(The board chewed my title. I typed "Shadow-weaknesses and PC 'longevity' " and the capitalisation went all screwy. And EDIT: linespacing on the bullets sorted out too.)

In the Topic: Generational Gameplay

Mannish or hobbitish characters without the lifespan of an elf or a dwarf can, mechanically, 'afford to' run up an amount of Permanent Shadow before retiring -- hopefully 'pulling a Boromir' and getting a redemptive exit. (Though this attitude is far from heroic, and LMs should still find ways to encourage right-thinking and morally upstanding behaviour!)

An elf in TA 2946 who wants to be in a fit state to do anything useful in ooh, say TA 3019 , is going to have to marshal their Shadow points very carefully.

• They cannot ever set a foot wrong morally in a Misdeed (LMB p. 58).
  
• They have to take far greater care to avoid 'getting involved' such that they experience 'grief' as per the Anguish rule (LMB p.56).
  
• They can't afford to take risks when made Miserable by temporary Shadow. How long before the Feat die comes up 'Eye of Sauron'? Longeval characters have to be very risk-averse.
  
• And they may have to completely avoid any adventure that involves traversing Blighted Places (LMB p.57).
  
• Then they'll have to spend more of their Fellowship Phases on the 'Heal Corruption' option instead of any more dynamic Undertaking.
  

All of these things naturally point us in the right direction for how Elves should be portrayed anyway: highly moral in themselves, but also somewhat reluctant to get involved with the day-to-day concerns of the rest of Middle-earth. But TOR's mechanics give us a strong system to account for it, which is still not heavy-handed.

(But I can well imagine cynical players anticipating a campaign not spanning 73 years, at one 4-6 session adventure per year -- 350+ sessions! -- and therefore being more cavalier in their behaviour...)

All this goes beyond simple Hope point als to relate rather neatly to how Elves are 'bound by Fate' whilst Ilúvatar deemed that Men

Hee!
But I should challenge the way TOR has elves retire in a "Return to Valinor".
For one thing, only Noldor High Elves thousands of years old -- and above our regular Player-Heroes' pay grade -- have ever been to Valinor in the first place, so it can't be a "Return".
For another, LotR seems to make something special of the fact that Legolas is going to be beguiled by the Sea; the way Galadriel imparts it, this seems not to be common knowledge.
And Legolas is a Sindarin Prince, whilst 'most' of the Elves of Mirkwood are silvan elves, or Nandor (though a disproportionate number of Player-Hero elves will no doubt be Sindarin too). They only hesitantly answered the Valar's call to the West in the early First Age, and didn't get even as far westwards as the Sindar.
They only get a renewed pull towards the West when they die and their spirits receive the Call of Mandos -- and the ones with high Shadow-ratings for whatever reason are susceptible to resisting the Call, becoming 'Houseless' 'Lingerer' spirits in the Unseen World, and continuing their Degeneration... and becoming necromancers' playthings or even evil shades in their own right.

The only house-rule I've committed to so far is to say that any Dwarf can take Dragon-sickness as their Shadow-weakness. (Though I'm tempted to further decouple Callings and Shadow-weaknesses -- especially since every b****r seems to want to be Wardens!)
The Idle and Uncaring flaws of Wandering-madness seem well-suited to Elves, but as Forgetful and Cowardly don't work so well, I haven't made the corresponding house rule for them. I'm still tempted to make up an elf-specific Shadow-weakness...

Cheers,
--Os.

This post has been edited by Osric on Sep 4 2011, 01:58 PM

Interesting analysis. It does create an interesting tension for the longer-lived races. Another cool design feature of TOR I hadn't thought of yet.

Os, thanks for the brilliant post!

You really started me thinking about the history of the Firstborn and their decision to undertake or refuse the Great Journey. That spun me off into a bit of Tolkien reading. I always love those provocations!

I went back to the sources and, according to Tolkien, for all the Eldar their hearts are turned towards the West whether they completed the Great Journey or forsook it along the way. Among the Eldar are numbered the Umanyar, the Eldar who were not of Aman: the Sindar of Doriath and the Falathrim of the Falas, and the Nandor. Of the last, the Elves of Mirkwood are numbered.

So for Legolas, when his heart’s longing for the West is awakened by the Sea, it is not so much unique to him but an awakening to a longing in the hearts of all the Eldar not of Aman. In another post I talk about Tolkien’s use of character traits for purposes other than feature description.

http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?trk=cubicle7&showtopic=2265

IMO, this is one of the cases. It provides a real sense of his stature and lineage, the place Legolas has in the history of Middle-earth. Galadriel’s warning, then, grounds the reader’s imagination in his heritage as one of the Eldar and the history of the Elder Days.

What’s fascinating (and before your post escaped my notice) was the fact that the original choice that numbered an elven-lineage as either Eldar (both Amanyar and Umanyar) or Avari governs all those descended from the original chooser. And, for any elf descended from an elf that refused the Call, the Straight Road into the West is closed.

In a different vein, I like the bit about the Houseless and Lingerers. Is that your devising? If so, I would like to borrow it for my own conception of Middle-earth in my campaign!

Your post brought another interesting question: That of min-maxing. I’m in a campaign as a player where one the other players chose not to start with a Fellowship Focus because of the potential Shadow accumulation that could happen in response to a focus. He also gave a solid dwarven reason grounded in a dwarf's disposition. The whole discussion reminded me of this post. For player-heroes with long lives, they will husband their resources and take care for the accumulation of permanent Shadow points. How to accomplish this as an endeavor true to the character's background and heroic culture, and not a min-maxing policy of the player? TOR’s mechanics help, but I would be keen on a few suggestions from other’s as well…

I am playing an Elf of Mirkwood right now in our campaign and I have been very worried about shadow corruption. We seem to wander into blighted lands a lot and it is taking a toll on me.

Thanks for the thanks!

That's right. But in the context of what I'll say below, the Call of Mandos does go out to all elves at the time of the death of their mortal body, including the Avari.

It's not my devising, it's 'unpublished' JRRT from the excellent Morgoth's Ring: HoMe vol. 10, and hence outside of what could legitimately be published in TOR. Here's the most informative and influential passage on the subject:

"It is a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, though the houseless may desire it, especially the most unworthy among them. For the Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord, and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one’s will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.
"Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they are not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judgement of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully. The peril of communing with them is, therefore, not only the peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies: there is peril also of destruction. For one of the hungry Houseless, if it is admitted to the friendship of the Living, may seek to eject the fëa from its body; and in the contest for mastery the body may be gravely injured, even if it is not wrested from its rightful habitant. Or the Houseless may plead for shelter, and if it is admitted, then it will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes. It is said that Sauron did these things, and taught his followers how to achieve them."
-- LAWS AND CUSTOMS AMONG THE ELDAR, MR p. 224

I think it was the dwarf in Kalan's Play-by-Forum game here (that I'm following with interest) who was reluctant to take a Fellowship Focus right at the outset. I think that's good roleplaying at the outset.
The group that I'm running through a modified version of The Marsh Bell (adventure journals so far are here) were similarly reluctant to define their Fellowship Focuses until their connections could arise in actual play. I support that position, but am heavily reminding them each session that they could have restored more Hope than they got if they did have a FF.
I really like the principle of the Fellowship Focus, and really like the way it puts new gamers right into a heroic Tolkienesque frame of mind if they use it like the TOR book proposes. But for experienced gamers with their (our) own group dynamics it might be a bit heavy-handed and a bit divisive in making Companions choose one BFF over all the others in the group. I'm looking forward to making FFs reasonably fluid, and encouraging people's FFs to shift as play proceeds, as it could be a strong roleplaying element -- if this can be managed without hurting the feelings of a player's original FF when they shift their attention to a new one.
If we can accommodate that attitude, it should hopefully become clear that to refuse to 'invest' in a FF is a mark of self-defensive paranoia and against the spirit of the Company/Fellowship that the TOR game aims to encourage. If a LM does really want everyone to take a FF, I'd say it was reasonable to hit paranoid players with a point of Shadow for refusing to 'get with the party'!

Cheers!
--Os.