Do you use the Tale of Years/the Darkening of Mirkwood?

[Timmity Took]

Wilderland in the time between The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings is a very free and open setting that a loremaster can easily make his or her own.
And that is very liberating approach when tackling a setting based on this great fantasy world and its source material.
So here is my question: do you feel bound to using the Tales of Years from the Loremaster Guide/Corebook or the Darkening of Mirkwood?
Do you find it helpful or do you prefer to do your own thing? Or is it a mixed bag?

[Butterfingers]

Certainly, I think DOM provides a good story arc, so I use it as my campaign framework. I only wish there was more detailed material on the adventure ideas and event descriptions provided. But I understand that it would have bloated the book far too big.

It's no problem to include your own stuff in between, I feel. But I am afraid I am too lazy/busy to come up with an entirely original grand story of my own. And since DOM covers all the main points (fate of the Woodmen, Mirkwood, Laketown etc.), and gives the companions (or their chidlren maybe) a chance to make a difference and perhaps steer the story along the way, I am eager to see what happens. It won't have a happy end where the heroes save the realm and get rich, but they can make a difference and see that the end will not be a bitter defeat. It feels right for Middle-Earth at this point of time, and it feels real. Whatever end result, its should be suitably tragic and heroic. That should be satisfying for the players I think?

[Mim]

BTW, there are several threads that address the issue of which adventures to run in which order, should you decide to continue. Here's one of them:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=957

[barefoottourguide]

I greatly enjoy the tale of DOM. Granted, I add my own material at times, but
DOM's so darn good it's hard to skip stuff.
Garrett

[Timmity Took]

Yes, DOM is great. But as it is not bound to canon and very open, how bound do people here feel to the Tale of Years? Can the action of your players and the progress of your story make you change it, and if so, how much?
One of the things I really love about DOM is how flexible it is and how the book incourages you to change it up and make it your own

[Majestic]

Yes, I use the Tale of Years from The Darkening of Mirkwood. It is open enough to add in all sorts of your own, personal tales in-between the adventure ideas presented in it.

[Majestic]

Yes, DOM is great. But as it is not bound to canon and very open, how bound do people here feel to the Tale of Years? Can the action of your players and the progress of your story make you change it, and if so, how much?
One of the things I really love about DOM is how flexible it is and how the book incourages you to change it up and make it your own

As we've gone along, there have been numerous changes, some bigger and some smaller. It's fairly easy to accommodate them, mostly. For instance, in the latest chapter we played, some of the behind the scenes materials mention Black Tarn Hall. In our game, that community no longer exists (the PCs helped the people there migrate north when it fell), so I either ignore what it says or move what it says happens there to somewhere else.

[Falenthal]

Can the action of your players and the progress of your story make you change it, and if so, how much?

The short answer is: as much as possible.

The DoM timeline is a guidance for what would happen if no one intervined in the affairs of Wilderland. But the heroes are not "no one" (that's Arya Stark, but that's another story...). As the players play adventures set in the bigger picture established by the timeline, they SHOULD change parts of the story, because that's what having a party of adventurer's roaming the land is about.