What's the Best System for Running LotR?

[DragonLancer]

Have you tried The One Ring or read through it?

I haven't as yet as I currently have enough games to keep me busy. And my wallet would not be happy.

 

[Spatula]

DragonLancer, I'd be interested to know why, exactly. What is it specifically you feel D&D and Pathfinder are missing to make the systems fit the Middle Earth feel?

Magic, magic, magic. Magic is vague and mysterious and rare and often risky in the LotR books. D&D magic is scientific, repeatable, easy, and safe. The arcane/divine split is a D&D-ism that permeates the rules but has no place in Middle Earth. Safe, easy, and repeatable healing magic has no place in Middle Earth, either, but the combat system depends on it (healing naturally is sloooow and brings the game to a halt). Flashy combat magic - blowing up your enemies, etc. is rarely if ever seen (I think Gandalf casting fire seeds in the hobbit is about as close as you get). And so on.

Also, classes. What class(es) are the hobbits? Just about anything you could pick from any edition (except perhaps 3e's commoner class) is a poor fit.

And equipment. A wizard that wields a sword? Fighters wearing leather or chain mail armor? Non-combatants (the hobbits) wearing no armor? That's a recipe for disaster in D&D, where you need a really high Dex and/or lots of armor and/or lots of magic to avoid getting hit.

The game system shapes the game world by controlling or incentivizing player choices. If you ran LotR using standard D&D/PF rules, you'd get something that looked nothing at all like LotR. You'd have to gut the system in many places and overhaul it in others to produce the desired effect. Or you could just use a different system that has different boundaries and incentives.

 

[Nytmare]

I could certainly run a 3rd- or 4th-Age ME game with D&D rules; I think it converts best with BECMI rules or 3E (in fact the Middle Earth conversions thread has my take on low-level, low magic 3E ME).

That's why I stated "out of the box."

Which is what, exactly, Nytmare, if you don't mind me asking?

My thoughts have been pretty much covered by everyone else.

 

[Unwise]

You have to be a little careful to define how LotR you really want your campaign to be and if that is really what you want. I love Middle Earth and I have used the setting before, but it is quiet constrictive.

Most RPGs, even MERP tend towards more overt acts of magic than fit well in the ME setting. Magic-Users tend to be more rare in ME than in most settings and their power tends towards subtly a little more. Magic also comes with consequences in the Third Age.

The comparative lack of a large monster manual is also a little problematic. It is not that there is not enough stuff there, it is just that any idea you might have for a cool adventure might not match the available monsters or style. Chimeras, Sphinxes, MindFlayers, Fiends, Angels, Efreeti etc are a bit jarring to include.

It is a little difficult to keep the feel of a LotR campaign. You can't just slot in generic adventures and maintain the traditional feel.

I liked MERP, it was a good system. I did find that is fall apart a little at higher levels; characters ended up quiet similar rather than diverging further apart. The other thing I house-ruled was the easier inclusion of secondary skills. They were a little too hard to come by in the original game and some of the were rather important for rounding out a character.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

The mentions of MERP in this thread point up what I mentioned before about how perceptions differ vastly about what the "feel" of Middle-earth is. To me, the MERP system is not only ill-suited for Middle-earth, but it evokes almost the polar opposite of what I think the setting "feels" like. I played MERP back in the day, and holy cow, did it not "feel" like anything Tolkien wrote. The magic bore no resemblance to anything in the books, and the combat was often grim and gritty and gruesomely explicit, unlike most anything in Tolkien's book. If you vehemently disagree, that's my point; there are those who vehemently disagree with how I feel about D&D or Decipher's game fitting the setting.

Bear in mind that I love MERP sourcebooks, much as I love the panoply of GURPS sourcebooks. But, as with GURPS, the actual mechanics of MERP leave me cold, especially for this specific setting.

MERP always seemed to me to be better suited to a Swords & Sorcery setting like Hyboria.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The One Ring.

 

[mmadsen]

MERP always seemed to me to be better suited to a Swords & Sorcery setting like Hyboria.

Are you thinking of the Rolemaster Lite critical-hit charts?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Are you thinking of the Rolemaster Lite critical-hit charts?

The entire system, really. The crit charts were a big part of that, of course, MERP (and RM) being what it is. It all fits with what my perception, and the perception of the guys I gamed with back in the '80s, of S&S is. I distinctly remember that we loved the crit charts, but we did agree they just didn't seem right for Middle-earth. That doesn't mean that everyone has the same perception. I was just trying to illustrate my point about how the perception of the feel of Middle-earth varies widely and wildly.

 

[mmadsen]

I distinctly remember that we loved the crit charts, but we did agree they just didn't seem right for Middle-earth.

I think the language of the critical hit charts is wrong for Middle Earth, but the substance seems to match the source material quite nicely, with so many important characters taken out or grievously injured in one or two shots.

Come to think of it, isn't it odd that they didn't use language from the books -- from Smaug's death, the Witch King's, Theoden's, etc. -- to populate those charts?

Anyway, the PCs, especially the hobbits, would need plot-protection from such crits to capture the feel of the original.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I think the language of the critical hit charts is wrong for Middle Earth, but the substance seems to match the source material quite nicely, with so many important characters taken out or grievously injured in one or two shots.

I don't think the substance of the charts really fits the setting or matches what went on in the books, but again, that just proves my point about how everyone perceives a work of fiction differently. I have my own rationales for most of those "crits" characters from the books endured, and how they weren't necessarily "crits" in a gaming sense, based just on what Tolkien wrote. I mentioned Smaug elsewhere. Frodo was hit by a cursed knife, and was a mostly sedentary intellectual at the time (not many hit points). Theoden had fought his way through an army, striking down another king, before his horse landed on him (low on hit points). And etc. This isn't meant to ping-pong this back and forth; I get why "crit" charts would appeal to some for these things...just not for me. All those instances of critical hits from the book can be explained by me in non-crit-chart terms. Yeah, even the fell beast Legolas shoots down near the Anduin.

Come to think of it, isn't it odd that they didn't use language from the books -- from Smaug's death, the Witch King's, Theoden's, etc. -- to populate those charts?

It was a curious lapse. One of the things I really love about Decipher's game is how they backed up everything in the game using direct quotes and language from the book.

Anyway, the PCs, especially the hobbits, would need plot-protection from such crits to capture the feel of the original.

Not...necessarily...but I have to get away from this topic, because now I feel the urge to explain why I think crit charts could work as-is even with the hobbits fully exposed to their potential wrath. DUCK SEASON! RABBIT SEASON! RABBIT SEASON! DUCK SEASON!