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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 7869978" data-attributes="member: 6779310">[USER=6848185]@CubicsRube[/USER] , [USER=6704184]@doctorbadwolf[/USER] 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...</blockquote>

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