DnD® comes to Middle-earth®.

[Majestic]

As I've written before, I think there were already a lot of similarities between the two games (more specifically, between D&D 5E and TOR), and I think this is awesome and amazing news!

My game group plays both games already, and appreciates them both. It's only over the last couple of years that I've fallen in love with D&D again (I first played in 1979, and my first PC was a Dwarf thief named Balin), and it's my opinion that both TOR and D&D are great games.

I am perfectly happy with the release schedule for TOR, FWIW. I far prefer quality to quantity, and even though we play long TOR sessions every other weekend, there's still already far more stuff out than we could ever get to. In about five years, C7 has given us enough product to last any gaming group for a decade or more.

[Jon Hodgson]

Now, THIS IS NOT one of the TOR announcements. But it is relevant.

We've just announced that Ken Spencer and Walt Ciechanowski have joined us on a full time basis as staff writers. They joined up last month, and we've been keeping them very busy.

[Curulon]

Now, THIS IS NOT one of the TOR announcements. But it is relevant.

We've just announced that Ken Spencer and Walt Ciechanowski have joined us on a full time basis as staff writers. They joined up last month, and we've been keeping them very busy.

Do we get a TOR announcement today?! Because I must knoooow.

[Eucatastrophe]

Wow. I'm very surprised, quite skeptical, and even a little disappointed.

On the one hand, I recognize what a cause for celebration this deal must be for C7. Your work on TOR is superb and for me it's the only game adaptation of Middle-earth that has ever come close to capturing the feel of Tolkien's stories. So it's great that your efforts have been recognized by "the big guys" at WotC and I hope that the partnership will be a gamble that pays out.

But I can't help but feel that the WotC crowd (as in the corporate entity) just don't "get" Tolkien, at all, unless it's from a pop-culture "I've seen the movies and I read the book as a teenager!" perspective. I know that's just a subjective opinion, someone will bring up John Rateliff, and so on and so on (is he still with WotC?). Of course everything needs to be approved by Saul Zaentz but it seems to me they'll stoop to approving completely inappropriate things when it suits them (Shadows of Mordor to give one example of many). I have to wonder how much control over the final output the folks at C7 will have, or how autonomous the WotC side will be, but I know that we will not be privy to this information. Obviously there are a lot of details yet to be revealed.

I feel like D&D as a systen, in any of its incarnations (and I loved 2E and 4E, for different reasons), is uniquely unsuited to serve as a ruleset for a game set in Middle-earth. TOR shows how a fairly rules-light system, particularly when specifically built to showcase and refer to the setting, can really bring out the flavour of Middle-earth in a game adaptation, but when I start thinking about D&D-isms making their way into the setting it really bothers me. Alignment, saving throws, +1 swords, disposable magic items, Lovecraftian monsters, magical healing, escalating power levels and hit points, ugh (I know some of these things can be tossed out or renamed or otherwise obscured, but still). The generic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fantasy-ness of D&D seems to me to a considerable hurdle to overcome. D&D, even in its generic form, unassociated with any specific setting, pretty much is its own setting, with the reality of the imagined world implied by the way the rules work. I know that this is going to be an adaptation of the D&D rules to fit the setting of Middle-earth, but obviously the goal is going to be to keep it recognizably D&D. As everyone here knows, the tone of Tolkien is so specific, so easily misunderstood, and so easily destroyed by the intrusion of "foreign" elements.

Maybe my biggest misgiving is that something about fusing the brand name of D&D with Middle-earth seems to me to really cheapen Tolkien's setting. Both IPs are broadly recognized and broadly misunderstood by people who have neither any connection to the gaming world or any literary/critical understanding of Tolkien, and I worry what effects such an "official" association might have. "Oh Lord of the Rings, those are those Dungeons and Dragons books, right?"

I know that Jon can't and won't speak to this, but I speculate that the negotiation of this deal is a major part of what has slowed the TOR release schedule over the past year or so. I appreciate the announcement that the TOR line will continue, and hopefully at an increased pace, for me that's the silver lining here, but assuming that the D&D line proves exponentially more financially successful, what justification could there be for continuing both lines?

Apologies for the negative tone of my post, please know that it comes from a place of love and admiration for TOR! Anxiously awaiting further news.

[Corone]

I know that Jon can't and won't speak to this, but I speculate that the negotiation of this deal is a major part of what has slowed the TOR release schedule over the past year or so. I appreciate the announcement that the TOR line will continue, and hopefully at an increased pace, for me that's the silver lining here, but assuming that the D&D line proves exponentially more financially successful, what justification could there be for continuing both lines?

While I have no inside knowledge on this at all,
given there are now many options to create third party D&D material,
I suspect no negotiation was really required and WotC will have little influence on the finished product.

[zedturtle]

Congrats to Ken and Walt; both great guys who have (and will continue to do) fantastic stuff!

[beckett]

Congrats to Ken and Walt; both great guys who have (and will continue to do) fantastic stuff!

I second those congratulations!

[Borri]

I'm a bit unsure what to think about D&D hitting Middle Earth. I share a lot of the worries already posted in this topic so I don't need to repeat them. Time - read: C7's fantastic work - will prove me wrong, I'm sure.

Best news for me is nonetheless that more (good) TOR news are on the way!
As all of you, I'm familar with the drill:
1. C7: opens up preorder
2. Me: shut up and take my money!
3. repeat!


So I send my congratulations to the two new writing-guys and C7 in general for their new deal and lean back for the good TOR-news coming down the road.

[Majestic]

Somebody over on rpg.net linked to this old thread, which is pretty amusing (it's playing through The Lord of the Rings if it were done D&D B/X style).

A sample:

The Fellowship met at Rivendell to discuss the cursed One Ring.

Elrond, "It must be taken to Mt. Doom and destroyed, but unfortunately, you are all first level and have no hope. You will have to first delve dungeon after dungeon, accumulating gold, because as we all know, hoarding treasure somehow makes us more powerful."

"Yes," said Gandalf, "This is known to be true."

And so the Fellowship of the Bling was formed with one goal--Grab the loot so someday, maybe they could think about making a plan to destroy the one ring. Many, many years from now.

[Rocmistro]

I know that Jon can't and won't speak to this, but I speculate that the negotiation of this deal is a major part of what has slowed the TOR release schedule over the past year or so. I appreciate the announcement that the TOR line will continue, and hopefully at an increased pace, for me that's the silver lining here, but assuming that the D&D line proves exponentially more financially successful, what justification could there be for continuing both lines?

I think it's as simple as this:

1. Jon, Dom, Andrew, Francesco and the others love (passionately) Tolkien, Middle-earth and the whole legendarium.
2. d20 TOR will be (hopefully) the successful cash-cow that will allow them to do what they really want to do (write and develop true TOR products).
3. Both camps can (and will) be happy. The d20 guys can have their Peter Jackson version of Middle earth, and the purists can have the true TOR version of Middle earth. One is their job, the other is their passion.

Everybody wins. I have a great feeling about this, and honestly, don't see the problem.


I'd also be very curious to know...well..hell I'll just ask him:

Jon, how much of this proceeded from all us poor sods who you have seen having to put together play-by-post games and what would seem like a lack of geographic density clusters needed to support IRL TOR groups?. I just wonder if some of this is a concession/compromise to the number of players who might otherwise play if it were "D20"/"D&D". (I guess all of that is just a long winded way of saying that d20 might have more market mass appeal than true TOR)