Quote from: Akrasia;408507I suppose that I'm the "odd man out" with respect to CODA LotR.  I don't like it at all.  I would run MERP long before I'd ever run Decipher's game.

I liked Decipher's game a lot because it ran like "d20 Light," except using 2d6.

Quote from: Akrasia;408507I bought the game when it first came out.  I was irritated by the use of movie stills for almost all of the art.

I expected them to do that, but it still grated on me. It's too bad Decipher never found its Angus McBride or Hildebrandt Brothers. The monster/magic book had a lot of original art, which was passable, but not very inspiring.

Quote from: Akrasia;408507But I was especially annoyed that it took me forever to figure out how to create a character (I'm still not sure that I ever got it right).  Eventually Decipher had to put up a PDF on character creation, but by that time I had written off the game, thanks to certain absurd features of the combat system, and other bugs.

Yes, the book was badly organized. Once things were clarified, it made things a lot easier for some. I never had a lot of trouble; I read the book thoroughly, pored over the index and table of contents, and made notes for myself. That's not to lord it over anyone; I totally get that the book was poorly organized.

The only absurd feature of the combat system that I found was the "death spiral." Once a character or monster was damaged enough to drop a wound level, I found that the outcome of battle was a foregone conclusion. Not once did such a character or monster rally to win. The main problem was that it became kind of pathetic to watch combat grind on for several more rounds as a wounded troll flailed weakly at the PCs, with no real chance of hitting. I think the system has potential, but this has to be fixed.

Quote from: Akrasia;408507I can see why some people think that there is a 'seed' of a good game in there somewhere.  And I can appreciate that the magic system seemed to do a better job than MERP in capturing the 'feel' of Middle-earth.

There was so much that felt right to me about the game. The Orders, the way races were detailed, and traits and flaws stood out to me. I also dug the fairly abstract mass combat system, a lot. I was strongly inclined to just port all of it over to d20; the systems are that similar. I may still do so. I haven't looked to see how it could port over to 4e, but I'd like to give it a look.

I also liked the essays on running a campaign with an epic feel, and how the game could easily be used for a non-Middle-earth setting. I think this was an underrated part of the book.

Quote from: Akrasia;408507But the core book simply was not well edited, and included too many core mechanical problems for me to bother with it.

Hopefully Cubicle 7 will do a better job with their forthcoming The One Ring Middle-earth RPG.  Among other things, C7 seems to be extensively playtesting it.

I haven't heard of this game.

Not sure if this is relevant to the topic, but I've been curious for awhile, do ya'all not like the movie art because ya didn't like the movies? I don't mind the movie art, but then I really liked the movies. I've been a Tolkien fan almost all my life, and The Hobbit was the first full-length novel I ever read. I read so much complaining over the movies, but rarely specifics about what was wrong with them (at least no specifics that make sense to me). If ya didn't like the movies, why not? You can PM me if it'll derail the thread too much.

As a more on-topic aside about the ME magic, I play LotRo and I like how the magic is handled in there. Loremasters are described as being the conjurers of cheap tricks Gandalf was referring to, and much of their "magic" is mostly just a deep knowledge of the natural properties of things and how to use them to best advantage, and none of it is big and flashy. They are good at "crowd-control" and utility, and seem kinda like druids (the real ones, not the WoW ones or DnD ones). I have no experience with MERP or Decipher's games though so not sure how lotro compares to that. I'd love to roleplay in ME someday though. Interesting stuff.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408536...
I also liked the essays on running a campaign with an epic feel, and how the game could easily be used for a non-Middle-earth setting. I think this was an underrated part of the book.

Yeah, I liked that section too.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408536... I haven't heard of this game.

http://www.cubicle-7.com/News/TORannounce.htm

(I doubt that the game will come out in 2010, contrary to what the announcement states.)

Quote from: Sigmund;408542Not sure if this is relevant to the topic, but I've been curious for awhile, do ya'all not like the movie art because ya didn't like the movies?

I quite liked the movies.  

They're not perfect, and I disliked some of the changes that Jackson made -- e.g., elves at Helm's Deep, playing Denethor for cheap laughs, etc. -- but overall I think that he did a very, very good job.  The films could have been disasters, and some of the things he did were brilliant (the casting, the way Gollum was presented, etc.).

In general, though, something about using film stills as the primary art for a RPG book based on novels just strikes me as cheap and lazy.

I dislike the movies. which is odd, because for a while I was a rabid LoTr movie  fanboy. It was sometime during my first viewing of the extended cut of RoTK that I realized that I no longer enjoyed them much.
I don't like the change of color palette as they go on. the increasing use of washed out colors bores the shit out of me and makes it hard for me to watch*. There are little thing that bother me as well. The fact that Frodo solves the riddle of the gate into Moria as opposed to Merry, and the fact that Merry and Pippen arouse the watcher in the water as opposed to Borimor.  the first was meant to show that mmerry was useful and bright, the second was in the books a rather brilliant example of foreshadowing. Elrond talks too much and in too portentous of a voice. Larger sins include reducing Gimli to comic relief (casting here kind of sucks too, really) and, perhaps, the biggest sin is that instead of truncating Sam and Frodo's endless plodding trek across Mordor, PJ actually dwells on it and overplays the conflict between Sam and Frodo and Smeagol.  Over all, i think PJ was drunk on time the same way that Lucas was drunk on sfx when he made the SW prequels. Two movies would have been better, imo.  Anyway, there is a lot I do like about them, and I find them quite watchable if I make judicious use of the fast forward button. Beyond that, I'm glad they are out there because so many seem to get so much enjoyment from them. Actually the movies kind of laid bare some of the problems i have with the books. I would go in to more detail, but I don't wish to offend- it would be a bit too much of a threadcrap even for me.
I do, however, love the Hobbit 100% without reservation, so perhaps you can all forgive me.



*I understand the reasoning behind it- I just don't like it.
P.S. what he did to King Kong was far worse, imo.

I think the movies are far and away the best fantasy movies ever made. I had a hard time getting past how much Jackson changed, but eventually I was able to judge the flicks on their own terms.

My main beefs had to do with some of what Jackson changed, mostly where I thought he could have trusted the source material more rather than re-writing Tolkien. I disliked how Denethor was portrayed - he went from a true tragic figure in the books to being pretty much just a dick in the movies. I also greatly disliked Faramir's portrayal - he was a good contrast to Boromir in the books, but in the movies he was just Boromir-Light.

Not to mention that The Two Towers was essentially completely rewritten. I have a film degree, so I get that books have to be truncated and redone to fit the film format, but I just felt that a lot of Jackson's choices on just how he went about doing it didn't make a lot of sense.

A really nitpicky thing was that some visualizations just fell flat - doughy-looking elves, Dunedain who looked like they were all in a band that played Ren-Faire-Rock, stuff like that. I also thought the "Dark Galadriel" thing was really silly-looking. I also had a helluva hard time keeping Merry and Pippin straight in the movie, but that's because I had very specific ideas about what those two looked like after thirty years of reading and re-reading the books.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408486The CODA system was a good balance of skills and class-based systems. MERP I will say this about - I did like the way the races were depicted. I also dig MERP for just how comprehensively it covered the setting - the race/monster/item books are great references.[/QUOTEFor us, CODA worked even better than MERP, because we loved even the name of the stats (in MERP names are more dry and functional). And we loved that it was light D20 with d6, the Orders, everything... but the combat system, which, if RAW, is an unplayable mess and it looks like it is not been playtested. Luckily, the excellent Hall of Fire webzine provided us with the houserules we needed, and if you fix combat, the rest of the game is pure wonder.

But for setting info, we still used the MERP books. Fuck, I would use the MERP books for any ME game I run, ever.

QuoteI think 4e could handle both the low and the high-powered aspects of the setting. My experience with running 4e showed that PCs are more fragile at low levels than they appear.

Also, it is worth to remember that, when Tolkien goes high-powered, he really goes nuts. Húrin kills 70 fucking trolls just in a part of a battle, after discarding his shield (previously he probably killed a lot of stuff, too). Holy shit. Trolls are mooks for him.

Quote from: Akrasia;408506This is a good point.  If the GM actually used the "Spell Use Risk Table" (ST-12) in MERP, PCs would be very reluctant to cast 'flashy' spells (e.g., fireballs).

Using magic was about the toughest choices the PCs had, including being afraid of heavy magical healing for fear of being discovered near Myrkwood. I remember an elven wizard being really reluctant about using his newly acquired fireball in an ambush, because using it  to wipe the orc band could bring something worst.

QuoteI think that part of MERP's bad reputation for being too "high magic" comes from GMs failing to apply the Risk Factor rules to spells.

Absolutely.

Quote from: Akrasia;408508Yes, I think that this is an important feature of combat in Middle-earth.  Even Smaug was felled by a single arrow (okay, it was Bard's possibly magical "black arrow", but still!).

It's totally an open roll, mate. And after that, the player rolls a 00 'E' critical hit And the palyer makes the victory dance. I've seen this happen many times.

Quote from: Aos;408553I do, however, love the Hobbit 100% without reservation, so perhaps you can all forgive me.

It's OK. The Hobbit is really great.  And I hate rabid fans. Rabidly.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408554I think the movies are far and away the best fantasy movies ever made.

Word.

Quote from: Imperator;408466Actually, after reading the excellent Grey Elf's Hyborian OD&D game, I toyed with writing a ME version for S&W.

I'd buy that, colega.

Incidentally, although the original MERP rulebook exasperate me to no end (dificult layout and rules org for a kid, I supose) I was deeply in love with the races&cultures descriptions: for ever an ever that'll be Tolkieness to me, the joy to play a Lossoth chaman, a Variag raider or a Wose hunter (a pitty that so much people only knew the "Dunadain Ranger", "Noldo Wizard" combinations).
A rule system for Middle Earth must to deal with the ethnographic efforts of Tolkien, with plenty if cultures to choose. Also, and I know I'm alone in it, I don't think a Tolkien game deserves ANY magic system: like in old S&W stories, the magic in Middle Earth is the business of the Big Bad Guys, NPCs, magical beings, etc, not a tool in characters hands. It's not a very magical world, like Oerth or Faerum. Maybe magic items, and black magiks from the Shadow or the ancient Numenor, but not fireballs or breath water.

Mmm, maybe I'm too influenced by the old ICE's modules for MERP: they were very "low-key", almost always dealing with brigands, thieves, guards, wild animals and the ocasional evil warlock. I envision my "ideal MERP game" as gritty, low-magic and very human-centric, perhaps the new A Song of Ice and Fire RPG from Green Ronin.

Quote from: Imperator;408573Luckily, the excellent Hall of Fire webzine provided us with the houserules we needed, and if you fix combat, the rest of the game is pure wonder.

I have a bunch of these; can you tell us which ones you used for specific modifications?

I just discovered an OpenQuest 'Middle-earth' game called 'The Age of Shadow.'

Okay, it's not exactly 'Middle-earth', but the game is pretty clearly based on Tolkien's world, especially the First Age (although I think that it could be used for games set in later Ages).

(OpenQuest is a streamlined/simplified version of Mongoose's RuneQuest -- essentially, it simplifies the skill system, and uses the Stormbringer combat system instead of hit locations.  I summarize some of its main elements here.  My thoughts on 'The Age of Shadow' are here.)

Quote from: Akrasia;408546I quite liked the movies.  

They're not perfect, and I disliked some of the changes that Jackson made -- e.g., elves at Helm's Deep, playing Denethor for cheap laughs, etc. -- but overall I think that he did a very, very good job.  The films could have been disasters, and some of the things he did were brilliant (the casting, the way Gollum was presented, etc.).

In general, though, something about using film stills as the primary art for a RPG book based on novels just strikes me as cheap and lazy.

I guess I fall in the camp of, "This was nowhere near as bad as I'd feared", with some, "This is a pretty cool visualization"  thrown in.  I will say up front that I enjoyed 1 and 2 very much, despite the strangeness of Elves in Helm's Deep, etc.

My largest issue deals with none of the above.  Hardisson mentions his background, so this must kill him as well...books and movies are written with this crazy thing called 'plot', and from a macro level, this deals with the rise and fall of action , with a stimulus and a response, and we can track this.
The Scouring of the Shire is an extremely, extremely critical part in this.  Tolkien himself said, in an unrelated comment, that it was a necessity, forseen from the outset.  Again, seen from a very macro level, the book starts with and is about the affect the hobbits have on the world and the price the hobbits pay; about their maturation.  
In the third movie, Jackson removes the actual emotional climax of the trilogy.  Because of this, due to the investiture and amount of time and energy, the climax of the darn movie is The Battle of Pelennor Fields.  It's a self created cinematic premature ejaculation.

Quote from: ImperatorUsing magic was about the toughest choices the PCs had, including being afraid of heavy magical healing for fear of being discovered near Myrkwood. I remember an elven wizard being really reluctant about using his newly acquired fireball in an ambush, because using it to wipe the orc band could bring something worst.

I love your attitude, but this explained right and wrong all at once.  
Being scared to use magic due to resonance in the shadow world?  Cool and right.
Fireballs in LotR?  Pretty canon-destructive.

Quote from: LordVreeg;408602My largest issue deals with none of the above.  Hardisson mentions his background, so this must kill him as well...books and movies are written with this crazy thing called 'plot', and from a macro level, this deals with the rise and fall of action , with a stimulus and a response, and we can track this.
The Scouring of the Shire is an extremely, extremely critical part in this.  Tolkien himself said, in an unrelated comment, that it was a necessity, forseen from the outset.  Again, seen from a very macro level, the book starts with and is about the affect the hobbits have on the world and the price the hobbits pay; about their maturation.  
In the third movie, Jackson removes the actual emotional climax of the trilogy.  Because of this, due to the investiture and amount of time and energy, the climax of the darn movie is The Battle of Pelennor Fields.  It's a self created cinematic premature ejaculation.

I hear ya. The Scouring of the Shire is integral to the story of the book, but I resigned myself early on to the idea that it would never make it into the film version. As soon as I heard the movies were going to be made, I knew they'd cut at least two things - Tom Bombadil (and the Barrow Downs), and the Scouring of the Shire.

That's one of the main reasons I think the story would have been better served as a TV show rather than as even a trilogy of movies. That way a lot of material could have been explored that would add depth and narrative resonance.

It's hard to argue with success - the films made huge amounts of money, and people who'd never read the books flocked to them. I recall people who hadn't read the books praising the movies for how deep and "legendary" the films seemed. It does make me wonder how successful a TV show would have been, especially with the time to explore the books as they are, rather than a truncated, adapted version.

Quote from: Imperator;408573For us, CODA worked even better than MERP, because we loved even the name of the stats (in MERP names are more dry and functional).

I wanted to mention that this is a highlight of the game. Not only were the names of traits taken from the books, but most of them even included a direct quote from the books to show where they originated and what they meant. Fantastic stuff, very thorough, meticulous, and indicative of just how much the designers loved the material.

Just wanted to say, to me, Akrasia's and the Colonel's opinions about the films are not mutually exclusive. I too would have preferred for Peter Jackson and Co. to stick more closely to the original material (concerning Glorfindel's appearance, or lack thereof, for instance) and would have liked to see more of other moments (the Witch King facing Gandalf the White - this has to be one of the best moments in the books, and in the movies it's just in the Extended Edition and not particularly memorable compared to other things unfolding at the same time).

That said, I think this is the absolute best trilogy of medieval fantasy ever made.

Quote from: Lizaur;408595A rule system for Middle Earth must to deal with the ethnographic efforts of Tolkien, with plenty if cultures to choose.

And CODA was a bit lacking on this. We had to adapt the cultures descriptions to emulate the detail in MERP.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408599I have a bunch of these; can you tell us which ones you used for specific modifications?

Don't remember the exact issues, but the main changes were:
- Each success category inflicted an additional d6 of damage. Just this rule changed combats altogether.
- Mook rule: mooks have 1, 2 or 3 Health levels. Combats run faster, and you can get instakills on mooks.
- Called shots as an effective manner of disabling a foe.

Let me see if I can find my notes with the concrete houserules.

Quote from: LordVreeg;408602I love your attitude, but this explained right and wrong all at once.  
Being scared to use magic due to resonance in the shadow world?  Cool and right.
Fireballs in LotR?  Pretty canon-destructive.

As I said before, is all in the F/X description.

The important thing on the fireball is that it causes a big bunch of pain by fire. You don't need to describe an actual fireball rolling out from the wizard's hands and whatnot. Also, Gandalf attacks some worgs by throwing fucking pine cones on fire to them, which he set magically on fire. Previously, he killed a bunch of goblins in a cave with some sort of fireball/lightning bolt or magic blast.

Also, the spell was level 8 out of 10. Not exactly common material

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408609That's one of the main reasons I think the story would have been better served as a TV show rather than as even a trilogy of movies. That way a lot of material could have been explored that would add depth and narrative resonance.

I agree with you on this, though I won't miss Tom Bombadil. I fucking hate musical numbers.