D&D comes to Middle Earth (from Cubicle 7)

Elfcrusher said:

Anybody who has watched the movies more times than they've read the books is not actually a Tolkien fan. That's a Peter Jackson fan you're describing.

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Watching the movies takes allot less time then reading the books, especially if you are a slow reader like me. So I disagree.

Anyone that has read a book more then once is a Tolkien fan, those books are not an easy read nor a quick read by any stretch of the imagination.

Hiya!

Elfcrusher said:

Anybody who has watched the movies more times than they've read the books is not actually a Tolkien fan. That's a Peter Jackson fan you're describing.

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That was kind of my point. "True Tolkien Fans" are likely to be disappointed, as using the D&D system pretty much guarantees a large degree of "D&D'isms". Anyone will be able to play a wizard, for example. So a group of 5 PC's, you could have a fighter, a thief, and three wizards. They could also be a high elf, wood elf, halfling, dwarf and half-orc. Now, I'm sure that the races will get a good work out, and the classes will likely also be 'altered' to more easily fit into ME...but, if you take away levels, reduce HP's, introduce critical hits, place limits on race and classes, remove 90% of the monsters in the MM, and swtich "memorization" with "spell points"...well...the game may as well just have it's own system that does all that. ... ... er...wait...there is...I think it's called The One Ring.

I think the bottom line will be, as I said..."Tolkien Fans" are going to be annoyed. "Movie Fans" are going to be rather excited. I'm in the later camp, with a couple toes into the former. I don't want to see a completely "D&D'ized" ME...but I do want to run around in Gondor, The Shire, and Mordor. I want to kill orcs and take their stuff. I want to visit all the cool locations I read about in the RPG, as well as have seen in the movies. I want to cast lightning bolt multiple times a day, and I want to be able to get bashed, hacked and stabbed a dozen times by goblins before I go down for the count. Yeah...I want to play D&D in Middle Earth.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Sylvain_L said:

The whole ideology behind 'Hit Points' needs to be re-worked. Afterall, a high level D&D character can survive 20 sword cuts and a 100 foot fall. That doesn't sound like LOTR to me.

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That's not what hit points represent. hit points represent skill and endurance until that one shot that drops you. You know, like Boromir wading through orcs getting multiple arrows right to the chest until he finally goes down.

Magic as well is problematic, you don't see Gandalf going around launching fireballs.

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Except when he does exactly that at the worg riding goblins in the Hobbit. Granted, Gandalf is actually closer to a (non shapeshifting) druid than a traditional D&D wizard, but he casts plenty of high powered spells when the need arises. Re-read the battle at the bridge for another example.

Because Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are so beloved by fans, those same fans tend to create their own version of the books and Middle Earth in general in their heads that don't really match the text. unlike movie or TV fandom which has concrete visualizations to go by, prose demands you construct the novel in your mind's eye and so it becomes very personal. But arguing that the parts of ME PC types are going to engage with is low magic is sort of missing the point: in the late third age, most of the world has a low magic feel but it is still a world filled with wraiths and giant spiders and intelligent evil wolves and trolls and dark powers and aloof elves. It even talks about human sorcerers and conjurers. One of the main features of both the Hobbit and LotR was characters realizing just how magical their world really was.

I like how they have not even released it yet and people are already whining about the magic system and how Gandalf is stated up. Good thing they gave me fair warning. I have to save up for this purchase.

inkhorn said:

I like how they have not even released it yet and people are already whining about the magic system and how Gandalf is stated up. Good thing they gave me fair warning. I have to save up for this purchase.

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That didn't start with the one ring. D&D fans have been arguing over Gandalf's stats as long as there's been a forum to argue them in.

Sylvain_L said:

Anyone that has read a book more then once is a Tolkien fan, those books are not an easy read nor a quick read by any stretch of the imagination.

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I'm currently reading Lord of the Rings for the 28th time; what does that make me?

innerdude said:

I'm currently reading Lord of the Rings for the 28th time; what does that make me?

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Unemployed? Retired?

lol

Sylvain_L said:

Unemployed? Retired?

lol

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Neither, thank goodness. LOL

Well, "thank goodness" for not being unemployed. If I could retire at my current age, though . . . man, wouldn't that be nice?

innerdude said:

Neither, thank goodness. LOL

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I was just kidding, I can't imagine reading or watching anything 28 times. Yes, you are a true fan.

pming said:

That was kind of my point. "True Tolkien Fans" are likely to be disappointed, as using the D&D system pretty much guarantees a large degree of "D&D'isms". Anyone will be able to play a wizard, for example. So a group of 5 PC's, you could have a fighter, a thief, and three wizards. They could also be a high elf, wood elf, halfling, dwarf and half-orc. Now, I'm sure that the races will get a good work out, and the classes will likely also be 'altered' to more easily fit into ME...but, if you take away levels, reduce HP's, introduce critical hits, place limits on race and classes, remove 90% of the monsters in the MM, and swtich "memorization" with "spell points"...well...the game may as well just have it's own system that does all that. ... ... er...wait...there is...I think it's called The One Ring.

I think the bottom line will be, as I said..."Tolkien Fans" are going to be annoyed. "Movie Fans" are going to be rather excited. I'm in the later camp, with a couple toes into the former. I don't want to see a completely "D&D'ized" ME...but I do want to run around in Gondor, The Shire, and Mordor. I want to kill orcs and take their stuff. I want to visit all the cool locations I read about in the RPG, as well as have seen in the movies. I want to cast lightning bolt multiple times a day, and I want to be able to get bashed, hacked and stabbed a dozen times by goblins before I go down for the count. Yeah...I want to play D&D in Middle Earth.

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I'm as big a Tolkien fan as you'll find, and I have no problem with the conversion of Middle-Earth to D&D 5e. The more nice things everyone has, the more fun we all get to have.

The problem I have is, if you've already invested in The One Ring line, this is kind of a slap in the face. "Yeah, all your loyalty to our original product line? Yeah, sorry, we've got a business to run, so we're jumping on the new hotness of 5e 'cause we can actually make money on it."

Fine, I have no problem with that. Other than it means that if you LIKED The One Ring, you're basically getting pre-empted.

You think the D&D 5e release cycle is slow? You think 5e is lacking in "official support?" Well my friends, you haven't been waiting around for FIVE FREAKING YEARS just to get a playable version of the Gondor culture.

Folks, understand: not having a Gondor culture in the One Ring is the equivalent of 5e being published without a ranger class, and five years later Wizards saying, "Yeah, we know people want rangers, we're getting around to it, eventually."

My disgruntlement isn't with the conversion, it's that they never even finished the system they already have. Since pretty much Day 1 of the One Ring people have been asking for Noldor and Gondor as a playable "culture" (which is basically The One Ring's version of a "class"; it's basically a race + class melded into a single identity).

For comparison, The One Ring first hit shelves in October 2011. It's been 4.5, going on 5 years now. Good grief, in 4.5 years, how much stuff did Wizards put out for D&D 4e? Shoot, in four and a half years, they'd released the entire system PLUS an entire ".5" revision with Essentials.

It took Cubicle 7 four years to give us Noldor and Dunedain cultures in the Rivendell expansion. They STILL haven't given us a Gondor culture, and are just BARELY getting around to Rohan five years post-release.

If they'd just stopped farting around and given us Dunedain, Noldor, Gondor, and Rohan say, a year post-release, I'd have gone on my merry way and wished Cubicle 7 all the success in the world. I'm sure the two "plot point" campaigns they released were really groovy, and sure, the Laketown supplement and GM screen were nice. But in my mind, the lack of Gondor and Rohan as playable cultures continues to be a giant gaping hole in the system. Frankly, I haven't pushed my group to play The One Ring more because it's such an obvious, glaring absence. Why would I push my players to try out this system, when they can't even currently play as two of the most iconic archetypes of the entire Lord of the Rings fiction?

Imrahil, Faramir, Dol Amroth, Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, Ithilien, The Stone of Erech . . . . These are some of the most critical players and locations in the Lord of the Rings fiction . . . . aaaaand they're basically unplayable in The One Ring as currently constituted.