D&D comes to Middle Earth (from Cubicle 7)

I have high hopes that the 5E OGL will really start to open up the game...and this would seem to qualify! Very excited for this.

 

[zedturtle]

I will buy this for sure, and if there are good rules for converting existing TOR material to 5e I could see myself buy a lot of TOR products. And I've never even played it!

There are some of us that have only played D&D and no other TTRPGs. Some of us who have only played 5e. You'll see us pop up from time to time asking how to set a campaign in Middle Earth or Westeros or Thedas. Or how to build classes, subclasses, or characters based on things we've seen form fantasy books, movies, and video games.

We're often told "That's a bad fit for D&D" or a "bad fit for 5e" or "There's already an RPG for that. Go buy that". But some of us had to introduce our friends to D&D or to just 5e and that introduction took a lot of effort and growing pains. And getting our group to buy into new rules and new mechanics is a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

So we try to adapt our beloved classics to the rules we've already bought and are familiar with. This product is for us. I hope to see more like it.

That's an excellent point, well made. Mind if I copy it over to the C7 forum?

 

[Ampolitor]

I think the idea behind this is cool but something about Middle Earth just never translated well to RPG in my opinion. This was the problem with the MERP and Rolemaster versions. For one thing, the story line is so well established it is not easy to bend the canon. Furthermore, the use of magic was always poorly defined. Even Gandalf the Wizard used magic very sparingly and never showy. To me, the magic is the whole point of a fantasy game world and to limit it seems to be missing out on a large element. Of course there are folks that enjoy very low magic worlds. I just happen to NOT be one of them. Finally, what would be the monster population? Previous game versions of LotR limited themselves to only what was found in the books. This basically meant orcs. Period. Of course there were also the occasional dragon, troll, spider, giant eagle, worg, ent, etc. but by and large these were few and far between. Coming across orcs over and over again gets redundant after a while.

Have you even played the one ring? This is a GREAT game, and there is plenty to do, it is far from repetitive. It has become one of my favorite setting, nobody has ever done middle earth as good as cubicle 7 has.

 

[Mike D]

This is going to be awesome. I'm a huge fan of TOR; yes, the releases are slow, but they are excellent when they do come out. As 5E and TOR are the only two games I play right now, this will be perfect for me.

I believe the conversion will be fine. I took the Scales of War adventures in 4E and converted them to a 4th age Middle-earth setting, and did so without too much difficulty. And because I did not want to limit my players in any way, I did not exclude any race or class, including Warforged (leftover machines from an army Saruman was creating) and Tieflings (Easterners, trained in magic by the Blue Wizards).

Remember, the very core of D&D was taken right out of the LOTR. They share the same DNA. For instance:

Elves come in two varieties, wood (sylvan) and high (noldor).
Dwarves are swarthy bearded folk that mine the earth.
Halflings used to be officially named Hobbits until the Tolkien estate sued.
Orcs were invented by Tolkien.
The ranger class is entirely based on Strider.

And so on and so forth.

It will be interesting to see how they handle the magic issue, but I'm sure they will do so brilliantly. The easiest way would be to do what I did - put in the fourth age, and give magic as D&D knows it an origin story. That would also solve the canon problems that some DM's are intimidated by.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yes, hopefully this will provide good vetted crunch for fans of low power D&D.

That is in itself enough to justify the game, even if you would never run an actual middle earth game with D&D rules!

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Have you even played the one ring? This is a GREAT game, and there is plenty to do, it is far from repetitive. It has become one of my favorite setting, nobody has ever done middle earth as good as cubicle 7 has.

That being the case, I'd find it odd not to put some faith into a company that has thus far given you nothing but confidence in their work.

 

[SerHogan]

I was always surprised TSR/WOTC never licensed LOTR at some point. Seemed like an ideal marriage. Although, it could have overshadowed all the other D&D worlds.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

For the people worrying about TOR getting less priority, this was announced today:

http://cubicle7.co.uk/the-one-ring-journeys-and-maps-coming-soon/

Also, WotC needs to do one of these for each of their worlds.

 

[phantomK9]

I find this to be very good news. I have both the Adventurer's Book and the Loremaster's Book and I love nearly everything about The One Ring. The books themselves are beautiful, the art just amazing. It really brings the world to life in the mind. If they can bring that over, it would be fantastic (not that the D&D art is bad or anything).

There are so many great specific mechanics in the TOR, especially the the Exploration rolls (or roles even). I've thought of ways to translate the exploration rules into D&D many times. Likewise I'm a big fan of how character advancement is done and how experience is earned. Even the "downtime" rules are something that I might be willing to convert over given more time. Although the DMG 1 day = short rest, 1 week = long rest optional rule could cover this easily.

The thing that has kept TOR from becoming my favorite is the core dice mechanic. It just seems too odd and wonky for me to really enjoy. I was part of the playtest for TOR and my groups largest complaint was about how weird the core mechanic was, they made some great fixes, but didn't change it enough so that my group would be willing to play the game.

Now if they convert TOR to use the 5e game mechanics, that would fix my only big complaint. Especially if they keep the things that make TOR...well TOR. I'm looking at the exploration rules of course along with journeys, but also the rules for Valor and Wisdom, and even Corruption. All really great things. If they can marry all the great story-based specific mechanics from TOR with the much improved core mechanic of D&D 5e, I have a feeling this might find its way into regular play at my table.

 

[BookBarbarian]

That's an excellent point, well made. Mind if I copy it over to the C7 forum?

Go right ahead!

 

[CM]

Agreed! And with that new warlord class, I expect to see most of the iconic character write-ups having at least some multiclassing into it...

What?!?

It really does pain you to see people still might like the class, doesn't it.