5 Board Games Like Root, Ranked by How Much of Root’s Asymmetry They Actually Keep

The best board game like Root is War of the Ring (Second Edition), because it is the only game on this list where the two sides genuinely win in different ways rather than racing the same scoreboard with different tools. If what you loved about Root was the feeling that your faction was playing its own private game, that is the one to buy. If what you loved was the woodland art and the sense of a story unfolding, skip to Mice & Mystics at the bottom of this list — it is the worst match on our test and the right answer for that reader.

Leder Games states the design promise on Root’s own product page: each player “has unique capabilities and a different victory condition.” That second half is the rare part, and it is the thing most “games like Root” lists quietly drop. So that is what we ranked on.

What “like Root” actually means — and the test this list is ranked on

Almost every asymmetric game gives players different powers. Very few give them different goals. That distinction is not our invention; the publishers draw it themselves. Leder’s Root page says each player has unique capabilities and a different victory condition. Stonemaier’s Scythe page, describing a game everyone calls asymmetric, says something noticeably narrower: “Each player begins the game with different resources (strength, victory points, movement capabilities, and popularity), their choice of several faction-specific abilities, and a hidden goal.” Different starting dials, one shared ruleset, one scoreboard.

Both are legitimate designs. They are not the same purchase. A Root fan who buys a different-dials game and expects different-goals asymmetry will be disappointed by a genuinely good board game, which is the most annoying way to be disappointed. So the five games below are ranked by how much of Root’s different-victory-condition promise each one actually keeps, from most to least — and the ones near the bottom are still here, with the reason they might be your answer anyway stated plainly.

If you want the wider category rather than the Root-shaped corner of it, our ranked guide to the best asymmetric board games sorts the whole field by how hard each one is to teach, and it puts Root fourth for reasons worth reading before you buy a second copy of anything.

Game	Does each player win a different way?	Players / Time / Age	Publisher
1. War of the Ring (2nd Ed.)	Yes — two sides, four separate win routes	2–4 / 120+ min / 14+	Ares Games
2. Spirit Island	Powers differ wildly; the goal is shared and cooperative	1–4 / 100 min / 14+	Greater Than Games
3. Small World	No — asymmetry is drafted, temporary, and scored the same way	2–5 / 40–80 min / 8+	Days of Wonder
4. Scythe	No — different starting dials, one victory track	1–5 / 115 min / 14+	Stonemaier Games
5. Mice & Mystics	No — different characters, one shared story objective	1–4 / ~90 min / 7+	Z-Man Games

1. War of the Ring (Second Edition) — the only one where the two sides are genuinely playing different games

Ares Games  |  Players: 2–4  |  Length: 120+ minutes  |  Age: 14+  |  Design: Francesco Nepitello, Marco Maggi and Roberto Di Meglio

Ares’ own product page spells out four separate ways the game can end, and they are not symmetrical. The Shadow player wins by conquering enough Free Peoples cities and strongholds, or by corrupting the Ring-bearers. The Free Peoples player wins by destroying the Ring, or by turning the tide militarily and taking the enemy’s strongholds. That is two players with different armies, different tempo and different definitions of a good turn — the structure Root fans are actually chasing.

It also fixes the thing Root does to groups: nobody has to learn four factions. Each player learns one side. In a three- or four-player game the publisher pairs you into two teams controlling the same two factions, so the teaching cost does not grow with the head count — a real advantage over Root, where every additional player adds a whole new rules module to the table.

Who should skip it: anyone whose Root nights are four people around a table in ninety minutes. This is a 120-plus-minute grand strategy wargame that is happiest at two. It is also the least Root-like thing here to look at — sober Tolkien plastic, not Kyle Ferrin woodland charm. Buy it for the structure, not the vibe.

2. Spirit Island — Root’s asymmetry, minus the fight between players

Greater Than Games  |  Players: 1–4  |  Playtime: 100 minutes  |  Ages: 14+  |  Design: R. Eric Reuss

Each player is a spirit with its own elemental powers, its own growth track and its own presence on the island, and two spirits at the same table can play so differently that neither can advise the other. On the “are these factions really different?” test, Spirit Island scores about as high as Root does. Where it stops short is the goal: everybody wins together by frightening the invaders off the island, so the different-victory-condition half of Root’s promise is deliberately absent.

That trade is the reason to consider it. Root’s asymmetry has a social cost — the table has to police four sets of rules and read four different threat models, and the player who understands the Vagabond best tends to win. Spirit Island puts the same design ambition on the other side of the table, where you and your friends are pointed at the game instead of at each other.

Who should skip it: anyone whose favourite part of Root was the knife-fight. This is a cooperative game with an expert-level reputation, and it will not scratch that itch. Greater Than Games currently lists the base game as available at $89.99 — and be careful which box you buy: Nature Incarnate and Jagged Earth are expansions that need the base game to work. If you want more like this, we have a whole ranked list of board games like Spirit Island.

3. Small World — asymmetry you rent instead of own

Days of Wonder  |  Players: 2–5  |  Playtime: 40–80 minutes  |  Ages: 8+

Small World is the cheerful, forty-minute cousin of the idea. You take a race and a special power — flying zombies, seafaring giants, whatever the shuffle produces — spread across a map that is deliberately too small for everyone, then send that combination into decline and pick up a new one. The asymmetry is real and it is genuinely fun, but it is drafted rather than assigned, it lasts a few rounds rather than a whole game, and every player is scoring the same coins at the end.

That makes it the best gateway on this list by a distance. It is the one you can teach in ten minutes and put in front of a Root-curious family, and at 8+ it is the only pick here that seats children. If Root has been sitting shrink-wrapped because you cannot get four people to learn four factions, this is the game that gets area control onto the table this week.

Who should skip it: anyone who wants their faction to mean something. Small World’s races are costumes, not identities. A note on sourcing: Days of Wonder’s website does not serve automated requests, so the player count, age and running time above come from the publisher-authored retail listing rather than a first-party product page.

4. Scythe — the most beautiful near-miss on this list

Stonemaier Games  |  Players: 1–5  |  Game length: 115 minutes (plus 10 minutes setup)  |  Ages: 14+  |  Design: Jamey Stegmaier  |  Art: Jakub Rozalski

Scythe is the game that gets recommended to Root players more than any other, and on our test it lands fourth. Stonemaier is admirably precise about what it is selling: each faction starts with different resources, different movement abilities, a choice of faction-specific powers and a hidden goal — and then all five of those factions race the same star track and count the same coins. The asymmetry is in the opening position and the toolkit, not in what winning means.

Read that as a recommendation rather than a complaint if the part of Root that wore you out was the rules overhead. Scythe is heavy — Stonemaier rates its own weight “Heavy” — but it is heavy in a single direction that everyone learns once, and its turn structure is famously brisk for a game of its size. It is the pick for the group that wants Root’s table presence and Rozalski’s alternate-1920s art without four separate rulebooks in play at once.

Who should skip it: the reader who came here specifically because factions winning in different ways is the mechanic they fell in love with. You will get a superb game and not that. Note also that Stonemaier’s product page prints no age rating; the 14+ above is printed on the box itself. If heavy Euros are where you are heading anyway, our guide to the best heavy Euro board games starts there.

5. Mice & Mystics — last on the test, and the right answer for a lot of people

Z-Man Games  |  Players: 1–4  |  Playtime: about 90 minutes  |  Ages: 7+

There is no honest way to call this an asymmetric strategy game. Players are heroes with different abilities working through an eleven-chapter storybook toward one shared objective, and it ranks last here because our test asks about victory conditions and this game has one. It stays on the list because a large share of people searching for games like Root are not asking a design question at all. They are asking for another game where small animals do brave things in a beautifully illustrated world.

For that reader it is the strongest pick on the page, and it is the only one that works with a seven-year-old. The storybook doubles as the board, the campaign carries your equipment and abilities forward between chapters, and the rules are light enough that the adult at the table can run it without a rules lawyer.

One correction worth knowing before you shop: this is widely listed as a Plaid Hat Games title, and the box says so, but Plaid Hat’s own website now states that Mice and Mystics and its expansions are published and managed by Z-Man Games. Z-Man does not serve automated requests, so the figures above come from the publisher-authored retail listing. Who should skip it: anyone who wants a competitive game — this is fully cooperative. Our ranked list of the best cooperative board games is the better starting point if that is the direction you are heading.

Can you still buy Root itself?

Worth checking before you buy a substitute for it. Leder Games sells the base game directly at $60.00 and lists it as available in North America — but on the same page, Europe and Rest of World and Australia and New Zealand both read Sold Out (checked 21 August 2026). That is a regional stock condition rather than a retirement, and Leder restocks, but it does explain why so many people outside North America go looking for something like Root in the first place. If you are in one of those regions, the games above are not a consolation prize — they are the ones actually on shelves.

Root itself, for the record, is 2–4 players, 60–90 minutes, ages 14+.

How to pick, in one paragraph

Two people who want the real thing: War of the Ring. A group that wants Root’s ambition without the argument: Spirit Island. A mixed table, a school night, or anyone who has to teach it in ten minutes: Small World. A group that loved the weight and the art but not the four rulebooks: Scythe. A family with young kids who fell for the woodland storybook feeling: Mice & Mystics. If you are still not sure which half of Root you liked, read the faction summaries on Leder’s own page before you buy anything — the answer is usually obvious once you notice whether you remember your faction’s powers or your faction’s goal.

Related reading

• The 5 Best Asymmetric Board Games (Ranked by How Hard They Are to Teach) — the wider category, including where Root itself lands.
• The 5 Best Board Games Like Spirit Island — if the cooperative branch is the one you want.
• The 6 Best Worker Placement Board Games — for the Scythe-adjacent reader who wants a different kind of tension.
• The Top 10 Most Playable Complicated Board Games — heavy games that are still worth teaching.

One of these made our Top 10. If you want our shortlist of the games we keep coming back to, grab the free guide here — it is the fastest way to skip the research next time.

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