Middle Earth/LotR RPGing using Cortex+ Heroic

[Manbearcat]

Awesome stuff!

As I mentioned in our prior conversation, your project should show very well how, in a TTRPG that is up to the task, Hobbits can quite happily sit alongside Aragorn, Legolas, who can quite happily sit alongside Gandalf, because it’s about situation framing and leveraging the narrative potency of various thematic resources and relationships (while an individual dice to the pool will be more muted).

As I also mentioned, I think that, for LotR, you may want to strongly consider checking out the Smallville part of the Hacker's Guide and subbing out Affiliations and Distinctions (what separates characters from each other) for Relationships and Values (what binds people to one another and brings them together or drives them apart).

The Growth Pool and "Rewriting Statements" (about Values and Relationships) is rather kindred to "Reflection" in Dogs, which works quite well for LotR.

I think you can get away with 4 Values instead of the stock 6 for LotR. I'm thinking:

Hope
Ambition
Community
Power

The four of those would quite nicely make for a focused LotR game.

 

[pemerton]

@Manbearcat, I've been working on a scenario outline and so haven't had time to properly read and digest you post yet - it's bedtime again for me. But here is a sketch of how I might do a journey to Ost-in-Edhil. I haven't played it (obviously!) and haven't crunched the maths very hard, so I'm not quite sure how easy/hard it is.

And in spoilers, even though I don't think anyone else from my group is reading this (but if they are, please exercise self-control!

Spoiler

What's missing so far is a NPC like Wormtongue or Saruman who specialises in imposing Mental stress. Maybe someone like that is hanging out in the ruins!

 

[pemerton]

double post - I'll put something more meaningful in here later.

I revised one SFX label for Gandalf - rereading the relevant part of Appendix B I realised that it is Cirdan, not Gandalf, who "saw further and deeper than any other in Middle-earth". So the reroll power is now "Something else at work", which is a phrase found in ch 2 of Book 1 when Gandalf is explaining that it was not "the design of the Ring-maker" that led to Bilbo finding the ring - rather, Bilbo and therefore Frodo was "meant to have it".

 

[pemerton]

I find it great thank you for sharing

No worries!

 

[pemerton]

I've become a bit obsessed with my PC builds: I've got one of Gandalf's Distinctions as "A Wizard is Never Late", which is from the film rather than the book - so I wanted to put in something comparable from the book, and opted for Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. So this version of Gandalf has a new SFX - Subtle and quick to anger.

Elves in Burning Wheel have an ability called Deeds of Grief, and so this version has a like-named SFX. And to go with that addition I changed the Grief Limit to Tears Unnumbered.

I haven't done any more scenario outline yet, but have been thinking a bit about Weathertop, palantiri and also what a lesser ring might be like if one turned up in or around Ost-in-Edhil.

 

[pemerton]

I spent today's train commute writing up another possible opponent.

(EDITed to better respect the system's Mental Assault/Mind Control differentiation. Nazguls upthread have also been edited with this in mind.)

 

[pemerton]

And here's something to be hunted for in Ost-in-Edhil itself. It's meant to be balanced so that it can be added as an extra Power Set without the result being too overpowered.

 

[pemerton]

I ran this today. I'll do an actual play post in a new thread, but the TLR version is that it worked OK, but Gandalf is a bit over-powered if a player is prepared to play him more like Saruman!

 

[pemerton]

No actual play post yet written - but some of the players in my group were curious about what a Hobbit would look like, so here it is. Small-ish numbers, but quite a few SFX.

(I didn't immediately build a Hobbit because my own inclination is that Hobbits are "perspective" characters for LotR and so when you're RPing Middle Earth rather than reading about it they become redundant.)

 

[pemerton]

I re-read the Moria chapters of Fellowship (and then also had a look at the troll passage at the end of The Black Gate Opens) and wrote up an Orc Chieftain and a Troll: