Decipher's LotR RPG..Toast?

[Ranger REG]

I agree; their conversions of Call of Cthulhu, Wheel of Time and Star Wars into d20 have all been top notch, and not D&D-like in many, many ways at all.

I hope that Decipher continues to publish RPG... but...

If (hypothetically) Wizards is granted to publish LOTR RPG, this would bring this to a full circle since D&D and the birth of RPG hobby started with the inspiration of Tolkien's works.

 

[Felon]

It's not a game of buff warriors standing laughing atop the corpses of 100 orcs.

You don't think Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir managed to kill a hundred orcs at the climax of FotR? Remember Aragorn raising a sword-salute at the oncoming orc horde right before plunging into them? Looked pretty buff to me.

Did you see the extended edition DVD or RotK? Legolas and Gimli compare scores on how many orcs they killed. It was pretty close to 100. I'll bet Aragorn put them over the top.

Still, I think I know what you mean. I love larger-than-life fight scenes, but in D&D characters can take their abilities for granted a bit too easily. I remember one evening a half-dozen guards armed with crossbows came into a tavern to accost a couple of my PC's. The PC's flipped up a table to use as cover, and with the guards readying an action to fire on them if they made a break for it, for a moment they seemed at a loss for what to do now that they were pinned in. One was beginning to ask me how it would work if they both grabbed an end of the table and rushed the guards. Then the other just decided "screw it, I have hit points to burn", and stood up, blithely absorbed a bolt or two, then proceeded to hew into the bad guys. To this day I'm not absolutely sure if that was cool or lame.

 

[Banshee16]

You don't think Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir managed to kill a hundred orcs at the climax of FotR? Remember Aragorn raising a sword-salute at the oncoming orc horde right before plunging into them? Looked pretty buff to me.

Did you see the extended edition DVD or RotK? Legolas and Gimli compare scores on how many orcs they killed. It was pretty close to 100. I'll bet Aragorn put them over the top.

Still, I think I know what you mean. I love larger-than-life fight scenes, but in D&D characters can take their abilities for granted a bit too easily. I remember one evening a half-dozen guards armed with crossbows came into a tavern to accost a couple of my PC's. The PC's flipped up a table to use as cover, and with the guards readying an action to fire on them if they made a break for it, for a moment they seemed at a loss for what to do now that they were pinned in. One was beginning to ask me how it would work if they both grabbed an end of the table and rushed the guards. Then the other just decided "screw it, I have hit points to burn", and stood up, blithely absorbed a bolt or two, then proceeded to hew into the bad guys. To this day I'm not absolutely sure if that was cool or lame.

IMO, that was lame. As a DM, if a player rationalizes an action in that manner, I sometimes make them regret it.

You're getting the point of what I'm trying to say though. My comments are based largely upon the books instead of the movies, as well, and there's far less action in the books than in the movies. I absolutely loved the movies, but also understand that the action scenes were beefed up to help things move along on the big screen.

Banshee

 

[Felon]

You're getting the point of what I'm trying to say though. My comments are based largely upon the books instead of the movies, as well, and there's far less action in the books than in the movies. I absolutely loved the movies, but also understand that the action scenes were beefed up to help things move along on the big screen.

I understand that, but that just leads us to the next question: "should the action scenes be similarily beefed-up to help create a more exciting RPG"?

If every licensed RPG was 100% faithful to its source material, quite a few of them would have gameplay that's as dull as dirt.