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.

 

[gweinel]

It is my dream come true - mix of D&D 5e and The One Ring (Middle Earth)!

The same goes for me!
I would love to see in dnd terms rules for corruption. hope points, full fleshed travel rules, wide span of downtime and ofc as [MENTION=808]CrusaderX[/MENTION] said a decent Ranger.

Also to note that Francesco Nepitello is behind the game. I consider this great news since he is the one behind the rules of The One Ring.

All i can say amazing news!

 

[Guest 6801328]

It is my dream come true - mix of D&D 5e and The One Ring (Middle Earth)!

My dream is The One Ring exactly as it is, but with 5% of the D&D player base. Which would be about 4 orders of magnitude growth.

So my hope is that this product line gets D&D players interested and excited about Middle Earth, and from there maybe they'll try TOR. And maybe just bring more Tolkien fans into RPGing, some of whom will then discover TOR.

 

[fjw70]

What I think is interesting is that this doesn't appear to be an OGL game, but rather done with a direct license from WotC. Which I think is still good sign that WotC is willing to be more open in general.

I didn't noticed that.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

So what aspects of D&D do people feel would not fit well with Middle Earth, besides overt, flashy magic? For me it would be any kind of multi-classing, especially using the D&D classes.

 

[BrockBallingdark]

"You will have my sword..."
"you will have my bow..."
"and my eldritch blast."

I just cringed and shuddered. I absolutely love The One Ring RPG and huge fan of 5E but this makes me so nervous. I will trust C7 on this and see how this turns out. They have the best Journey/Traveling system and hopefully we get a real Ranger (no spells!).

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

You want to play a hobbit? OK, but you don't get to leave your starting village. Everyone knows hobbits don't like to travel.

Unless you're a Took, have a smidgen of Took ancestry, or are friend of a Took who drags you into an adventure. Or a young lad or lass, from any family, who happens to be inspired by a passing firecracker salesman.

...or unless you're a Outsider tramp-hobbit from the West of the World:

"The Shire-hobbits referred to those of Bree, and to any others that lived beyond the borders, as Outsiders, and took very little interest in them, considering them dull and uncouth. There were probably many more Outsiders scattered about in the West of the World in those days than the people of the Shire imagined. Some, doubtless, were no better than tramps, ready to dig a hole in any bank and stay only as long as it suited them."

You want to play a wizard? OK, as soon as one of the current 5 wizards in the world dies off (assuming they don't come back a different color of course)

The Five Wizards were only those who landed in the Grey Havens in the North-western continent of the Old World (i.e. Europe). Others of their Order presumably sailed to other continents.

"Of this Order the number is unknown; but of those that came to the North of Middle-earth, where there was most hope (because of the remnant of the Dúnedain and of the Eldar that abode there), the chiefs were five."

That statement could even imply there are more than Five Wizards even in the North of Middle-earth, since the Five are only the "chiefs" of those that came to the North. I think this one statement could allow wiggle-room for mannish apprentices of the Order of Istari.

In the esoteric tradition of Tolkien's day (e.g. Owen Barfield's Anthroposophy), there are said to be twelve Bodhisattvas, of whom five are enfleshed at any one time.

The Roverandom story is set in the same legendarium as Middle-earth (though in modern times), and there is a wizard name Artaxerxes (from Persia), and a sand-sorcerer named Psamathos Psamathides. Though these are not Istari.

"[The] "Order of Wizards" was quite distinct from "wizards" and "magicians" of later legend; they belonged solely to the Third Age and then departed [...]" (UT)

JRRT says the Blue Wizards of the East probably founded magic traditions:

"I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron."

One could play a mannish Magician in the Third Age, no problem. (This is not a prompt for the usual "Are/is there magicians/magic in Middle-earth?" flamewar.)

 

[aramis erak]

I think, creatively and academically, it's a bad fit... but it's also likely to sell like hotcakes on a sunday morning in winter, unless it smells as bad as a dog owner's lawn in the thaw of spring...

See, Tolkien's a bad fit for D&D in general, and 5e pretty specifically, so unless it's an alternate core class set, it's going to be about like MERP was - great fluff, and totally unrelated game mechanics which don't support the setting nor the specific fluff.

And it isn't going to be easy to do straight ports... the power growth in 5E is majorly exponential, while it tapers off quite handlily in TOR...

 

[Queer Venger]

YES!!! As long as its 5e consider me interested.

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

double post

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

I'm looking forward to this. Cubicle 7 does a pretty good job. And I'm glad it'll be rendered in D&D rules - I don't relish learning new systems.

Still, it could be even better. C7's conception of Middle-earth doesn't include many of the insights that can be gleaned from a close reading of JRRT texts. For example, here's a list of Hobbit Traits that come straight from the text:

https://sites.google.com/site/thereandbackadventure/hobbit-traits

Here are the "language flavors" and "language families" which, I am confident, align with the 900 AD-era ethnology which JRRT implies:
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/language-flavors
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/language-families

And here is a hodgepodge of other secrets:

https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/secrets-of-middle-earth

C7, shoot me an email if you want another cook (consultant) in the kitchen. ;-)