Greetings to The One and all on this forum!

After reading the lively discussions and reflections on Tolkien and Middle-earth prompted by TOR's release, clearly a testimony to the game's attraction, I thought it would be a wondrous account to start a topic on first encounters with Tolkien and/or Middle-earth!

Anyone in the mood to share where and when they were first introduced to Tolkien or Middle-earth? First read, movie or stage production encountered...?

Expectantly yours,
E

My mother tried to read me Lord of the Rings on multiple occasions when I was a youngster. The problem was, I always wanted her to just read the appendices. I was more interested in the history and culture of Middle earth than I was in the story. I'd probably been through the appendices a half dozen times before actually reading the novel.

Around age 13, I played MERP, which one of my brother's friends owned at the time, but never really got into it. I never liked the way ICE went about making RPGs, not to mention that I found my brother's friend a little bit creepy (an intuition which proved correct years later, when he was arrested for the possession of child pornography. He and my brother are no longer friends, needless to say).

I didn't really get into Middle-earth, though, until recently. I was put on bed rest when pregnant with my daughter, who turns two next month. Without much else to do, I re-read The Hobbit and LoTR, as well as the Silmarillion and UT for the first time. Remembered why I loved The Hobbit and LoTR, and fell absolutely in love with Sil. and UT. Then came the little one, and with the trials of new motherhood, Middle-earth was soon forgotten.

Then TOR came out. My brother was the first to discover the new game. He'd stumbled upon it at the local gaming store. We'd both been out of the hobby for a while, life having taken over, but when he saw it, he immediately grabbed the only two copies on the shelf: one for him, and one for me.

We soon managed to assemble our old gaming group, and started a campaign. Seeing me get more into Tolkien inspired my husband to read our little girl The Hobbit. This all gave me the impetus to get more into Middle-earth.

So, unlike some of you, although I've known and appreciate his writings since I was five years old, it was only quite recently that I really got into exploring his world as a serious matter.

The Hobbit - Jackanory with Bernard Cribbens. A tiny excerpt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1efGqdPtZPg

Apparently its commercial release has been consistently blocked by the Tolkien Estate (Boo Hiss!).

Bernard Cribbens will always be Bilbo for me!

My first encounter was with the Hobbit. One of my dad's students gave me his battered paperback copy. It was my first grown-up book of my own. It made a huge imression on me and I have been a Tolkien fan ever since.

As a ten year old boy at school. My teacher, Jack McKinney, handed me a copy of 'The Hobbit' to read and then write an essay about it.

Probably some paintings from The Hobbit at the pipe shop "The Tinderbox". Then my mom took me to see the Bakshi "The Lord of the Rings" in the theater, which was pretty mindblowing.

I listened to the BBC radio production when it came on (I was 10, I believe), then went out and read the books.

I came upon The Lord of the Rings when I was 15, upon suggestion from a high school friend.
It was a rather grim time in my life, and the daily reading was a joyous, precious moment. I remember the elation of the early chapters, and the slow ebb of the fading ones. While Frodo and Sam struggled across Mordor my reading slowed, till it was just some pages a day. Because I knew the end was near and I didn't want to finally close the book and having nothing more to look after.

Excuse me for my poor english, hope I was up to the task

At about 19 (I was a late starter) a friend showed me the brand-new german version of MERP. Shortly after I was pointed to (and read) the LotR as the book upon which MERP was based (at least officially).
Years before I had seen the promo poster for the Bakshi film, but had no idea what it was about and did not care since I had other interests back then.

Cheers
Tolwen

I was first exposed to the hobbit and LOTR by my best friend in high school, in '79. He was working at the National Guard armoury, waiting to go to basic training for the army. His boss gave him a set of the books in paperback held in a carboard case, like a "boxed set" I suppose. and after he read them he gave them to me and told me he knew they were just my style. He was absolutely correct, and I have read that old set many times. I still have it, although some of it is coming apart and lovebirds have left their marks on the covers. Of course I have newer versions, but I could never get rid of my "originals"

To reiterate what I'd posted in the Hobbit 1977 Animated Movie thread:

I read The Hobbit sometime in 1974-75. It was required reading for an English class in Elementary School (I was fortunate to have a REALLY cool English teacher ... thanks, Miss Reter!). But it was Ralph Bakshi's 1978 The Lord of the Rings that finally had me READ The Lord of the Rings! You see, I saw the movie in the theatre back in the winter of '78 ... I came out of the theatre after the last showing of the night and it was snowing heavily. It took my parents what seemed like forever to drive home (I was 14) and instead of falling asleep on that drive home, I kept going over in my mind the spectacle of what I'd seen. When I got home I immediately went to my bedroom and began reading the trilogy! I'd tried to read The Lord of the Rings before, but could never get past that unbelievably looooong, boring first chapter. This time though, I couldn't put the book down! I'd discovered there was so much greatness in it that I'd never gotten to ... I read through the night and finished it that weekend. For over two decades since, I reread the story every winter, sometime between Christmas and New Years. The last time I read it was Y2K ... I now listen to it on audiobook, but more often than once a year ... usually 2 times. And it's all thanks to that wintery night when I saw Ralph Bakshi's movie.

Bought the Hobbit adventure for the ZX Spectrum and it came with the Hobbit in paperback.

That led to LOTR novels, Bakshi film, MERP RPG, BBC Radio series... you get the idea!

I first encountered the hobbit via the 1977 Rankin-Bass animated. This prompted then-8 year old me to read the Hobbit. By 12, I'd seen the Bakshi film and the other animated LOTR... and read Bored of the Rings.

I actually have never completed reading LOTR; I get to what the professor labeled Book 5, and just can't quite force my way through it, tho' I did once just skip that section, and go on to "Book 6". I didn't enjoy the Simarillion at all. Unfinished tales left me cold as well.

I did get ICE's MERP, and enjoyed it, but not "As Middle Earth"...

The Jackson movies rekindled my interest in Middle Earth. Not enough to slog through Sil or UT, tho'.

As a child, I always were fascinated by that little character on the cover of The Hobbit. It was an old paperback on the lower shelves of my parent's library. Seeing that I was interested, My mom red it to my brother and I.

Years later, I red the Lord of the Rings when I was in grade 6. In the meantime, I had seen the '78 LotR movie but never (even to this day) seen the '77 Hobbit movie.

My daughter has named her newest, and currently favourite, stuffed animal, "Bilbo." It's a rabbit, but the homage still stands.

Bilbo the Rabbit: Hare and back again.

It has a certain ring to it

[edit] hehe, "ring"

The Hobbit and I was 8.

I am just waiting for my daughters to be of the right age, so I can read it to them.

I started playing roleplaying games in 1982 when I was only 10, after purchasing the red box D&D Basic Set. I've always LOVED fantasy settings but, believe it or not, I never even heard of The Lord of the Rings until 1995. I still knew next to nothing about Middle-earth when I went and saw Peter Jackson's film The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001. But, after that, I was hooked and I couldn't believe I had been deprived as a child. The same is true about The Chronicles of Narnia.

Aramis, please don't think I am being antagonistic about this, I am just curious. Per your own admission you don't really care for Tolkien books. I am just curious as to why you would be drawn to the game, if you don't like the stories that created it? I get the impression you did enjoy the movies, yes? I know things appeal to people differently and many people don't care for the books much. Maybe it is not the written stories but the visual depictions of the world that you like best?

Hahaha!

Seems like he likes The Hobbit and most of The Lord of the Rings.

I wouldn't consider liking or reading anything else a prerequisite for interest in the game. Heck, I have friends who haven't read either and are still interested in playing.

The play on words between "Hobbit" and "Rabbit" has been observed. I'm pretty sure that my daughter thinks Bilbo is a rabbit, or perhaps more accurately that a hobbit is a sort of rabbit. Makes sense, really, when you think about it from her age.

The "Hare and Back Again" pun is original. None of us thought of that.

I like The Hobbit just fine. I like the first 2/3 of LOTR, too. But that final third is just not a fun read. And the Simarillion lacks the ability to make me care about the characters, so I find the stories themselves boring.

Often, authors fall into bad habits later in their careers that their early works don't show; a few have the opposite occur.

I found, for comparison, Song of Ice and Fire to be even more unreadable - disjointed, too many characters, and almost plot-free for the first 100 pages - and didn't even bother trying.

On the other hand, I've read about 2000 pages of novels in the last week, and 4000 in the last month.

I'm drawn to a tolkien RPG because I love the world as presented in those two sources (TH and LOTR), even if there is a nasty chunk I find particularly bad within. And I love the appendices of LOTR.

I'm surprised you don't like the Silmarillion, then. In a lot of ways, it's just one big appendix. I don't even think of it as a novel, really. It feels more like Beowulf or the Old Testament to me.

My first encounter with Middle Earth was the Hobbit animated movie. To this day I love the singing and art of that movie, to this day it evokes something in me that I cannot describe as anything but joy.

d

Mine as well.

It was the summer of 1990 and my parents just got satellite tv and I saw the Hobbit one lazy afternoon! I've been a Tolkien fanatic ever since!

It made me thought of a Bugs Bunny type of humour as I was writing it.

I could imagine an episode with a Thorin-looking Elmer Fudd chasing Bilbo the Wabbit who stole his Arkenstone!

Gotcha. yeah, I don't really care for the silmarilion too much either. The last part is more readable to me, the first part has too many characters and places and names to keep up with, all coming at you really quickly. And I agree that people could love the game and not know anything about the books.

I don't see how you guys can think that AT ALL.

I mean, it's so simple to follow.

See, Ainulinulalalanidale was the mother of Calalindalorindoreor. During the Time of the Moon (Isilbreithemorindalenon, in Quenya, or Isilbreithinalaindinor in Sindarin), Calalindalorindoreor hearkened unto the...oh forget it. Even for a joke it's too much work.


(And yeah, I kinda love The Silmarillion, but even I get how crazy it is.)

well, yeah, when you put it that way it is so simple, I don't know how I got confused! I read it yaers ago, and it went ok mostly because I could go back and reread parts and make notes. The last few times I went through it I was listening to the audiobook version, and you can't keep going back while you are driving, or at least not safely. So it does kind of blur a bit after a while

I read "The Hobbit" in my English class as it was part of the curriculum. I didn't really get into Tolkien then though. Later, I started playing "D&D" and another fantasy RPG called "DragonQuest" by a game company called "SPI". For Christmas one year I was given SPI's "War of the Ring" board game, which had a map of Middle Earth on a hex grid. The map alone was fascinating but I hadn't read the books at the time, so I picked up a paperback anthology of the full trilogy. I also saw the incomplete cartoon version at around the same time. Following that I picked up "MERP", and later the Decipher LotR RPG.

I remember once I'd finished the paperback anthology of the LotR trilogy, which nobody in my family thought I would be able to finish, that I couldn't read anything else for weeks afterwards. Ordinary fiction just seemed second rate and boring after finishing LotR. I got over this eventually but I still vividly remember this terrible feeling of being unable to appreciate another book once I'd finished LotR.

So... started out in the RPG hobby at an early age... ridiculously early actually, I think I was 7 or 8 years old when I was hooked.

So working my way through different D&D and BRP (RQ for instance) I had two major epiphanies in 1984.

1. Call of Cthulhu...... and.

2. Middle Earth RPG...

Bot games blew me away... an both games put me on a path to explore two Writers who would change my life (and in a lot of sense already HAD changed the world, though I was oblivious to it at the time) through their writing.

I was 11 years old... picked up "The Hobbit" and was lost forever.

Side note: Like some others here I don't really care much for larger parts of the "Ring Trilogy" nor "Silmarilion". But love the "world" just the same.

/wolf

1987 - I was 7 years old and my brother, being the best older brother he could be, popped in a vhs of the old Rankin and Bass "The Hobbit" when he was babysitting me. I must have made him play the cartoon at least 5 times in a row that day. I've seen the Hobbit so many times, I've lost a real count!

From then on I was hooked. My brother being significantly older, was a grognard. I was introduced to D&D Basic and 1st Edition at an early age. So fantasy/sci-fi/horror (D&D, R.E. Howard, Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Jacques) is what I was raised on. I was tackling the Hobbit in 4th grade and then moved on to The Lord of the Rings and his other works.

Someone else mentioned the BBC production of the Hobbit. I received that as a present a few years ago, it is brilliant!

Wow. Someone else who remembers SPI.

Actually, SPI was my first exposure to gaming. When we were 12, my brother and I discovered a collection of old Strategy and Tactics magazines in the attic. Our father had collected them in his pre-child years. That was back in the day that S&T was published by SPI, and had a complete wargame in each issue. We spent that summer trying out each of those games. That led soon to other wargames, and then, not much later, to RPGs. That became our first love, gaming wise, and nowadays just about the only gaming either of us do is RPing.

In the mean time, our father's collection has now passed on to my brother's eldest. They've seen good use over the decades.

I have vague memories of seeing the Bakshi LOTR in '77 or '78 when I was 5 or 6, the story seemed quite obtuse to me at that age, but some of the imagery stuck with me, so I was aware of what Lord of the Rings was.

It was about a decade before I wandered into my local bookshop looking for something to read, I saw a copy of The Hobbit and a boxed set of Lord of the Rings and knew that they were related to each other and pondered which one should be read first? I left with a copy of The Hobbit and finished it in a few days, a week later I was back to get the boxed set. That was my introduction to both Middle-earth and fantasy in general.

Not the only one.

I grew up on those games, and have SPI's Middle-earth series: War of the Ring, Siege of Minas Tirith, and Sauron, which is the Battle of Dagorlad from the Second Age.

Even crazier, a friend just found a mint copy of SPI's War of the Ring at the Goodwill for $6.

Seriously. When I go to Goodwill I find fleas and hobos.

In grade school, every once in a while the teachers would drag out an old movie projector and we would watch a film for a reward. We saw many films, but among them were Riki Tiki Tavi and the animated Hobbit. I was in the third grade.

After that I checked out the red box of Dungeons and Dragons from our school library. Bless me, what a wonderful place was school back then...

As I have always loved to read, it wasn't long before I was a science fiction and Tolkien geek.

Nothing personal, but I hate your friend.

I also played those 3 games ... I once had a flatbox that had all 3 in it , a deluxe copy of War of the Ring (with mounted game board), AND the movie tie-in version, too. All were destroyed in a move many years ago. If nothing else, War of the Ring could give you a real good idea as to what the free peoples were up against, militarily, just comparing the stacks of counters to each other ... BIG stack on one side and a little one on the other ... and the free peoples were so scattered about the world. There was also a variant set of rules which came in S&T that allowed Saruman to be played as a third player ... yes, I played that variant, too. Quite fun! Oh, the arguments involving whether Saruman could actually use the Ring were he to get his mitts on it that we had!

Now, this goes WAY back ... has anyone played TSR's Battle of Five Armies ... the one they were sued over and lost? I have as I used to own a copy of that, too. I gave that one to a friend at least 30 years ago ... he still has it.

Man, sorry about the move damage: that would have hurt.

has anyone played TSR's Battle of Five Armies

I haven't. I do have the ICE version, however. I had this weird idea of having the group play that before starting our campaign ("what has gone before..."), but that's probably crazy-talk.

I'm another who remembers SPI. I have a copy of DQ around here somewhere. (I literally have several cubic meters of games.)

I've not played much of their stuff, since I had a Metagaming budget.

I'll note that the "second edition" of Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip core rules was much more openly cribbing from LOTR than anyone should... A balrog battle with two humans, 4 hobbits, a wizard, a dwarf and an elf was the key melee scenario in Dragons of Underearth. It's a clear tribute.

To the best of my recollection, the very first time I ever saw or read anything related to Middle-earth was when someone quoted "The Road Goes Ever On" in a letter to the editor of Odyssey Magazine (the children's magazine about astronomy and space exploration). So that was the very, very first time. The second thing I ever read by Tolkien was probably the Ring-verse, simply because it appears at the front of so many editions of the LotR books.

After that, I actually skimmed all of Tolkien's books over and over again for years before reading them. The first work by Tolkien that I read in its entirety was the "Lay of Leithian" from The Lays of Beleriand, which I read sometime in the early 1990s. Around the same time I tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring, but stopped at the point when Gandalf failed to appear for Frodo's birthday party because I was made too nervous by Gandalf's absence.

Believe it or not, I've always loved the History of Middle-earth series best of all Tolkien's works, and I did read The Book of Lost Tales from cover to cover sometime in the late 1990s. However, it wasn't until 2001-2002, when Tolkien became pressingly topical, that I finally read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion -- books I had already been skimming, and thus known and loved, for years -- in their entirety. (I saw the Fellowship movie for the first time between my first complete readings of Fellowship and The Two Towers.)