Utter tripe? The Darkening of Milkwood is excellent. Can't speak to the rest of the adventures though.

Quote from: Voros;1003104Utter tripe? The Darkening of Milkwood is excellent. Can't speak to the rest of the adventures though.

What makes it excellent?  I haven't read any of them, much less played them, although the game seems interesting despite the goofy Gandalf die. If I ever play Middle-earth I might try it in lieu of MERP of Lord of the Rings Adventure Game.

Quote from: Dumarest;1003110What makes it excellent?  I haven't read any of them, much less played them, although the game seems interesting despite the goofy Gandalf did. If I ever play Middle-earth I might try it in lieu of MERP of Lord of the Rings Adventure Game.

It similar to the Great Pendragon Campaign. Starts five years after Battle of the Five Armies and has events extending for 30 years and ends with the death of King Bard the Bowman of Dale. It clever in weaving in things that the players can effect but keeping the larger events of the time period on track. The central conflict is the return of Sauron's shadow to Mirkwood. Like the Great Pendragon Campaign it captures the essence of Middle Earth and gives the players the freedom to create their own destiny.

Like Call of Cthulu insanity, the Shadow mechanics works well to reflect the struggle of a character to maintain hope in face of overwhelming evil. However if you are not that into roleplaying both CoC Insanity and AiME Shadow points will be unsatisfactory. Along with the fact that there no chance in hell of defeating certain foes like a Ringwraith in the traditional manner of beating it down.

What estar said. Recently heard the designer on the Gauntlet podcast and he mentioned GPC as a major inspiration for The Darkening of Milkwood.

Hmm. It's interesting that someone took inspiration from the GPC.

I guess that the GPC was somewhat inspiring to me in terms of my timeline of events in Dark Albion.

In addition to the Player's book and the Loremaster's book, I see that there are a couple of sourcebooks out as well as a set of maps. Anyone have any feedback to share about these newer products? Are there any decent fan-made adventures out there, or do I have to rely on the C7 books?

Quote from: finarvyn;1024479In addition to the Player's book and the Loremaster's book, I see that there are a couple of sourcebooks out as well as a set of maps. Anyone have any feedback to share about these newer products? Are there any decent fan-made adventures out there, or do I have to rely on the C7 books?

The problem is that AiME doesn't have much in the way of open content so the amount of fan created content is proportionally low compared to other D&D 5e variants.

The first stopping point is the AiME forum.

There are some out there more for the The One Ring. For example the ones listed in this post.

However as it turns out nearly all of the AiME (and TOR) supplements and adventures have been excellent and worth the bucks.

In order I would get

Rhovanion Region Guide.
The sourcebook for detailing the Anduin River Valley in Wilderlands and Mirkwood itself. But not Erebor, Dale or Laketown and points east and south east.

Wilderlands Adventures
Six different adventures set in the Western Wilderlands.

The Mirkwood Campaign
The closest thing to this would be the Great Pendragon Campaign. It outlines and supports a 30 year campaign in the Wilderlands starting five years after the Battle of Five Armies. It doesn't extend to the War of the Ring which takes place 30+ years after the ending this campaign.

Road Goes Ever On
Contains a booklet to flesh out the possibilities with the Journey rules. But the focus is on the maps covering all of Middle Earth. Wilderlands, Eriador, Rohan/Gondor, and Mordor are covered. Basically four maps each covering the NE, NW, SW, and SE of the original map from the book. The primary use is dividing everything into regions for use with the Journey rules. However the above supplements duplicates relevant maps. So this is not necessarily a much have.

Eaves of Mirkwood and Loremaster Screen
The only meh product of the bunch. The adventure is meh, except if you want a complete package for a demo or one-shot then it is better but only worth it if you get the PDF. The screen is pretty lackluster.

The Future
First each of the supplements so far has short but worth rules expansion and supplements. For example Mirkwood Campaign has rules for holdings.  Rhonvanion adds more creatures.

The One Ring for the most part is ahead  but AiME is catching up. Just announced is Rivendell which will probably covers eastern Eriador like the Rhonvanion does for Western Wilderlands.

They are working on the Moria boxed set which will support TOR and AiME.

TOR products with no AiME equivalents yet are
Bree, Ruins of the North (the adventures for Eastern Eriador), Erebor (Eastern Wilderlands), Laughter of Dragons (Adventures for Easter Eriador), Rohan, Oaths of the Riddermark (Adventures for Rohan). Likely that by the end of next year most of these will have been covered by AiME equivalent.

I bought the PDFs for TOR versions and they are quite good. The TOR Supplements are not rules heavy so I can use them for AiME. The only one I think could be a must have depending on how your campaign works out if set in the Wilderlands is Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.

All and all the AiME is one of the few lines (like Harnworld) I would pretty much buy automatically when my RPG budget permits.

Quote from: finarvyn;1024479In addition to the Player's book and the Loremaster's book, I see that there are a couple of sourcebooks out as well as a set of maps. Anyone have any feedback to share about these newer products? Are there any decent fan-made adventures out there, or do I have to rely on the C7 books?

I have the Wilderland Adventures book which has 7 loosely linked scenarios.  They're not bad, and they highlight some of the unusual downtime mechanics.  The first three adventures could be played in any order, but the last four are kind of a mini campaign that begins escorting a weary elf princess to the west and ends thwarting an evil sorcerer in the Withered Heath with some mass combat possible as the friendships forged in the Battle of five Armies is tested.  It's not bad, but it is more plot-y than situation-y, and IMO, it is also somewhat over-written and fluffy like most modern hardback adventures for 5e or Pathfinder.

I've just recently gotten into AiME, but I own a lot of the TOR parallel materials and have played a little of it. I won't go into my views of TOR as a system as it isn't relevant to your question, but I feel like their supplements are very worth while and their adventures are not. The adventures are well written and produced, and I'm sure some people love them; but I find them too scripted. I have played many Middle Earth campaigns using other systems, always running it as a more or less sandbox setting with a few open ended adventure hooks. This is a very enjoyable way to approach ME because basically everyone already understands the setting well and is prepared to make their own decisions about what they would like to do (in my experience this usually means, 'go into Moria and get murdered'). I very much dislike adventures that lead the players by the nose through a story, and that is what C7 offers.

I have a bunch of TOR stuff as well, but stopped buying with AiME came out because I like the 5E rules set better than TOR. I'll have to dust off some of my books to see what they offer, as it's been a long time since I've read them (and didn't ever really play TOR).

Yes, TOR is probably the most beautiful and thoughtfully made game I wouldn't play except under duress. The player-focused initiative and range system alone puts my teeth on edge. But D&D is (and always has been) a great system for middle earth, and C7 did a great job translating their TOR material into that new format. It's seriously good. I haven't had a chance to play it AiME yet, but its a core system with 40+ years of playtesting so it is hard to see it going too far wrong.

The only bit that earns an eye roll on my part is that they are too conservative in their treatment of magic in the default recommended system. It isn't worth arguing about here, but I think you can make a very good case for more widespread and dramatic magical powers than the 'subtle magic' concept they suggest. But, because we (finally!) have a middle earth game with a good, well understood core system, it is trivial to power up your ME game to whatever degree you think appropriate - the 5E core books provide more than enough material.

True, but there is a section in the Loremaster's Guide that addresses the whole magic-using-PC thing. It lists off spells that have the Middle-earth "feel" and gives suggestions on how one can handle wizard characters. Totally optional, of course, but at least they anticipated that some folks would want to have more spells.

Is there anyone using AiME materials from the books in non-middle Earth campaigns? I'm interested in adopting the journey rules though reading this thread it seems like maybe a weak point.
I also like low magic which it seems to nail. It almost sounds like this could almost power a gritty Game of Thrones type campaign with a little effort. I know it would not be like Conan or something although the madness rules could almost lend themselves to that.

Is it worth scavenging for other than Tolkien?

I haven't done that. But the classes and backgrounds look like good foundations for a 'gritty medieval' sort of campaign, the rules for fellowship supplement the down time rules, and the Audience rules seem like a good idea for added interest in social interactions.

Ironically, there's two AiME/5e threads going and they both asking these kinds of questions.

From what I've read of the Player's and Lorekeeper's guides, AiME appears to be a great system for playing a more gritty/low-magic version of D&D. Classes transfer over better than Cultures, I would assume.