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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fireinthedust" data-source="post: 5678093" data-attributes="member: 51930">Sorry if I seem "like the Necromancer of Dol Guldur" when I post in this thread, but I have a few concerns about the game, actually.  Granted, I don't have the book, I'm just going off what's been posted here.1)  It sounds fairly gamist, which isn't a bad thing, but certain rules (like defenders getting initiative) sounds less like a simulation and more like an extended boardgame.  The patron rules sound interesting, but if the patron merely gives quests, what's the point?  That's merely exposition.This may be due to me knowing that the author did an lotr boardgame before doing this.  Neither boardgames nor gamist rpgs are bad, per se, but it is something I'm wondering about.2)  Combat sounds reeeeeeally slow, but due to complexity rather than game time.  I'm not even sure how it works:  you get an opening volley, then pick whether you're forward, defending or rearward; then each monster picks a character and you roll dice?  I sort of get it, but it's really different than D&D (which lets multiple creatures attack the same target).  I dunno, but how much weighing of options is there for each player?  I worry due to players who are exceptionally indecisive, thus making combat really undesirable.3)  The above-noted concerns about barring players from "being a mage" I understand, but I was hoping that rather than D&D mages there would be a background (just like Hobbit and Dwarf and Daleling) specifically for Wizards (Mayar).  It should be obvious that game rules could be invented allowing for such characters without the magic being flashy or even really powerful: light the occasional staff, use lightening from said staff to roast a few orcs, but the mechanics could be identical to those for swords (ie: you need your staff to make a reasonably-melee-closeness lightning attack), so it isn't a mechanical advantage so much as a thematic re-skinning.  Granted, it isn't strictly-speaking from the books to have more than the handful of wizards who did come from the West (gandalf, saruman, etc.), and certainly not low-power ones like PCs... but hey, who knows?  I'm not saying populate the world with more wizards than were in the books, I just think it would be handy to have the rules available for that one PC who can do that stuff.   If it's a Hobbit game, there should be allowed one Gandalf in the party (or per 14 non-wizard PCs).  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Don't get me wrong, when I get the cash I'm getting this game.  I'd like to get a group together, though it may simply be a pbp pipedream (ie: meet on ENworld, make up PCs, talk about the game, and never start... sigh, love pbp).</blockquote>

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