The One Ring 2nd Edition Is Coming!

zedturtle · May 18, 2019

Olgar Shiverstone said:
Well that's ... annoying. Was looking forward to Moria; I've collected the entire line to date. Now to reboot with a new edition.

You’ll be able to use all of your existing material for first edition in second edition with just a bit of tweaking.

Sylvain Lafleche · May 18, 2019

By the sounds of things. They may be shifting the focus a little to encompass the whole Lord of the Rings rather than just that "Hobbit" thematic feel.

Either way its apparantly backwards compatible. So I'm not expecting too many changes. It's nice to have all the cultures in one book though.

Ghal Maraz · May 18, 2019

Please remember, also, that the initial idea was to have three separate slipcased The One Ring games, every one of them slowly shifting the feel, themes (and rules) of the game from the fairy story-like feel of The Hobbit towards the more epic themes of The Lord of the Rings.

The games should have been (sub-)titled "Adventures over the Edge of the Wild", "Errantries of the King", "War of the Ring".

The project was then changed towards a single ruleset that would have been accompanied by some supplements that had to supplement the "missing" part of the game (something that "The Adventurers' Companion" more or less did).

Now, it seems that some of those original, long-gone ideas have started to resurface (see, also, the title of the campaign).

Travis Henry · May 18, 2019

Rhun, Harad, the Dark Land, and the New Lands

I see 2E is starting in the Misty Mountains and Minas Tirith. Great! I'm looking forward to seeing C7's conception of these.

I'd also be up for seeing a new conception of Rhun (Asia), Harad (Africa), the Dark Land (Lemuria), and the New Lands (Americas). I mean a totally new continuity and vision, not attempting to (in any way) tie into ICE's (evocative yet idiosyncratic) conception of those distant lands.

Some roughly sketched parameters:
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/rhun
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/harad
https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/the-turtle-island-legendarium

Enevhar Aldarion · May 18, 2019

Ghal Maraz said:
Please remember, also, that the initial idea was to have three separate slipcased The One Ring games, every one of them slowly shifting the feel, themes (and rules) of the game from the fairy story-like feel of The Hobbit towards the more epic themes of The Lord of the Rings.

The games should have been (sub-)titled "Adventures over the Edge of the Wild", "Errantries of the King", "War of the Ring".

The project was then changed towards a single ruleset that would have been accompanied by some supplements that had to supplement the "missing" part of the game (something that "The Adventurers' Companion" more or less did).

Now, it seems that some of those original, long-gone ideas have started to resurface (see, also, the title of the campaign).

Not just that, but the starting year for each of the three sets was going to be different too. The second slipcase set was supposed to be set about 20-25 years after the first and the third set was to have been another 20-25 years later, so that all the 60+ years between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring would be covered. They sort of adapted this into their bigger campaign books with adventure hooks and ideas set in those later in-between years.

Enevhar Aldarion · May 18, 2019

Travis Henry said:
I see 2E is starting in the Misty Mountains and Minas Tirith, in the Fourth Age. Great.

I am guessing you are just being humorous with this or did not do the math. The 2E is set 25 years after the end of The Hobbit, not LotR, so it is still about 40 years before Fellowship even starts.

Travis Henry · May 19, 2019

Enevhar Aldarion said:
I am guessing you are just being humorous with this or did not do the math. The 2E is set 25 years after the end of The Hobbit, not LotR, so it is still about 40 years before Fellowship even starts.

My mistake - I (mis)read too quickly - thought Cubicle 7 was advancing the timeline to 25 after the fall of Sauron (not Smaug). Thanks.

Eithah way - I'd like to see a new take on Rhun, Harad, and other distant lands.

innerdude · May 20, 2019

Cubicle 7 has just been so all over the place with this product line.

Much like my vehement opposition to Fantasy Flight spreading out the new Star Wars line over 3 core books, I never thought that putting The One Ring just in Mirkwood to start out was a good idea.

(For the record, I held out on Fantasy Flight and got Genesys instead. One $40 rulebook vs. three different $60 rulebooks FTW . . . and if I ever want to "port" Star Wars into Genesys, I can basically just pick up Force and Destiny and cherry pick the Force rules into Genesys, still saving me $120 bucks.)

Out of the gate, Cubicle 7 cut off huge swaths of the available Lord of the Rings fiction. I personally had zero interest in playing the game because it didn't have Gondor as a playable culture.

Sure, I picked up the Rivendell hardcover, and then picked up the rest of the line in PDF through a cheap Humble Bundle, but it took 5 years to get Gondor into the "core" rules. Cubicle 7 held back Gondor to the absolute very end with the release of the Adventurer's Companion.

Yet it was no problem for them to throw in Men of Gondor as a playable culture/class in the 5e Middle-earth companion a year earlier. So clearly they seemed to have learned, "Include everything people could reasonably want in the core."

The first edition of the game is 7 years old. Is there really enough latent demand to justify a "revised" 2nd edition? Anyone who has the original RPG isn't likely to rollover hundreds of dollars into a new edition just to get the Moria companion. And I'd be willing to bet the shirt off my back that the 5e product line is significantly more profitable for them, so why are they throwing money/time/resources at TOR 2e?

Clearly they think it'll be profitable in its own right . . . but to me it smells far too much like the blatant D&D 3.5e cash grab.

To anyone thinking about jumping on The One Ring bandwagon with 2nd Edition --- go right ahead. Just be prepared to spend the next 5 years marveling at the ability of a company to repeatedly make one head-scratching product release decision after another, and consistently do it 6 to 12 months behind schedule.

SMHWorlds · May 21, 2019

New Editions bring in new players and taking advantage of the market to refresh the image of the game. I think this makes a great deal of sense.

Travis Henry · May 23, 2019

I'm looking forward to seeing C7's conception of Dwarrowdelf and the City of Guard. They do good work.

C7's Middle-earth continuity is a worthy peer among the other big continuity streams: New Line's Middle-earth, ICE's Middle-earth, and Turbine's LOTRO Middle-earth.

https://sites.google.com/site/endorenya/other-middle-earths