Opening up the game BEYOND its original scope

[daddystabz]

Would any people out there be interested in a fanbase-made project to expand the game beyond its original scope to encompass all the races and time periods of Middle Earth?

A great place to start would be to convert all the races from the Middle Earth Roleplaying Game by ICE (2nd. edition preferably) for use with The One Ring and to include options for the First, Second and Fourth Ages of Middle Earth.

What do you all think?

[daddystabz]

Anyone? Any ideas out there?

[Otaku-sempai]

Well, the game as it stands (or will stand after the releases projected through 2014) would probably suffice for a Fourth Age setting. Some care would have to be made to maintain game balance when converting races and monsters from MERP and the Decipher rpg, and there are still the Numenoreans of old to consider (MERP never covered them, did it?). Still, a First Age or Second Age campaign would have a very different flavor than a typical TOR game.

If that's what you are interested in, I say go for it.

[MReader]

I agree, although I wouldn't be the person to ask how to do that. I highly recommend that you work on opening the game up yourself, though. Just look at the amazing work that fans have done on the Resources Page, and use that as your inspiration.

I wouldn't particularly recommend doing anything regarding the Fourth Age first, though, as Tolkien never really talked about anything that happened beyond Eldarion's time (and even looking at that time, he only got thirteen pages or so of a manuscript called "The New Shadow" written because he got bored with it). But if you do want to tackle the Fourth Age, you don't want to just write the story of "How We Cleaned Up The Fellowship's Mess," or "Woe Is Me, The Elves Are Gone". Palantir Quest from MERP appeared to do a good job with this, if you're interested in reading it.

Also, look in your copies of the TOR books to figure out their writing style. That helped me immensely when I tried to make a custom background for the Lake-Men ("The Curse of Smaug" -- still sadly incomplete).

Good luck!

[DavetheLost]

My group are still far from reaching the limits of the current, let alone forthcoming, material. That said, I am always interested to see what other people do with Middle Earth. If you are creating it as a fan, then do so for yourself first.