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.

 

[Iosue]

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.

It should be noted that Sophisticated Games' license is with Middle-earth Enterprises, which is the company that currently holds the media rights to Lord of the Rings (formerly held by the Saul Zaentz Company), not the Tolkien Estate.

 

[pukunui]

It should be noted that Sophisticated Games' license is with Middle-earth Enterprises, which is the company that currently holds the media rights to Lord of the Rings (formerly held by the Saul Zaentz Company), not the Tolkien Estate.

So it's like a sub-license of a sub-license of a sub-license of a sub-license? Or something?

WotC -> Free League -> Sophisticated Games -> Middle-earth Enterprises -> Tolkien estate

Sounds complicated!

 

[Iosue]

So it's like a sub-license of a sub-license of a sub-license of a sub-license? Or something?

WotC -> Free League -> Sophisticated Games -> Middle-earth Enterprises -> Tolkien estate

Sounds complicated!

Middle-earth Enterprises would not go to the Tolkien Estate. Tolkien outright sold the rights to United Artists in 1969. UA sold the rights outright to Saul Zaentz in 1976. Zaentz formed Tolkien Enterprises to manage the rights, which was renamed to Middle-earth Enterprises in 2010.

 

[pukunui]

Middle-earth Enterprises would not go to the Tolkien Estate. Tolkien outright sold the rights to United Artists in 1969. UA sold the rights outright to Saul Zaentz in 1976. Zaentz formed Tolkien Enterprises to manage the rights, which was renamed to Middle-earth Enterprises in 2010.

Thanks for clarifying. Still seems pretty convoluted!

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks for clarifying. Still seems pretty convoluted!

Oh, the rights are a mess: the Rings of Power is running off an entirely different set of rights, directly negotiated fresh from the Estate, from all the UA-deal derived media thst is currently owned by Embracer Group.

 

[MNblockhead]

I used to think I wanted all of my RPG digital tools on the same platform . . . but why, really?

Pathfinder on Demiplane, D&D on D&DB, Level Up on the A5E Tools site . . . I'm liking the competition, even if it gets a little hard to keep track of it all at times.

Apparently I want all my stuff on all the platforms. Not really, but the amount of times I've bought the same content for multiple platforms and formats belies any pretense of frugality.

My problem is that I'm lazy and will buy things for immediate convenience, even if I don't have a clear plan to use it.

 

[Stormonu]

The circle is now complete.

I'd been considering picking up One Ring for a while - the ruleset look interesting, but had realized I'd never actually play it in favor of just playing D&D. I guess I just like the bigger tent under D&D. Besides, I got a bunch of Rolemaster MERP that's just been collecting dust...

 

[Clint_L]

How do you download DDB purchases? Honest question.

On my phone. You can go into the app and download any book you own. I just checked - I can download this one if I want to.

 

[Simon Collins]

Useful link to give an overview of some of the limitations and workarounds: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-...lord-of-the-rings-roleplaying-bug-and-support

 

[Weiley31]

So, within a week, the number of Classes on Beyond for use with 5E have gone from 14 to 21.

You probably wouldn't want to try using the LOTR classes in standard D&D. They're 10 levels and are much more geared towards LOTR 5e's mechanics than a typical 5e class.

I honestly am of the mind set that if you wanted classes that go only up to level 10 for low level, the Callings and Classes from Everyday Heroes+The Rules vault are your go to options for low level/magic DND.

Let the classes that go up to Level 20 represent the heroes and adventures of the lands. The level 10 only classes/callings represent the typical town guard and so on that are in over their heads.