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Didja Hear the One About the Pilgrim, the Parson and the Pardoner? A Review of The Road to Canterbury

Elliott Miller

Dec 2, 2011

Game Name: The Road to Canterbury

Publisher: Gryphon Games

Designer: Alf Seegert

Artists: Hieronymus Bosch and Pixel Productions Inc

Year: 2011

Players: Two to three players

Ages: 10+

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Genre: Humorous game of card drafting and set collecting

Retail Price: $59.99

When a designer comes onto the gaming scene with such games a Bridge Troll and follows up with Trollhalla you should know to take a tongue in cheek approach to his games. This doesn’t mean the games are always quality games but let’s face it, humor is going to be a part of the game’s charm. For a third release Alf Seegert has brought us a game steeped in the world of 13th century literature with the theme of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Surely we must approach this game with a stern upper lip. A sense of stuffy pompousness should swell within us as we puff up our chests and begin playing this game which surely will revel in seriousness. Not a chance! Within the author notes Mr. Seegert goes so far as to cite Terry Jones and Rowan Atkinson for their work in Black Adder as inspiration for this game so get in the right spirit when you start along this road, it’s meant to be a lighthearted affair indeed.

When I saw the quality Gryphon games put into their game Pastiche from last year I was shocked. It was gorgeous. Sturdy thick components, a huge board vibrant and thematic and the box itself was so sturdy. Well at the very least they matched themselves with the production of The Road to Canterbury. The box is the same thickness as Pastiche and the tiles are as well. This game however comes with cards that are simple fantastic. The linen finish is deep and adds richly to the feel of the game. You get two boards the main play board and a card supply board. They could have easily made you put the cards in stacks on the table and have draw piles but this is a very nice touch. Speaking of nice the small velvet bags for you to store you coins within are such an improvement over a little player screen that you would likely knock over several times throughout the game. The coins all have similar high quality aspects to them and feature a picture of Chaucer on them as well. The really cool thing is the this game came fully punched. That means the carefully designed insert that comes in the box rises all the way to the top of the box list as there are no cardboard extras to get rid of. This makes the insert one of the best designed an most functional inserts I’ve ever seen in a game.

I know I just talked about the theme of the game and then ran off about the quality because it really is that good but what about the game you ask? Don’t worry there’s a game here as well on top of all that. The idea of the game centers around The Pardoner’s Tale in which the pardoner (in which the players will be playing multiple pardoner’s) tempts the pilgrims to commit deadly sins in order to sell them fake pardons and collect their last rites when they are overcome with their sins. Fun stuff, now let’s jump into the game play now.

The thing I like most about the game is that core of the game is so simple I can tell you how to play in under a minute. You play either a sin card, a pardon card or a relic card. That’s all you have to choose from on your turn. Which single card you wish to play. Of course that decision is not always the easiest to make. Let’s start with those sin cards. When you play a sin card you simple place it below any of the three available pilgrims. Their will is weak and they will always commit the sin you tempt them with and for doing so you get to place a corruption cube onto the wheel of sin in the corresponding sin flavor. So if you tempted the Miller to commit an act of wrath he gets a wrath card and your cube will go to the wrath space on the wheel of sin. Then you get to draw a card to fill your hand back to 5. If a pilgrim receives his 7th sin card he dies and the player placing the card get’s to collect a last rites token.

Pardon cards are played to filcher hard earned coins from the pilgrims for the sins they’ve committed. Discarding a pardon card will give you money equal to the number of that flavor sin squared. So if you convinced the poor Miller he was a wrath soul and the only way to reduce his time in purgatory would be to pay you, then you can flip over his wrath sins and collect money. If he had 3 sins of wrath you would receive 9 coins. Notice you don’t discard his sins they stick with him as they are still his sins but he feels better about the situation and your money purse definitely feels better. When you play a pardon card you put a corruption cube onto the pilgrim’s tile and this counts for bonus points when the pilgrim dies. If you have a majority you put your cube from the dead pilgrim onto the Road to Canterbury board and gain the coins based on the town you have reached. These start at 2 coins and go up to 10 in increments of 2. Any other cubes on the pilgrim remain with his corpse and count towards company bonuses at the end of the game.

There is a deck of 12 relic cards and these are the action cards of the game. They still count as your one card to be played on your turn but they can be very powerful based on the card and the timing of their play.

There are other ways to score and few rules I’ve not talked not to mention the use of the parson who roams around the circle of sin making certain sins more important from time to time about but you get the idea of what this game is about at this point. It is a simple to play game and simple game to teach, two features I greatly appreciate in a game sometimes and this is definitely one of those times. While I am stressing the game’s simplicity at the same time it’s a very cunning game with some interesting decisions to be made. There are moments when playing the game you are up against a wall and seems like there is nothing that can help you only to have the situation completely turned around by the next turn. There’s a lot of posturing in this game as if you get as it is an area majority game in several places. The road itself yields victory points when you land on it as well as serving as a time mechanic for the game but also awards VPs at the end of the game based on majorities. Each pilgrim is part of a company of pilgrims and as you pardon their sins you get to place a corruption cube on them and your cubes will either go to the road for those points or remain with the company to score more end game VPs for company majorities. Having several of your corruption cubes on a single pilgrim leaves you with interesting options. You can build up his sins and then wait for the death blow to come by another player and forcing them to give you the points for landing on the road or you can go for the kill yourself and collect the important last rites token for your own. Every action in this game is important and deciphering which will be the best option can be a stressful yet fun exercise.

The game plays only 2 or 3 players and in my experiences I feel it plays equally well with either number. Sure this game could have included more pilgrims and stretched to 4 players easy enough but if were it would be just too long of a game. As it sits this game plays smooth and pretty quickly creating a really great little filler game that very enjoyable with each and every play. I for one applaud both the designer and the publisher for not pushing to make this game play more than it should for the sake of garnering a few more sales. It’s my opinion that even if they had gone this route reviews like mine would not be as favorable and would probably in the end hurt sales of the game more than help it.

In summary this game delivers a little bit of set collecting in the sin and pardon cards. A lot of area majorities as a lot of your end game scoring comes from your corruption cubes presence in the different areas. A little bit of screw your neighbor in the relic cards as they really do seem to be designed for this purpose. The end result is a pretty amusing game that can be finished in around an hour and can be taught and played by both gamers and non-gamers alike. This game has a place in just about everyone’s collection.

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