One large risk in role-playing is that the creatures and places that adventurers encounter gets rather generic after a while. Instead of Smaug the Golden, conqueror of the Kingdom under the Mountain, we get Colossal Red Dragon (Challenge rating 20).

JRRT himself is for the most part very good at presenting unique challenges and persons to meet during the travels in his stories. Even his most generic villians, the orcs, are sometimes given rather a lot of dialogue and personality. Even if there are other barrow wights we only get to meet one in Tolkiens stories, namely The Barrow Wight. The hobbits doesn't meet some generic fairies or nature spirits. They meet Tom Bombadil and Goldberry.

Paradoxically a too dogmatic adherence to a envisioned Tolkien canon can lead to genericness. If Bilbo only met spiders and elves in Mirkwood and crosses one enchanted river and hear about the Necromancer it doesn't mean that that is all there is. When the watcher in the water attacked the fellowship outside Moria the "players" might just as well have complained that the existence of such creatures aren't mentioned in "The Hobbit" or the background materials. But the watcher in the water wasn't an expected generic dungeon critter but a surprising something and we still doesn't know what it was. In order to keep true to the spirit of JRRT:s story telling we should dare to insert our own unique and surprising encounters in the huge areas we have to play with.

I like the clear inventions made in TOR, especially the river maidens, but hope that Francesco can be even more bold in the future.

Ok, I hope my english is understandable. I keep stumbling on my sentences.

I absolutely agree. Using only things, places, people, events and creatures described in the books is on the hand boring (e.g. repetitive or generic as you said) and against the sub-creative aspect that lies at the heart of roleplaying.

IMO, those that say "it's not in the books, so that's nonsense" do not understand the nature of playing in a world described in literature.

Sub-creating new things is the essence of it, be it as the game/supplement designer or the actual gaming itself.

The important thing is though, that all these additional "inventions" (Middle-earth is, after all, "invented" as well) fit and blend well into the corpus we have. If they convey the feeling (and stand their ground against close scrutiny of the sources) that this could have been described or written down by the Professor himself, then the job has been done well.

It is not a question whether it is "allowed" or not to "invent" additional facts for the world, but only the quality and standards of these additions. Here it is justified to only accept highest standards of course, and every author has to accept criticism based on these principles.

Best
Tolwen

I totally agree with both of the previous posters.
I think that Tolwen has hit upon the reason that I am ambivalent towards many of the old MERP products. For every one that was good, there seemed to be one that was sub par and the author just didn't seem to 'get it'.
TOR, so far has the feel. keep it up Francesco and as Vidugavia suggests, be bold.
I love what you have done with the Vampires and Werewolves Btw.

thematic but not chained. I agree as well.

You're absolutely right.

I always try to make an encounter with even the lowliest orc mean something or convey something to the player characters. Orcs talk! They boast, they wheedle, they threaten, they question, they argue. So do Wargs and Spiders, with their own distinct natures and motivations.

Why make any encounter nothing but a fight?

I think that the quote from FotR says it all for possibilities "There are fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."

We were given a sampling in the books. The one thing we just need to ensure is what we create would, as was said, to honor the sub-creation that is Middle Earth and have it fit.

I absolutely agree and hope that the game designers read these posts.

Paint new sparkling leaves for the tree of Niggle.