The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Added to D&D Beyond

The core rulebook for Free League's The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, published in 2022, is now available on D&D Beyond. Today, as announced back in August, Wizards of the Coast launched the latest addition to its growing library of third-party material to D&D Beyond with the launch of The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, a TTRPG rulebook that adapts The One Ring RPG for D&D Fifth Edition. Unlike other third-party 5E material found on D&D Beyond, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying utilizes Callings and Heroic Cultures instead of classes and species, and also features a more extensive line of Virtues (an equivalent to Feats in D&D.) Also included are rules on exploration and journeys, as well as roleplaying through Councils.

D&D (2024) - WotC Announces 3rd Party Creator Partners

This content will be coming to the D&D Beyond marketplace--the selected publishers are The Griffon's Saddlebag, MCDM, Ghostfire Gaming, Dungeon Dudes, Hit Point Press, Kobold Press, and Free League. Generally, these are creators who have achieved million-dollar Kickstarters with 5E compatible...

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The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying was developed by Free League Publishing after it took over the publication of The One Ring back in 2019 from Cubicle 7. While Cubicle 7 developed their own 5E compatible RPG based on The Lord of the Rings called Adventures in Middle-Earth, Lord of the Rings RPG is a separate 5E system and approaches melding together The Lord of the Rings and 5E very differently. For one, Lord of the Rings Roleplaying utilizes 10 levels as opposed to Adventures in Middle-Earth's 20 level system.

D&D Beyond has added several new third-party supplements to its service over the past two years, including Dungeons of Drakkenheim, MCDM's Flee, Mortals, and several books by Kobold Press.

 

[Zaukrie]

You can never know. Things can always change.

sure, but at some point you ask and you see what they say. I mean, my house could burn down and I'd lose all my books and minis and terrain....and I guess almost all my PDFs, since I'm not paying to back all that up.

 

[SlyFlourish]

On one hand I'm very happy for the folks that get their stuff up on DDB because I can't imagine what kind of numbers they see on there. Maybe someone can catch one of the Matt Colville twitch streams and ask, he's been pretty transparent with numbers in the past.

But on the other hand I see that walled garden go up :') just increasing the field for the "I won't buy it if it isn't on DDB" crowd.

I hear it’s really good. Publishers are happy both with the percentage and certainty happy with the revenue.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I did.....no answer on bluesky or dndbeyond yet (that I can see in a quick glance)

I’m shocked!

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm a little irritated the character builder isn't quite ready to handle LotR 5E (skills, backgrounds, languages, etc) yet . . . and if they don't fix it relatively soon, I'll be really irritated.

But so far, I really prefer navigating the web format book than the PDF (I own both now). Even if the builder isn't ready for my next game session in two weeks, I'll be using the DDB compendium to reference the LotR 5E core book.

If/when Free League loses the LotR license, what happens to my book on DDB? I'll be irritated if it goes poof, but at the moment, the possibility doesn't bother me.

 

[Clint_L]

A PDF copy or the physical book (or both, which you can buy off of Free League's website for $50) is your reassurance. There is no other reassurance they can offer on D&D Beyond. The rules can always change.

You can download all of your purchases on DDB and I have done so. But mostly this just seems like the usual argument against purchasing digital media. I save a ton of money and storage, while getting way more stuff and producing way less waste. If my purchase doesn't last forever so my kid has to deal with it, that's usually a feature, not a flaw.

Also, I just bought this, because it looks cool and I want to see if I can get a campaign going.

 

[Morrus]

So, this is a new RPG adaptation? I didn't think WOTC had the rights to tLotR?

This information is in the article you're replying to.

 

[Zaukrie]

I’m shocked!

It's thanksgiving week, and it hasn't been a day.

 

[Morrus]

But on the other hand I see that walled garden go up :') just increasing the field for the "I won't buy it if it isn't on DDB" crowd.

On the third hand, it forces many of us to make DDB alternate platforms, and thus increases competition.

 

[Morrus]

This is a tough week to get responses from anyone in the US.

Isn't every week? There's always something. I don't know how any of you get any work done!

 

[Simon Collins]

While we don't know the terms of the license, it is almost certainly between Free League and Tolkien. If that is the case, when Free League's license expires, WotC will have no contractual relationship with Tolkien, and no legal ability to provide that content. Maybe the license allows for sublicences which outlast the overall licence, but that doesn't sound much like the Tolkien Estate to me. But, hey, we don't know. Somebody should ask DDB what happens in that situation to the content they've paid DDB for.

Not sure that it makes much difference, but Free League licence the game via Sophisticated Games, not directly with Tolkien Enterprises. Here's the link to their site.