Quote from: Claudius;356686In this regard you might be right, I've heard a lot of people state that LotR Coda is based on the films and not the books. When I ask them if they have played or read the corebook, you can imagine the answer. Yes, maybe the movie pics did more harm than good.

Believe me, I own and have played it, and it impressed me how faithful to Tolkien it was. No, the problem with LotR Coda is that it was in dire need of some playtesting. A well done second edition would have done wonders for this game. Alas, we'll never see that. I hope the Cubicle 7 people will do an even better work.

The confusion also comes from the source book that was put out that was based on the movie trilogy.

Quote from: Phantom Black;356685Wow.
I'm trully impressed...

NOT.



How underwhelming.

I was actually expecting something new or ORIGINAl.

You were expecting new and original from a License?

How droll!

-clash

Quote from: Claudius;356686In this regard you might be right, I've heard a lot of people state that LotR Coda is based on the films and not the books. When I ask them if they have played or read the corebook, you can imagine the answer. Yes, maybe the movie pics did more harm than good.

Believe me, I own and have played it, and it impressed me how faithful to Tolkien it was. No, the problem with LotR Coda is that it was in dire need of some playtesting. A well done second edition would have done wonders for this game. Alas, we'll never see that. I hope the Cubicle 7 people will do an even better work.

I agree 100% with this. Decipher LotR was very much faithful to the books. I wouldn't have used that particular system, but they tried *hard* to adapt it to Tolkien, and the work paid off. As Claudius says, it drastically needed some solid playtesting. There were a few holes that would have been apparent, and easily fixed, had done done so.

-clash

A good business decision by C7. The 'brand name' alone will ensure it sells fairly well.
It will be interesting to see how the system comes out since the lead designer has so much boardgame experience (yes I know he's apparently also designed some rpgs in the past).
It will be interesting to see how much support material they produce for it.
Because of the artists lined up, it looks like it will be a visually pleasing book(s).
From what I've seen of Victoriana (just flicking through it) it will be nicely laid out.
But the setting does absolutely nothing for me (same with Dr Who). I like the books, they're inspirational, but I don't want to play there.

Apparently he wrote Lex Arcana, a good Italian rpg, relatively rules light but with tons of colour.  You played Imperial Roman agents investigating strange occurrences, it was basically a Roman X-Files.  Big success in Italy, it's no bad game to have on your CV.

Quote from: Phantom Black;356685Wow.
I'm trully impressed...

NOT.



How underwhelming.

I was actually expecting something new or ORIGINAl.

Well, it was a license announcement.  That pretty much makes "original" a stretch.

Quote from: flyingmice;356691You were expecting new and original from a License?

How droll!

-clash

I have to stop replying until I see if clash has been here first, clearly.

Wonder if C7 will have access to all of the Tolkien material, or will they be locked like MWP's licensed games and only cover, say, the LOTR trilogy, in the core books and supplements?

Quote from: Danger;356700Wonder if C7 will have access to all of the Tolkien material, or will they be locked like MWP's licensed games and only cover, say, the LOTR trilogy, in the core books and supplements?

They have access to the Trilogy, Appendices, and Hobbit. Same as Decipher.

-clash

I think they are going to have the same problem with this game that Green Ronin is facing with Dragon Age.  There's no question that the IP the games are based off is popular.  The problem is in creating a demand to buy a new RPG based on those IP's.

They better come up with one hell of a good symmetrical system for LoTR.  It's will have to be obviously better to play LoTR with C7's LoTR then to just pick up an LoTR gazetteer and plug in your favorite fantasy game.

Maybe take the game designers boardgame background and put out a killer product that can compete with the new WFRP 3.0 and come in at about 20% less.  I can't see a new LoTR rpg maintaining any sort of internet buzz or store shelf buzz if it doesn't do something more then slapping LoTR on the book cover.

Any marketing figures on how Decipher's LoTR did?  It was perfectly seated time wise to do well coming out during the movie popularity.

Quote from: jibbajibba;356623I reckon the tough desicions will be
i) Magic - in LotR (and we have to assume from the One Ring name its set in the 3rd Age) only a few people have magic and they are very powerful, so not a lot of space for wizard apprentices and the like
ii) Canon - what do you do about the ongoing backstory. ICE did this really well or really badly depending on the setting book in question. You don't want to have to be drawn into the Fellowship story arc but you don't want to be wandering round Dol Amroth if its just another generic fantasy city
iii) Races - there are no young elves in the 3rd age. Therefore by definition no elves can be 'starting' characters

Quote from: Claudius;356686LotR Coda... Believe me, I own and have played it, and it impressed me how faithful to Tolkien it was. No, the problem with LotR Coda is that it was in dire need of some playtesting. A well done second edition would have done wonders for this game. Alas, we'll never see that. I hope the Cubicle 7 people will do an even better work.

So, how did Decipher's version tackle those problems, and any others, so well?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;356675All that said, I'll reiterate that it's probably a very good thing that the fuss over Jackson's movies is largely over, and C7 can create a game without that sort of commercial confusion.

Er... isn't Peter Jackson gearing-up to do a pair of The Hobbit movies?

Quote from: frogspawner;356711Er... isn't Peter Jackson gearing-up to do a pair of The Hobbit movies?

Fuck.

!i!

Quote from: kryyst;356690The confusion also comes from the source book that was put out that was based on the movie trilogy.

Could you explain which sourcebook that was?

Two published sourcebooks were named for the 1st and 2nd books, and had sections on "how the film diverges from from the book," with the default source material being the book.

Quote from: estar;356662...
It is the sourcebooks that set ICE's version apart from Decipher.  I know they are not all of the highest quality. But in combination it gave the Middle Earth a ton stuff to use...

I agree.  What made ICE's Middle-earth so wonderful were the campaign modules.  They gave a GM a plethora of resources to use for his/her games.  It was easy to run a 'sandbox' style Middle-earth campaign, thanks to ICE's many campaign modules.

And Peter Fenlon's maps were gorgeous.  They were works of art!

Quote from: Balbinus;356671...
Anyway, go Cubicle 7, I wish them every success.

Ditto.