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

I have high hopes that the 5E OGL will really start to open up the game...and this would seem to qualify! Very excited for this.

 

[zedturtle]

I own it and would very much like to try it, but have never had a chance to play it.

I don't doubt C7's scholarship or their love for Tolkien's world. But let's just say that I've seen a lot of scholarly and sincere fans of Aragorn and the Rangers of the North who have spoken extremely slightingly of Gondor and the Dúnedain of the South. To the point that when someone proclaims a strong preference for the northern regions (as C7 has by focusing exclusively on them since the publication of TOR), I tend to assume they're "that type" of fan until and unless they prove otherwise.

Rhovanion was a brilliant choice for their initial focus... it has a lot of different cultures and the portion of the timeline they picked has a good reason for everyone to be coming together and new alliances formed (perhaps to be broken).

But then they had a decision to make... to go West or South. They picked West... Eriador it was, and that gave us a lot of good stuff that expanded the game. But I don't think it was decision made to slight Gondor. In fact, I think it shows respect... Gondor is the pinnacle of the game. It is the full might and power of Men standing in defiance of the Dark Lord. To do it justice, we need the rules in Rivendell, we need the rules in Rohan (come on Swan Knights) and we're going to need some other rules.

But I have full faith that Cubicle 7 will do a fantastic job with Gondor.

 

[cainefhanks]

AYE

 

[cainefhanks]

Agreed!

 

[Stormdale]

We've been playing AiME for the last few weeks and thoroughly enjoying it. I'm adapting some of the ToR books (The Darkening of Mirkwood campaign) to it and also some 5E adventures of my own. My group is enjoying the change of pace and and the games ME mechanics (journey's, shadow points, fellowship phase etc) and I'm keen to port some of those ideas over to our regular D&D campaign.

One of the guys noted on Tuesday night how much more role playing they are doing in this system mainly as they are all "forced" to be "good" least they gain more shadow points. They've role played themselves out of situations they'd have usually bludgeoned their way through in our regular D&D game and so has been a nice change of pace.

It's early days yet and we are still getting used to the AiME differences
but we are about 5 sessions in and I'm very impressed with the ruleset so far.

Stormdale

 

[BookBarbarian]

"forced" to be "good" least they gain more shadow points.

I'm like that you put those keywords quotes. The game doesn't really force you to be good as much as it gives real interesting consequences for being not good. I totally plan to play a character that that through the best of intentions is going to rack up some shadow points, not because I want to be a murderhobo, but because I think it will make for a memorable story. After all, where would LotR be without Boromir, Wormtongue, and of course Smeagol.

 

[zedturtle]

I've often said that the Shadow system is the best 'alignment' system that I've ever seen. Just personal opinion, but I love the feel that it creates.

 

[Stormdale]

I've often said that the Shadow system is the best 'alignment' system that I've ever seen. Just personal opinion, but I love the feel that it creates.

It seems to be working great so far, all my players have become "shadow point police" happy to dob in their companions when they say or do something they feel is worth of a shadow point check. Adds a lot of humour to our already crazy games.

Stormdale

 

[John R Davis]

4 sessions into a campaign I'm running set in Gondor. No hobbits or elven pcs
Going very well
Am using a few things tweaked over from TOR

 

[BookBarbarian]

4 sessions into a campaign I'm running set in Gondor. No hobbits or elven pcs
Going very well
Am using a few things tweaked over from TOR

From what I've seen It's pretty easy to do conversions from TOR. They did a really good job of bring the concepts from that game to work with 5e so far.