Sean Winningham
If after reading this review you’d like to play or purchase this game, make sure to shop locally (if you can) and find your local gaming store.
When there’s a monarchy, there is drama. And you are a part of it. After all of it unfolds in unexpected twists and turns, your character must decide at the end of the game when your Queen is attacked: Will you defend her?
Darrington Press, the game publishing company from Critical Role, has released a second edition of the popular collaborative storytelling game, For The Queen (the first edition was originally published by Evil Hat Productions in 2019). The second edition comes with some minor updates, such as touching up the art of the queens, additional questions, a redesigned box, and promotional queen cards that are tied to their board game, Queen By Midnight (the promo cards are only available if purchased through a Darrington Press guild store).
I had a chance to play this game at my local gaming store with other Critters (a term meaning a fan of Critical Role). None of us had played either edition of the game before, so we went in fresh and new to it. We had a lot of fun learning how to play (no prep necessary!), being creative with our character’s stories and describing the queen, and discussing practical ways outside the game that For The Queen can be used.
In addition to playing the game in-person, Darrington Press has partnered with Roll20 to play the game virtually.
Here is the official description of For The Queen from Darrington Press:
For the Queen is a card-driven collaborative storytelling game that invites you to tell a dramatic narrative about a Queen’s journey with you, her companions! What will you learn about her (and yourself) along the way? In the end, will you stand for or against her?
GAME INFORMATION
- Players: 2-6+
- Play Time: 30-120 minutes
- Ages: 13+
- Mechanism: Collaborative Storytelling, Cards
- Genre: Fantasy, modern, futuristic, etc. (determined by the players)
- Designer(s): Alex Roberts
- Artist(s): Arlei Dormiendo, Arthur Riel Cabezas, Brady Evans, Caitlyn Kurilich, Céline Vu, Cheseely Li, Chelsea Ortega, Constance Bouckaert, Denis Freitas, Eleonor Piteira, Esther Tejano, G.C. Houle, Hamahmeyo, Jeong Kim, Kelsey Eng, Lemonjuiceday, LABillustration, Lara Georgia Carson, Lauren Covarrubias, Malia Ewart, Maxine Vee, Nicole Gustafsson, Karina Pavlova (WeirdUndead), Silly Chaotic, Tasia M S, Ameera Sheikh, Mike Pape
- Publisher: Darrington Press
- Year Of Release: 2024 (2nd Edition)
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
Let’s start with the box itself. Since this game only contains cards, the storage itself is very minimal, having an open box with a magnetic clasp to help with the ease of opening and closing it, as well as a ribbon to help you pull the cards out (instead of having to dump it out and making a mess). With it being 5.25 in x 3.25 in x 2 in, it makes it an easy game for you to carry and travel with. But what sticks out the most here is the artwork. For a relatively small box, there is so much detail in the art that it truly makes it majestic, reflecting the royalty of the queen that you are playing for. With a stained glass frame and highlighting the various types of queens that you can select from, it is nothing short of gorgeous.
Inside the box itself contains the following cards:
- A Setup & Game Contents card
- An “X” card (a safety tool since this is a RPG game)
- 13 Queen cards (each side has a unique queen)
- Plus 6 promo Queen cards that match the Queens from Queen By Midnight (same Queen on both sides)
- 17 “how to play” rules cards
- 60 question prompts
The store that I am a patron of, Valkyrie’s Vault, is a guild store for Darrington Press so I was fortunate enough to receive the promotional Queen cards. If you add these additional cards to the box, the top one or two cards do tend to overflow so be prepared for that reality. But if you open up the box carefully, they tend to stay in place well enough.
The artwork on the cards are just as captivating as the box. The “how to play” and question prompt cards are simple yet elegant, and each queen has their own unique style designed by various artists to give your group inspiration on the type of queen and genre that you want to center your story around, ranging from the classical fantasy world to a retro-style 80s vibe, to even a futuristic, cybernetic design.
HOW IT’S PLAYED
For The Queen is a collaborative storytelling game, so the instructions and rules are really straightforward, requiring no prep (although you can definitely prep some things, like your character, if you like). No dice, minis, board, etc. You are simply telling a story with your friends. It also does not require a Game Master as well!
Here’s the TL;DR summary of how the game is played:
You and your group take turns answer questions from a deck of “Question” cards, answering them from your character’s perspective. In this process, you’ll develop and discover your characters, other players’ characters, and the Queen. Once you get to the game-ending Question card “Your Queen is under attack. Do you defender her?” everyone will answer for their character and the game is over.
And now for the more detailed version…
To play the game, you’ll gather your party around a table and read through the rules cards. It’ll go step by step on what your goal is as a party as well as what you do when you play. You start off with selecting a Queen card to serve as inspiration on what kind of Queen you may be traveling with. You know that your character loves the Queen and they were selected to be part of her retinue (a group of people accompanying an important person) as you, the party, and the Queen are traveling somewhere.
Once you’ve selected a Queen, you’ll take the deck of Question cards and take out the question card “The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?” This card is what triggers the end of the game. Shuffle the rest of the Question cards, then put the “Queen is under attack” card in the middle or lower of the deck (the lower in the pile it is, the more questions your group will answer and the longer the game will be).
After creating the Question card deck, you’ll place the deck, the Queen card, and the X-card on the table in a central place so everyone can reach it. Once you have the table set, it’ll be time to play!
Each person will take turns drawing a question card to answer for your character. The questions are usually related to you and the Queen, so you and your party will use the questions to not only tell your character’s story but also collaboratively tell what the Queen is like through your shared experiences. When you draw a question card, you can do one of three things:
- Read it aloud and answer the question from your character’s point of view
- Pass it to the next person to have their character answer the question (and thus ending your turn)
- You can answer it as simple or as detailed as you like.
- Tap the X-card and draw another one to replace it.
- You can use the X card at any time if there is a question or topic you want to have skipped in the game (whether if it’s your turn or not), and there will be no need to explain why to the group
If a player receives a question that was passed to them, they have the same three option as listed. Whether they answer the question or pass it to the next person, their turn will also end.
As you answer the question prompt, you and your group can ask each other follow up questions to help get to know the characters more and develop the story as well.
Taking turns to answer question prompts will continue until you reach the Question card, “Your Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?” At this point, everyone will answer what their character will do and the game is over.
What makes the biggest impact in terms of enjoying the game is ensuring that those who are playing enjoy telling stories. This doesn’t mean that they have to be detailed in their answers; they can give minimal answers if they want. But if they are not the type that enjoy coming up with stories collaboratively, then this game may not be for them.
For a more structured, detail instructions on game play, you can read the System Reference Document (SRD) for For The Queen here.
THE PLAYING EXPERIENCE
I had the opportunity to play this game with a friend of mine who we play Candela Obscura together along with two of her friends whom she plays other TTRPGs (Tabletop Roleplaying Games) with. So going into this game, there were two people who I met the very first time, so it would prove to be an interesting experience in how this game would play out.
But it was evident that everyone loved telling stories from the get go. The instructions were easy to follow, and we selected a fantasy-inspired queen to use for our story (the Witch Queen, drawn by Kelsey Eng, which at the time we did not know that was the Queen’s title). She had a powerful scepter, spellbooks, and a pet baby/mini dragon, which made us all drawn to her.
Because we all loved to play TTRPGs, including Dungeons & Dragons, we all naturally went with that vibe for our characters, selecting classes that helped springboard our character creation. Throughout the course of the game, we created the following characters and their relationship with the Queen:
- A warlock who defected their monarch that they despised. They joined the Witch Queen’s monarchy and in return was granted his powers from her pet dragon. But when he was finished with his service and wanted out of his pact, the Witch Queen refused.
- A druid woman who was in a very complex love triangle with the Queen and the druid’s fiancee. The Queen has a spell over the fiancee to get back at the druid for her husband leaving her for the druid.
- A wizard who was enamored by the Witch Queen because she saw him as powerful and made a positive comment about his handwriting one time. But he also lost a spellbook that had her logo (a red diamond). So the Witch Queen was furious with him as she was worried that the spellbook could be used against her.
- Another druid woman who was best friends with the other druid. She was also the Witch Queen’s Spymaster General because she could Wildshape into other animals to eavesdrop and gather intel on other monarchies.
Throughout the game, we came up with details from the question prompt to get a better sense of the Queen and the characters. For example, because one of the players came up with using a red diamond from the Witch Queen art as her logo, we all incorporated it somehow with our characters (e.g. the Warlock had a red diamond magic tattoo to solidify his pact). The warlock also tried to see if he could get the wizard, who was trying to gain access to the Queen’s private spellbooks and was denied, to help find a spell that would release him from his pact with the pet dragon. But because one of the questions that the wizard had to answer was “who has the Queen banned you from speaking to in the retinue?”, it made it harder for the warlock to do this because all of the players agreed that the Witch Queen would plan ahead to try to prevent this from happening, knowing the Warlock would try to get out of his pact.
But because we decided this, we also naturally came up with a story as to why she was so on guard, even with the people she claimed to be her close allies. So the story we made is that there was a coup attempt on her monarch when she was young and she was the only one who survived. So because of this experience, she is always ensuring that no one tries to take her power away from her, which is what motivates most of her decisions with our characters.
The various questions also made the storytelling so challenging and creative as well. I played the warlock and it seemed like up until the last round, my character would betray the Queen and not defend her. But because one of the players had a question about who the Queen is visiting and why, she said that the Queen was going to visit the warlock’s former monarchy and because of that, the Warlock ended up defending her because he knew she was at least a better Queen than his former. We also had so many instances where we thought the character would hate the Queen but then a question that the player pulls makes it more complicated and complexed that it’s not as straight-forward anymore. So it was really phenomenal to see how these questions can really change the trajectory of the characters and the stories!
That doesn’t come without its challenges though. We had a player who received two question prompts that were essentially contradictory to each other so it was hard for her to answer. The two questions she received were:
- You sometimes think you might be the Queen’s favorite. Why? And why does this worry you?
- You sometimes think of one member of the retinue as the Queen’s favorite. Who? What makes you think this?
So it didn’t make sense for the person to answer the second question, so she naturally passed the question but only because it seemed like she wasn’t able to answer it. So we homebrewed a rule that said if someone draw a question card that was similar or contradictory to a question they answered earlier, then they can pass the question to the next player and draw a new one to answer.
After the game, we discussed how For The Queen could be used in other ways:
- An easy way to introduce to someone how to do roleplaying in other TTRPGs without having to teach a system
- A springboard for creating a character’s backstory for other TTRPGs
- A good exercise in practicing storytelling, especially for Game Masters
What’s also funny about this game (at least when my group played it) is that it starts off with the premise that you love the Queen, but then most of the questions we answered led to us saying why we hated her, or at least have a difficult relationship with her. So it was challenging (but in a good way; fun and exciting) to make those connections make sense.
This is definitely a great game if you want to come up with fun stories to tell with so many twists, turns, and complexities without needing to pull up maps or roll dice to play.
(Credit: Darrington Press)
FINAL THOUGHTS
For The Queen is a fantastic game overall for those who love to tell stories. It’s simple, quick to learn and play, easy to travel with, and the artwork is beautiful. It can challenge your creative chops with new questions that can spark unexpected events and controversies in the story, and you come out with a great story that you can tell.
