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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Numenorean" data-source="post: 348352" data-attributes="member: 7264">Hi, I'm new here. Nice board.Hmmm...how would I run a ME campaign and keep it within the flavor of the stories but also fun for the players. Well back in college we played a lot of ME in fact.The first hurdle you need to address is whether or not you want to bend ME history for the benefit of your players or whether they would enjoy the campaign more by simply working within the confines of ME history and lore as set down by J.R.R. The reason I say this is because while some players may find it thrilling to have to recover the ring themselves, or do things that in the books the NPC heros of the ring wars did, other players may find as something of a fun-killer for them. It goes both ways. We chose to work within the confines of ME history. We were all Tolkien/M.E. junkies and the thought of us doing that stuff and changing history really kinda killed our fun of it. Call us boring, hey <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />We played mainly around the T.A. 1640 time period that most of the old ICE stuff was set. As long as you can get over the hump of your players will not be the allmighty most important heros of the setting, you can have a lot of fun. We did a lot. From raiding Mt. Gundabad, crossing the Misty Mountains, to various adventures with the wood elves in Mirkwood, to adventure in Ithilien and on the edge of Mordor. Several of us who took turns GM'ing were knowledgeable enough on ME to actually come up with compelling plots and adventure themes. In many instances we were able to really inject that heroic feel into the game.The background material from ICE helped a lot. However ironically we didnt use their stuff verbatim much at all. Some of it is very questionable IMO. But the background material is priceless. We basically ran adventures geared at the most critical ME happenings during the 1640 era. Sure you cant have the PCs take the one ring to Mordor, but in 1640 you can have them be instrumental in saving Arthedain (this time around), or securing passage across the Misty Mtns for dwarf caravans, or for curbing a big goblin raid out of Gundabad, and we even ventured in to Dol Guldur and faced a Ringwraith (briefly I might add) at one point. Adunaphel is no chump <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  ......The bottom line is a successful ME campaign really depends on the ME knowledge and creativity of the GM. Because IMO to run a very good fantasy campaign set in a world that already has been written in books and is all hero'd out, you need to be good...Like one poster said how its hard to run a good campaign in a world already so established...I agree fully. Therein lies the challenge of gaming in ME. 1.) know your ME lore inside and out2.) build adventure and campaign themes around critical events during the time period you chose to play.With those two in mind theres a ton of very important side themes and events that your players can take part in and really make a difference in Middle Earth.-Numenorean</blockquote>

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