Quote from: jhkim on April 13, 2023, 03:13:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 12, 2023, 03:51:36 PM
The shift was already there in 0D&D, how much fun would it be to play as something as fragile (and paradoxically unwilling to relent) as a hobbit?

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 12, 2023, 09:19:56 PM
Personally, I have no interest in playing Robin while another party member plays Batman. Everyone should balance out in the greater scheme.

If the Elves are great at everything, give some sort of metamechanic to Humans similar to luck or destiny pools/chips, to simulate Humans being vital and still having great roles to play, whereas the world is largely done with Elves.

Quote from: Festus on April 13, 2023, 03:08:15 PM
LOTR - the books not the movies - is the hobbits' story. Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir are all NPCs. The party is thus quite balanced as far as the characters' native abilities are concerned. The big difference is Frodo has the Ring, mithril mail, and Sting.

I think this is a core issue. To me, the hobbits are not a minor, skippable part of Tolkien. If I'm going to try to do something in Tolkien's style, it's important that hobbit PCs be workable. On the other hand, I think big heroes like Legolas are also suitable as PCs. In my experience, there are two main approaches to having both little heroes like the hobbits alongside big heroes like Aragorn, Lancelot, Conan, etc.:

1) The Ars Magica approach is for every player to have both a high-power PC and a lower-power PC. So the Fellowship might have 4 players - each taking one big hero (Aragorn/ Boromir/ Legolas/ Gimli) and one little hero (Frodo, Samwise, Merry, Pippin). I did something similar 15ish years ago when I did my "Dragons of the Yellow Sea" game where each player had one dragon PC and one human PC.

2) The Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG approach is that the little heroes get special mechanical advantages as luck / fate / etc. In Unisystem, these are in drama points. In Savage Worlds, it would be bennies. In a fight, the hobbits can provide luck and aid to the primary fighters. Savage Worlds is pretty good about having combat options besides doing damage.

Though if anyone has tried other approaches, I'd be curious.

Reminds me of the Matt Colville video: "The Sandbox versus the Railroad"

https://youtu.be/EkXMxiAGUWg

Honestly, I think The One Ring got very close to the feel and intent of Tolkien, so that would be a game to check out for sure. MERP had a lot of fun modules, and some pretty decent research into Tolkien's world, but I'd tweak it a bit to make the system feel more Tolkien-esque. It has too much magic for starters, and some of the spells feel out of place.

I'll be honest... Tolkien never really factored heavily into my conception of D&D back in the late 70's.

I'm *NOT* dismissing the towering influence of Tolkien on fantasy fiction. It's just... when I read the Silmarillion and the trilogy, it was clear that D&D wasn't going to emulate the Tolkien specific depictions of Elves, or hell, even Numenoreans, and the grandeur of it all out of the box. Nor was it meant to (as stated by others above). There is a "flavor" of Tolkien in it.

I was always more influenced by Howard, Leiber, and at the top-end Moorcock. Moorcock's crazy cosmological wars of "good" vs. "evil" while dwelling in the moral grayness a lot without dismissing either moral polarity.

I'm also not convinced that RPGs in general ever really adhered to Tolkien specifically (outside of Middle Earth specific games). Influenced? Sure on some level. But I think D&D has always been its own pastiche of fantasy elements (Appendix N ftw) that effectively is its own gumbo. D&D-Fantasy as its own genre has been the larger influence on other RPG's trying to differentiate itself from D&D, or emulate it with emphasis on specific elements, or trying to emphasize specific fantasy genres that D&D doesn't overtly dwell on.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 13, 2023, 06:25:17 PM

Quote from: jhkim on April 13, 2023, 03:13:27 PM
2) The Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG approach is that the little heroes get special mechanical advantages as luck / fate / etc. In Unisystem, these are in drama points. In Savage Worlds, it would be bennies. In a fight, the hobbits can provide luck and aid to the primary fighters. Savage Worlds is pretty good about having combat options besides doing damage.

Unisystem would be perfect for a LOTR game.

Has anyone mentioned Adventures in Middle Earth (5E) yet? I've heard good things about it, but never played it.

Haven't played but really like what I've read. Maintains the 5e chassis but nails the Tolkien tone without going full TOR in terms of metagame. If you like 5e and Tolkien, I think it is worth checking out.

Does anyone else remember the edition of MERP that had as an example of play a character levitating all over the place? I think she was called "Chinta Kari" or some such. Now that was cringe.

Quote from: Trond on April 14, 2023, 12:30:33 AM
Honestly, I think The One Ring got very close to the feel and intent of Tolkien, so that would be a game to check out for sure. MERP had a lot of fun modules, and some pretty decent research into Tolkien's world, but I'd tweak it a bit to make the system feel more Tolkien-esque. It has too much magic for starters, and some of the spells feel out of place.

I agree with all of this.

The magic in MERP was a real headscratcher for me, also. I mean I get why people would want to play magic users (as most would be coming from a D&D/AD&D background, and you want their money) but it felt really alien to the setting.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 14, 2023, 12:33:01 PM

Quote from: Trond on April 14, 2023, 12:30:33 AM
Honestly, I think The One Ring got very close to the feel and intent of Tolkien, so that would be a game to check out for sure. MERP had a lot of fun modules, and some pretty decent research into Tolkien's world, but I'd tweak it a bit to make the system feel more Tolkien-esque. It has too much magic for starters, and some of the spells feel out of place.

I agree with all of this.

The magic in MERP was a real headscratcher for me, also. I mean I get why people would want to play magic users (as most would be coming from a D&D/AD&D background, and you want their money) but it felt really alien to the setting.

Sort of, but if you used the Risk Factor mechanic and other rules involving Shadow forces (which we did), using magic was potentially very dangerous as Sauronic forces could detect it and hunt you down.  Once you got to even the mid levels, the chances of detection were quite high, particularly for "flashy" spells.  Even a 2nd level shock bolt spell, had a 30% risk factor built in.  So our characters, who never got real high in levels anyhow (around 5th) were very cautious with using magic.  And these were increased in certain time periods, like the late Third Age, and in certain environs, like Mirkwood. 

So yeah, on the surface the magic is "too powerful" in comparison to the books, but there were mitigating factors.  Another one was that the critical tables were brutal and healing magic scaled in such a way that it wasn't easy to recover from serious wounds as high level clerics aren't simply hanging around in every small town waiting to raise dead.  In fact there isn't a raise dead or resurrection spell in MERP.  You needed the higher level Rolemaster magic for that stuff.

Quote from: Persimmon on April 14, 2023, 01:03:19 PM
Sort of, but if you used the Risk Factor mechanic and other rules involving Shadow forces (which we did), using magic was potentially very dangerous as Sauronic forces could detect it and hunt you down.  Once you got to even the mid levels, the chances of detection were quite high, particularly for "flashy" spells.  Even a 2nd level shock bolt spell, had a 30% risk factor built in.  So our characters, who never got real high in levels anyhow (around 5th) were very cautious with using magic.  And these were increased in certain time periods, like the late Third Age, and in certain environs, like Mirkwood. 

That actually sounds really good. What you want is for the magic users in the game not to be casting spells willy-nilly, so there has to be some kind of restriction on it. And being detected and having the forces of Evil hunt you down is a good reason to be very judicious about spell use. If the situation is dire, you can keep casting spells until you get out of it, and then worry about the forces of Evil hunting you down later - at least you're still alive - but if the situation can at all be resolved through mundane means, that's what you'll do.

If we are going to talk about fantasy RPGs drifting away from Tolkein, why hasn't anyone brought up the significant Cease & Desist letter given to TSR in 1977 by the Tolkein Estate? Surely that gave any division previously in existence Seven League Boots.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 14, 2023, 01:32:41 PM
If we are going to talk about fantasy RPGs drifting away from Tolkein, why hasn't anyone brought up the significant Cease & Desist letter given to TSR in 1977 by the Tolkein Estate? Surely that gave any division previously in existence Seven League Boots.

Not that D&D was really trying to emulate playing in LotR's world before that, the ONLY resemblance were the 3 demi-human races names. As others have pointed much better than me in my first post in the thread D&D was and is it's own pastiche of Tolkien + a bunch of other influences, and those other influences IMHO have always had a MUCH bigger impact than Tolkien.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 14, 2023, 01:32:41 PM
If we are going to talk about fantasy RPGs drifting away from Tolkein, why hasn't anyone brought up the significant Cease & Desist letter given to TSR in 1977 by the Tolkein Estate? Surely that gave any division previously in existence Seven League Boots.

We should send WOTC a Cease & Desist letter.

Nothing else, it would just say Cease & Desist, and have a scary law firm header.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 14, 2023, 01:51:36 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 14, 2023, 01:32:41 PM
If we are going to talk about fantasy RPGs drifting away from Tolkein, why hasn't anyone brought up the significant Cease & Desist letter given to TSR in 1977 by the Tolkein Estate? Surely that gave any division previously in existence Seven League Boots.

We should send WOTC a Cease & Desist letter.

Nothing else, it would just say Cease & Desist, and have a scary law firm header.

Your sarcasm is correct for 2023, but you have a severe case of early onset senility if you think that your scenario is the same as TSR back in 1977.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 14, 2023, 12:14:05 PM

Haven't played but really like what I've read. Maintains the 5e chassis but nails the Tolkien tone without going full TOR in terms of metagame. If you like 5e and Tolkien, I think it is worth checking out.

I liked some of it on first read, but got less and less enamored as I tried to use it.  Now granted, I have no interest in running a directly Middle Earth game (in any system), and was only trying to lift parts of in a home 5E game to give it some of that feel. However, by the time I was done trying, the book was back on the shelf, and I haven't opened it since.  Didn't end up using a single thing from it.

For me, the text talked a good game, but its application was sorely lacking.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 14, 2023, 01:57:38 PM
Your sarcasm is correct for 2023, but you have a severe case of early onset senility if you think that your scenario is the same as TSR back in 1977.

I do not. The Tolkien Estate were being overly litigious. I mean it's not even like papa Tolkien invented his races.

I'm pretty sure Gary specifically said that Tolkein was not an influence for D&D.  Kinda a moot point though, as Tolkein was certainly an influence on the things he cited as having an influence on D&D.