, which is Lorenzo Colin Jelly. Colin Jelly. Colin Gelly. I'm mispronouncing that, but I love his art. He does a great job. Yeah. Uh, he has a whole like portfolio of stuff, and they could have easily just clipped movie clips and thrown it on a rule book, and I'm glad that they did not. This guy has really striking art, it kind of gives me like Steven Universe vibes, which I really love. Uh, I want to show his uh he has an art station page that I want to share because it's really cool. Let me, this is gonna make for bad podcasting, but I do want to show at least the YouTube viewers on ArtStation. He has this whole like portfolio of Lord of the Rings art that's really striking and cool, and all the characters are like all out of proportion. It they're great. Um, I really appreciate the level of care and and detail that he put into his art. I think it's striking. I think it represents kind of the childlike wonder of hobbits and and you know, they their perception on the world. Um, you know, the hobbits and the and the dwarves kind of look very normal, but the orcs are very like grotesque and and strange looking. So I I think it's great. I think it's a cool art style, and and they could have done something really boring and they decided to elevate the game with with the art. So shout out to Lorenzo and his artwork because it is spot on.

SPEAKER_01: 22:18

Shout out to Office Dog because they're gonna ride this IP into the ground, baby. Yeah, and I'm here for it. Like you know, they got the trick taking games out. Now they're throwing out this little ditty of a roll and right. Um keep it coming, Office Dog. If you're gonna take this much care with those uh intellectual properties, I'll keep buying.

SPEAKER_00: 22:37

And they and I will say, and if you're gonna keep making Lord of the Rings games, pick a different beginning to the name than Lord of the Rings. If I type in Lord of the Rings into board game geek, be game board game geek. Wow, I cannot talk today. You're gonna get 175 different entries that are all confusing and have similar names. I love that it is the hobbit, there and back again. It makes it stand out, it's easy to find. I love that. Um, man, this is a good fall game. This is a good game for fall. Yeah, so is so is the hobbit, so is Lord of the Rings. So I think we did it. I'm gonna go cozy up in my hobbit hole and start another Lord of the Rings marathon. Heck yeah. It's good, it's good for fall, it's good for cloudy weather. Go grab yourself a second breakfast and watch the Lord of the Rings and play The Hobbit There and Back Again by Office Doc Games.

SPEAKER_01: 23:25

Hey, and I think I think it's worth coming back after we've finished all eight chapters. We should come back and do a follow-up episode. This is our initial thoughts, you know, three or four chapters in, but we'll give you the final rundown when we finish it.

SPEAKER_00: 23:40

You know, uh, just like a certain director, we might uh just split this game up into three different episodes instead of just containing it to one 20-minute episode. We'll we'll just really stretch this out to get the uh get the viewers' money's worth. How about that? There we go. All right. All right, this has been Operation Game Night. I have been Travis Smith, he has been Clayton Gable. This has been The Hobbit There and Back Again by Office Dog Games, and we're out.