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Rich H wrote:For me, removing the themes Tolkien instilled in his work would mean you wouldn't be gaming in Middle-earth. It'd be like smoking gear without inhaling; a bit pointless.

I guess it depends on which themes you find critical to ME. NPCs saving the day isn't critical for me.

Being primarily a D&D player I prefer direct confrontation with the enemies when it makes sense. Sometimes discretion and stealth are the better tools, but I don't want the PCs always running away from trouble. Even ME has room for big bad heroes IMO and there is no reason the PCs couldn't fill those roles.

This is what makes me excited for AiME. I don't know if the system will apsupport what I want to do off the shelf but since it is tied to D&D it would probably be easy to tweak it so that is does.

Neither Frodo nor Bilbo ran away from trouble, but neither did they confront the BBEG.

Glorelendil wrote:Neither Frodo nor Bilbo ran away from trouble, but neither did they confront the BBEG.

They did plenty of running away from orcs, Balrog, dragon, etc. I am not criticizing the little guys for running since those were very overwhelming forces they were facing, I am just saying I don't want to emulate that in a game and constantly be putting the PCs in situations where running is the only option.

Also to be fair the big bads from the Hobbit and LotR were the two most powerful forces of evil in ME at the time.

I would say they ran away from immediate danger (i.e. direct confrontation) but willingly, if not enthusiastically, marched forward into trouble. Repeatedly.

fjw70 wrote:

Rich H wrote:For me, removing the themes Tolkien instilled in his work would mean you wouldn't be gaming in Middle-earth. It'd be like smoking gear without inhaling; a bit pointless.

I guess it depends on which themes you find critical to ME. NPCs saving the day isn't critical for me.

That's not a theme and you know it.

Rich H wrote:

fjw70 wrote:

Rich H wrote:For me, removing the themes Tolkien instilled in his work would mean you wouldn't be gaming in Middle-earth. It'd be like smoking gear without inhaling; a bit pointless.

I guess it depends on which themes you find critical to ME. NPCs saving the day isn't critical for me.

That's not a theme and you know it.

It sure happens a lot.

fjw70 wrote:It sure happens a lot.

I'm likely being pedantic here but Tolkien never wrote an RPG so the concept of NPCs does not exist within his work. As a whole we're therefore arbitrarily deciding who is and isn't an NPC which is by definition utterly subjective and non-factual. Also, a theme in the context of a novel or story is a central idea (or ideas) of the work in question. I think saying that NPCs (assuming you could establish and agree with all parties what these are) saving the day is a theme is a flawed usage of the word when applied here.

Did Frodo save the day, or did Sam?

Or does Gollum get the credit?