D&D 5E Adventures in Middle Earth magic - does it work?

Morrus · Dec 12, 2016

vilainn6 said:
AiME is The One Ring with a d20 and class level. If you like The One Ring, you will like AIME. If in the contrary, you dont like it, I am not sure AIME is enought different to please you.

To clarify, I've never played either. I only mentioned TOR to head off the "just play TOR" comments.

There is no vanciant magic in AIME. Characters have sometime class abilities (like the shcolar lay of hand ability) or feats (dwarven broken spells) that look magical but that all.

Ah, that's useful to know. So I don't have to worry about D&D magic in a ME setting because it isn't there. Thanks!

I'm A Banana · Dec 12, 2016

Morrus said:
Ah, that's useful to know. So I don't have to worry about D&D magic in a ME setting because it isn't there. Thanks!

Yeah, that's basically it. Play the game according to it's own assumptions, and you should be A-OK in the magic department.

Some of the balance overall for AiME is...wonky...but if your group is more interested in storytelling or roleplaying than in powergaming, it shouldn't be a major issue.

BookBarbarian · Dec 14, 2016

Morrus said:
Ah, that's useful to know. So I don't have to worry about D&D magic in a ME setting because it isn't there. Thanks!

Yup. I find there IS magic in AiME what there is not is Spells. At least Spells not in the typical D&D sense. Elves, Dwarves, or Dunedain can take feats that will give them magical abilities and the aforementioned Scholar class gets abilities that are certainly not mundane.

I personally think it is wonderful and will probably play most of my D&D games in AiME for the near future. In particular I really like how Journeys expands the Exploration Pillar of the game and Audiences expands the Social Pillar.

SigmaOne · Aug 8, 2018

Stan Shinn said:
I just posted an in depth blog post on this topic: http://dicehaven.com/middle-earth/things-learned/

TLDR version: I love Adventures in Middle-earth but it does require a different approach to structuring game sessions and play. Very satisfying though!

Thanks for this blog post! I picked up the Adventures in Middle-Earth Player's Guide and Loremaster book this weekend at Gencon on a whim, mostly because I want a strong low-magic setting and that seems impossible using the player's handbook (without disappointing nearly every player at the table). This seems to do that well, with a number of other neat systems. My friends loved the Journey system in The One Ring. (I do think he liked some of the mechanics in TOR better, but I'm definitely set on 5e for a few reasons.) Anyway, I greatly appreciate the post you linked.
[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], did you ever get around to trying out Adventures in Middle Earth? If so, any comments on the experience?

Morrus · Aug 8, 2018

SigmaOne said:
[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], did you ever get around to trying out Adventures in Middle Earth? If so, any comments on the experience?

Yep, we played it weekly for about 3 months. Our impression was that we felt The One Ring was a better system to run Middle Earth in. Turns out D&D with a lot of the magic stripped out doesn’t work too well, at least in our experience.

squibbles · Aug 8, 2018

Morrus said:
Yep, we played it weekly for about 3 months. Our impression was that we felt The One Ring was a better system to run Middle Earth in. Turns out D&D with a lot of the magic stripped out doesn’t work too well, at least in our experience.

Would you mind elaborating on your thoughts about magic? How do you find that it doesn't work well?

I am interested in running a low magic game* and, after pouring through the forums, have consistently seen AiME pointed to as the best example of low magic rules. Having read the AiME player's guide and the chapter on magic in the loremaster's guide, I would like to use some of its ideas in my campaign--maybe having classes with access to thematically limited or reskinned spells instead of the AiME default.

I'm not really planning to set my game in Middle Earth, so using The One Ring wouldn't help me. I'm just curious to know where AiME's low magic rules go wrong.

Thanks!

*by low magic I mean rare magic but not necessarily weak magic.

BookBarbarian · Aug 8, 2018

squibbles said:
Would you mind elaborating on your thoughts about magic? How do you find that it doesn't work well?

I am interested in running a low magic game* and, after pouring through the forums, have consistently seen AiME pointed to as the best example of low magic rules. Having read the AiME player's guide and the chapter on magic in the loremaster's guide, I would like to use some of its ideas in my campaign--maybe having classes with access to thematically limited or reskinned spells instead of the AiME default.

I'm not really planning to set my game in Middle Earth, so using The One Ring wouldn't help me. I'm just curious to know where AiME's low magic rules go wrong.

Thanks!

*by low magic I mean rare magic but not necessarily weak magic.

I'm not Morrus, but perhaps I can be of some insight.

Certain players when rolling d20s against ACs and DCs are accustomed to doing so in a game with spellcasting. Such players may find using such a system without things like Fireballs doesn't fulfill their expectations.

I've been running a game of AiME with players that were new to 5e and found that they didn't have such expectations, and we find the game to be quite good. TOR might be better at getting the Tolkien fell right, since it isn't shackled to a system that wasn't designed to fit that, but AiME can still work well if your players want to have more granular combats, even if they are fireball free.

squibbles · Aug 9, 2018

BookBarbarian said:
I'm not Morrus, but perhaps I can be of some insight.

Certain players when rolling d20s against ACs and DCs are accustomed to doing so in a game with spellcasting. Such players may find using such a system without things like Fireballs doesn't fulfill their expectations.

I've been running a game of AiME with players that were new to 5e and found that they didn't have such expectations, and we find the game to be quite good. TOR might be better at getting the Tolkien fell right, since it isn't shackled to a system that wasn't designed to fit that, but AiME can still work well if your players want to have more granular combats, even if they are fireball free.

Sounds like its a good ruleset if the main issue with it is managing player expectations.

Also, thanks.

SigmaOne · Aug 9, 2018

Thanks to [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6802553]BookBarbarian[/MENTION] for the comments. I'll have to read the AiME books, and see how I feel... see whether I think low-magic can be done in 5e at all. High magic certainly does seem baked in by default, and that may be quite difficult to overcome for people who want "D&D". If it is as much about expectations as anything else, perhaps that is manageable. Otherwise, perhaps I'll look into TOR. I've learned from experience with Cypher System that getting a group into a whole new ruleset can be a lot more work than I may want to deal with, so I'd prefer 5e AiME if possible.

vilainn6 · Aug 9, 2018

With TOR and AIME, we are really in the weak magic spectrum and it is quite assumed the most interesting magic is in the hands of the powerfull NPC, not the PCs. Sure the AIME Loremaster guide included a chapter about including DnD spells in Middle-Earth but it is more to please a certain crownd that really reflecting Middle-Earth.

So the magic rules didn't go wrong. It just doesn't fit the setting.