Are you gaming against Canon and if so how?

[Glorelendil]

(I really doubt the Eomer composed perfect alliterative verse in a battlefield situation).

Eminem could do it. Just sayin'.

P.S. Read House of the Wolfings.

[Glorelendil]

Up until Moria, I'm sure all the white council would have agreed that there were probably no more balrogs, either.

By the way, that right there summarizes my stance on canon. I wouldn't go so far as to alter "facts" such as...oh...Smaug dying. But if the books are taken as histories written by fallible people with imperfect information, and maybe even with their own biases and agendas, there's a lot of leeway.

[Murcushio]

Actually, I kind of wish that C7 had done this in one simple way... change either the reoccupation of Dol Guldur or Bilbo's quest by five years. It would seem more realistic if the game opened with ten years of reconstruction time and five years to go in the "good years" instead of everything being so tight. But that's a minor quibble in a well-handled situation.

The thing is, the big deal in 2951 isn't really that the Nazgul re-occupy Dol Gulder. It's that Sauron re-occupied Barad-Dur and declares himself openly.

That's really huge and tricky to get around in the timeline. Mount Doom bursts into new flame.

That's a bit tricky to write around. Sauron is putting forth all his power; you would expect things to start turning to shit. The Ringwraiths you can ignore, but Sauron is, well, Sauron. You'd expect things to turn bad and turn bad fast.

That being said, you're right that the curve could've been a lot smoother in Darkening of Mirkwood. It would have been sufficient if there'd just been dark portents and unnatural weather for a few years while the Ringwraiths quietly rebuilt Dol Gulder. Instead bad juju starts happening instantly; they strike right at a River-Maiden and then go from there.

The thing with the Werewolf and the Wood-Wights I kind of give a pass to, though. Those adventures could easily have happened during the good years and wouldn't have been out of place.

[DavetheLost]

I am not so much gaming against canon as I am treating canon events as mutable. The Red Book of Westmarch aka The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings record events from the point of view of the Hobbits of the Shire as they will unfold if nothing occurs to alter their courses. As Gandalf said "even the Wise cannot see all ends."

This is the same way I run any game that takes place in an established universe with an established timeline of events. The future can be thought of as being fairly well self-healing towards the recorded path.

I deal ruthlessly with players who attempt to exploit unfairly gained out of character knowledge from "reading the Book". The Council of Elrond you say? Where you plan to steal the Ring. Surprise! It's now the Council of Galadriel. Rivendell is strangely quiet when you arrive, no Hobbits to be found.

Characters who show up at the Council of Elrond and make a good case why they should be among the Nine Walkers instead of the original Fellowship might be awarded a place amongst them. This is not using for knowledge of the Books to derail the game plot.

[Murcushio]

I deal ruthlessly with players who attempt to exploit unfairly gained out of character knowledge from "reading the Book". The Council of Elrond you say? Where you plan to steal the Ring. Surprise! It's now the Council of Galadriel. Rivendell is strangely quiet when you arrive, no Hobbits to be found.

I would submit that if you've reached that point, you need to have a long out-of-game discussion with your players rather than dealing "ruthlessly" with them in-game. In the scenario you describe, presumably the players have spent a long time making plans for their One Ring Heist and have all sorts of ambitious plans for what they're gonna do with it. And then they show up and isn't there, and the GM is looking pretty smug. The players won't have any fun that session. The GM might have fun, but it seems like a malicious kind of fun.

If your PCs want to steal the One Ring and use it for themselves, and you're not okay with that, it seems to me the proper response is to halt the game and explain that you have absolutely no interest in running that sort of game, and if they just want to play murder hobos who loot objects of power, you'd be happy to run Pathfinder or something. Dealing with it passive-aggresively seems like a waste of everyons time.

Characters who show up at the Council of Elrond and make a good case why they should be among the Nine Walkers instead of the original Fellowship might be awarded a place amongst them. This is not using for knowledge of the Books to derail the game plot.

I dunno, isn't it? I mean, your players are still going to know beforehand that the Council of Elrond is super important (and thus, that they should be present) and that securing a place in the Fellowship means getting a chance to be one of the nine most renowned heroes of the age. It's going to take a very good roleplayer to not let them color their decisions at all.

[zedturtle]

The thing is, the big deal in 2951 isn't really that the Nazgul re-occupy Dol Gulder. It's that Sauron re-occupied Barad-Dur and declares himself openly.

That's really huge and tricky to get around in the timeline. Mount Doom bursts into new flame.

That's a bit tricky to write around. Sauron is putting forth all his power; you would expect things to start turning to shit. The Ringwraiths you can ignore, but Sauron is, well, Sauron. You'd expect things to turn bad and turn bad fast.

That being said, you're right that the curve could've been a lot smoother in Darkening of Mirkwood. It would have been sufficient if there'd just been dark portents and unnatural weather for a few years while the Ringwraiths quietly rebuilt Dol Gulder. Instead bad juju starts happening instantly; they strike right at a River-Maiden and then go from there.

The thing with the Werewolf and the Wood-Wights I kind of give a pass to, though. Those adventures could easily have happened during the good years and wouldn't have been out of place.

Yep, I agree with the above... I almost think it would have been easier to say that Bilbo had his adventure in 2936, rather than 2941. But, all in all, it's a tiny little thing, the least of these canon things, that I wish were different.

[DavetheLost]

Characters who show up at the Council of Elrond and make a good case why they should be among the Nine Walkers instead of the original Fellowship might be awarded a place amongst them. This is not using for knowledge of the Books to derail the game plot.

I dunno, isn't it? I mean, your players are still going to know beforehand that the Council of Elrond is super important (and thus, that they should be present) and that securing a place in the Fellowship means getting a chance to be one of the nine most renowned heroes of the age. It's going to take a very good roleplayer to not let them color their decisions at all.

Note that I said they might get a place, not that they definitely would. If they do there is every chance to continue the game with an enjoyable plot for all, now freed from knowing that the really important drama is being enacted by NPCs. Let's face it, the quest to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring overshadows every other event at the time. Either way it comes out it is the Game Over moment for the Third Age. If the quest succeeds Sauron is overthrown, the Elves depart and the age of Men begins. If the quest fails Sauron recovers the Ring and proceeds to enslave Middle Earth.

The titular Ring is a huge question for gaming Middle Earth in the late Third Age.

[Southron]

Murcushio you did qualify your statement by stating your group. But, I also wish to add it would seems that we are all attracted to the Professor's work and have some kind of share knowledge of the world that we would like to participate in. Generally, I find that people like their myths be it real world social or psychological issues or nerd rage at movie doing things differently.

I personally see canon based adventuring as the tales of other heroes doing deeds that were not part of the Professor's main tale that not alter the main tale, but allows the players to keep their myths and knowledge about the world.

However, as a creative endeavor people often like to alter and speculate and make their own big damn heroes and a non-canon ( less-canon) game allows people to greatly alter their myths into totally new territory.

[DavetheLost]

Players messing about with canon is also a question of intent. Are they engaging with the canon in order to be part of an epic heroic story? Or are they engaging with canon out of self-glorifying greed? The latter is what causes so many D&D games to devolve into murder hobos looting objects of power.

I have no issue with exploring the fate of an alternate Fellowship, or even with an alternate course of history in which the Ring is seized to be used against Sauron. These are strongly playing against canon, but do not necessarily destroy the narrative flow of the game.

The big problem with a player or players plotting to steal the One Ring, not too difficult during all those years it sits unguarded in Hobbiton, is that there is after all only One. Only One hand can wear the Ring, only One can wield it can the rest of the "fellowship" be expected to sit around idly by while one of their number wields the RING. Will the one who has it pass it on to the next when his turn is up?

This is why I am so ruthless with those who try to exploit out of character knowledge for egregious personal gain at the expense of the campaign. And usually if the group arrives at Rivendell bent on stealing the Ring from Frodo, the whole group is in on it, not just one player.

[Rocmistro]

Up until Moria, I'm sure all the white council would have agreed that there were probably no more balrogs, either.

By the way, that right there summarizes my stance on canon. I wouldn't go so far as to alter "facts" such as...oh...Smaug dying. But if the books are taken as histories written by fallible people with imperfect information, and maybe even with their own biases and agendas, there's a lot of leeway.

So here's an interesting question for you, EC, and anyone else, since you brought up Smaug.
One of the ideas I've toyed with is this:

Smaug did not die and was not shot to death by Bard. At the moment of the launching of the Black Arrow, Smaug unleashes a powerful glammer spell, giving the illusion of having been slain and falling into Long Lake. In fact he flies off to a distant mountain, where he has been moving his horde slowly for years, and everything that is left in his lair is also under a powerful illusion enchantment.

Why did he do this? Who knows. Perhaps he prophecied the coming of some dragonslayer and decided to shove off before it came to pass. Perhaps he was commanded to by Sauron, so that he could be used in the coming War of the RIng. Perhaps he's just getting old and tired and wants to be left alone.

The point here, is, how many people would be comfortable with this change of canon? It's a rhetorical question, of course; it's just meant to demonstrate the difference in peoples' comfort levels.

It's one thing for the following to happen.

Loremaster:"You meet a woman on the road, and she tells you she is the divorced wife or Eomer..."
Player 1 Canon-ite: "Hey wait, a minute, I don't think Eomer every had a divorced wife...."
Loremaster: "Oh really? Hrm...ok..well..now he does...
Player 1 Canon-ite: "Well...um...ok I guess it's no big deal."

It's quite another for the following:

Loremaster: "After many days of travel you arrive to find that....GONDOR is no more! Only a massive pit over a mile wide in diameter is where the White City once stood!"
Player 1: "Um...Holy crap...what happened?"
Loremaster: "You don't know but you suspect that Sauron cast a spell of Earthquake on the White City. News soon flows in from all the corners of Middle-earth that Rivendell, Lorien, Dol Amroth, and the Grey Havens have all suffered a smiliar fate!"
Player 1: "...."
Loremaster: "And an Army of Balrogs is pouring from the Black Gate...."

There are different levels of ignoring canon, and the concept means different things to different people.