Hi!
I have bought the book 2 weeks ago. I was initially a little put off by the price (it's 54 $CAN!), but I agree that it's very beautiful, with images from the movie practically every page. I like the way the images blend with the text.
As for the content, my favorite parts are the first chapter (an overview of Middle-Earth; it gave me lots of good campaign ideas) and the section on the subtle magic of ME (in chapter 7).
They went to a lot of trouble to recreate the feeling of LotR and I think they have succeeded for the most part.
Unfortunately, as some of you have mentioned, it seems like the book was a little rushed ... Besides some typos (which I don't usually notice), there is some missing text, strange numbering of tables (ex. on p. 215, with tables 9.4, 9.3 and 9.2 in that order) and sections that are easily missed (like the "free picks" section on the bottom of p. 113, which is the last part of the character creation, but which is included at the end of the orders' descriptions). Some tables have information conflicting with the text.
Reprinting some of the tables at the end of the book, as well as a "character creation chart" would have been very helpful.
There are two rather short chapters for the Narrators, which I found interesting, but I'm not sure if that will be enough information for newcomers to RPGs. For instance, there is no example of game-play or how a combat round would play out.
The skill-based system is pretty open, yet they still kept some remnants of the old "class" concept (i doubt anybody will be fooled by calling it an "order"
). It does offer flexibility and with that, the possibility that some players will min/max their characters, specially with all the Edges and Order Abilities. I guess it's up to the Narrator to keep an eye on character creation.
On the subject of the game system itself (the CODA system). It seems simple enough. I love the way they have made Bearing (an attribute which represents force of character and presence) an important aspect of the system.
Magic has the right "feel" to it and is low-magic, as can be expected in ME (with some exceptions such as "lightning"). Many of the spells provide a high bonus to certain skill rolls or enhance certain aspect of the system. The thing that annoys me about spell casting is what Mirzabah has pointed out:
But on the Decipher boards, Doug the Net Rep has mentioned that:
I will try the official way first. But I will also try a two-part test. First a Wits or Wisdom roll to see if the spell works. (Which one do you think would be more appropriate?). Then a "resist weariness" Stamina roll, wether your first roll succeeded or not.
My last comment on the system will be on combat. Unfortunately for an epic RPG, combat seems the weakest part of this system... I have only run one game session, but my players and I ran into many "bugs". There's also the whole "usefulness of dodge" debate that I don't want to get into right now.
With that aside, even if you consider the Errata from the Decipher board, most of the "armed manoeuvres" are not very useful. For example, which option would you choose:
1) use your two actions for a "power attack" (at +3 damage, but +2 to be hit)
2) make two separate attacks (base damage - like 2d6+5 for a sword -, no bonus to be hit by opponent)
To conclude this (rather long) post, I think the "LOTR RPG Core Book" is good, but not revolutionary. Perhaps it could have benefited from a few more months of tweaking. I hopefully will be able to try it out more extensively in the future and come up with more useful comments.
Valn
PS: My first post!
I have bought the book 2 weeks ago. I was initially a little put off by the price (it's 54 $CAN!), but I agree that it's very beautiful, with images from the movie practically every page. I like the way the images blend with the text.
As for the content, my favorite parts are the first chapter (an overview of Middle-Earth; it gave me lots of good campaign ideas) and the section on the subtle magic of ME (in chapter 7).
They went to a lot of trouble to recreate the feeling of LotR and I think they have succeeded for the most part.
Unfortunately, as some of you have mentioned, it seems like the book was a little rushed ... Besides some typos (which I don't usually notice), there is some missing text, strange numbering of tables (ex. on p. 215, with tables 9.4, 9.3 and 9.2 in that order) and sections that are easily missed (like the "free picks" section on the bottom of p. 113, which is the last part of the character creation, but which is included at the end of the orders' descriptions). Some tables have information conflicting with the text.
Reprinting some of the tables at the end of the book, as well as a "character creation chart" would have been very helpful.
There are two rather short chapters for the Narrators, which I found interesting, but I'm not sure if that will be enough information for newcomers to RPGs. For instance, there is no example of game-play or how a combat round would play out.
The skill-based system is pretty open, yet they still kept some remnants of the old "class" concept (i doubt anybody will be fooled by calling it an "order"
). It does offer flexibility and with that, the possibility that some players will min/max their characters, specially with all the Edges and Order Abilities. I guess it's up to the Narrator to keep an eye on character creation.On the subject of the game system itself (the CODA system). It seems simple enough. I love the way they have made Bearing (an attribute which represents force of character and presence) an important aspect of the system.
Magic has the right "feel" to it and is low-magic, as can be expected in ME (with some exceptions such as "lightning"). Many of the spells provide a high bonus to certain skill rolls or enhance certain aspect of the system. The thing that annoys me about spell casting is what Mirzabah has pointed out:
But on the Decipher boards, Doug the Net Rep has mentioned that:
(not sure wether i can quote someone from another board; let me know...)
I will try the official way first. But I will also try a two-part test. First a Wits or Wisdom roll to see if the spell works. (Which one do you think would be more appropriate?). Then a "resist weariness" Stamina roll, wether your first roll succeeded or not.
My last comment on the system will be on combat. Unfortunately for an epic RPG, combat seems the weakest part of this system... I have only run one game session, but my players and I ran into many "bugs". There's also the whole "usefulness of dodge" debate that I don't want to get into right now.
With that aside, even if you consider the Errata from the Decipher board, most of the "armed manoeuvres" are not very useful. For example, which option would you choose:
1) use your two actions for a "power attack" (at +3 damage, but +2 to be hit)
2) make two separate attacks (base damage - like 2d6+5 for a sword -, no bonus to be hit by opponent)
To conclude this (rather long) post, I think the "LOTR RPG Core Book" is good, but not revolutionary. Perhaps it could have benefited from a few more months of tweaking. I hopefully will be able to try it out more extensively in the future and come up with more useful comments.
Valn
PS: My first post!
