As indicated in another thread, I compiled a list of pipe-weed names for use in running TOR.

Dragon's Breath
Eagle's Nest
Fungo's Fuzzy-leaf
Gamwich Braid
Gold-fire
Hornblower
Lengalenas
Longbottom Leaf
Muddy Foot
Old Toby
Roper's Twist
Rushlight
Shire Sweet-leaf
Southern Star
Southlinch
Stonecrop Leaf
Summer Green-weed
Sweet Galenas
Sweet Lobelia
Tighfield Choice
Wizard's Fire

Just reading these makes me want to go home and play tonight!!!!

However, it's not that my evening will be without merit - I am GMing a game of Pathfinder for my friends tonight as I do every other Friday (running Kingmaker Campaign).


I am not running TOR in the opposite weekends.

...it's fine as long as these don't make you want to go home and have a smoke!

Interestingly enough, during playtest we had players asking us to delete all references to smoking...

Francesco

Bah! It ain't Tolkien without pipe-smoke!

I'm grateful saner heads prevailed.

These are great - consider them suitably plagiarized .

Does anyone know if Woodmen-town or Rhosgobel has any medical Fuzzy-leaf dispensaries?

Indeed - it's one of little aesthetic features that LotrO has that other MMOs dont that make it fun - just the fact that there's animation for smoking a pipe if you wish.

LOL I actually do smoke a pipe ....long stemmed in fact for a cooler smoke.

Throrsgold,

I thought you'd want to know that I'm going to write a scene involving the delivery of some rare 'leaf' to the Shire - remember that posting a while back about Travel Hazards? I kinda liked the idea but shelved it, till you introduced your list.

Glad to hear it! I can't claim credit for the list, however ... I merely compiled it from Tolkien and LotRO. In fact, the only original name I had, I actually deleted before posting the list ... Longfellow Bud, by name. Feel free to include it for any that like ... in fact, I'll edit the original post to include it if requested!

I am, or course, delighted that the list has been received with such good reception. Although I don't smoke ... I love the smell of pipe smoke! In me, it inspires feelings of comfortable warmth ... reminding me of the pipe my father smoked when I was little.

Bleddyn, I'd really like to see a picture of your pipe! There used to be a tobacco specialty shop in the area that had a wide array of quite elaborate and attractive pipes. One of these inspired a helm that a friend had his Dwarf character wearing in a Chivalry & Sorcery game way back in the 70s ... it had a dragon-head shape with wisps of smoke tooled to come out of the dragon's nostrils that had flanged openings at their ends allowing for the character's pipe smoke to emerge! It helped that spells of air were placed into it to allow for such extravagances.

just a regular long stemmed pipe .... the 'pipeweed' I favor is smooth and called "plesant dreams".

Working in the healthcare field, I can't say that I ever could or would support or promote the idea of actually smoking - especially since it lead to my grandfathers lung cancer and death as well.

That being said - I can separate 'role-playing' imagination and reality, and it does carry a certain comforting charm in literature etc; whether it's Sherlock Holmes, Gandalf, or the old banjo dude rocking in the chair at the start of the Pirate of the Caribbean ride.

And with that in mind, I do embrace the notion of this being a part of the game; though I understand in our hyper-PC world why certain groups and people would push to have it removed from the official publishing of the game sources. Not a big deal in 1940 when all of these were being written, but "smoking" in general - in all its forms - is a hot button topic over the past 15 years.


And while I don't ever advocate actually smoking, I will admit the smell of some pipe-weed tobacco PRIOR to being smoked is particularly pleasant. Course I feel the same about coffee - love the smell of it, but can't stand the flavor to drink. And popcorn for that matter always smells so much better than it tastes (except when the dopey office mates forgets to stop the microwave in time and the horrible smelling burnt popcorn invades the ventilation system an pumps into all areas of the office - which it just happened again!!!! yuck).

oh brother.... here we go.

Seemed like a reasonable post to me. Kicley doesn't like smoking in real life but thinks it's fine in the setting. Sounds like me(a reformed smoker- 8 years off the coffin nails).

For whatever it's worth, I'm not a smoker but have no problems with integrating these themes into our stories.

Tolkien wrote at a time when smoking proved more popular than today (ere we learned of these health issues).

Thus, I don't see why we can't add these pleasant touches to our games. Everyone knows it's fantasy & the point is to have fun - & what better fun than watching Gandalf wind his smoke rings around the beams of the smial ?

Indeed. Like I said - I'm sure the pressure on the publishers to remove that from the actual print was due to PC-minded health conscious civilization.

Personally despite my stand against smoking in general, I find it would have been a disservice to disinclude it. As I said before - it's one of the nice aesthetically appealing inclusion in the MMO as well. I can separate fantasy from real-life; I can pretend to roleplay a smoking character in TOR and not have it drive me to want to smoke.

In fact the name of my user name "Sir Kicley" was a cavalier character I played in D&D for years from Cormyr, and he smoked exotic cigars from the jungles of Chult.

Oh and congrats, Halbarad on kicking it. My father smoked for 30 years plus and quit cold turkey in 95; hasn't missed it one bit. With his current heart and diabetes problems I doubt he's still be with us if he hadn't quit when he did. As I said - I work in the health care field - I'm a case manager for a county based Medicaid and Medicarel managed care program for persons with chronic diseases - and patients w/ COPD is the leading one that I work with. So I can't advocate smoking obviously when so much of my job is based on helping others strive to quit.

But I can always pretend. I don't kill orcs in real-life either. Though I do work with a few that I think are descendants of orcs that I feel should need a good sword in their gullet.

At the time of the 'discussion' I basically made the same reasoning - I never doubted our potential audience to be able to distinguish the two (reality and fantasy).

And I also thought that if Peter Jackson could show people smoking in the movies, there weren't absolutely no reasons why we shouldn't do the same, ours being a much smaller audience.

Francesco

He got away with it cuz he filmed in New Zealand and not in the land of uber-activists known as hollywood. :-)

One of the Rivendell design decisions was based on smoking, actually. When Frodo wakes up, Gandalf is next to him puffing his pipe. They wanted to stay true to that scene, but duder is basically smoking in a hospital room. So they made the room much more open to the air, almost more like just a canopy.

In real life I don't smoke,
but I've buyed a pipe just to pretend when playing!

I have to say I dumb struck about the conversation here. While I smoke infrequently, I would never at a gaming table (to disruptive). To debate the ethical issues of allowing smoking, drinking, drugs, torture, murder or sex in an RPG is kinda absurd.

Francesco I was however surprised by what you had shared. My 4 years living in Vicenza had given me the impression that a large number of Italians enjoyed tobacco.... in fact I was actually giving my cigarette ration (4 Catons a month Red Marlboroghs) to a retired Carabineri who ran a bar then 2003-2007. The Great thing about the tobbaco shops in italy were the cuban cigars... ( frankly dominicans are better these days). I guess things have changed since my departure form Europe in 2007.

Until the EU ban on smoking in public houses and resturants in the mid 2000 it was like walking into the smoky dens seen in Film Noir.

Valar forbid they had frodo in a Noldorin Oxygen tent.

Bleddyn,

I agree with (& chuckle over) your comments about "the smoky dens."

Your experiences mirror my own in Europe. I love traveling & living there & look forward to my next holiday therein, however, I vividly recall (pre-EU ban) hacking my way through smoke-filled pubs & venues.

At any rate, I hope we've all done this thread to death & can return to enjoying TOR & Middle-earth .