This is basically my issue with the new model. With the lack of the 3 core sets, I'll be limited in what I can do straight up. In the existing core set, we got rules, cultures and a brief description of a large area.

With the sourcebook model, I wouldn't expect any more than equivalents of:
- The Darkening of Mirkwood (Campaign Book)
- The Heart of the Wild (Region Sourcebook)

The sourcebook describing the region and cultures, the campaign book giving adventures set in the region. The build up of the regional area covered will be slower and more expensive (though you'll hopefully get more information).
e.g.
Rivendell
Breeland (Arthadain)
The Shire
Rohan (inc. Fangorn)
Gondor
maybe Dunland
maybe Harad / Khand

This is basically the model that MERP used. The 3 core set model seemed nicer to get adventuring quickly, with the option to by more detailed regional sourcebooks if wanted. Yes, you'd get the rules duplicated. But you'd only have to carry 1 slipcase box around to run an adventure in either Rhovanion, Eriador, or Rohan/Gondor.

Many of us are also looking forward to their future supplements to cover other regions, such as Rivendell (TBC). I hope they produce the same fantastic work on these as they have with their other products to date.

Dom & his team often look for people, events, & areas that aren't as well documented in the books, so that they can run with the ball.

For example, The Darkening of Mirkwood apparently covers the gap between The Hobbit & LOTR. What happens to Radagast the Brown when Gandalf reaches Rhosgobel & can't find him? What happens to the Woodmen?

Well, they can do the same with Rivendell. What happens to the North? What happens to Carn Dûm & the former Witch-king's realm of Angmar? Where/how do the Wargs attack the Fellowship of the Ring in Eregion, & what happens to the survivors? How about Saruman's infiltration of the Shire & the Bree-land? It's a huge list with tons of possibilities for LM to write epic adventures. Ditto for the South.

They're doing a great job with Rhovanion, & there's still plenty of room in Middle-earth for all kinds of adventures.

But we don't know what will the book have. We don't know if it will include "common man" culture or not. These are all speculations.

I'm with fbnaulin on this one. I would like a big expansion of the setting to be in one book. Basically the content that we would have received with the 3 core idea, but without the duplicate rules.

I don't mind if they later flesh it out more (like Heart of the Wild does with Wilderland), but a set of local cultures along with a brief description of a large area would be an ideal way to develop this line.

I understand what you're all saying

That said, however, none of us want to pay for duplicate rules, & I believe that comments that some of their staff have made indicate that they are aware of these concerns among fans & will avoid the problem.

BTW, I should probably clarify my previous response If they issue the same format for Eriador & the South that they currently propose for Rhovanion, they can have a sourcebook or two for Rivendell or the Bree-land (or both) similar to the Heart of the Wild or Darkening of Mirkwood, throw in the equivalent of Tales of Wilderland with seven adventures themed for those areas, & voilà!

In addition, I hesitate to discuss the Lake-town Sourcebook because some of us have apparently not received it, but look at how much they packed into just 32 pp. They can certainly do the same with future sourcebooks that cover specific places like Bree, Minas Tirith, etc.

I hope they don't attempt to cover all of these areas into just one or two volumes, because they'll miss their potential. Heck, MERP compiled dozens of supplements & still had room for more, so let's hope we get more out of C7.

Already having the Lake Town Sourcebook, I would love to see either:

1. Many smaller sourcebooks similar in style for various s around ME.

or

2. A whole book, with one chapter devoted to each .

Either way, what I really want to see is a set of Tales from Wilderland style books with adventures for each .

Okay I think I see what he's trying to say - (Though I'm not stating I agree with the assessment).

What I think he's espousing to is he wants it set up so that a "Campaign" setting within a campaign setting.

So that you can have the Loremaster say "I'm running a campaign set in Wilderland"

Thus all adventures and characters are from that first run of books. The core books, the adventure books, Laketown supplement etc.


THEN the next year, or a different LM in their group says "Were going to run a campaign set in Eriador/Bree.

Then all characters and adventures (and thus supplement books) are based in that region.


Like a game within a game.

That all being said - there's nothing restricting a LM from saying - We're running a campaign set in "XYZ" so you may only play "THESE" character options.....

But the question is: would there be covered adventures and sourcebooks for that region in the current release format???

It's more an issue of having enough options packaged together to be useful.

If they go forward releasing sourcebooks for each locale (like Rivendel), then you are going to have to wait until enough come out for that area before they are viable places to take your story.

Say the next book that comes out is a Bree book (rather than Rivendel), and it comes with a new Breeman culture. If you want to run a campaign there, you have two local culture options – Breemen and Hobbits. If you want Rangers and Rivendel Elves, you will need to wait for two different books to play them. If you want to go somewhere nearby, you have to wait for the book that talks about that place.

Why not just have one book that details a whole area the way that the core set details Wilderland? It can be just as broad detail-wise as the core, but have enough that you can run a full campaign there without having to stretch material from another area (i.e. Wilderland). You could then have supplements that fill in those details, much like the Laketown sourcebook and Heart of the Wild.

Point taken. I see the logic in what you're proposing, and I can't argue with the pragmatism at all.

The truth is that I can tell is that most RPGers want "more" options "now" and campaigns that work to localize only characters from that region - seem to be the exception and not the rule (at least from my 30 years of RPGing experience. Though admittedly this could "shrink the world" a bit.

Then again the LOTR had a Gondor, Dunedain, shire Hobbits, an Elf of Mirkwood and a Dwarf of Erebor all in the party.

Exactly

There's nothing to stop a creative LM from introducing heroes from anywhere within Middle-earth, provided we write inventive stories on how they get there. All we need to do is to think outside the box

You all meet in a bar?

I agree that it's always possible. It's just never a good thing when a game forces you to do this just to play.

Outside the box is cool, but you still need the stuff in the box.

Do we have any idea when we might be getting the Rivendell sourcebook? I have a player that's chomping at the bit to play a ranger. I'd also like to see the new rules and such for elves and for Rivendell itself.

Heh, that made me chuckle.

The Darkening of Mirkwood and The Hearth of the Wild will be released between January, February and March 2013 (Q1 2013).

So, we are expecting "Rivendell" (not final title) after that. Hard to say when.

As long as we're (finally) having a laugh about all of this - for those of you who haven't seen it yet:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=613

Hmmm, the latest Gamer News (21/12/12) just popped in my inbox, no mention of TOR at all, in features or coming soon. Hope everything is ok...

I certainly hope that's not a portent of bad things to come. I really want the upcoming books. All of the releases so far have been outstanding, and I'd like to have the further work to expand my campaign.

Dom says don't worry in another thread about the newsletters, here -

http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...opic=2841&st=45

Some new details about The Darkening of Mirkwood and The Hearth of the Wild in the article The Shape of Things to Come Part I in Francesco's weblog.

Makes me even more enthused than I was already!

Hm - don't know, to be honest i hoped for some adventures in the Darkening of Mirkwood, as i have not much time to prepare adventures.
But by the description it seems more like a guideline what heppens in the years.

My guess would be that Darkening is going to be something like a very detailed timeline, somewhat similar to the Tale of Years. Say... a one or two pages per event, with each event containing some fixed and some optional elements. Along with suggestions on how to string various events together.

It will not provide detailed, step-by-step instructions of what characters should do and what should occur in response to their actions.

I'm guessing it will look a LOT like the Great Pendragon Campaign.

sweet! The best rpg book ever made imho.

Is this why an index has been added for downloading......?
I am new to RPG's and I must say that reading the reviews and watching the support material on you tube,I feel that this game seems to be everything I think a Tolkien based game should be......
I like the fact that the PC's are not going to leave their homes and start throwing magic spells around and unbalancing Middle Earth.......
It seems that the system has been very carefully thought about and developed
I just hope that it does not end up with a situation where you have to buy all the supplements to keep up with rule changes
I bought the core ruleset over the weekend and look forward to finding a group in London to play with

Barry

Welcome, Barry. I think you're going to really like this game, and you're right - it's very well designed.

So far there's very little errata or rules changes, so I don't think you're going to find that problem of having to continually buy new products to stay up to date.

Just wondering when we can expect to hear news about upcoming TOR products for the year. I'm seeing all the updates on Cubicle 7's website for their other product lines and I'm foaming at the mouth for a morsel of TOR news.

There's a couple of things we need to get the final word on, and then we'll bring you the news as soon as we can. Rest assured no one has forgotten about TOR!

Thank you, Jon. I'm an eager fan. I hope the final words come soon! :-)

Amen to that Beckett! I am dying to see whats comin´.

There are so much TOR I wanna use my hard earned cash on....

I love this game!

Thanks, Khamul.

Among other things (like the Darkening of Mirkwood and The Heart of the Wild) I'd love to buy new maps of other Middle earth regions for the game. Perhaps in the tentatively titled Rivendell Sourcebook we'll see maps like the maps in the core set.

I second updated and/or new maps like the Core Set!!

Yeah the LM map with all the updated places and so on hehe...yummy!

Any news? I need to BUY TOR stuff, or I will go insane!!!! haha!

Really, I mean it!

...just throw us a little bone....if that's ok with Christopher T!


/Khamul

Still no 2013 schedule?

Rumour control!

So I just tidied up the 2012 release schedule for TOR on our website. There is no new news on there as yet - we're still awaiting final approval to share our 2013 plans with you - apologies for the wait.

Because I did this small piece of house-keeping I thought I should post this so that no huge conclusions are erroneously drawn in the absence of any harder, new information. The line doesn't end with those books, we have not cancelled The One Ring, nor any other crazy stuff you may have heard that didn't come from us.

As you are by now no doubt aware The One Ring takes significant time to produce, on top of being a licensed property which adds in several layers of process and proceedure. Please bear with us, and we'll get you news as soon as humanly possible. Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding!

Is the current stock of core books still in its first print run, any chance of seeing a new second print run with all the clarifications/journey rules updated in it?

Thanks

The core set is still in it's first run - we printed a lot of those. Once that is sold through we will of course be looking at our options.

As a point of interest, both Tales and The LM's Sreen & Lake-town Sourcebook are into their second printings.

I'm going to wait to see if the second print run incorporates the clarification/errata into it. I'll be all over that like a rash if it is

Thank you for the update