Hello everyone,

Though there is information on the website about playable character groups, I haven't been able to find anything about the character creation process. I have seen the character sheet sample, but would like to know about the mechanics of actually using it.

I know the game is very new, but when someone has had time to run through it, could you post up even a brief description of the process, and your thoughts on it? Thank you!

"Very new" like in "a couple hours new"

The character creation summary is:

Select a Heroic Culture
Record a character’s Cultural blessing and
skill list
Select two Specialities
Roll (or choose) Background
Record Basic Attributes and Favoured Skill
Select two Distinctive Features

Customise your Hero
Choose your hero’s Favoured Attributes
Spend Previous Experience to buy skill levels
Choose a Calling and Favoured skills
Generate the scores for Endurance and Hope
Prioritise the scores for Valour and Wisdom
(choosing, accordingly, your starting Reward or Virtue)
Record Starting Gear and Fatigue
Record Parry Rating

As for thoughts... looks simple but with many customization options, so it should be able to do a wide range of characters

I am curious to hear what "Distinctive Features" and "Favoured Attributes" are, and how they play into the game. But I will likely need to wait a bit for that.

Thanks very much Albertorius! I really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

I have a play test group currently under way trying to make characters right now.
And another group later this evening.


I will be posting reviews in detail on http://www.merp.com and in the forum. Also I am posting my thoughts and player's thoughts int he live IRC chatroom: server: irc.merp.com #merpchat.

The players will be posting in the forum their experiences.

I already have several pages of comments written up so far, we're about 1.5 hours into the reading, and still no one has begun to actually make a character yet.

But we'll give you lots of information about the process in a few more hours.

Cheers!

-Tolkien Fan and Role Playing Gaming since 1979.

Distinctive Features are Traits like Determined, Elusive, Hardened, Keen-eyed, Patient, Quick of Hearing, Suspicious or Wary. These work more or less like FATE Aspects.

Favoured Attributes are the secondary rating of the Attributes. All Attributes have a "standard" and a "favoured" rating. When you spend a Hope point to add your Attribute rating to a roll, you add the standard attribute rating for any standard skill and your favoured attribute rating for any favoured skill.

I am running a step by step example on RPGnet.

We are walking people through the process in real time in the IRC chat room,

server: irc.merp.com
channel: #merpchat

Or use the Java applet:
http://www.merp.com/chat/
or
http://www.tolkienmoot.org/chat/

Also posting many of the notes from the questions and discussion in the chatroom to the forums as well.

And discussions picking up on the merp@merp.com email lists.

And more organized formal reviews will be on www.merp.com/news/

Middle-earth Role Playing IRC Chatroom Java Web Applet

Tolkien Moot chatroom

Middle-earth Role Playing News

Middle-earth Role Playing Community Email List subscribe

I just made an Elf of Mirkwood. His Calling is Warden. His name is Almarean. His reward is the Woodland Bow.

I think it created it correctly. It was a little difficult without the physical book in my hands...

The PDF's are printable btw.
And full text searchable. And have Bookmarks.
The TOC is not linked, nor the Index, however.

I purchased both the pre-order hard copy and PDF bundle, and also another hard copy from our local gaming store to support the local business (which will arrive much later). So I will have 2 "official" printed versions when they arrive, but for now we have a couple spiral bound black and white to make the whole process much easier. They are staying with me, not to be distributed of course. Hopefully their lack of annoying overly restrictive DRM doesn't hurt them in the long run, and encourages people to want the higher quality physical versions.

We are discussing everything real-time, and answering questions real-time in the IRC chat room.

server: irc.merp.com
Channel: #merpchat

Or use the Java Applet
http://www.merp.com/chat/Middle-earth Role Playing Chatroom

Hope that's helpful information.

They are actually called basic Attribute scores and favoured Attribute scores. At first I was confused by the way these are explained in the rulebook. When I heard the word favoured, I thought I was going to be picking one or two out of the three Attributes as my favoured Attributes (much like in Decipher's LOTR Rpg). After reading it through a couple of times, I realized that all three Attributes get a basic and favoured score. The Attribute's favoured score is simply used to enhance favoured Skills when spending a Hope point.

On a different note, after reading the very simple explanations of each Speciality & Distinctive Feature (seemingly without any tangible game effects other than what the Loremaster and players come up with), I am wondering how easy it will be in-game to utilize them effectively. Maybe it will be much easier than I expect. Must keep reading...

Well, yes, I didn't have the books with me that instant, so sue me

link?

I'm sorry Albertorius. I didn't mean to sound so technical or snooty

No problem man, just pulling your leg
Really glad to see that people seems excited with the game!

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?586882...-Lets-Make-a-PC

How would people advise building/creating a sage/wizard-esque figure for play?

Elves are obviously the best suited for magical effects.

Otherwise, its just a matter of choosing Wisdom over Valour, Wits Skills, Scholar Calling and the most appropriate traits.

This is a can of worms IIRC.

Personally I don't see any Wizards wandering around besides the Istari.

But at the same time there is magic everywhere, Rangers use it to find the lost paths, elves to walk traceless through the woods and dance among the treebranches, etc etc etc.

So in one sense Magic is extremely Rare. There are no magic colleges teaching fireballs to students, no Wizards walking around creating magic items for people like cotton-candy.

But at the same time, magic is everywhere in the everyday life of a lot of people.

So if a Player wanted to created a more "dnd" type Wizard, I'd say NO.
But if they want to create say, a fighter/ranger/thief with some magical abilities, I'd be all ears.

That is my take on it, and don't try to force it on someone else. I feel this game supports my take on this very well.

/wolf

... and the servants of the Enemy, of course :-) Evil sorcerers, necromancers!

Naturally!

/wolf

Personally I see that is the only gap in an otherwise very nice system. Middle-Earth style magick, such as the relatively low-key magick that Dwarves have access to, is just fine. Even that is a world away from -zero-. There doesn't seem to be any support for such things. Right now your best bet for a human scholar/wizardy type is to play a Barding and take the 'Woeful Foresight' Virtue. Which is nothing to scoff at, but not quite enough IMO. A Virtue or three like the Dwarf 'Broken Spells' or the Elf 'Wood-Elf Magic' for Wizardy types to take would have at least made the archetype playable while I'm sure still keeping thematically close to the Tolkien feel. As is, you pretty much don't seem to be able to make a Wizard-type character.

I have to say, I like pretty much everything else about the system. Just the one gripe. ;P

Agree. Magic is the only thing really lacking for me in this game, and it's the toughest part of designing a Middle Earth game, IMHO. Elven magic is entirely defined within the bounds of the license I'm sure, but it really doesn't do justice to the setting. I don't that it's even possible to provide an explanation or philosophy behind how magic 'works' in ME, within the license, so I suspect this is all the designers can do: reproduce documented effects. This is unsatisfying.

I'm still reading and re-reading the game to get a hang of all the other tasty bits, but once I do, elaborating upon magic in TOR is my foremost goal. I see Osric up here, I recall reading his thoughts on ME magic quite some time ago, I still have them on my hard drive in fact. I'd be interested to hear what you think about representing ME magic in TOR's framework, Osric!

Yeah, all two of them, right? Were there any others specifically mentioned by Tolkien? Melkor doesn't count, cos he was a god or something? Did the Witch-king cast any spells as such?

Personally, I don't think there should be wizard player characters at all.

There are five wizards in Tolkien, the Istari, and they are divine agents.

As for the necromancer... well...

****Spoiler Alert****

Sauron is the Necromancer and he's basically a demigod!

All other magic is minor spells, worked into items (by Elven smiths and the like) or channeled by individuals of great power (Elrond, Galadriel, Aragorn).

Middle Earth is a low magic setting!

The game is consistent with Tolkien lore and to have other wizards in the game is drifting from the source material.

People are going to want to play a scholar/wizard/magic-user type of character, whether it fits with a purist's understanding of setting or not.

The source material is just fine for a story/novel. Some divergence from that is inherent in transfering things to an RPG medium however.

Well, let's see in order (trying to sound casual, but I spend an hour looking up these :-D) :

In Unfinished Tales Tolkien writes (about the two unknown Istari):

"they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Numenorean range: missionaries to enemy-occupied lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and magic traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron."

In Fellowship of the Ring, before the gates of Moria, Gandalf states: "I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves or Men or Orcs that was ever used for such a purpose. " - so orc spells are a possibility.

In Return of the King, Mouth of Sauron appears: "But it is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Númenóreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron's domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge. And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc."

Same book, when the Dark Tower collapses: "so the creatures of Sauron, orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved"

Also in there, when Grond appears: "Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. "

About the Witch-King of Angmar: "King of Angmar long ago, Sorcerer, Ringwraith, Lord of the Nazgûl, a spear of terror in the hand of Sauron, shadow of despair."

Also I took as a hint the fact that Minas Morgul means "Tower of Sorcery" :-)

I know that they are all indirect, but, for me a least, these are solid proofs that evil sorcery does exist - at least until Sauron's defeat. We don't see anybody casting spells in the books, but that doesn't mean evil sorcerers do not exist. I will definitely use them (sparingly!) because they fit nicely into my interpretation of Middle-Earth. But sorcery should be rare, really really rare, and definitely not for the players though!

If people want to play an overtly magic-using character in a Middle Earth game, I'd suggest they use another ruleset (such as MERP or Decipher) or come up with their own house rules for TOR. I'd much rather have TOR stay true to the setting (as the game does so well so far) than change things to suit gamers notions of "what an RPG should cover". I don't think you need to twist the setting in any way to make a playable game.

John

Words have been taken from my mouth and typed by someone else!

You did that research in an hour! I'm impressed. Doubly so if you don't have a searchable ebook version of Lord Of The Rings!

There are already wizards in the setting. So depicting them isn't twisting the setting.

The point is whether or not players could play a user of the subtle/low-key style magic that is already in Middle Earth. And I see no reason why not. Perhaps not on the level of an Istari, but it certainly is shown to be quite possible for non-Istari to practice a variety of different mystic arts in Middle Earth already, in the writings of Tolkien. Numenoreans, Elves... whatever. Gandalf and his pine cones. There is mystical stuff out there, in a variety of different forms.

No it doesn't feature prominently in direct usage in the books. But it is plainly in the setting. And as the helpful research of Roodie shows, it isn't all in the hands of Istari, in fact plainly being depicted or at least described as being in the hands of Men.

So implying that trying to depict such things in a manner to make them playable is 'twisting the setting' is simply inaccurate. It may not fit with your conception of things... your desired almost 'zero' level of magic for your game. But that, IMO, isn't necessarily accurate to the source material.

As I said, a few virtues with two or three simple spells similar to the Dwarf 'Broken Spells' virtue would have done the trick for the core set. I'm not even implying that any of them should be combat oriented types of things. But 'something' for a wizardy type guy to take would have been nice. And yes I consider the lack of such to be the most significant lack of the set as published so far. The rest I think, while perhaps having a flaw here and there, is still rather well put together and very well depicting the setting. This one area seems to be, either with intent to hold it off for another book or because of a similar attitude as to what you have, a striking hole in the offered mechanics. But I find it hard to believe that this issue wasn't considered. Which is why I lean towards either 'a later book' or 'not happening' rather than 'oversight'.

There are Virtues with spell like effects in TOR. So you can make low magic scholar/sage PCs with the rules as written. In fact, nearly any culture can contain such a PC.

There is Woeful Foresight (Bardings), Brother to Bears and Night-goer (Beornings), Broken Spells and Ravens of the Mountains (Dwarves), Wood Elf Magic (Elves), Art of Disappearing (Hobbits), Staunching Song (Woodmen).

What I am not sure what you are feeling is missing. Non-cultural magic? More utilitarian magic? Full blown wizard PCs? All of these do seem to twist the setting IMO.

I'm pleased with the current magic available for the heroes. It all feels appropriate. Having player characters that are wizard-like doesn't seem right -- they would all just be pale imitations of the real wizards -- charlatans.

I would like to see NPC sorcery when appropriate. There ought to be some Black Numenorean sorcerers for the heroes to deal with at some point.

Greetings

We know of good magic that is or has been used in the creation of items, ranging from the major to insignificant, e.g. the 'obviously magical' toys from the Mountain and Dale (A Long-Expected Party), Sting, the elvish opening words for the doors of Moria). There are other things that may or may not be 'magical', for example Merry's sword '...work of Westernesse ... No other blade ...'.

Other powers are more ambiguous, for example even an aspect of Aragorn's healing of Eowyn is described as 'whether Aragorn had indeed some forgotten power of Westernesse ...', Isildur's curse on the Dead.

Regards

Edward

Staunching Song is reminiscent of Aragorn's healing power and magic items seem partially cover by Rewards and partially left to the GM's discretion. So yeah, those are good examples of how TOR includes subtle magic we see in Tolkien's work.

Good stuff, roodie, thanks for digging that up. It's really interesting how Tolkien refers to sorcerors and magic, both evil and good, as you have pointed out, but nevertheless there is actually precious little of direct spells being cast. Gandalf does this thing on occasion, of course, at the bridge of Khazad-dum, and at Helms Deep (if that goes in the book, as it does in the movie, I don't recall now), but the Witch-King ie. Nazgul no. 1, doesn't cast any, I think, during LoTR, does he? Or it doesn't appear so, even in the final confrantations when I think he'd really have a use for a few spells? I won't mention Sauron, because as one of the Maia he's a godlike being anyways, so it's hard to say if he's casting spells or simply using his awesome godly powers?

What we have in spades is enchanted items, weapons & swords, armour, rings of power and seeing stones. But most of these were done in the old times, were they not? They are relics from the past ages.

Anyways, Tolkien seems to be rather coy in his references to sorcerors and spells. Characters are reputed to be sorcerors, or have apparently done sorcerous works, such as forging magical items. But all that seems to be in the past and in the legends, rather than in the here and now. It seems that magic is slowly vanishing or seeping away from ME, as the Time of Man approaches? Much like the Elves are sailing off to West.

I kinda prefer this cautious approach to magic and sorcerors, that way the whole theme seems subtle, elusive and mysterious as these are secret ancient things that few mortals know anything about. It's nothing like D&D apparoch to magic where you quickly get an overload of magic, and soon it becomes pretty banal, dull and overpowered.

That reminds me, will there be a Moria sourcebook?