So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

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Ferretz
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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by Ferretz » Tue Sep 02, 2014 6:43 am

It has been mentioned somewhere (on these forums, I believe), that the Shire will get covered. However, I don't think it will be one book focused on it. Maybe rather a book covering The Shire and Bree. I would like to see that. :)

There are plenty of adventures to be had in The Shire. Its only that the Hobbits don't go looking for them. But there are strange people travelling through it, walking trees in the North Farthing, elves camping under the starlight and Rangers guarding the borders. Plenty of adventure if one knows where to look. :)

E.

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by Glorelendil » Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:32 am

Ferretz wrote:It has been mentioned somewhere (on these forums, I believe), that the Shire will get covered. However, I don't think it will be one book focused on it. Maybe rather a book covering The Shire and Bree. I would like to see that. :)

There are plenty of adventures to be had in The Shire. Its only that the Hobbits don't go looking for them. But there are strange people travelling through it, walking trees in the North Farthing, elves camping under the starlight and Rangers guarding the borders. Plenty of adventure if one knows where to look. :)

E.
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Giving up on the Shire as a source of role-playing adventure just shows a lack of imagination. I couldn't see how they were going to introduce magic treasure to the game without breaking a lot of things, and C7 found a delightful solution to that problem.

I could see there being a number of interesting characters in the Shire with whom the heroes need to interact via Encounters. Perhaps one of them possesses a particular item ("Oh, that old mathom?") the heroes need. They have to earn the trust of this "respectable" hobbit, which isn't done by slaying orcs, you know.

Etc. etc. etc.
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Andrew
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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by Andrew » Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:10 am

Naturally we've already made our plans and started work on our 2015 releases. In fact, just yesterday me and Francesco sat down and plotted out 2016. And no, I can't comment on any of them yet. :twisted:

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by Hermes Serpent » Tue Sep 02, 2014 10:17 am

Now we have someone to hate more than Sauron. Sorry Andrew but by with-holding that information you have just become the ultimate point of hatred for Tolkien gamers. You are most definitely :twisted:

The point about nothing happening in the Shire seems relevant from a surface perspective but let's not forget that the closer we come to the War of the Ring the more Sauron/Andrew is seeking information about Hobbits and surely the Shire will come under scrutiny more and more. The game I'm about to start will involve Men from the south coming into Breeland and staking out farms with rather more 'farmhands' than necessary.

Another thought, raised by a separate post, concerns Sanctuaries. In Rhovanion/Wilderland we have Lake-town, Erebor, Beorn's House Thranduil's Halls, Rhosgobel, Woodman town and an as yet tentative/un-filled out Dale. Looking at the list of settlements in the Clarifications document p8 covering Titles that seems to be the limit on places that could be called Sanctuaries. Examining eastern Eriador what have we got for Sanctuaries, Rivendell maybe the Ranger's 'Den of the Dunedain', possibly Tharbad, but I doubt it from the description, and Bree (which is AFAIK going to be detailed in the book covering the Shire along with the Barrow Downs). So I'm thinking the Shire should be a Sanctuary as well as Bree being the two main points of light in the darkness of eastern Eriador.

Travelling from the outskirts of Bree or the Northern Downs east to Rivendell and then possibly not finding it makes for eastern Eriador being a very dangerous place. Nowhere to stay and recover or a safe place to build a farm or home. And I can't off-hand think of many to the north and immediately west of the Shire before Ered Luin; Tower Hills, Grey Havens, Annuminas, Lindon?
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shipwreck
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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by shipwreck » Tue Sep 02, 2014 11:58 am

Ferretz wrote:It has been mentioned somewhere (on these forums, I believe), that the Shire will get covered. However, I don't think it will be one book focused on it. Maybe rather a book covering The Shire and Bree. I would like to see that. :)
I'd buy that book, even if it was just exposition, as long as it was as lovely and well-done as the others!
Elfcrusher wrote:But maybe the most important difference is that in D&D the goal is to build wtfpwn demi-god characters. In TOR the goal is to stay alive long enough to tell a good story.

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by Andrew » Tue Sep 02, 2014 12:55 pm

Hermes Serpent wrote:Now we have someone to hate more than Sauron. Sorry Andrew but by with-holding that information you have just become the ultimate point of hatred for Tolkien gamers. You are most definitely :twisted:
I was hoping to more inspire awe and wonder than hatred, but the Ring does what the Ring does.

Seriously though, we do have a good, solid plan, but we're not ready to share it with you guys yet for all the normal reasons we don't overshare. As usual, keep an eye on the website and we will preview the hell out of supplements as we come to them!

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by buddhax » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:30 pm

Murcushio wrote:
A Shire book seems problematic, because it's utterly canonical that nothing really happens in the Shire. It's a little slice of the English countryside plopped down in Middle-earth. Tolkien hammers on how peaceful, boring, well-ordered, and free of strife it is multiple times. Up until Saruman crashed the joint there hadn't really been anything that could be characterized as conflict there since the Battle of Greenfields, remarkable literally the only battle to be fought in the Shire until the War of the Ring.

So you would basically have a book of just geography and culture, with very little in the way of sources of conflict, which is kind of important in an RPG supplement. Even MERP, who made sourcebooks for everything (did we really need three entirely separate sourcebooks just for Mirkwood, you guys?) never did anything with the Shire of the years of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

That seems most likely to me, at any rate, although if it had been up to me I'd have at least included Bree was a place you could go with plot hooks in it in the Rivendell book, being as how it is a neutral, well-known, centrally located town ideal for basing your party out of if you're adventuring in Eriador. So, y'know. I may have a different perspective.
Sorry, no agree. MERP did have a supplement about the Shire, a big and fat supplement with each region, full of ideas about adventures there. I guess at least a good chapter should be dedicated to this land. The frontiers of the Shire are not so peaceful, especially, the one next to the Old Forest.

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by buddhax » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:31 pm

Andrew wrote:Naturally we've already made our plans and started work on our 2015 releases. In fact, just yesterday me and Francesco sat down and plotted out 2016. And no, I can't comment on any of them yet. :twisted:
Okey, you're in a tavern and Glöin want to pay some gold coins to hunt down and interrogate Andrew to reveal the schedule release.

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by shipwreck » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:37 pm

buddhax wrote:Okey, you're in a tavern and Glöin want to pay some gold coins to hunt down and interrogate Andrew to reveal the schedule release.
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Elfcrusher wrote:But maybe the most important difference is that in D&D the goal is to build wtfpwn demi-god characters. In TOR the goal is to stay alive long enough to tell a good story.

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Re: So what does 2015 hold for TOR?

Post by buddhax » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:42 pm

Hermes, I guess we can also include the ruins of Fornost and the bay of Forochel.

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