ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
Thanks, guys, for being so gracious. I want to thank you for your outstanding entries - they were above and beyond what I expected to receive for this contest.
Middle Earth D20 Best Original Character Contest Entries
- Thread starter GruTheWanderer
- Start date
I'd like to thank the Academy... seriously, thanks to the fine fellows who keep the pages going. Thinking about adapting Middle-Earth to d20 makes me think about all sorts of hard theoretical issues related to RPGs and other media, which makes me shy about converting anything! Fortunately, this open call freed my hand to try something "outside the box". That, and I have always wanted to do something with the two lost palantiri of Arnor, ever since I read Appendix I. Thanks for the kind words from everybody in this thread, and I am honestly humbled by the selection over some very worthy contributions.
Now I just need to get a DVD player!
M.R.
Now I just need to get a DVD player!
M.R.
Tyler Do'Urden
Soap Maker
Re: Maw of the Deep
Don't knock yourself though... I think Maiteliant is wicked... a sorcerer worthy of Tolkien's fiction. I'm stealing the guy for my game!
Jeremy Forbing said:
Don't knock yourself though... I think Maiteliant is wicked... a sorcerer worthy of Tolkien's fiction. I'm stealing the guy for my game!
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
tleilaxu said:
Well, first I want to stress how close the contest was; Derek actually created a spreadsheet to tally the points for each criterion. I know for me, it really was tough choosing just one winner. I was surprised by how much work we saw in the entries.
For me, it was the Flexibility criterion where Cuwe lost points. That is, he was not available for NPC use after the end of the Second Age. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't a fatal flaw when it comes to him being a great character in and of himself, the contest notwithstanding. You created one hell of a character. It's just that it got down to a matter of points, and the points were close.
Last edited:
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
tleilaxu said:so when is the next contest? when the TT DVD comes out?
i suggest a mini-adventure for the next contest
I don't know when or if we'll have another contest. The thing is, the contest was something we hoped would drum up interest in the site. It didn't really seem to do that. That indicates to me that interest in the project has waned; the lack of activity at the Yahoo Middle Earth d20 group is another indication of that. There are almost 250 members, and almost nobody posts anything. Perhaps everyone who was interested in the material has now gotten what they wanted, which is a good thing. However, we had hoped that people would continue to send in their conversion material, whether it was NPCs or feats or essays or whatever. Some parts of the site are still either empty or nearly so.
I hope this doesn't seem negative, because I don't really mean it to be. I'm just wondering if all you folk out there have any suggestions as to how to get interest shown in the site again. As I've always said, the site is for everyone, and is a repository for any and all interpretations.
get it going
Two thoughts from me...
1) I'd like some feedback on Weodegil - take off the gloves and let me know what you thought. Was he dull? Boring? Not flexible enough? not fleshed out enough?
2)To get interest going again on the site, what if we started a concerted effort to "produce" material on a regular basis. By this I mean we set out to detail a previously un-mapped area of ME and tie it in with the established canon on Tolkien.
Someone just asked about the Blue Wizards in an email - where did they go? The "tolkien" answer is to the east, and we don't hear about them again. Sounds to me like a plot hook! We can get an effort going to fictionally detail their travels and exploits going back to III 1000 when they arrived. And other people can take the locations and NPCs/events and flesh them out. Meanwhile we are putting out a newsletter or something that follows the progress. Soon we'll have villages, a city or two, tribes of baddies, and a bunch of living, breathing NPCs to run a campaign with. We can post journals of playtesting. Anything.
At the same time, we can leverage the MERP products and Tolkien resources that are out there to develop fresh gaming hooks and ideas for the existing world. We put out the newsletter format such as:
1 - Fun hook of the month
2 - first age town, NPC, or original adventure hook
3 - second age town, NPC, or original adventure hook
4 - third age town, NPC, or original adventure hook
5 - this months fictional excerpt on the travels of the blue wizzies
6 - the original content based on the fiction (that would have been written the month before to give the creators time)
We do something like this, and there is room for writers, creative GMs, and tolkien fans from all three ages. And as a bonus we can always throw in something from the fourth age, though there is little canon to guide the efforts there.
I think it would be fun and very challenging.
Ron
Two thoughts from me...
1) I'd like some feedback on Weodegil - take off the gloves and let me know what you thought. Was he dull? Boring? Not flexible enough? not fleshed out enough?
2)To get interest going again on the site, what if we started a concerted effort to "produce" material on a regular basis. By this I mean we set out to detail a previously un-mapped area of ME and tie it in with the established canon on Tolkien.
Someone just asked about the Blue Wizards in an email - where did they go? The "tolkien" answer is to the east, and we don't hear about them again. Sounds to me like a plot hook! We can get an effort going to fictionally detail their travels and exploits going back to III 1000 when they arrived. And other people can take the locations and NPCs/events and flesh them out. Meanwhile we are putting out a newsletter or something that follows the progress. Soon we'll have villages, a city or two, tribes of baddies, and a bunch of living, breathing NPCs to run a campaign with. We can post journals of playtesting. Anything.
At the same time, we can leverage the MERP products and Tolkien resources that are out there to develop fresh gaming hooks and ideas for the existing world. We put out the newsletter format such as:
1 - Fun hook of the month
2 - first age town, NPC, or original adventure hook
3 - second age town, NPC, or original adventure hook
4 - third age town, NPC, or original adventure hook
5 - this months fictional excerpt on the travels of the blue wizzies
6 - the original content based on the fiction (that would have been written the month before to give the creators time)
We do something like this, and there is room for writers, creative GMs, and tolkien fans from all three ages. And as a bonus we can always throw in something from the fourth age, though there is little canon to guide the efforts there.
I think it would be fun and very challenging.
Ron
GruTheWanderer
First Post
tleilaxu said:
I'd be happy to share my thoughts as well. Cuwe's strength for me was his suitability. He definitely fit the Middle Earth mold. I was sad to see the gap in his history between the end of the First Age and the Siege of Barad-dur.
One thing I really looked for in all the entries was hooks. I wanted to see some concrete ways in which the authors would recommend using their entries. I had a hard time seeing that for Cuwe, especially the epic version.
A minor note was the lack of possessions (another area where ME characters may differ from the D&D core).
Overall though, a great submission. I agree with Jeff, the race was very close.
Derek
Similar Threads
