I absolutely love Lord of the Rings, love it. I think the novels are the very best, I know some people have issues with them, but for me, they can't be beat.

ToR, I had it a few years ago and what I read, I really liked, but I sold it to my friend because, well, because I was an idiot To be fair, I did have a few reservations about the game, and the primary one is the updated rules about travelling (I think it's to do with travelling?).

My point, I really want to get back in to the game but I have anxieties over the rules. For the most part they are really good and evoke what LotRs is all about - but there's an extensive write up concerning those travelling rules and I'm not sure about buying a beautiful looking game only to have to keep a few sheets of A4 at my elbow to get the best out of the game.

Is there a revision in the works, wherein the travelling section gets an update?

Thanks all

I do not believe that the book has been updated. Neither would I hold my breath waiting for a second edition. Personally Id much prefer cubicle 7 focus on developing new material rather than start on a second edition.

I do prefer the revised travel rules. However I am fortunate that I don't mind keeping the revised rules on hand. I actually have a "Lore Master" binder where I keep all sorts of custom house rules anyway. The revised journey rules are at the front of it I believe.

On the other hand, if you don't want to have to worry about additional papers you have 2 very reasonable options that I can think of.

1) You could use the original travel rules "as is". They worked well enough for me before I discovered the revised rules.

2) You can memorize the differences between the new travel rules and the old, honestly they aren't so different. if you know the rules you don't need to open the rule book right? Personally when I run games, I am very much against stopping the game to look things up. I try to know the rules that I will use ahead of time and if I can't remember something on the spot, my players trust me to make up something reasonable.

If you never played before, go with the RAW.

Actually, I currently advocate the use of the original rules over my own revision in any case - I rediscovered why I designed them that way! They easily become second nature with the players and you have them rolling for Fatigue rolls right away.

Francesco

Those revised rules are really only an alternative not a replacement and I know more people that use the RAW journey rules or tweaks of their own. You don't have to use those revisions at all and many don't.

Also, if amended rules without actual reprints is an issue for you then you're limiting your options for this and dozens of other RPGs.

Thanks all for the advice - all taken on board

Great game

That's what I've found in my experience playing as Loremaster.

I call for a travel roll,
everyone quickly rolls the dice,
I say the TN,
those that fail mark the fatigue,
I keep an eye out for any eyes rolled,
and then we move on with the narrative.

Simple and elegant.

FWIW Same here.

The original journey rules are working fine for me and my group also.

I'll play them as originally intended then

Have the books been through a 2nd print run yet? I don't mean a revised edition, just a 2nd print run. And if so, have they been updated with the little known errata?

I asked a similar question earlier, but I think the other person thought I meant 2nd edition - that's not the same as a reprint though

Adventuring once a season; how many times in a year would a character go adventuring?

Our group goes three times a year, although there's no particular reason why you can't adventure in winter. Hmmm... Maybe I should send my group out into the snow...

Isn't there some game rule restriction on how often you can adventure, some limitation, or is it merely one of narrative convenience?

I'm just going to jump on the bandwagon to say that I too like the journey rules as written. Granted, I'm only three sessions in, but so far I see no reason to switch anything out. My understanding is that the revised rules were a response to people wishing for something lighter (or at least with less dice-rolling) for long, arduous journeys through difficult terrain. E.g. the Old Forest Road. For a trek like that, an "expedited version" might be desirable. But for shorter journeys, the RAW work nicely and provide more opportunities for "fun." By which, of course, I mean random--and not so random--hazards.
;-)

... Problem is that although it did address that it also made journeys easier so applying the revised rules journeys across Mirkwood, for example, became far too easy.

Not really.

3 or 4 I would asssume is the norm.

We have did 5 adventures the first year. 2 big ones, and 3 smaller ones.

It's mostly about time. How long was the journey, and how long is the time spend on the Fellowship Phase. There's no mandated amount of time on a fellowship - could be two weeks, could be 6. The time of a Fellowship Phase should line up with what the LM needs it to be to ensure the next adventure lines up according to the campaign needs of time passage.


In the second year, I am guessing about 4 will happen as the first one was a major one across Mirkwood.

While it's physically possible, most people don't like to travel when it's cold and when people at home are celebrating winter holidays. The best adventuring is to be had in the summer. Be more considerate of your characters' feelings.

Since when does plot care about a character's feelings?

One thing I noticed that's very 'Tolkienesque', is the polite manner of even the most wicked of npcs. Even when they are cursing it's nothing more than

"Blast you- you bounder - take back that insult else I'll give you a thick lip!"

Or perhaps

"Your deviousness will be your undoing you wretch!"

A product of Tolkiens' time?

A product of hammy game masters.

And there have been many very good verbal exchanges with as much venom.

"Go away or I will taunt you a second time!"
"I blow my nose at you!"
"I fart in your general direction!"
"Your mother was a hamster and your father reeks of elderberries!"


NOTE: They are far more vitriolic if you use them in a ridiculously thick french accent.


And don't forget a couple of gandalf's doozies....

"Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth"
"I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm!"

Will future supplements allow players to play some type of caster of magic? I don't mean like Gandalf, but something along those lines

We haven't had an official word from the company, but it looks unlikely that they'll go beyond the type of system they've already developed (where nearly every hero has at least some magical capabilities).

We've had multiple posts on the subject- here's a recent thread:

http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...topic=3394&st=0

Thanks Mim

One thing that's playing on my mind, just how much can the characters affect in the world?

Absolutely anything and everything in the Trilogy is off limits. People, places, creatures.

For example; let's go kill the watcher in the water - can't. Let's go steal Shadowfax and sell him to the Haradrim - can't. Let's go and kill Barliman in Bree - can't. Let's...

I know they are stupid examples, why on earth would anyone want to kill Baliman? Ridiculous. But they do serve as an example

Thoughts?

There are hundreds of options and adventure ideas that PCs and LMs can develop for this game without worrying about intruding on characters and creatures from the book. Also, the current of the game (ie, Mirkwood and the Wilderland) is removed from the s within the LotR trilogy and the time period is between the event of the Hobbit and the War of the Ring.

The gameworld is pregnant with ideas and options.

It really is a non-issue.

I don't know if you're familiar with PS3/XBOX game: War of the North, or if you played Lord of of the Rings Online.


In both cases, you don't affect the "canonical" story of LotR, or Hobbit, however you do interact with with evidence of that story occurring. Alot of it is in support of Tolkien's story/plot.

For instance, in LOTRO, you can go and thin the ranks of crebain's so as to keep them from harassing Frodo on his journey. After the water cascades and wipes out the nazgul at Bruinen's Ford, there are two that are unaccounted for; in LOTRO you go on quests to hunt it down and follow it. Theres another quest that you are to light certain warning fires after armies march on the heels of the Fellowship.

In War of the North, you free one of the Great Eagles that has been captured by orcs for instance.


In my own TOR game, the characters hear of things that they as players know will be part of the LotR stories, or things that did happen in The Hobbit. They don't directly affect the outcomes of these stories but they support it in some way.

One time they heard a creature in the night while stumbling about the swamp - they figured out it was Smeogol now tracking the path of Bilbo. He of course got away, in the game, but they reported what they saw and heard. Eventually this will come to the ears of Gandalf - which will no doubt be prevalent in his mind some day when he has that conversation with Frodo that says "There is one other who know Bilbo had the ring - I looked everywhere for the creature Gollum".

In short - stories that support the main stories and intersect it without directly affecting it. These are the magic of the game - they lend assistance to things that will come to pass in the books.

Imagine if.....that eagle that was freed in War of the North was the very same that saved Gandalf when he excaped Isengard, or was needed to carry Bilbo off to Carrock, or that saves Frodo and Sam from Mordor.

As players they know that their actions at saving the giant eagle played a major part in the success of the major storylines (though it's an untold story).



As for your own examples - okay so you can't go kill the watcher in the water, but they could learn about it, they could even encounter it, drive it off, etc, (not kill it).

In my own game, the PCs will learn of Balin's desires and campaign to reclaim KhazadDum. Again as players, they KNOW what awaits Balin, they know the fate of it all, but as characters they do not. They will be asked to assist Balin's attempts to prepare himself and his followers for the journey - to gather supplies, to seek assistance from Dain, etc.

So tie in the TOR quests to events the unfolded in the all the Middle-earth stories indirectly and supportive, so that it creates that magical connection without breaking any of the actual plot devices.

So the game world is pregnant, and the Breelanders are the Embryos.????

I'm detecting a common nomenclature to your posts of late....

One more point on this subject of storylines:

Okay so PCs most likley wouldn't sell a Meras (shadowfax) to Haradrim.

But they could encounter the horse. Perhaps free it from captivity of orcs. Allowing it to then unite with Gandalf.

They know that they played a role in that development.


Another quest in LOTRO is escorting the pony Bill through the wilds after the fellowship sends him away before entering Moria. You encounter the pony, he's stuck in a ravine with wargs circling him, and you can free him and kill off the wargs in that game. So you do interact with the story but not create a paradox per se because you're just supporting something that we all 'know' happened - Bill went on his merry way - but we don't really know all that befell Bill along the way.


Find ways to included these sorts of elements for your TOR player-characters.


What if your players played a role in the love interest between Arwyn and Estel (Aragorn). Perhaps she asks that you bring back some flowers that she intends to give to him or he for her, or some poem/song she wants help writing to show her affection towards him - or something like that.



PLUS as Rich said, there are many possible adventures that have nothing to do with the actual stories because the time, and place is so far removed from the actual books.



I tied in stories of the elven wine steward Galion into my game and how the events in the Hobbit shaped his fortunes. The PCs dealt with quests that involved him and his cousin that probably wouldn't have been an issue had the events in the Hobbit not happened. So my players did take part in a backend story that piggybacks on that part of the canon tales.

This is how Thogrim will retire in my campaign - journeying with Balin's Company to reclaim Moria. As players we all know what happens but as second born of his family it seems appropriate and I think it's fun that he is ultimately doomed after he is no longer a PC.

... And I'm worried that you're stalking me!

I wish more people would see the 'limitations' of canon etc in this kind of way - ie, using characters, plotlines, events from the books to support, embellish, and provide great hooks for their own adventures!

On the one hand, using the canonical stories like that, is very clever, and really adds to your own story of Middle Earth. However, it's always in the back of my mind that certain things are off limits.

It's a bugbear I know I'm not going to accept or get over. It just completely rubs me the wrong way.

Indeed.

I am not a Tolkien scholar by any stretch of the imagination. I know enough to call myself a fan of his work; but I am not a 'groupie' if you will.


My secret has been: I've used some tolkien websites like the tolkien gateway and the web-rings therein, I just type in a name of a character in the Search or the name of a place etc, and I read the "wiki" entry of that.

Then I try to envision how that can somehow tie into the time/place of TOR. Then come up with a back-story or piggyback on that story for the TOR PCs to encounter and interact with.


Kinda like the way "Back to the Future", or Smallville, or Forest Gump makes little pop-culture references that you as a viewer connect the dots, and go A-HA!!! This is possibly the way it happened. Elvis could have learned his hip shaking from a disabled kid in leg braces that walked funny.....

You didn't change history per se - he still became famous and infamous for that shaking; but do we really know how he learned it...???

Maybe you don't introduce Gandalf to Shadowfax, but perhaps an action you took led to their union or reunion. There's nothing saying these things didn't happen in Shadowfax's past.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean I'm not really following you.

Well of course there are stories that should be untouchable.

But this is true regardless of what established campaign world you're playing.


You couldn't kill off Drizzt' Do' Urden in Forgotten Realms, but wouldn't it be cool to help Gwynwhyvar (sp?) fight off something that pinned it down.

You couldn't kill off Sir Lancelot in an Excalibur game but it would definitely be cool to fight off creatures near the lake and witness the Lady of the Lake return the sword to Arthur.

In a historically accurate game, you couldn't save Jesus Christ from being nailed on the cross, but wouldn't it be cool to find one of the nails that was buried under sand during a horrible storm.

You couldn't destroy The Computer in Paranoia. You couldn't kill Cthulu. You couldn't stop Iuz or Tharizdun in Greyhawk from their fates, you couldn't kill Cyric in Forgotton Realms before he became a god, you couldn't kill Conan in a Hyborian game, but it would be cool, if his father forged your weapon, too. You couldn't kill Strahd in Ravenloft, but wouldn't it be cool if you somehow saved a woman that you later learn to be Tatyana (one of her incarnations of her).


Etc etc.



This is going to happen whenever you want to play in an established world of someone's published work. The only way to prevent it is to create your own world from scratch.

Jon and Cube7 made TOR alot easier to be adventured in without ruining canon plot devices by setting it in an area with little canon written about it in the stories and a timeline that didn't have a lot of major occurrences; it's more during a breath before the plunge of LotR timeline, or great exhale after the climax of the Hobbit. Lots of room for creating your own stories without worrying about irreparably breaking things.

Been thinking about this, and I came to the conclusion that the pcs can do whatever they want.

If characters from the book are killed, others will step in and take their place. The names may change, and the story in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ might differ, but the end result will be the ring being destroyed.

Having said that, perhaps the ring is not destroyed – but then the entire Middle Earth setting will take on a very different look. If that means a terrible world ruled by evil, a land destroyed with free folk in slavery, then so be it.

In the end, I've decided it doesn't matter at all what the characters do - I'll just apply the logical action and reaction of the consequences of their actions

Absolutely, there's nothing saying that anything has to be protected in any way and you can let PC actions completely change the established story.

Same position here.

My players are the sort that hate having some "invisible wall" protecting the plot (and when I'm playing, I'm the same. Just worst).
That said, I'm lucky they are committed to play valorous Men set against the Shadow...
...they just love to say things like "luckily there is that great, wise wizard leading us trough the Shadow's deceptions. Long life to Saruman!"

I would think playing a Role Playing game in Middle-Earth it is harder to break Canon.

Who are the player's going to kill to mess up the story?

Sauron?
Saruman?
The Balrog?
The Nazgul?

Not likely is it.

Okay perhaps problem players might try and kill Grima Wormtongue or Bill Ferny but then I think you can control this by not featuring them.

If the players want to kill Gimli, Eowyn or Samwise, then I think your game has other problems

I pretty much echo pooh here.

I feel that I'm fortunate that I have a group of players that enjoy being "heroes" against the shadow and so this isn't a concern of them trying to act otherwise. Furthermore, they have a level of appreciation and respect for the constraints of playing in such a well-established world and don't fret about any walls or invisible barriers.

Out of mutual respect I don't present them with can't win scenarios like facing off against such an important iconic character from the books, or put them in a situation that would potentially cause a paradox or require some dues-ex-machina on my part or GM Ret-Con.

Any interference they pose to an iconic bad-guy is ancillary - it is heroic, and needed, but the successes impede, or mitigate, while not outright destroying the story. Any interactions with iconic heroes of the stories are neutral at worst and usually serve to further their own heroic tales - not to undo what was written or is to occur.


That being said - I know that our tendencies do not reflect 100% of the groups out there; and by all means, if your group and your GM style are all on board with possibly changing the canon, or ignoring it all together, there's nothing wrong with that. So long as the expectations are somewhat agreeable throughout the play-group.

With the right group of players, and GM, this could definitely be an amazing experience.


In such an event, I highly recommend Fantasy Flight Games - MIDNIGHT D20 setting. Even if you play TOR rules and everything, the flavor of that campaign is awesome and resembles a "Saruon" ruled world through and through.

I ran a D20 campaign using 3rd edition D&D rules in Midnight for 2½ years about 10 years ago, and my players and I thoroughly loved it. The flavor is rich, very dark and sullen - like Ravenloft but not so much undead. Quite imaginative and the writing and stories were amazing.


I still have every book/supplement they ever produced sitting on my shelves. I've used them as inspiration for many games since, including my TOR campaign.