D&D General LotR and Forgotten Realms mashup - your thoughts?

[Eyes of Nine]

There have been a couple of Forgotten Realms Magic the Gathering sets. And at least one LotR sets. That's what made me think of this idea...

For an RPG, what sort of compelling storyline would you create that mixes Forgotten Realms and LotR?

Things I'd consider:

• A LotR PC party in the Forgotten Realms? Or an FR party in Middle Earth? Or something else?
• Assuming some cross-setting shenanigans - how would the PCs get from one place to another?
• How does this mesh with the current D&D cosmology? Is Middle Earth just another continent on Toril? Or is it a different plane?
• Do we need a different set of monsters in Middle Earth, even if they have the same name? (Orcs and Dragons for example) And are Middle Earth-unique monsters just versions of FR monsters? Like Nazgul, are they just types of... what? Liches? Vampires? Other? May not matter if very little of the adventure takes place in Middle Earth
• Who's the big bad? What's up with them - what do they want? tbh, Sauron's motivations were pretty opaque to me as a reader of the Lord of the Rings series. Vecna and many of the other BBEGs from FR their motivations are more transparent
• Magic in Middle Earth seems to work a lot different from in Forgotten Realms - how to reconcile?
• Rule sets - how easy would it be to use LotR 5e with standard 5e? (disclaimer - never read LotR 5e)
  • Speaking of which, standard 5e assumes a lot about the setting, which may not map across to LotR in terms of feel nor detail. I mean - is Legloas an Elf Ranger - or just a DEX Fighter? But wait, I thought Aragorn was a Ranger, with the Noble background... And is Frodo a rogue? Really? And what the heck would Samwise be? There's not a Factotum class...

You may have further considerations, or discard some of mine - please share your thoughts!

 

[pemerton]

There have been a couple of Forgotten Realms Magic the Gathering sets. And at least one LotR sets. That's what made me think of this idea...

For an RPG, what sort of compelling storyline would you create that mixes Forgotten Realms and LotR?

<snip>

You may have further considerations, or discard some of mine - please share your thoughts!

I can't share any thoughts because your post made my brain explode and melt down at the same time.

But will bump your thread.

 

[Parmandur]

Step one: use Rolemaster to get D&F style characters and monsters.

Step 2: use MERP for Lord of the Rings stuff

Step 3: smooth them together

Step 4: ...

Step 5: Profit?

 

[J.Quondam]

Illustration from Sauron's first adventure:

 

[Mecheon]

Middle Earth is a fairly low fantasy-ish setting, whereas Faerun is high magic as all get-out. Any half-decent wizard there is putting out far more stuff than any wizard ever did. Even Melkor, for all his power, is going to be just done the moment he causes problems and the various wizards take notice. Deities walk the street on the regular

Its going to clash, badly.

Nazgul are pretty much Spectres incidentally. Like, there was a line back in the day in OD&D that Spectres were flat-out supposed to represent the Nazgul. I'd probably use Wraith for the 'generates more things' though

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I think there are two main problems.

First - LotR just doesn't fit with DnD's whole class/level based thing.

Second - tonally the two milieus are so very, very different I cannot see how to reconcile them. I think you recognise this when you mention how the magic systems of the two are so vastly different. Game mechanics that would fit one magic system will not fit the other.

How magic is done is one issue, probably the major one.

But FR's plethora of walking gods (and I'm not even talking about the actual gods wandering about, just the uber-wizards) doesn't really work with LotR. Unless... you set everything in the First Age when Middle Earth has it's own plethora of walking gods (again, not talking about the actual gods, just the Elves.)

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Middle Earth is a fairly low fantasy-ish setting, whereas Faerun is high magic as all get-out. Any half-decent wizard there is putting out far more stuff than any wizard ever did. Even Melkor, for all his power, is going to be just done the moment he causes problems and the various wizards take notice. Deities walk the street on the regular

Its going to clash, badly.

Nazgul are pretty much Spectres incidentally. Like, there was a line back in the day in OD&D that Spectres were flat-out supposed to represent the Nazgul. I'd probably use Wraith for the 'generates more things' though

So in other words, LotR PCs in Faerun could be similar to a campaign where people from our world are transported to D&D world

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I think there are two main problems.

First - LotR just doesn't fit with DnD's whole class/level based thing.

Second - tonally the two milieus are so very, very different I cannot see how to reconcile them. I think you recognise this when you mention how the magic systems of the two are so vastly different. Game mechanics that would fit one magic system will not fit the other.

How magic is done is one issue, probably the major one.

But FR's plethora of walking gods (and I'm not even talking about the actual gods wandering about, just the uber-wizards) doesn't really work with LotR. Unless... you set everything in the First Age when Middle Earth has it's own plethora of walking gods (again, not talking about the actual gods, just the Elves.)

Fair - although I'd love to see the Fellowship as high-level as they are in LotR land, come to Faerun and are 3rd level characters...

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Fair - although I'd love to see the Fellowship as high-level as they are in LotR land, come to Faerun and are 3rd level characters...

Lol. Yeah that feels about right.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

A LotR PC party in the Forgotten Realms? Or an FR party in Middle Earth? Or something else?

Definitely the prior over the latter.

You can drop anyone you want into the Forgotten Realms as long as it's small scale and it won't disrupt the balance. The Forgotten Realms is a world where every type of weirdo exists somewhere and the overall vibe accommodates it. It is a bristling, messy pop-culture cosmopolis with a medieval fantasy veneer. Lord of the Rings characters aren't really the dimension hopping type, but who knows what happens if an Elven ship gets lost on its way to the undying lands.

Middle Earth is a carefully planned, carefully curated world where any sort of multiverse nonsense is going to stick out like the sorest of thumbs.