Roleplaying in Middle Earth

[Apok]

With the release of the LotR RPG on the horizon, I am very curious to know how one would run a campaign set in Middle-Earth. From what I understand, the LotR Core Book will center around the time after the events of The Hobbit and just before the Lord of the Rings trilogy. To me, this presents something of a minor problem. Like Dragonlance, LotR suffers from the problem of the PC's not being directly involved with the Major Happenings of the time. Unless you want to re-do the entire Ring Quest, how exactly would you handle PC's running around whilst the Fellowship are about to be off on the Most Important Quest of All?

One solution I've come up with is to advance the timeline a bit and have the game take place several decades after the War of the Ring, but even that doesn't solve all the issues. For example, I love the fact that the races from the RPG appear to be mostly true to the books, but considering the lack of balance, what would be the best way to explain a diverse group of peoples coming together for a common goal, as I can guarantee that at least one player will want to be a Noldor elf which are supposed to be extremely rare. Fortune and Glory just won't cut it, and the "Elite representatives from various peoples on a Quest to Do Whatever" gets really boring after a while.

In short, how would you run a Middle-Earth game while keeping the flavor of the novels but also making it fun for the players?

 

[Rasyr]

That is the problem faced by any game using a setting based on novels.

 

[Desdichado]

I ran a campaign set there not too long ago. We did it about 1500 years before the events of the book though. You oughtta check out the d20 Middle-earth page. Someone (Clark Petersen maybe?) posted a big list of potential campaign timeframes. Good stuff there.

 

[Munin]

This is a tough question, one that I am struggling with as I was picked to run Middle-Earth in my group.

As far as story goes, I'm going with something that will probably get me branded a heretic. I'm going with an alternate world type of thing.

The quest of the Fellowship started from Rivendell, but in this world, the quest failed when Gandalf was lost at The Bridge. The ring and it's bearer have been lost.
Aragorn took power in Gondor and is currently besieged by Mordor. The Lord of the Nazgul rebuilt Dol Guldor, and Saruman still holds power in Orthanc.
I realize most Tolkien enthusiasts would not be pleased with this game, but I do not want to limit the accomplishments my players can achieve.
Of course, the ultimate goal of the campaign is to find the ring (and hopefully the ringbearer), and cast it into Mount Doom.

As far as race restrictions, I have not decided on that yet. That is a tough one, but if you work at it, it can be resolved.

 

[mmadsen]

Last summer, when I was rereading the trilogy, I gave this some thought, and I decided that I'd love to play a Middle Earth-themed campaign, but I wouldn't necessarily want to play in Middle Earth.

That is, I'd enjoy a D&D campaign where mighty wizards rarely cast spells for fear of revealing their location, where the "monster palette" includes Goblins ("Orcs"), Hobgoblins ("Uruk-hai"), Ogres ("Trolls"), and little else, with Dark Age technology (Chainmail as best armor), and so on.

 

[Fenris]

First off, there was some sixty years between the Hobbit and LoTR so there is plenty of time. When I ran a MERP campaign, I set it 10 years after the fall of Barad-dur. I had the characters up in the north, the King was trying to re-establish Fornost and old Arnor. So lots of wilderness. There are still lots of orcs and evil humans around. As far as the races go, restrict any elves to Silvan or Sindarian at worst. I don't know how they intend to compenaste for the races powers presumably by ECL. Any Noldor elf will be so powerful by the end of the third age they could have a high ECL. If you set it in the fourth age, simple tell the players all the Noldor have set off across the sea. But I am sure you will find something that both you and your players can live with.

 

[Desdichado]

Hey, mmadsen, where do you live? I'd play (or run) a game like that!

 

[Randolpho]

I suppose the problem with playing in Middle Earth is that of the "already been done" syndrome, but I think that's nonesense.

Look, for the best example of a Middle Earth game, to the Hobbit for inspiration. Lots of goings on in that book, most of it done by high-level NPCs off-screen. What the PCs did was wander to the Lonely Mountain and steal some treasure. Then they got caught up in the battle of 5 armies.

You can still have meaningful games and even all out campaigns inside a novel-created setting. Look at every Forgotten Realms campaign -- everything has been done in the FR a bazillion times over, but people still play in the setting, and still have lots of fun at it too.

Just because the events of Lord of the Rings are taking or have already taken place doesn't mean you can't have a meaningful adventure. Tons of stuff was done during, before, and after the events of the novel, but was never actually written down (even JRR Tolkein hints at this in his Appendices).

There's no reason why the PCs can't write those chapters.

 

[Neowolf]

This is a tough question, one that I am struggling with as I was picked to run Middle-Earth in my group.

As far as story goes, I'm going with something that will probably get me branded a heretic. I'm going with an alternate world type of thing.

The quest of the Fellowship started from Rivendell, but in this world, the quest failed when Gandalf was lost at The Bridge. The ring and it's bearer have been lost.
Aragorn took power in Gondor and is currently besieged by Mordor. The Lord of the Nazgul rebuilt Dol Guldor, and Saruman still holds power in Orthanc.
I realize most Tolkien enthusiasts would not be pleased with this game, but I do not want to limit the accomplishments my players can achieve.
Of course, the ultimate goal of the campaign is to find the ring (and hopefully the ringbearer), and cast it into Mount Doom.

As far as race restrictions, I have not decided on that yet. That is a tough one, but if you work at it, it can be resolved.

I don't usually like the idea of tinkering with this kind of thing, but that actually sounds really interesting.

 

[kengar]

While I am hardly a Middle Earth expert, I have read the four "basic" books a few times. If what I was after was running a campaign in the ME setting, I would move away from the heroic aspect a little. Since the Fellowship and Gandalf, etc. are the big wheels in that regard, I would have the party be something else altogether; soldiers of fortune, dwarves seeking new mines beneath the earth, elves guarding their woods, etc. but not directly involved in the Ring business.

It gets tricky when you want to have PC's in a "narrative" world. The problem with settings based on stories is that everything that made the story engaging is resolved within the story. This leaves player characters on the outside looking in (to a degree) if they are around while the story's events unfold. Or, if they are elsewhere, then all they are getting is the setting "flavor." Which can be cool, but is usually not as interesting as the story that took place in it.

Alternate plotlines -like the one Munin suggests- could be a good way to go; but there comes a point (and I'm not saying he reaches it) where you are better off just designing your own setting and meta-plot instead of "tweaking" a book's.