Capturing the "feel" of Tolkien.

[MichaelSomething]

To my mind Tolkien presents three major problems for an RPG adaptation:

1. It is a lore that many people respect and sort of know, but few have the patience to master the extreme complexity of. This makes it sort of the perfect storm of difficult to manage on the world-building front. There are authoritative correct ways for almost everything in Tolkien's world to be, and players will likely care to some extent, but it's difficult knowledge to master.

2. It is a legendarium built around the several stories Tolkien wanted to tell, and he has told them. For all the richness of the setting it's actually a harder setting to tell additional stories in than most, because the whole world revolves around Morgoth and the Silmarils, and Sauron and the Ring. Even Tolkiens own side story of The Hobbit he eventually felt the need to weave into the grand epic of the Ring. The degree to which the whole worlds revolved around the rise and fall of these villains is much of how Tolkien makes these almost entirely "off-screen" figures compelling villains.

3. As several people here have pointed out, a key part of the feel of Tolkien is that he focuses on the hobbits, who, while I would argue that they "level up" more than some people in this thread have given them credit, they are still not turning into anything but the most reluctant action heroes. TTRPGs tend the focus on the people willing and capable of going on adventure, and generally a problem one has to fight is players wanting to create reluctant heroes like those they see in books and movies and it then being on the GM to thrust adventure upon them against their character's preferences. RPGs tend to work better when they focus on characters like Legolas and Gimli who, sure they have a quest, but at the end of the day they both seem to just enjoy adventuring for adventuring's sake, at least to some degree, and spent years traveling the world together after the quest of the ring concluded.

DM of the Rings I:The Copious Backstory - Twenty Sided

www.shamusyoung.com

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think the most significant things that give LotR it's worldfeel is the isolation of the world, the remnants of the past and the subtlety of most of the magic
-isolation: civilisations are few and far between, there are masses of wilderness between any two given locations, it takes days maybe weeks to get from one place to another, and where it's wild there are threats, your little village might have bright lights and warm fires but not too far outside the walls darkness is nipping at your heels, and people know this, most settlements are communities that don't intermingle with each other except in the most fringe interactions, this is especially prominent when you factor the species, most places are mono-species, an elven town, a human village, a dwarven city, the hobbit's shire, making going to other places even more strange and foreign, i don't think having lots of species in a campaign world is inherently bad but having lots of them does contribute IMO to a feeling of 'crowdedness' that is antithetical to the intended tone of a Middle Earth setting, IIRC the fellowship itself or even just aragorn, gimli and legolas travelling together was notable because the species didn't travel together, meeting a dozen of so parties on the road every individual a different shape or colour like your usual group undermines this significance.
-remnants: there are scattered all through the land, for better and worse, bits and pieces of a grander age, they are awe-inspiring to see but the ones in ruin reminding you of how far the world has fallen since then, alot of this is lore, history and stories but quite a few old structures (was it weathertop where the hobbits/strider first fought the ringwraiths?), there is the mines of moria, a once great dwarven city now in decay, home to goblins and demons, there are the two statues of kings flanking the river where frodo leaves the fellowship, the history is often important too, to learn from what came before.
-subtle magic: most magic in Middle Earth low key, yes gandalf or some other spellcaster might throw out some powerful flashy magic here and there but they#re kind of the exceptions that prove the rule, most magic is tied up in more passive manifestations, in learned skills and crafted artefacts, in specific places or times and dates, so when the hobbits do see big displays of magic it's significant to them, related to what i mentioned earlier, species curation is also important for this aspect because some of the DnD species are very conspicuiously magical which isn't beneficial to your Middle Earth goals, the elves also tie into this being an old species who remember the before times, are notable magic and are conspicuously leaving.

 

[Aldarc]

If you want the feel of Tolkien, better get to world building. Dude had hundreds of pages of world lore.

The Hobbit didn't. And some of its "world-building" was literally retconned post-publication to align it closer to Tolkien's later work.

 

[ART!]

I love TOR. It has gotten me consistently the most ME feel.

But stripped of mechanics I think the one way I achieve the ME feel is by leaning into hope.

There is a lot of wonder, nostalgia, corruption, and lore -but for me - Tolkien crafted, like all myths before him - a sense of hope.

Not wish.

Which is the way "hope" is usually defined.

Nope. Hope, for me, in ME particularly (and myth in general) is the realization on the part of the characters that their actions matter. They know that their suffering is redemptive. To someone (maybe only themselves). Somewhere (maybe only right now). And they choose it. And we celebrate them for it.

They (the characters, and we the hearers) know they are, as everyone else, all a part of the same story. And I think THAT is what Joseph Campbell calls the Power of Myth.

From what I gather, Tolkien's elvish (specifically Quenya, I assume, but maybe other elvish languages) has two words for "hope". One means hope based on an reasonable understanding of how things are likely to play out. The other is a different kind of hope, a hope without any reason to think or even an assumption that things will turn out well. This is a big deal in Tolkien's stories, especially in LOTR, I think.

3. As several people here have pointed out, a key part of the feel of Tolkien is that he focuses on the hobbits, who, while I would argue that they "level up" more than some people in this thread have given them credit, they are still not turning into anything but the most reluctant action heroes. TTRPGs tend the focus on the people willing and capable of going on adventure, and generally a problem one has to fight is players wanting to create reluctant heroes like those they see in books and movies and it then being on the GM to thrust adventure upon them against their character's preferences. RPGs tend to work better when they focus on characters like Legolas and Gimli who, sure they have a quest, but at the end of the day they both seem to just enjoy adventuring for adventuring's sake, at least to some degree, and spent years traveling the world together after the quest of the ring concluded.

So true. I love systems that support the dramatic value of PCs who aren't mostly about fighting or adventuring. I've always admired the Smallville iteration of Cortex for this.

The Hobbit didn't. And some of its "world-building" was literally retconned post-publication to align it closer to Tolkien's later work.

The Hobbit's worldbuilding is done in such broad, fairy-tale, strokes that I think it's worldbuilding almost anyone can do. The place names are literally things like the Misty Mountains, the Running River, the Lonely Mountan, etc.

 

[Mannahnin]

I know Reynard asked three years ago, but just for the sake of current discussion...

I can get some of those sometimes, but never all of them in a single game. I am not sure it is even possible in a game because the GM is not the author as such, but I do strive for it. The closest I have ever gotten is during the sequel D&D 3.x campaign to a highly successful 2E campaign, where the PCs were the children of PCs from the previous campaign (largely the same player group) and all the history, both background and played, really mattered. It was really wonderful, and I don't expect i will ever feel that way about a game again.

If you look at Tolkien's work and see it as a thing you would want to emulate in play, have you ever managed it? Did it require a ME/LotR game or campaign? What elements were hard? Which seemed to come easily? What do you think makes game "feel" like Tolkien?

I think that sense of history (and what Matt Colville referred to in one of his videos as a "time abyss") is a key element. You said that later generational sequel campaign had at least some of that feel. I would lean into that. Take an older campaign world where you have a bunch of established lore and advance the timeline. Extrapolate on what your old heroes did and the great domains or organizations or just strongholds they established after their triumphs. And then have some of those glories fall into ruin. Think about what happened in the meantime. Work with that lore and ground your new plots and threat in it.

Tolkien at the table would be 2 to4 years of misery and hopelessness coming to an end because the weakest members of the party got lucky and destroyed the artifact. The misery the characters have to go through is almost a gaurrantee no one will have fun.

Pfft. Tolkien is also all the awesome action in The Two Towers, like at the Battle of Helm's Deep.

I remember when I was a little kid I loved Fellowship (despite the slow start, with the Hobbits in the Old Forest and all), and for some reason my impression of the later books was that Frodo's sorrowful slog and long endurance under the burden of the ring made up much more of the narrative than it actually does. But there is a ton of cool stuff in those books.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ironically, a coworker just asked me if we could run a 5E game with a Lord of the Rings feel. I don't feel comfortable trying to actually doing something set in Middle-Earth, but I just went through the Monster Manual and assembled a list of all the stuff that would fit into a game with a similar-but-not-identical vibe (ettins and ogres, for instance). Things that are too purely D&D, like beholders and mind flayers, will not be appearing.

My biggest challenge is naming. I'd like to have consistency of language, like JRRT did, but am not a linguist and am not sure where to find good Tolkien-flavored naming generators. (Most online ones have all sorts of random stuff jammed into them, including a lot of generic D&D content.)

EDIT: Problem solved. I'm using an online Old English translator and just jamming descriptive words in English for each of the things I want names for and adapting the words that sound the best. They all sound like they're from the same world, because they are, but don't sound anything like Modern English.

My current idea is if the equivalent to a female hero like Eowyn defeated Sauron and then, meaning to use the evil artifact's power for good, became a Dark Queen instead. So it's a generation or so later and a dark power is once again conquering all the lands. So there's the current events, the history of the great war that preceded them, along with larger historical contexts.

Play will start in a safe, largely ignored community where there are rumors of war to the north and refugees on the move, but which is as yet untouched -- until the end of the first adventure, anyway, when dark riders roll into town, looking for a McGuffin the PCs have just encountered in their first adventure.

The dark artifact is likely to be the Iron Crown (because I can't resist a dopey in-joke reference) and the McGuffin is likely to be an incantation to raise up and bind a wraith that previously served the dark lord, but the broad strokes are as LotR as can be.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

From what I gather, Tolkien's elvish (specifically Quenya, I assume, but maybe other elvish languages) has two words for "hope". One means hope based on an reasonable understanding of how things are likely to play out

Amdir.

The other is a different kind of hope, a hope without any reason to think or even an assumption that things will turn out well.

Estel - which was Aragorn's childhood name. As you said, a real big deal in the legendarium.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, I'm running the adventure this Sunday. The group is a mix of halflings and half-elves, which is convenient for the tone.

My big challenge at the moment is that if I am not having the first adventure feature goblins or orcs (I'd like to make them not be the bad guys, having been forced into the former Dark Lord's army, rather than being willingly evil peoples in this campaign), I'm actually finding it hard to find low level threats that fit the world, other than skeletons and, I guess, giant rats.

My current plan is that everyone is attending a big halfling wedding, and the scent of all the great food lures a giant boar. It gets chased off, but ends up carrying off one or more kids in its mouth and the heroes have to chase it back to its lair, which turns out to be an old tomb (complete with skeletons).

 

[Reynard]

So, I'm running the adventure this Sunday. The group is a mix of halflings and half-elves, which is convenient for the tone.

My big challenge at the moment is that if I am not having the first adventure feature goblins or orcs (I'd like to make them not be the bad guys, having been forced into the former Dark Lord's army, rather than willingly evil peoples in this campaign), I'm actually finding it hard to find low level threats that fit the world, other than skeletons and, I guess, giant rats.

My current plan is that everyone is attending a big halfling wedding, and the scent of all the great food lures a giant boar. It gets chased off, but ends up carrying off one or more kids in its mouth and the heroes have to chase it back to its lair, which turns out to be an old tomb (complete with skeletons).

Maybe the reason that the boar did the thing is that the unquiet spirit of the old Barrow King needs help and wanted to draw "heroes" to him to beg for aid.

Someone looted his tomb and in order to rest he needs his gold torque back. The PCs -- assuming they take the hook -- follow tracks from the tomb to a goblin camp who they assume are responsible. But the goblins sue for mercy instead of fight to the death and the PCs find out that the goblins are being bullied by evil human followers of the Dark Lord who think they still get to push goblins around.

The goblins did steal the torque, but under duress. They can tell the PCs where the evil humans -- who are now just bandits, effectively-- are camped. PCs go fight them, get the torque and more importantly get to free some goblins thralls.

You can play with responsibility and morality if you want. If the spectre king wants revenge against the thieves you could say that regardless of their circumstances, the goblins were technically the thieves. That might muddy te moral waters in an interesting way.

Obviously I made a metric ton of assumptions in all that, so take it how you will.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The dead king is the McGuffin for the next adventure, if we have one.

The servants of the new Dark Lady are going to be going around digging up various war criminals for a ritual to turn them into the equivalent of the Nazgul. This guy was such a creep that, while he was buried with the appropriate honors, the location of his tomb was kept a secret -- until the giant boar leads the heroes to it.

I'm following the Matt Colville idea of having the first big campaign villain make a cameo appearance in the first adventure, so we're going to have the Queen's Riders demanding the halfling villagers tell them where the forgotten king's barrow is located, and then having that be our cliffhanger.

I will be definitely filing away the evil humans (the descendants of the forgotten king's followers) and torque ideas, though, thanks. Both fit great with the vibe I'm looking for.