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

Cubicle 7 has announced that it will cease publishing Tolkien-related games, including The One Ring and Adventures in Middle Earth, in early 2020. The One Ring 2E is cancelled.

Cubicle 7 has announced that it will cease publishing Tolkien-related games, including The One Ring and Adventures in Middle Earth, in early 2020. The One Ring 2E is cancelled.

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‘I am with you at present,’ said Gandalf, ‘but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire.’


We have some very unfortunate and unexpected news to share. Contractual differences arose recently which we have been unable to resolve, and so we have decided to end our licensing agreement with Sophisticated Games. It is with regret that we have made this very tough decision to withdraw.

This means we will cease publishing The One Ring and Adventures in Middle-earth™ in the first half of 2020. Unfortunately, this doesn’t give us enough time to release the much-anticipated The One Ring – The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game second edition. As many of you know, our first edition of The One Ring is eight years old, and we had high hopes of a full product line to support our second edition. Our team have worked incredibly hard on this new edition; with many of the announced titles already written and edited, so being very close to completion makes this decision even harder.

We fully appreciate how invested so many of you are, both in regards to stock and your love of the game. Especially those who have followed our journey from first edition, or have customers who have pre-ordered the second edition or Rohan Region Guide. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

We will continue selling our existing stock over the next few months. We will be offering some discounts on our website for consumers as part of our Black Friday sale this week. We will not be reprinting any of these titles, so if you wish to stock up, we would suggest you contact your preferred distributor soon.
 

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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Makes me wonder... might Sophisticated sub-license to either Modiphius... or to FFG (who might view it as a lucrative opportunity to adapt the LotR RPG to their Genesys/narrative dice system, given the impending release of the Amazon TV series)??? FFG does generally have a bigger presence/share in the overall gaming market than either C7 or Modiphius.

Just thinking aloud...
Why? That would be weird.

Why is the narrative suddenly “which company could screw over Cubicle 7, and by the way we don’t care about the One Ring system they carefully developed”?

All these people know each other.
 
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TwiceBorn2

Adventurer
If someone else thinks they can make a more profitable LotR RPG using a different system, then why not?

The maximization of profit is priority #1 for any business, ahead of loyalty to specific game mechanics.

Just idle speculation. I have no numbers to base this on (i.e., how well AiME is selling vs. The One Ring vs. other RPGs). I'll be happy if proven wrong.
 

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
If someone else thinks they can make a more profitable LotR RPG using a different system, then why not?

Maybe somebody might at some point, but Modiphius jumping in on Cubicle 7 would be... awkward. This is a tiny industry.

The maximization of profit is priority #1 for any business,

Oh, god, no it's not. If it was, they'd all be selling drugs, not RPGs. Businesses have plenty of priorities beyond profit.

Just idle speculation. I have no numbers to base this on

What numbers might you base "Makes me wonder... might Sophisticated sub-license to either Modiphius... or to FFG (who might view it as a lucrative opportunity to adapt the LotR RPG to their Genesys/narrative dice system, given the impending release of the Amazon TV series)???" on?
 

G

Guest 6801328

Guest
Makes me wonder... might Sophisticated sub-license to either Modiphius... or to FFG (who might view it as a lucrative opportunity to adapt the LotR RPG to their Genesys/narrative dice system, given the impending release of the Amazon TV series)??? FFG does generally have a bigger presence/share in the overall gaming market than either C7 or Modiphius.

Just thinking aloud...

God I hope the next stage of this is NOT the license going to a company that loves to apply their universal, be-all-end-all system to every genre.

What made TOR a thing of beauty is that the rules were written from the ground up to fit a specific setting, and it worked amazingly. Were the rules perfect? No. Would I change some things? Yes. But overall TOR is the game that made me realize why I always hated GURPS, MERP, and countless other games that thought rules could/should be setting agnostic.
 

“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge." Galadriel, Fellowship of the ring.

Franchises are difficult to manage, and C7 have proved adroit in their dealings with others. It is a real pity...something makes me wonder why C7 pulled out with ToR2 so close to release and the Amazon series on the horizon. 🤔

We may never know, since non-disclosure agreements are regularly used with intellectual property rights.
 

Arilyn

Hero
God I hope the next stage of this is NOT the license going to a company that loves to apply their universal, be-all-end-all system to every genre.

What made TOR a thing of beauty is that the rules were written from the ground up to fit a specific setting, and it worked amazingly. Were the rules perfect? No. Would I change some things? Yes. But overall TOR is the game that made me realize why I always hated GURPS, MERP, and countless other games that thought rules could/should be setting agnostic.
Yes. Everything in the game from the rules to the art and the writing embraced a Tolkien feel. The game has class.
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
God I hope the next stage of this is NOT the license going to a company that loves to apply their universal, be-all-end-all system to every genre.

What made TOR a thing of beauty is that the rules were written from the ground up to fit a specific setting, and it worked amazingly. Were the rules perfect? No. Would I change some things? Yes. But overall TOR is the game that made me realize why I always hated GURPS, MERP, and countless other games that thought rules could/should be setting agnostic.
I mean I love GURPS but yes TOR is also excellent.
 

Laurefindel

Legend
Makes me wonder... might Sophisticated sub-license to either Modiphius... or to FFG (who might view it as a lucrative opportunity to adapt the LotR RPG to their Genesys/narrative dice system, given the impending release of the Amazon TV series)??? FFG does generally have a bigger presence/share in the overall gaming market than either C7 or Modiphius.

Just thinking aloud...
Emphasis mine

Ironically (well, not really since its all speculation), I went the other way around for my RPG version of Twilight Imperium (FFG’s flagship game) and used Cubicle 7 TOR’s rule system as game engine.
 

Skywalker

Adventurer
Sophisticated (a board game company, which produces LotR board games) has the overall license, and was sublicensing to Cubicle 7.

Its more complex than that. Doesn't the design team on TOR work for Sophisticated Games? Perhaps SG does more than just licence the IP and may even retain much of the IP in TOR and AiME, much like GW does with WFRP.
 


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