4E a good system base for a Tolkein RPG?
- Thread starter Glyfair
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Halivar
First Post
The last one, I kinda understand (except all hobbits involved do, in fact, do things beyond normal hobbitude all the time; e.g. "heroic"). The first two I have no clue what you mean.
Calico_Jack73
First Post
Personally I'd just stick with MERP. It is easy enough to find on EBay. 
Grimstaff
Explorer
You're absolutely right, 4E strictly forbids roleplaying empathy or courage, and PCs with a background in agriculture or landowning are also not allowed.
Obryn
Hero
oof. You know, I think it's rough to find a system for Middle Earth. Ironically, I think MERP does a pretty poor job of it... It's kind of a kludging of Rolemaster, and I don't think it was modified enough to make it work.Personally I'd just stick with MERP. It is easy enough to find on EBay.
OTOH, there's more Middle Earth stuff for MERP/RM than any other system, so it may not be that bad. It's sometimes rough to figure out what's Tolkien and what's ICE, but at least there's a wealth of background information available.
Frankly, if we're talking about the LotR books, I don't know that a good system has been made as of yet - and I don't know that any system would end up compelling. I don't know that characters like Galadriel, Gandalf, or even Frodo & Sam really fit into a set of RPG statistics.
-O
pawsplay
Hero
This approach has always horrified me. PCs should represent the bulk of all the really interesting characters in the world. The rarer and more interesting the background, the MORE desirable it is, from my standpoint, for that role to be filled by a PC.
I would allow a Gandalf character... let him at first appear to be a student of the Istari, but leave some ambiguity. I would have an agreement with the player that if the PC lives to see his epic destiny, he turns out to be one of Gandalf's brothers.
Ydars
Explorer
I think 4e (and D&D in general) would be a woeful mismatch to LoTR; much as MERP was (I played lots of MERP years ago and it was a great game but a poor window for exploring Tolkien's worlds). D&D is almost the anti-thesis of Tolkien; Gygax HATED Tolkien and was a fan of pulp Fantasy and only put in Halflings etc under pressure from fans and friends.
Magic is a passive and largely mystical thing in LotR, and even evil magic is quite subtle. Take the three Elven rings; Narya, Nenya and Vilya. Gandalf actually has the Ring of Fire; Narya but when do we actually ever see him use fire -magic? In the films; never, but in the books he uses it exactly twice. Once to light a camp fire as the Fellowship retreats from the avalanche at the path of Caradhras and once to set fire to Worgs in the Hobbit. This ring though, is how Tolkien implies that Gandalf overcomes the Balrog, because its fire cannot harm him (that and the fact that Gandalf and the Balrog are essentially the same race; i.e. Maiar or servants of the Valar).
Similarly, the fact that Rivendell and Lorien are outside of "normal time and space" and are hard to find and somehow imbued with the glory of a past age of the world is down to the fact that Elrond is keeper of Vilya and Galadriel of Nenya. Both of these ring's only true power is in the preservation of the feeling of the energy of the world when it was young, before the coming of men. So magic in Tolkien is like fine art and is a reflection of the nature of the world.
I agree there is nothing in any RPG that strictly prevents use of it to depict it Middle earth, but to put Tolkien's world into the same frame as fireballs and instant magic is like trying to marry a cartoon with the works of Michaelangelo.
So to make it work we would have to drop nearly all "magic".
Similarly, with Martial characters, there is a serious mismatch that would require re-jigging the XP system; because both 3E and 4E reward killing monsters and this is the very opposite feel of what you want to achieve in a game based on LotR. Take Frodo; he refuses to kill Gollum, as does Bilbo before him, purely out of compassion. We are also told that the great Gondorian warriors of Old only took up the sword to defend what they loved and that only orcs delight in slaughter. This is a central theme of all Tolkien's works and to ignore it is to fail to truly come to grips with him and his world.
To make the game reflect LotR you would need give all XP via quests and make each creature killed SUBTRACT from the final XP awarded. Then players would start to behave Heroically (in the sense Tolkien would have understood) in order to maintain an LotR feel.
The closest match to LotR I have seen for an RPG "out of the box" is Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG where magic is indeed very subtle and rare; yet still not as rare as in Tolkien. Since much of the way the system was put together was purpose built, it is not really surprising that it feels better than most.
Magic is a passive and largely mystical thing in LotR, and even evil magic is quite subtle. Take the three Elven rings; Narya, Nenya and Vilya. Gandalf actually has the Ring of Fire; Narya but when do we actually ever see him use fire -magic? In the films; never, but in the books he uses it exactly twice. Once to light a camp fire as the Fellowship retreats from the avalanche at the path of Caradhras and once to set fire to Worgs in the Hobbit. This ring though, is how Tolkien implies that Gandalf overcomes the Balrog, because its fire cannot harm him (that and the fact that Gandalf and the Balrog are essentially the same race; i.e. Maiar or servants of the Valar).
Similarly, the fact that Rivendell and Lorien are outside of "normal time and space" and are hard to find and somehow imbued with the glory of a past age of the world is down to the fact that Elrond is keeper of Vilya and Galadriel of Nenya. Both of these ring's only true power is in the preservation of the feeling of the energy of the world when it was young, before the coming of men. So magic in Tolkien is like fine art and is a reflection of the nature of the world.
I agree there is nothing in any RPG that strictly prevents use of it to depict it Middle earth, but to put Tolkien's world into the same frame as fireballs and instant magic is like trying to marry a cartoon with the works of Michaelangelo.
So to make it work we would have to drop nearly all "magic".
Similarly, with Martial characters, there is a serious mismatch that would require re-jigging the XP system; because both 3E and 4E reward killing monsters and this is the very opposite feel of what you want to achieve in a game based on LotR. Take Frodo; he refuses to kill Gollum, as does Bilbo before him, purely out of compassion. We are also told that the great Gondorian warriors of Old only took up the sword to defend what they loved and that only orcs delight in slaughter. This is a central theme of all Tolkien's works and to ignore it is to fail to truly come to grips with him and his world.
To make the game reflect LotR you would need give all XP via quests and make each creature killed SUBTRACT from the final XP awarded. Then players would start to behave Heroically (in the sense Tolkien would have understood) in order to maintain an LotR feel.
The closest match to LotR I have seen for an RPG "out of the box" is Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG where magic is indeed very subtle and rare; yet still not as rare as in Tolkien. Since much of the way the system was put together was purpose built, it is not really surprising that it feels better than most.
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
There are a lot of ways you could do a LotR game with 4E, but there would always be some conditions or outs.
The big question is going to be your strategy for embracing some of the assumptions of the series:
Are you fellowship level badasses? Nearly every class will be appropriate. But most classes will require a lot of explanation
Are you more generic guards or riders of rohan? You're still going to be heroic - that's one of the great things about Tolkien - but you aren't going to have that many classes to choose from.
Some 4e things that will make good answers for questions brought up by either approach:
The APG has a Tolkienesque hobbit. Small guy who's primary bonuses are being surprisingly tough and good at making saving throws.
It also has a system for wounds, and a crafting system which could help.
There is an Aristocrat class out there that functions just like the Spellscarred class - it's a full list of powers but the class only exists to be multi-classed into. So you won't ever find someone who is a 'Rightful Heir to Gondor' as a class, but you will find a Ranger who has lots of powers that a rightful heir to Gondor should have.
You could also use that approach for magic users who are working at the sub-Fellowship level, depending on how much magic you are comfortable with.
The big question is going to be your strategy for embracing some of the assumptions of the series:
Are you fellowship level badasses? Nearly every class will be appropriate. But most classes will require a lot of explanation
Are you more generic guards or riders of rohan? You're still going to be heroic - that's one of the great things about Tolkien - but you aren't going to have that many classes to choose from.
Some 4e things that will make good answers for questions brought up by either approach:
The APG has a Tolkienesque hobbit. Small guy who's primary bonuses are being surprisingly tough and good at making saving throws.
It also has a system for wounds, and a crafting system which could help.
There is an Aristocrat class out there that functions just like the Spellscarred class - it's a full list of powers but the class only exists to be multi-classed into. So you won't ever find someone who is a 'Rightful Heir to Gondor' as a class, but you will find a Ranger who has lots of powers that a rightful heir to Gondor should have.
You could also use that approach for magic users who are working at the sub-Fellowship level, depending on how much magic you are comfortable with.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Although I've not owned it, I remember being impressed by this when it came out.
I don't know if it is available, but some of Decipher's pages are still visible here
The Lord of the Rings RPG
and here The Lord of the Rings RPG
Cheers
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