DnD® comes to Middle-earth®.

[Falenthal]

I think they're going to open a Middle-Earth-D&D forum next and see if all the spam flows there, now that the registry to this forum has been barred.
Smart move, you spam-cops!

The D&D forum will have unfailable Magic Missiles to hit the spammers, of course. We only have Opening Volleys...

[Falenthal]

On a serious stand, I'm glad C7's wondelful work has been acknowledged in the RPG world. I'm sure signing a contract with the D&D owners to provide for their product is nothing simple.
I won't play this D&D version, I might probably even not buy it, but I'm sure it's a great step for C7 and for TOR. More exposure to the public will lead to better knowledge of the line, and (hopefully) more resources for C7 than can leak to all their other lines.

Congratulations on what I consider a reward to your lovely work.

[DavetheLost]

I have no interest in D&D 5e. I will continue to support TOR, but will not pick up the books for this line.

Still I think this is good news, not only for C7 but for TOR as well.

First, C7 gets direct access to the D&D market. Probably the most mainstream RPG market there is. I know if I see only one RPG in a shop it is D&D.

Second, C7 already has a lot of descriptions, flavour text, campaign plots, adventure outlines, etc written for Middle Earth, not to mention a lot of great Middle Earth art, all of which has already been approved once by the Powers That Be. So, D&DME need not be a huge resource suck right out of the gate.

Third, we have not been told who the labour force on this project will be. There is a chance that some additional D&D folks may be joining the C7 team to write the rules portion, or that various products from C7 are now ready for publication or at least have been written freeing writer and designer time to work on D&DME. We have not been told "only the guys who are already working on TOR will be working D&DME so they will have to split their time as the two lines will have completely unrelated products with no overlap in writing, art or anything else."

Fourth, there seems to me a very good chance that descriptions, flavour text, campaign plots, adventure outlines, art, etc produced for TOR will also be usable for Middle Earth D&D and vice versa. Gondor is Gondor after all. Mapping and describing Moria doesn't matter what game mechanics you wrap around the crunchy bits, it's developing the Dwarrowdelve that is the real project.

So I say Congratulations C7! This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

[Glorelendil]

I wonder what this Dungeons & Dragons® compatible version of TOR will be called...

The Other Ring

[frodolives]

Jon, can you tell us if the line will require the D&D Player's Handbook, or will it be self contained? I really hope you guys can hit your summer release projection!

[Moria Firefly]

WOW....

I read the news this morning and just thought about it all day. I absolutely love TOR, like others here, it's all I shoot for at Gen Con every year. Cubicle 7 has done an incredible and beautiful job with TOR.

5th Ed D&D, it's my favorite edition ever for D&D but it's still D&D, levels, hit points, insane PC races. I never thought to mix TOR and D&D, nor that I would see it. I'm sooooo nervous and excited about this, I trust C7 and no matter what... I'll be buying both lines.

[zedturtle]

This is likely to be a long post. My thoughts are strong and complex.

First off, congratulations to Cubicle 7 and Sophisticated Games for making this happen. There's been an amazing amount of excellent development and impressive artwork, and I imagine that quite a few people are going to get a chance to see that for the first time. I imagine that being able to leverage those existing resources into new products for new audiences will be very successful for them, and they deserve the success.

My concern is not with whether or not C7/SG will do a sufficiently good job in presenting Middle-earth in the mechanical terms of D&D. I'm sure they'll do a bang-up job. My concern is the compatibility itself.

There are a set of expectations baked into The One Ring. The rules of the game proscribe what is possible and what is not possible. Over the years, we've spent a lot of time talking about those expectations, breaking them down, and helping folks (and ourselves) out with where they're coming from.

Dungeons and Dragons has a set of expectations built into its ruleset as well. Some of these are superficially similar... both games expect heroic individuals to use inborn abilities and learned skills to accomplish their goals, and for those heroes to grow and improve over time. But the nature, kind and extent of those expectations is different... and much broader for D&D. Sometimes, D&D can be a thoughtful and introspective look at moral challenges. Sometimes, it's a game of 'kill the god before he destroys the entire city'.

Since Middle-earth will be presented in D&D mechanical terms (compatible with the rules that DMs and players are used to), that means that any particular table will be free to add and subtract as they wish. If they want to have a dragonborn Paladin or a Tiefling thief-wizard, they'll be able to do so... the game's compatible, right?

Now, I can't say that's a horrible thing... after all, I've spent a lot of time railing against 'one-true-wayism' and literalism here. But from limitations comes creativity... that's why we hold ourselves here so close to canon and why there's a special feeling when we can tell a story that fits into Middle-earth as we understand it. The average DM might have a much harder time finding that sweet spot than the average LM, even if the lore within both books are equal... the table expectations and the game expectations will be different, and compatibility means that many more 'what-ifs?' will be asked. Again, not the end of the world, but a challenge for sure.

I guess we'll see what comes out of it... I hope C7/SG the best in any case!

[Morgoth]

My two favorite RPG publishers are joining forces. Today is a good day.

[Ferretz]

I have mixed feelings. I hear a lot of good things about the 5th edition of the D&D rules, but they need to be retooled a great deal to fit into Middle Earth the way TOR does so well. I won't be very happy if we suddenly see a version of the game where characters run around tossing fireballs and magic missiles.

My other concern is that, despite reading that The One Ring will still be the "main game", the D&D-version will be based on different material (setting, character types, background), making us who want to collect everything The One Ring also have to get the D&D version, to use that material not being released in the regular rules. But if these are conversions of the current and future The One Ring books, I'm fine with it, of course.

And of course, as has been mentioned, I'm concerned that this will strain the already difficult release scheduel. Won't resources have to be divided in some way?

I love The One Ring, and this came as a real surprise to me. I just hope it will be good. And I have no reason to believe it won't, as C7's The One Ring line has without exception been of fantastic quality. But still, this brings up alot of feelings and concerns.

-E.

[Deadmanwalking]

i'm intrigued by this announcement. I really like a lot of things about 5E (I mostly have issues with their monster design), and think a Middle Earth modification could be very interesting indeed. Especially done by people who've already done such a good job with the source material.

I'm more interested than worried about how they'll handle spell casting. That should be interesting, but I have great hopes that it'll be done well.

And of course, as has been mentioned, I'm concerned that this will strain the already difficult release scheduel. Won't resources have to be divided in some way?

Given that Cubicle 7's the one who started with the license...I can't imagine them not doing staggeringly well financially out of this deal (by gaming industry standards, anyway). I'd expect they can hire enough people (or bring some of their part timers and freelancers closer to full time) to not have this be an issue.

At the same time, it could be interresting to play TOR when:

1- Wearing an armor is not going to kill you.

Armor is super necessary in TOR. Seriously, I played a Beorning with Great Strength, a Great Shield, and a misunderstanding about Travel Gear giving Encumbrance, thus having no armor. Armor is super necessary.

Heavy armor is now even a good idea if going mounted.

2- Not having to make a bunch of travel rolls to move from point A to B

That sounds much less interesting, honestly. The Journey rules are one of the big things that make the game feel like Tolkien. I'd actually hope we get some rules for long-term travel in the D&D version of Middle Earth.

3- you can fight with two weapons at the same time

That might be cool.

4- Not having to argue with the GM about if it's wrong to kill an unarmed goblin or not.

Alignment rules being what they are...I wouldn't assume this at all if I were you.

5- Combats are more tacticals.

I find TOR combat pretty tactical, frankly a bit more so than D&D combat when spells aren't involved. Movement specifics aren't as relevant, but stances and when to use things like Rally Comrades are of at least equal tactical complexity.

Really, it's just the idea of having magic users running around that bother me the most with this anoucement.

I've got some faith they'll solve this discrepancy somehow.