Any folks out there do Second Age campaigns much? I have run many but I always see folks talking about fourth age. O.k. and I have done likewise but I am more a second and third age kind of guy.

Or am I just too much a Tolkien geek?

Thanks,
Bill

I have.

And that's about all I think I'll say about. No sense in wandering aimlessly if there was no desire for futher information.

Hmm, I was hoping folks would share their ideas and experiences for an Age I liked as a setting. I'll go first.

I really am am a fan of about 200 when the Numenoreans are setting up colonies on Middle Earth. I have had an incredible and long running campaign set near the Umbar around 1600 SA. They had many different tasks but one was hunting down a secret cult of evil sorcerers bent on the corruption of the governor there (precursors to Black Numenoreans). It became quite involved and even pulled some of the natives (Haradrim) into it on both sides. All the interesting stuff of a growing colony mixed with the power and might of Numenor at its height.

Other campaigns but that is a start. Anyone else?

Bill

I have always wanted to run a campaign set in and around Gondolin, right at the time the Orcs, Dragons, and the Balrogs attacked and Glorfindel dueled with the Balrog while the elves of Gondolin escaped to the Vale of Sirion. Great story there.

Quote from: GameDaddy;233815I have always wanted to run a campaign set in and around Gondolin, right at the time the Orcs, Dragons, and the Balrogs attacked and Glorfindel dueled with the Balrog while the elves of Gondolin escaped to the Vale of Sirion. Great story there.

1st Age.

Another very interesting time, especially if one likes a lot of magic.

Quote from: GameDaddy;233815I have always wanted to run a campaign set in and around Gondolin, right at the time the Orcs, Dragons, and the Balrogs attacked and Glorfindel dueled with the Balrog while the elves of Gondolin escaped to the Vale of Sirion. Great story there.

I always have issues with the magnitude of the first age. I mean, somehow I can see second, third and even fourth age adventures. First age, just seems like you run into all manner of mythic level material. Nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea.

That said, yeah, that's one of my favorties up there with the Children of Hurin.

Thanks,
Bill

Another campaign I had was set in the Third Age with the creation of Mirkwood. The group play a group of elves, dwarves and humans that are part of a team fighting Sauron's forces. This was a tricky campaign since they kind of knew they would "lose" in the end. Still, it ran a good long time with some some interesting ups and downs. The campaign ended with the White Council driving out Sauron with the help of the PCs. Good stuff.

Bill

Niiiiiice, I love talkin' about MERP (or any Middle Earth gaming, since I also started up a Hero System game in Middle Earth circa 1994-ish).

I wasn't a fan of Fourth Age gaming. A lot of what I loved about Middle Earth just wasn't there anymore, though I understood how it was also the GM's setting at that point. Most of my games were Third Age games, about the time of the printed modules, but I did a few Second Age games as well.

The best, and longest running, Second Age campaign I ever ran was a Dwarven campaign based in Moria. The Second Age was a glorious time for that vast and "impenetrable" fortress-city. The PCs were heavily involved with trade, especially with the Numenorians, though they traded with just about any of the non-evil peoples. When they weren't out securing trade agreements diplomatically, they were out securing the trade routes with axe and hammer. We had a lot of fun with it, though the game crumbled when two of the players stopped being friends and the third player took sides. It sucked. What was cool was that the players knew that eventually Moria was doomed, so there was this tragic vibrancy to the game.

-=Grim=-

A Second Age campaign sounds like it could be fun. I think a campaign set right around the time Sauron was held captive in Numenor would be interesting. The PCs could be Faithful, and the campaign could involve them setting up trade settlements in Middle-earth, exploring far inland, and ultimately dealing with the aftermath of Numenor's destruction.

Quote from: GrimJesta;234462I wasn't a fan of Fourth Age gaming. A lot of what I loved about Middle Earth just wasn't there anymore, though I understood how it was also the GM's setting at that point.

What wasn't there? I'm genuinely interested in knowing how people ran such campaigns. I did a fairly meticulous breakdown of what the Fourth Age has to offer as a setting for a game, and after combing through the books and appendices, the only real difference is that many of the high level NPCs would have left. Sure, Tolkien talked of a "fading", but it seemed to take a long while, like centuries. Elves, dwarves, critters like Shelob, wars of pacification to the east and south - there's a lot there.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;234468What wasn't there? I'm genuinely interested in knowing how people ran such campaigns.

Most Elves peaced out in the Fourth Age, the Dwarves were already dwindling by the Third Age and by the Fourth they were an unfettered people and quite rare, and even Hobbits went on the decline. It was the Age of Man. Thankfully, Orcs no doubt recovered. I mean, they're freakin' Orcs. But having the "demi-human" races, to use a D&D term, be limited to small pockets of survivors just isn't Middle Earth to me.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: GrimJesta;234533Most Elves peaced out in the Fourth Age, the Dwarves were already dwindling by the Third Age and by the Fourth they were an unfettered people and quite rare, and even Hobbits went on the decline. It was the Age of Man. Thankfully, Orcs no doubt recovered. I mean, they're freakin' Orcs. But having the "demi-human" races, to use a D&D term, be limited to small pockets of survivors just isn't Middle Earth to me.

-=Grim=-

This is precisely the issues I have had with the FA. I just feel like a lot of what attracts me to Middle Earth is gone. It seems a sad time. That said, I have had other people run games for me in the FA and they were good so it is mostly my hang up I am sure.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWelt;234991This is precisely the issues I have had with the FA. I just feel like a lot of what attracts me to Middle Earth is gone. It seems a sad time. That said, I have had other people run games for me in the FA and they were good so it is mostly my hang up I am sure.

Bill

I just never got the impression that the elves and dwarves were gone, or that all that was special disappeared. At least, it took centuries or millennia for it to happen (and the Wood Elves never left at all). Tolkien is pretty clear in the LotR appendices that, if anything, elves and dwarves became even more visible and gregarious in the Fourth Age.

Dwarves came to Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep/Aglarond, as well as getting more firmly established in the Lonely Mountain. They'd been fading as a race since the First Age, anyway, and the first few centuries (at least) of the Fourth saw them taking a more prominent role on the world stage than they'd had in a long time.

As for Elves, it was the Noldor that left, and there hadn't been many of them in Middle-earth since the beginning of the Third Age. Celeborn left Lorien after Galadriel left, true, but he established a kingdom in Southern Mirkwood, while Thranduil claimed the northern part of the forest, while other Elves repopulated Ithilien.

Sure, it was the Age of Man, but it seemed like Men were pretty prominent in earlier ages, so why wouldn't elves and dwarves still be prominent in the Fourth? It was a slow fading, like it had been all along, not "everyone outta the pool NOW." Fourth Age Middle-earth seems to me to be a place much like a lot of RPG settings, except it has a lot more in-depth and well-written source material. Plus, the Ring being gone actually means a lot more freedom for a campaign.

Sorry to proselytize; it's just that I've done a lot of work figuring out how the Fourth Age could work really well as a campaign setting. I get carried away sometimes...

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;235010I get carried away sometimes...

It's a thread about Middle Earth with Middle Earth fans posting in it. *Do* get carried away.



What sources are you using beyond the appendices. The Tolkien Companion tells a different story about the Elves sticking around (though the Wood Elves did stay, they faded out of history), and though the Dwarves were in a strong position in the FA's start, I read that they shut their doors to man, tired of wars and whatnot. I need to find that quote though. I have no idea where I read it. I have a stupid amount of Tolkien and Middle Earth apocryphal works (the Companion being most well known).

If I wind up deciding to run MERP and my players revolt, I'm telling them it's Hardisson's fault.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;235010Sorry to proselytize; it's just that I've done a lot of work figuring out how the Fourth Age could work really well as a campaign setting. I get carried away sometimes...

Not a problem for me and most welcome!!! I think it is just a case of interpretation. I took a much harder and quicker view of "faded" as opposed to you. Like Grim, I would love to hear about sources. I  have quite the Tolkien library but as the title of this thread shows, I am more SA or TA than FA.

That said, I could see your view of the FA. It usually is the version that works for me when another GM runs it and I am a player.

Bill

My impression of the early part of the Fourth Age was also that the races intermingled more freely.

However perhaps Hinterwelts feeling stems from the fact that despite the increased interaction all the really cool people have gone into the west.  No Elrond, Galadriel, etc, etc. Also it is in the Fourth Age there is a final break with with the legacy of Melkor/Morgoth and his evil. The "new evils" and conflicts don't have the same punch as the older troubles.

With 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"