I expect there have been many threads on this in the past, but I thought I'd start my very own, because I am a special snowflake.
What are people's thoughts on The One Ring? I've heard bits and pieces about it and like some of what I've heard, but it also seems to me that some people out there loathe it.
Specifically, will it satisfy a huge Tolkien devotee like me? Does it capture the mood and feel of Tolkien's legendarium (note: not Peter Jackson's increasingly vulgar wank fests) and is it geared towards people like me who use words like "legendarium" with a straight face?
Some good ideas that turn into exercises in dice rolling.
Felt like busy work. Every time we were in danger of having fun the game barged in and called for 27 dice rolls.
Boring combination of too much dice rolling and too much storygamey crap. It's the actual game that people complain about WFRP3 being. Utter waste of money.
As a Tolkein fan, frankly you'd be better off hacking your own LOTR stuff, unless you really want a pretty art book (And to be fair, it is very pretty).
I've made a character, and that looks very good to me, now I need to try and play it.
I don't know about "storygame" stuff, but it definitely feels like Tolkien stuff to me.
I liked the basics of the hex-based travelling rules (only read, never played). They seemed simple enough.
Quote from: noisms;785800I expect there have been many threads on this in the past, but I thought I'd start my very own, because I am a special snowflake.
What are people's thoughts on The One Ring? I've heard bits and pieces about it and like some of what I've heard, but it also seems to me that some people out there loathe it.
Specifically, will it satisfy a huge Tolkien devotee like me? Does it capture the mood and feel of Tolkien's legendarium (note: not Peter Jackson's increasingly vulgar wank fests) and is it geared towards people like me who use words like "legendarium" with a straight face?
i like it. if nothing else you should get your hands on heart of the wild and darkening of the mirkwood which is basically KAP the great campaign for middle-earth.
also, i am using modified journey rules for my DCC kingmaker campaign and they work like a charm.
of course, different strokes and all that...
Made me want to re-start one of my Middle Earth campaigns using D&D or GURPs or The Fantasy Trip or hacked Pendragon or hacked Runequest. Basically, I hate, hate, hate licensed games that have a different fucking rule for every little thing, for reasons that have little to do with the setting. That said, the treatment of the setting is terrific.
Our GM ran it. I liked the adventures, but we abandoned the system by the third session and used our own instead.
It reads very well. And the mechanics serve the interests of Tolkien's themes cleverly.
However, it's a massive pain in the ass to run at the table. There are a shocking number of sub-systems scattered over two poorly organized books. I gave up after three sessions.
Indeed; it is a little like running Burning Wheel after it has been completely disassembled into individual pages, which are then shuffled to a completely random distribution and stapled back together into two different volumes. Absolute madness.
I ran the heck out of a MERP / Rolemaster game when I was in college (Thorin hedges his bet and hires the players to get rid of the dragon somehow for their weight in gold).
How does The One Ring compare with MERP for "feel"?
Quote from: Lynn;785864I ran the heck out of a MERP / Rolemaster game when I was in college (Thorin hedges his bet and hires the players to get rid of the dragon somehow for their weight in gold).
How does The One Ring compare with MERP for "feel"?
Completely different. MERP didn't try to mimic Middle-earth at all. I was really excited for The One Ring RPG but like someone said above it takes everything I hate about storygaming and adds a lot of die rolling.
I'm still a huge fan of Decipher's Lord of the Rings game.
I Gmed two sessions, in a nutshell :
_character creation was very good, we ended up with characters really grounded into Middle Earth, not like a regular fantasy party.
_the rules, while being an interesting read, quickly became a chore. I was left with the impression that the rules were trying too hard to "create the story" when my players and myself simply did not need that.
If I was to go on with that campaign I'd use Legends of Anglerre or Fate Core while keeping some chargen elements from the One Ring.
ToR is a much better representation of canonical middle earth than any other game. I just dislike the system and think the rule book organization is a travesty.
MERP is deservedly famous for its maps and completist coverage of the world. These remain my first-rank resources whenever I run a middle earth game. But the system is a drag (yes, I played a lot of it years ago...). And the details of the way the setting is presented strike a lot of bad notes. Outrageously high power level. Magic items everywhere. I could go on.
LotR was a great product line — better than ToR, I would say, with one fatal flaw: The game itself was one of the few I would say is genuinely 'broken' That word is over used in our online world, but it actually applies in this case. You get the sense it wasn't even play tested. If you think I'm wrong, try resolving a fight between a half dozen humans and a half dozen orcs. Call me when you are 1 week into the process and we can talk about how it is going. But, the Moria boxed set is awesome. And the boxed set of maps is absolutely required by anyone who wants to run a middle earth game. Just use them with another game system...
Interesting. So nice fluff, terrible mechanics/organisation is what seems to be the consensus?
The RPG is true to Tolkien's original work, much more so than previous incarnations of a LotR RPG (I know that's not saying much).
I think the mechanics are good. They are pretty light and thematic, covering things than a Tolkien RPG should cover like emphasising background, journeying, and corruption. I don't think I would consider it very "story game" like, though there are some relatively novel approaches to some aspects.
The organisational issue was when the rulebook was in two books in a single slip case without an index. This is no longer the case, as the rulebook is a single hardcover with over of the best RPG indexes I have seen.
I was going to ask if the revised rulebook solves any of the problems people are talking about...
Quote from: Future Villain Band;785915I was going to ask if the revised rulebook solves any of the problems people are talking about...
The rules are essentially the same, but they have been much better organised and indexed. The "preliminary rolls" for combat, encounters and journeys have been streamlined.
There's a free PDF showing the tweaks, though it doesn't quite show the benefit of the integrated text of the two books into one.
I bought the original version of ToR.
I went through character gen and a couple of gaming sessions with a friend.
As has already been said, it's horribly disorganised. Rules all over the place and seemingly randomly.
Combat itself was confusing and had lots of unnecessary very specific rulings.
I hated the travel system as well. In general I hated the system in most ways and the reasons for that have already been mostly covered in this thread.
The art was nice though, but that wasn't enough to play it or even keep it.
I sold it on ebay a couple of weeks later and haven't looked back.
I think even if the organizational issues were fixed I still wouldn't like it much.
Excellent art, really catches the feel of the setting, the rules do as well. The thing is just too damned fiddly for my tastes, I really want to run it but it just looks like a hassle. The source books are good stuff though, even if I ditch the rules I may keep them.
I think it is a shame that people feel like something really extraordinary is required of a system for gaming in middle earth. I think that is totally off base. You can run a very satisfying middle earth game using basic D&D. Or just about any well engineered fantasy roleplaying system. What you need is a good sense of the setting and adventures that resonate with the expectations every player brings to that setting. It is basically a problem of DM'ing, not of finding the perfect system. But, people get a bit precious and uptight about this one because it is the great grand daddy of the genre. ToR totally succeeds at capturing the feel of the environment, the look, the monsters, the adventures. It really is great. But, they fell into the special snowflake system trap. In an ideal world this thing would have been written up as a campaign setting for 5E or some other widely available and well liked system.
Quote from: Larsdangly;785962I think it is a shame that people feel like something really extraordinary is required of a system for gaming in middle earth. I think that is totally off base. You can run a very satisfying middle earth game using basic D&D. Or just about any well engineered fantasy roleplaying system. What you need is a good sense of the setting and adventures that resonate with the expectations every player brings to that setting. It is basically a problem of DM'ing, not of finding the perfect system. But, people get a bit precious and uptight about this one because it is the great grand daddy of the genre. ToR totally succeeds at capturing the feel of the environment, the look, the monsters, the adventures. It really is great. But, they fell into the special snowflake system trap. In an ideal world this thing would have been written up as a campaign setting for 5E or some other widely available and well liked system.
I don't disagree with that necessarily but each system has its own nested assumptions which impact on play. For instance, XP for gold simply doesn't make sense to me in a Tolkien world. Nor does the Basic D&D magic system. You could house-rule it into something Tolkien-esque but that would require a lot of work above and beyond all the ordinary prep that you have to do when starting a new campaign. I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be nice to have a system already geared up for Tolkien style gaming.
My opinion hasn't changed. (http://crushingskulls.blogspot.com/2011/11/one-ring-short-critique.html)
Quote from: noisms;786012I don't disagree with that necessarily but each system has its own nested assumptions which impact on play. For instance, XP for gold simply doesn't make sense to me in a Tolkien world. Nor does the Basic D&D magic system. You could house-rule it into something Tolkien-esque but that would require a lot of work above and beyond all the ordinary prep that you have to do when starting a new campaign. I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be nice to have a system already geared up for Tolkien style gaming.
Little or no changes are needed to play well in a middle earth setting with something like Moldvay D&D. The magic system is fine; you just need to not fill every village with magic shops and crap like that, and resist the urge for level bloat. Magic in middle earth is a problem of DMing, not system. The EXP awards could go either way. Lots of people remove EXP for gold in D&D for lots of different settings because it rubs them the wrong way. So long as you replace it with something else so characters don't stagnate, you are fine (it would be totally ridiculous to require someone murder 200 orcs to reach 2nd level).
Quote from: Larsdangly;786044Little or no changes are needed to play well in a middle earth setting with something like Moldvay D&D. The magic system is fine; you just need to not fill every village with magic shops and crap like that, and resist the urge for level bloat. Magic in middle earth is a problem of DMing, not system. The EXP awards could go either way. Lots of people remove EXP for gold in D&D for lots of different settings because it rubs them the wrong way. So long as you replace it with something else so characters don't stagnate, you are fine (it would be totally ridiculous to require someone murder 200 orcs to reach 2nd level).
I respectfully disagree. None of what any of the magic-users in Tolkien do is remotely like D&D magic. And you're a bit blithe about replacing XP for gold - what do you replace it with? XP for role playing? XP for story goals? No thanks. It's not that using D&D would be impossible, you understand. It's just an unnecessarily complicated process
if another more suitable system exists. (I mean, fuck it, I've got MERP if all it takes is rejigging an existing system.)
Quote from: Larsdangly;785962I think it is a shame that people feel like something really extraordinary is required of a system for gaming in middle earth. I think that is totally off base. You can run a very satisfying middle earth game using basic D&D. Or just about any well engineered fantasy roleplaying system. What you need is a good sense of the setting and adventures that resonate with the expectations every player brings to that setting. It is basically a problem of DM'ing, not of finding the perfect system. But, people get a bit precious and uptight about this one because it is the great grand daddy of the genre. ToR totally succeeds at capturing the feel of the environment, the look, the monsters, the adventures. It really is great. But, they fell into the special snowflake system trap. In an ideal world this thing would have been written up as a campaign setting for 5E or some other widely available and well liked system.
I disagree. D&D is not a universal fantasy fiction emulator; it was designed as a dungeon exploration and skirmish game. You can put it into whatever genre you want, I suppose, but it will work better with some than with others.
In the case of Middle Earth, the major struggle of the protagonists is the against temptation and despair, not acquiring gold in dungeons. D&D has nothing that remotely models temptation and despair. The One Ring is built around that struggle, and the benefit of fellowship and havens. It's a far better match than D&D for a game that tries to model the themes and conflicts of LotR. The problem is the messiness and disorganization of the rules.
I picked up the revised edition at GenCon, and -- so far as just "reading the book" goes -- I really dig it. It's a fantastically well-made product, the artwork is spot on for evoking Tolkien, font is nice and readable while also having some flair and maintaining feel, yadda yadda yadda.
In terms of actual gameplay, I'm not sure I'm ever going to. I've made a few characters and I like what I see, there, but the mechanic just feels kind of clunky, and the more narrative-playstyle-stuff they've got feels very bolted on and at odds with the rest of the system. It's all very characterful and evocative of Tolkien's work, but at the same time it feels like a weird Frankenstein of story-gaming and hard crunch, all mixed together.
So I've enjoyed it. I'm glad I bought it, even. They're very well written books, put together nicely, and they've got some great story hooks and campaign advice for anyone going for that sort of feel in ANY fantasy RPG.
But I'm not sure if I'll be able to sell my group on it, to ever actual sling some dice and try it out.
Quote from: Haffrung;786048I disagree. D&D is not a universal fantasy fiction emulator; it was designed as a dungeon exploration and skirmish game. You can put it into whatever genre you want, I suppose, but it will work better with some than with others.
In the case of Middle Earth, the major struggle of the protagonists is the against temptation and despair, not acquiring gold in dungeons. D&D has nothing that remotely models temptation and despair. The One Ring is built around that struggle, and the benefit of fellowship and havens. It's a far better match than D&D for a game that tries to model the themes and conflicts of LotR. The problem is the messiness and disorganization of the rules.
I disagree as completely as one can disagree with someone about a trivial subject like this.
Roleplaying in Middle Earth may or may not have the sort of feel you describe; perhaps one is focused on personal struggles, emotional reactions to temptation, etc. Or perhaps one is focused on escaping from the Great Goblin with using some sort of fire spell you just got the last time you leveled up. Both are perfectly valid (just in general) and in keeping with different parts of the 'canon'.
I don't think there is any need for rules to support the notions of temptation or corruption in a roleplaying game. Actually, one could make the case that rules are the last thing you want to model this sort of behavioral and decision making process. The essence of role playing is the player making decisions about the character's actions, and then dealing with the consequences of those decisions. A rule that forces you to behave a certain way turns you into a spectator.
As for the magic in middle earth being inconsistent with D&D — total hog wash. Name one spell or magical effect that can't be modeled with a spell I can find in some standard D&D source.
Quote from: Larsdangly;786057As for the magic in middle earth being inconsistent with D&D — total hog wash. Name one spell or magical effect that can't be modeled with a spell I can find in some standard D&D source.
It's not that D&D spells can't emulate Tolkien-esque magical effects. It's that the philosophy is completely different. It's that if you had the D&D magic system as it stands in a Middle Earth game, it would rapidly become something totally alien to everything Tolkien seemed to think about magic and the nature of magical power, and every aspect of how magic is used in the Lord of the Rings. It's one of the main things that is off key about MERP.
It's not just magic that is that way. It's the D&D combat system too, which is in my view wildly inappropriate for a Middle Earth game.
Quote from: Critias;786052In terms of actual gameplay, I'm not sure I'm ever going to. I've made a few characters and I like what I see, there, but the mechanic just feels kind of clunky, and the more narrative-playstyle-stuff they've got feels very bolted on and at odds with the rest of the system. It's all very characterful and evocative of Tolkien's work, but at the same time it feels like a weird Frankenstein of story-gaming and hard crunch, all mixed together.
That's a shame as IME TOR plays better than it reads.
The one mechanic that can go either way is the Journey mechanic, which some groups treat as a simple series of rolls and some use as inspiration for all kinds of adventure on a journey.
TOR is a Tolkien NewSchool Heartbreaker - lots of cool ideas, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The obvious love of the source material practically jumps off of every page. If you are interested in running a LotR game, this is still a must buy for research and ideas, not to mention enjoyable as hell to read and look at due to Hodgson.
However, the mechanics are a mix of Eurogame and newschool RPG design philosophy. Personally, I have nothing wrong with a game with multiple subsystems (AD&D and A&8 for example), but once you get away from Tolkien to actually running things, a weird mix of abstracted systems, conflict resolution, and narrative mechanics just makes for a mess, and the lack of modularity makes it difficult to just excise say, the overly complicated narrative positioning system in combat that replaces distances for what purpose I can't fathom.
I like the "campaign behind the novels" aspect of the game, and love the introductory adventure so I have been considering getting all the supplements just for ideas, even if it's highly unlikely I will ever use the system.
Quote from: CRKrueger;786130the overly complicated narrative positioning system in combat that replaces distances for what purpose I can't fathom.
Eh. I see where they're going with it (It simulates a melee scrum, and in melee combat range, who really gives a shit about accurate positioning - except Gleichman - because everyone is moving around too much), and it's a nice concept that shouldn't be too complex. It's essentially the same system used in the Final Fantasy games, and that works fine... but all the crap layered on top just doesn't work, and doesn't leave enough space for players to actually be creative and play the game themselves. The system could almost work on autopilot, and that's bad.
Again. It's the game that WFRP3 is berated for being, but it somehow got a free pass because... ???
It was The One Ring, d&d 4e and WFRP 3e triumvirate that pissed me off a few years ago. Looking forward to new iterations of 3 games i enjoy and each one a compete bust for me.
It's quite telling that even the people in this thread who have it, aren't really playing it. It's a collectors item. Looks nice, reads well, shit for actually gaming.
The designer's a nice bloke.
Quote from: One Horse Town;786140It's quite telling that even the people in this thread who have it, aren't really playing it. It's a collectors item. Looks nice, reads well, shit for actually gaming.
Played it once, and that was it. Great for ideas, utterly annoying to play.
I pre-ordered the combined volume when it was announced, then subsequently cancelled the order after I found out it was simply rearranging the material, not actually fixing anything.
TOR really does annoy the hell out of me, though, mostly because it gets a free pass since it looks nice and is Tolkien. For all the knocks on MERP, at least that game was playable.
So given that a lot us here aren't going to play TOR but say that everything-but-the-mechanics is worthwhile...
And given that a lot of us have the TOR books (corebooks, supplements, adventures)
What system would you use to run The One Ring?
Quote from: languagegeek;786378So given that a lot us here aren't going to play TOR but say that everything-but-the-mechanics is worthwhile...
And given that a lot of us have the TOR books (corebooks, supplements, adventures)
What system would you use to run The One Ring?
I bought the generic Reign: Enchiridion (or however the fuck you spell it) game last summer on a whim, because I like ORE but dislike the setting of Reign. I've thought that could be useful for Tolkien gaming because it's quite gritty and 'dangerous' and I think the magic system and the way it allows you to run groups of things as quasi-characters could be interesting for Middle Earth gaming.
Other than that, Legend/RuneQuest would be a definite possibility, for similar reasons. I think above anything else a Middle Earth game should be one in which combat has potentially severe consequences irrespective of who is involved. (This is one reason why MERP might still be a contender.)
Quote from: languagegeek;786378What system would you use to run The One Ring?
Legends of Anglerre as I think it allows to be be twisted enough to get that "Middle-Earth" vibe.
For something a bit grittier any flavor of BRP (Runequest VI, Openquest...) would do the trick.
D&D doesn't quite fit the bill but it could be fun in a DM of the Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612) kind of way and just to piss off any Tolkien Jihadist happening to be at my table.
If I had no life and a computerized brain
Burning Wheel is pretty much a Middle-Earth rpg without the licence.
Quote from: languagegeek;786378So given that a lot us here aren't going to play TOR but say that everything-but-the-mechanics is worthwhile...
And given that a lot of us have the TOR books (corebooks, supplements, adventures)
What system would you use to run The One Ring?
I tend to use the Decipher system that more or less works without having to reinvent the wheel. Although as posted up-thread somewhere, its really only works for one-on-one combats - the rules bog down quickly beyond that.
After that It would depend on what bits of LotR I was looking to emphasis. Runequest might work quite well. The Doctor Who RPG by Cubical 7 could offer a different take, you could see the duel of words between Gandalf and Wyrmtongue working in that quite well, and its got built in support for mixed ability parties so you can have a Hobbit Gardener and a flesh bound Angel in the same party without the game creaking too much. Actually that last idea is more and more appealing as I think about it.
Advanced Fighting Fantasy, it's a solid generic fantasy rule set. Should work fine.
Did anyone else play Decipher's LOTR CODA game? I really liked it.
I did, it seemed great but the combat system just didn't quite work right, and I could never put my finger on it so I went back to using BRP for ME.
Quote from: Brad;786174.TOR really does annoy the hell out of me, though, mostly because it gets a free pass since it looks nice and is Tolkien. For all the knocks on MERP, at least that game was playable.
It's cool if you don't like it, but I can assure you that TOR is more than just playable.
I also don't think it gets a free pass on anything, as being Tolkien actually seems to set a higher bar. Though some people don't like TOR, I have seen a number of them still recognise that TOR actually does a decent job of matching Tolkien's work in terms of both setting and rules.
If you want an RPG that tries to be true to Tolkien's work, TOR is well worth checking out IMO
Quote from: Skywalker;786466It's cool if you don't like it, but I can assure you that TOR is more than just playable.
I also don't think it gets a free pass on anything, as being Tolkien actually seems to set a higher bar. Though some people don't like TOR, I have seen a number of them still recognise that TOR actually does a decent job of matching Tolkien's work in terms of both setting and rules.
If you want an RPG that tries to be true to Tolkien's work, TOR is well worth checking out IMO
I agree with this, and that's a vote from the other side of the isle on this issue. It is a game that succeeds on its own terms for a target audience, but which does so through choices that alienates another (unfortunately large) audience.
Quote from: Larsdangly;786484I agree with this, and that's a vote from the other side of the isle on this issue. It is a game that succeeds on its own terms for a target audience, but which does so through choices that alienates another (unfortunately large) audience.
I agree that the mechanics approach does alienate a group of people, as taking any mechanics approach does. How large that group actually is, is not known though.
Quote from: Ulairi;786442Did anyone else play Decipher's LOTR CODA game? I really liked it.
Nope, I still haven't, although I endlessly intend to.
I suspect the disconnect between the mook rules and the standard wounding rules results in something very akin to Aragorn's battle with that one Uruk in the Fellowship of the Ring movie, complete with the same rolled eyes and "WTF was that?"
The rules seem simple, but they're somehow presented as complicated.
Quote from: tzunder;786446I did, it seemed great but the combat system just didn't quite work right, and I could never put my finger on it so I went back to using BRP for ME.
I would love to see and official LOTR supplement for Legend/RQ6.
I hear the OpenQuest-based fantasy game Age of Shadow has a pretty strong Tolkien flavour, so OpenQuest may be a decent system to use for Middle Earth-set games. The pdf of the Age of Shadows rulebook can be downloaded for free from DTRPG.
Link:
The Age of Shadow RPG (http://ageofshadow.freehostia.com/)
I felt really bad for most of the people involved in Decipher's LotR — they created some really terrific products and major elements of the game were excellent. But the basic mechanics of combat and character creation were ill conceived and likely never fully play tested. One of the few games that looks more or less solid from a distance and then you get up close and realize basic situations are unresolvable dead ends. But the boxed sets of maps? Amazing! And the Moria boxed set is fantastic.
Quote from: Larsdangly;786614then you get up close and realize basic situations are unresolvable dead ends.
Sample case?
Quote from: Larsdangly;786614But the basic mechanics of combat and character creation were ill conceived and likely never fully play tested. One of the few games that looks more or less solid from a distance and then you get up close and realize basic situations are unresolvable dead ends.
Honestly I ran it for a year and a half and had very few issues.
How did you deal with the fact that it is statistically unlikely that you can kill anyone with a sword in less than 20 turns or something?
I found if you diminished the health points by one cumulatively as the penalty grew larger it worked fine. So:
5 at -0
4 at -1
3 at -2
2 at -3
1 at -4
Rather than:
5 at -0
5 at -1
5 at -2
5 at -3
5 at -4
Quote from: Larsdangly;786646How did you deal with the fact that it is statistically unlikely that you can kill anyone with a sword in less than 20 turns or something?
There's also the optional rule presented on p.270, which suggests to dispense with the wound system for minor NPCs and turn them into 1, 2, or 3 success opponents.
A variant would be to turn them into 1, 2, or 3 wound level opponents if you still wanted damage rolls to mean something.
Quote from: Larsdangly;786646How did you deal with the fact that it is statistically unlikely that you can kill anyone with a sword in less than 20 turns or something?
This is not what happened in play. Combats were not fast, but they were no slower than combats in a lot of other systems we have played.
Quote from: Larsdangly;785874LotR was a great product line — better than ToR, I would say, with one fatal flaw: The game itself was one of the few I would say is genuinely 'broken' That word is over used in our online world, but it actually applies in this case. You get the sense it wasn't even play tested. If you think I'm wrong, try resolving a fight between a half dozen humans and a half dozen orcs. Call me when you are 1 week into the process and we can talk about how it is going. But, the Moria boxed set is awesome. And the boxed set of maps is absolutely required by anyone who wants to run a middle earth game. Just use them with another game system...
I came in on the line as a playtester and writer after the core rulebook had already been published. I wish I'd gotten there earlier. Might have helped with combat and some of the other issues.
Sadly, the real way to handle things like that was buried in the middle of a page about having extra successes do additional damage. We ended up house-ruling that every extra success of damage a player achieved was worth another +d6 in damage. It helped considerably, especially for things like that lightning spell that did a paltry 4d6 damage.
The unpublished Barbarians & Warriors sourcebook actually had some nice fixes to combat, as well.
Quote from: jadrax;786406I tend to use the Decipher system that more or less works without having to reinvent the wheel. Although as posted up-thread somewhere, its really only works for one-on-one combats - the rules bog down quickly beyond that.
The core rules do have a mook/rabble system fix, breaking foes into one- and two-hit opponents. However, this system was roundly hated by most people on Decipher's forums.
Quote from: jadrax;786406After that It would depend on what bits of LotR I was looking to emphasis. Runequest might work quite well. The Doctor Who RPG by Cubical 7 could offer a different take, you could see the duel of words between Gandalf and Wyrmtongue working in that quite well, and its got built in support for mixed ability parties so you can have a Hobbit Gardener and a flesh bound Angel in the same party without the game creaking too much. Actually that last idea is more and more appealing as I think about it.
I really, really wish they'd gone that way.
Quote from: Ulairi;786442Did anyone else play Decipher's LOTR CODA game? I really liked it.
I played a ton of it. Our 33-session campaign "A Chronicle of Ice & Fire" was written up on Decipher's forums, and a lot of fans used it as the basis for their own campaigns.
I ran another shorter campaign, at around 16 sessions, set in the North at the time of the fall of Angmar.
Quote from: tzunder;786446I did, it seemed great but the combat system just didn't quite work right, and I could never put my finger on it so I went back to using BRP for ME.
I heartily endorse that route. ;)
The Age of Shadow Openquest adaptation also looks pretty spiffy.
Quote from: Larsdangly;786614I felt really bad for most of the people involved in Decipher's LotR — they created some really terrific products and major elements of the game were excellent. But the basic mechanics of combat and character creation were ill conceived and likely never fully play tested. One of the few games that looks more or less solid from a distance and then you get up close and realize basic situations are unresolvable dead ends. But the boxed sets of maps? Amazing! And the Moria boxed set is fantastic.
Agreed. House rules by the fan community did manage to fix most of these issues, however.
Quote from: Gabriel2;786617Sample case?
For example, one of my least favorite ones is that offensive values and defensive values quickly diverge. It was easily possible to get a bonus of over +20 with an attack (as well as rolling an additional die and discarding the low one) whereas the best one could get to defense was much, much lower.
Additionally, they never really figured out what to do with shields, which ended up as a specialization of another weapon type (clubs?), for some reason.
I don't have my books handy right now, though, and can't look up the exact wording and page #s.
Maybe someone should approach Pelgrane and Cubicle 7 about doing a 13th Age version called 3rd Age.
Quote from: Jason D;786854I came in on the line as a playtester and writer
Thanks for all your insights; that was interesting to read. I think of this game whenever I contemplate the over-proliferation of systems in our hobby. At this point, pretty much every major variant of core mechanics has been explored. And in my experience even those people think of as strongly distinct blur together into much of a sameness at the table. Honestly, how many ways of rolling to attack do we need? And adding one more actually isn't harmless. It contributes to the fragmentation of the hobby, which at this point is a tangled thicket of distinctions without a difference. In this sense, we are, collectively, fools. A much more satisfying structure to the whole thing would be a small number of core systems — I suspect a half dozen would be more than enough to cover the diversity of tastes — and focus energy on producing wonderful adventures, dungeons, monsters, spells, items, traps, etc.
Quote from: Larsdangly;786884Thanks for all your insights; that was interesting to read. I think of this game whenever I contemplate the over-proliferation of systems in our hobby. At this point, pretty much every major variant of core mechanics has been explored. And in my experience even those people think of as strongly distinct blur together into much of a sameness at the table. Honestly, how many ways of rolling to attack do we need? And adding one more actually isn't harmless. It contributes to the fragmentation of the hobby, which at this point is a tangled thicket of distinctions without a difference. In this sense, we are, collectively, fools. A much more satisfying structure to the whole thing would be a small number of core systems — I suspect a half dozen would be more than enough to cover the diversity of tastes — and focus energy on producing wonderful adventures, dungeons, monsters, spells, items, traps, etc.
Who knows? Frankly, though, there
already are a small number of core systems (d20/D&D/Pathfinder, GURPS, HERO, Savage Worlds, Storyteller, FATE, BRP, etc.) that dominate the industry.
Even hearkening back to the glory days of the industry (the early 80s, in my opinion), there were dozens of games to choose from, each with its own system. Systems that spanned multiple titles were kind of rare (outside of BRP I am having a hard time thinking of any others). In any given year, my group would play
Psi-World, DragonQuest, D&D, Call of Cthulhu, the Tri-Tac games,
RuneQuest, Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Super Heroes, Stormbringer, Middle-earth Role Playing, Ysgarth, Pendragon, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Bushido, and a few others.
After posting, I remembered one telling sign about the LotR RPG. I asked on the forums how extensively hand-to-hand combat had been tested, and the response was that it had been thoroughly playtested using the
Star Trek version of the system, which had appeared before. I followed up with a "huh?" and was gently reminded that Klingons used bat'leths.