Are you gaming against Canon and if so how?

[Southron]

Just wondering if anyone is using TOR as a backdrop for their own non-canonical version of Middle-Earth?

SL

[Murcushio]

Well, that's a very vague question. Also a loaded one, in some ways.

How are we defining non-canonical, Southron? Like, you could say "Okay guys, we're using Tolkien's basic setting, right, except that Isildur dropped the Ring into Mount Doom instead of keeping the damn thing. All of the problems of the Third Age are due to mortals or the more common kinds of monsters messing things up of their own accord; there are no demons or gods to blame things on and no Wizards are coming to save you. Ready? Go."

Or you could say "Okay, we're using the canon setting. Without promising anything, because failure is always an option, your group of PCs will have the power to change the world beyond the constraints of canon. If you make it the life goal of your Fellowship to gather a mighty army and forge a grand alliance of the Free Peoples that razes Dol Guldur to the ground and establishes a federated kingdom in the north that rivals Gondor in splendor and power, you -just might pull it off-.

"Of course, the flip side of that is that maybe Elrond entrusts the young Estel's training and education to you guys, and maybe you get his ass killed in the Ettenmoors by a Troll because you're just that incompetent. Narrative freedom, baby!"

I'm currently playing in a game that's the latter. We haven't diverged from canon in any notable way yet; I mean, all we've done is deliver some treasure to Bard and kill some spiders and piss off the Sorceress. But we've been assured that it is possible, and we trust our GM in that; he once ran a Pendragon game where, due to both machinations and deep screw-ups on the part of the PCs, King Arthur didn't marry Guinevere. If he's willing to diverge on that, he'll let us do anything... if we're good enough and smart enough.

A number of us are playing with that in mind. I, personally, have as my goal "Kill a Nazgul." Preferably Khamul. That's right. I want to go the full Eowyn here. It's ambitious and it might get me killed, but if I can pull it off that is totally my goal. I want to stroll into the White Council, drop one of the Nine* right on the table in front of Elrond and Gandalf, and be all "Eight to go. What did YOU guys do today?"

I know at least one other player has a similarly lofty goal.

*Yes, I'm aware that it is generally, but not universally, agreed that the Ringwraiths don't actually have their rings ON them and that Sauron keeps them. But it would be sooooo cooool. It would also open the possibility of me doing sort of a "legacy of evil" thing, where I kill a Ringwraith and take their ring and then my PC is slowly corrupted into a NEW ringwraith. I'd have to surrender them as a PC, of course, but that would also be wicked cool.

[Southron]

I kept the question vague to get a wider response and Murcushio I must that yours was a pretty cool first post there.

I like both ideas. A part of me greatly enjoys playing in ME within Tolkien constraints, yet another part would also be interested in ME 'what if' scenarios also.

I really trust the two LM's we have and if either wanted to veer that would great, yet their in world story telling skills are quite satisfying as is.

Btw keep us updated on the Nazgul slaying goal.

[aramis]

Just wondering if anyone is using TOR as a backdrop for their own non-canonical version of Middle-Earth?

SL

The Canon I've read: Hobbit, LOTR, about 100 pages of the Silmarillion, about 50 pages of Unfinished tales.

Which leaves a lot of canon I've not read.

So, it's easier to say, "I only use a small chunk of Tolkien's canon, and don't give a **** about the rest."

[Corvo]

Not so much till now, I foresee diverging from canon in the future. I owe it to my players: they aren't the sort of players that deliberately screws with canon npc and such, but I give to them freedom of choices (and consequences).

At the moment, the main deviation from canon is that Gandalf and the White Council aren't aware of the true nature of the Necromancer. And Saruman isn't irredeemably given to the Shadow (almost, but not yet).

For the future... Let say I give no plot immunity to Radagast, Gandalf, Thranduil, Beorn, Bard and the Nazguls.

[Otaku-sempai]

Corvo wrote:

At the moment, the main deviation from canon is that Gandalf and the White Council aren't aware of the true nature of the Necromancer. And Saruman isn't irredeemably given to the Shadow (almost, but not yet).

For the future... Let say I give no plot immunity to Radagast, Gandalf, Thranduil, Beorn, Bard and the Nazguls.

Corvo is Peter Jackson!

[Rocmistro]

SL, I would base my answer to that on the wishes of my players. For my real life group, I had to maintain a gentleman's agreement that canon was off the table if they affected it as such. That's what resulted in my campaign where Aragorn is dead and one of my player's has the option of fulfilling his role and living his life in such a way that it mirrors the LotR story or doing their own thing.

I wouldn't dare to be that audacious with a group of real Tolkien-philes. However I would ignore lesser bits that didn't change the main story. For example I would absolutely consider populating middle earth with more honest to-god-fire-breathing dragons. It's not as if there is a draconian census taker or En-con guy monitoring endangered species. Up until Moria, I'm sure all the white council would have agreed that there were probably no more balrogs, either.

But I think questions like these should be answered by social group contract before the game begins. I would love to play a 4th age middle earth campaign where Frodo failed and Sauron wins, but I wouldn't just do that without checking with all my players first to see if they were ok with that.

[Corvo]

Corvo wrote:

At the moment, the main deviation from canon is that Gandalf and the White Council aren't aware of the true nature of the Necromancer. And Saruman isn't irredeemably given to the Shadow (almost, but not yet).

For the future... Let say I give no plot immunity to Radagast, Gandalf, Thranduil, Beorn, Bard and the Nazguls.

Corvo is Peter Jackson!

You are walking into a room with a sheet of plastic on the floor ( )

[Murcushio]

I wouldn't dare to be that audacious with a group of real Tolkien-philes.

I can only say that my group of hardcore Tolkien fans wouldn't have it any other way.

We already know how the canon turned out. Why on earth would we just want to see that replayed in our own game? We can go read the books for the seventh hundred time if we wanted that.

But I think questions like these should be answered by social group contract before the game begins. I would love to play a 4th age middle earth campaign where Frodo failed and Sauron wins, but I wouldn't just do that without checking with all my players first to see if they were ok with that.

I'm actually kinda curious, how would you NOT check with them first before running it? I mean, do your players habitually sit down at table with no idea about what's going to be run until the GM names the system and setting right then and there?

[zedturtle]

To answer Murcushio's last question first... there are horror stories in the wider gaming community about "bait and switch" games where players are promised something and then a different type of game is delivered. Sometimes it works awesomely, such as when Gygax let someone else DM for a while and the PCs ended up on a spaceship (Metamorphis Alpha is the game that came of that, if I remember correctly). But other times it doesn't work out.

---

The narrative frame of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that these are stories written down after the fact. Sometimes it's explict (in the case of Snowmane's grave marker) and sometimes implicit (I really doubt the Eomer composed perfect alliterative verse in a battlefield situation). So we have unreliable narrators, translation issues and possible corruption of the story by accident or purpose. And that's all 100% Tolkien; he tells us that the canon is unreliable.

So, I consider the stories and the lore to be good starting points. I haven't changed anything major yet, but if PC actions cause changes I will not grieve one moment for "the way things aught to be". 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.