Cubicle 7 No Longer Producing The One Ring and Adventures in Middle Earth

TOR is a proper Tolkien game.

AiME is just lightly skinned Dungeons & Dragons, with fireballs and levels.

Nuff said

Why not to write an etsarz or spiritual successor? Maybe this is the best option because Middle-Earth is a master work, but "one-shot" to be used for TTRPG.

LuisCarlos17f said:

Why not to write an etsarz or spiritual successor? Maybe this is the best option because Middle-Earth is a master work, but "one-shot" to be used for TTRPG.

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Are you assuming The One Ring is dead? Because if you are, don't. Sophisticated clearly stated they will work to (try to) save 2nd Edition.

LuisCarlos17f said:

Why not to write an etsarz or spiritual successor? Maybe this is the best option because Middle-Earth is a master work, but "one-shot" to be used for TTRPG.

Click to expand...

That's a pretty bold assertion to level at a setting that has seen at least 3 decades of RPG support. The Lord of the Rings isn't even the only or most important story in the literary canon.

There is a role for a tolkienian fantasy engine on a world not constrained to the professor's views...

in essence, that was Gygax's major contribution to D&D.... at least if one ignores or detests the "gygaxian spew" writing/editing style.... and that the tolkeinian influence is probably one fo the more important elements in D&D's initial, and continuing, success.

By the same token, MERP (ICE) was a very nice game, with wonderful setting work, but they didn't mate well together, IMO, and a good number agree that it wasn't a good system for Middle Earth.

But some of us like the mechanics more than we do the Professor's world itself...

CapnZapp said:

TOR is a proper Tolkien game.

AiME is just lightly skinned Dungeons & Dragons, with fireballs and levels.

Nuff said

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That's dreadfully inaccurate, and I know you know better.

Adventures in Middle-earth has custom Cultures (because a Man of Bree and a Man of Minas Tirith are very different) and custom Classes designed from the ground-up to play in Middle-earth. There are no casters by default, and while there is a list of spells in the Loremaster's Guide that you might fit into the setting, fireball ain't one of them.

Sure, we did build on the core of 5e for familiarity's sake, and that does mean that a 3rd level hero fits more comfortably into a lot of Middle-earth adventure ideas than a 17th level one but there are always options. Plus, with additional rules like Shadow corruption and expanded use of Exhaustion, Hit Dice and Inspiration there are plenty of ways to make the game feel different than standard 5e.

With respect, I have never felt levels be appropriate for a Middle-Earth feeling at all.

That went for ICE's LOTR game, it goes for AIME.

Basically, I am convinced D&D is intrinsically and fundamentally incompatible with any down-to-earth narrative. And despite Peter Jackson's heinous efforts (stairs-skating elves, rabbit-sleighing Wizards, barrel-rafting dwarves... ), Tolkien's trilogy - which I love dearly - remains down-to-earth for me.

Tl;dr: Do. Not. Use. D&D. For. Tolkien.

Sorry for being blunt, Zed. I tried to gloss it over, but you did call me out on it.

To end on a positive note, I heartily recommend y'all to try The One Ring. Just don't listen to anyone trying to pretend you can have a proper Tolkien experience using D&D. Sure you can play Rangers bashing goblin heads, but that's not what Lord of the Rings is about, for me.

Yeah, no.

Don’t listen to one guy’s hang ups about dnd, folks. AIME works just fine for adventuring in middle earth.

TOR is also excellent, but the idea that levels don’t work for Tolkien/down to earth narratives is literally just a preference pretending toward something more.

I have to second that I love AiME, and what was done with the 5e chassis was very inventive and a gold standard of 5e adaptations as far as I'm concerned.

With shadow rules, journey and exploration phases, and the simple fact of limiting long rests to sanctuaries, I feel they've done a great job of bringing the feel into the system.

@CubicsRube , @doctorbadwolf
AIME's value is highly debatable... for some, it's great, for others, it's proof that C7 lost it's talent...

I find that the layout of AIME Player's was poor enough as to make it not readily useable. Like many others, I find the idea of Class & Level pretty mediocre and a poor fit to tolkien's world, and the only advantage to a 5E base is the ease of converting players of 5E, but AIME wasn't written well enough to get that happening.
And a few test tries of the journey system resulted in my reaction being "not as good as stock 5E, nor as good as TOR"...

I'll say that people have used D&D for Tolkien since 1973... doesn't mean it's a generally good fit, and in the case of AIME, it's not an improvement over stock 5E from what I've read (which is just the AIME player's book). Hell, there's an article in an early Dragon issue pointing out that Gandalf was only exhibiting 5th level abilities.

I've tried using D&D for Middle earth, under AD&D 1E, didn't feel right, even when I had no experience with any other RPGs besides D&D... I've tried under MERP, actually felt less like Tolkien than did D&D. I never got past char gen for Decipher's LOTR. I will say that, when I finally tried to read the Shanara series, it felt like a MERP campaign... (and yes, I know it predates MERP.)

I have found one that, while it doesn't quite feel Tolkien, is close enough to enjoy as a tolkienian knockoff... The Fantasy Trip 1E. And while not quite right, it's much closer than D&D of any edition.

I've only found one ruleset that felt really like tolkien to me... TOR. Part of that is that the rules enforce the genre in play, part of it is that the character generation highlights the types of characters, but allows a wide spectrum, much as Tolkien's characters are a spectrum, not neat and tidy types. (Especially in The Hobbit). A huge part is the journey system and combat system.

Another part of that is that we really see growth of skill only in a few characters - Merry, Pip, Sam. Bilbo might have, but it's unclear if he really learned the blade while out and about, or had skill with it prior that wasn't mentioned... TFT 1E advances rather slowly, and TOR advances smoothly but in diminishing returns for increasing costs. (most tasks succeed with level 3 skills.... levels 4+ are just to push for more 6's.)

So, while I'm likely to get the new edition, I'm really not happy they are changing core mechanics. But I'm also absolutely convinced that fans of AIME do not share my values in what makes a good game for Tolkien's world, and not for what makes for good editing, either. But I'm not telling people to ignore the fanboys. And it's not fair to dismiss one or two people's negative opinions of it, either. People should see/hear both ends of the spectrum. If someone wants to buy a lightly read AIME player's book...