Quote from: estar;235139all the really cool people have gone into the west. No Elrond, Galadriel, etc, etc.

To me, that's what makes it potentially great for a roleplaying setting.  Stuff happens, who is going to fix it now?  You're never going to suprass Gandalf.  But you're no longer in his shadow.

Quote from: estar;235139With this being said. I had a friend describe a kick butt Fourth Age campaign that used the Mouth of Sauron  as the new "Big Bad"

Holy shit, was his name Kieth or Neil? From NYC? That was the game they always talked about running (they are brothers) after my MERP Third Age game. Sadly we never got around to it, but that was the BBG. I suppose it isn't a truly original idea, but it'd be cool if you knew the same peeps. That's all.

Do the MERP books count in a discussion about Middle Earth. Some people count them as canon, others are like, "Fuck you". I'm somewhere in the middle, believe it or not.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: GrimJesta;235313Do the MERP books count in a discussion about Middle Earth. Some people count them as canon, others are like, "Fuck you". I'm somewhere in the middle, believe it or not.

-=Grim=-

I have a ridiculous amount of MERPs stuff. IMO, sure, were just talking here and coming up with ideas. What did you have in mind?

Bill

Quote from: estar;235139With this being said. I had a friend describe a kick butt Fourth Age campaign that used the Mouth of Sauron  as the new "Big Bad"

I think you need to do something like this and have a "new BBEG, same as but less than the old BBEG" for the campaign to feel Tolkienesque at all.  Left-over ancient evils are very much in the Tolkien tradition, but conflict a bit with the idea that FA is the 'mundane' age.

Quote from: S'mon;235544I think you need to do something like this and have a "new BBEG, same as but less than the old BBEG" for the campaign to feel Tolkienesque at all.  Left-over ancient evils are very much in the Tolkien tradition, but conflict a bit with the idea that FA is the 'mundane' age.

I don't know how mundane Tolkien intended the FA to be mundane. He had a few thousand words of a unfinished novel about the Fourth Age. Basically in Mina Tirith there was a evil cult based on worshiping morgoth/sauron. At the time of the novel it was beginning to cause trouble both socially and politically in Reunited Kingdom. Also something about it being faddish for boys to pretend to be orcs.


Here are some details

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/31389

Quote from: HinterWelt;235360What did you have in mind?

Nothing specific. I was just asking if they counted in this discussion, since they chat a bit about the FA in the atlas/companion thing... the one that came with the huge map. I forget the name. It has all the timelines, and IIRC it had a few paragraphs about the FA. It was there, I believe, that I read about the Dwarves shutting the doors of their mountain fastnesses.

Or something. *shrug*

-=Grim=-

Quote from: estar;235548Here are some details

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/31389

Well that just proved me completely wrong.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: GrimJesta;235587Nothing specific. I was just asking if they counted in this discussion, since they chat a bit about the FA in the atlas/companion thing... the one that came with the huge map. I forget the name. It has all the timelines, and IIRC it had a few paragraphs about the FA. It was there, I believe, that I read about the Dwarves shutting the doors of their mountain fastnesses.

Or something. *shrug*

-=Grim=-

I am all for it. See, I seem to remember it from the appendices but as folks mention, it was after a period of time where the Dwarves went out a lot more. They settled in Helm's Deep and I thought there was even some talk of attemtps on Moria. Still, it ends with them closing up shop and the elves wandering off. Ester's article seemed to support it to an extent. Tolkein himself seemed to see little of epic level. Now, does that mean there is nothing of worth? No, and I don't think anyone is saying that. Still, I have problems running it. Not really a problem playing in it but I just have a rough time envisioning it as more than really vanilla fantasy.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWelt;235608...but I just have a rough time envisioning it as more than really vanilla fantasy.

Werd. I see it as "just another Medieval Europe" setting. It's mainly Men, with even the Orcs limited to small pockets IIRC. No, I prefer the Third Age. But like I said, it's pure preference. I can see a really good GM running a great Fourth Age game.

That being said, there's also a blank palette for GMs to play with with the Fourth Age, so it doesn't have to remain vanilla if you don't want it to. Hell, what if the Black Numenorians, coupled with the Haradrim, start some crazy new spider cult that worships Ungoliant through Shelob? It's natural love of the Darkness attracts the Orcs big time, and now there is a "shadow in the South" to oppose the free peoples, while the Mouth of Sauron still lurks in Mordor with more Orc and Troll remnant forces. The centuries of Darkness ruling in Angmar has forever tainted the land, and thus in the newly reclaimed North the dead do not rest easily. With only pockets of Elves remaining the race of Man must stand on its own feet against evil, and something stirs in the bowels of the earth, something that unifies the Dwarves with Man again, something that seems to love spiders...

Some of it might be silly, but it's just an example. The Fourth Age might start out a little mundane, but who says it has to stay that way. Eh?

-=Grim=-