Lord of the Rings in D & D?

[Djinn Raffo]

Hi, i'm Djinn Raffo.
Just what the topic says.
Has this been a topic before?
Has this ever been done?
Is this useless speculation?
Should this topic be in general discussions?
I know the elves have some different traits and obviously histories, and the Nazgul don't seem like a d&d wraith to me. But has the Fellowship ever been incorporated into anyone's d&d quest? I remember I was alway's pretty pumped with that old monster manual that had the Old Ones from Lovecraft's Mythos.
Would that famous harper fare as well against Balrog?

[Memnoch]

Interesting concept. Don't know if it would work though. And no, it's not useless speculation at all.

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[Bleys]

There is a PnP set in Middle Earth called MERPS but been out of print for a while. But I don't if the books were turned into quests, but I dought if it would have worked.

Who knows with the new Movie there might be a "Lord of the Rings D20" -groan- game, then it would be just be a matter of convertion.

[Djinn Raffo]

Thanks for posting a reply Memnoch and Bleys.
I've mostly been a lurker on this forum but i've been reading the posts on it for a long time. It's my favorite forum by far and i just love some of the cameraderie that some of the members have developed. "It's the power of the net, man!" he smirks sarcastically...
But P n' P D & D (huh?) is what i was talking about. Bringing some favorite characters from one universe into another.

[Axterix]

Well, we all know that D&D is roughly based on LotR, changed just enough so that they don't have to pay royalties/get sued From there, it's evolved.

It doesn't really take much effort though to make a Tolkien D&D world. Let's face it... there really isn't that much to it in all but one aspect. You've got humans. More humans. A bunch of halflings. Some elves. Some half-elves. Dorfs. And some big eagles. And against that you have humans. Orcs/goblins. Wargs. And what basically amounts to 9 liches. Throw in a few 'trolls' (basically ogres that can't stand daylight), a werebear, and some ents. So for critters, it's all pretty easy.

Modify races a bit... or make kits. So dwarves get bonuses with battle axes and elves with bows. Give the horse guys some special horse related skills, like +1 to hit when mounted or something. All cake. The world, the cities, the people, all described.

What is hard though is getting a feel for the magic. Magic is either common or very hard, depending upon what Tolkien needs at the moment. Basically, magic done in a lab or to make harmless expendables (like fireworks) is pretty easy. Magic to make enduring items is hard, but done from time to time. Magic out in the field in combat is hard. You'll notice very few spells are actually cast in LotR. D&D, however, is set up to make spells common. There are no clerics, pretty much. So you can get rid of them. But that leaves you with the wizard. What do you do with spell casters? Effectively, you can get rid of them as well. For in such a magically sparse world, any magician type character would rapidly grow bored. If you alter the magic, introduce clerics and what-not, you've dramatically changed the feel of the world.

And so there your characters are, wandering through a magically sparse world where they can't be the main movers and shakers, where whatever enemy they face pales in comparision to the true evil. Even if you involve them in the fight against Mordor, they can't be the ones to destroy the main evil. At best they can be something that distracts him and therefore lets the Ringbearer do his duty. All without healers or magicians. And in a world where every player has his views of it all... and woe be to any GM that alters things.

Why would you want to play in such a time and world? To do it as a tribute... a similiar plot in a different world, such as Shadow Run or whatever... a place where the rules are different and so the players can be the main characters, can alter things, can be classes that don't fit the world... and you can throw the unexpected at them.

Maybe it's just me... but I'd rather play in a world where, if I'm the GM, I'm free to do what I want. And where if I'm the player, I've got no qualms about what the GM is doing... and while events are happening around me, what I do can make a big difference.

>>Would that famous harper fare as well against Balrog?

Well, how much effort does it take to fall off a bridge, fall for a very long time, wet oneself (which properly treated can bleach), wind up with white robes, and land on top of a fluffy balrog. Then go out and talk big to your friends (who are too dumb to realize the limits of your magic are fireworks, smoke rings, and burning pine-cones... assuming he didn't have a lighter) about how you fought long and hard

[Balgin]

Hmm, actually D&D doesn't work very well with Tolkiens Middle Earth. Firstly D&D is a system of constant increase, all of the numbers get bigger, the level based system just doesn't work with the degree of realism that Tolkien established in his works. Next, it takes a lot of work to change all of the creatures in order to make them fit, for instance many players would get pretty annoyed if they remembered that no living man may harm the Morguhl Lord. However, LOTR has influenced D&D (type VI Demons in 1st Ed where Balrogs etc). However, there was a rather good article on this in an old edition of White Dwarf entitled "Where and back again" (a pun on Bilbo's alternative title for The Hobbit), which discussed all of the then available game systems and the world in general, firstly, AD&D with the "oh, I've got another 84hp left, that was just a scratch" attitude just doesn't work. When a 5th level fighter can take more damage than a horse things get scary, also the AD&D monsters don't generally work (better give the Orcs more hit dice, slightly rework the Ents, totally redo the Trolls and Wraiths) and so basically is out of the question. MERP is more realistic but has it's downfalls: it's based on RoleMaster and as such concentrates on making magic available to everyone (not Tolkiens style at all). MERP 2nd Ed had the built in risk factor, this is because in the books Sauron notices magic and his attention is drawn to it, this is why the Istari (the very few wizards, all NPC major types) rarely use spells in order to avoid his attention. So MERP doesn't quite get the overall style or feel right but other than that is pretty much okay (apart from some of the more rediculous fumble chart results "you're character stumbles upon an imaginary deceased trutle and is understandably confused", their is only one recorded Turtle in Middle Earth and people often confuse him with an island, he's so large). Next I believe they discussed Rune Quest (a more suitable system, however, the monsters would need a little tweaking, and the magic system might need a whole lot of spells writing in) and a few others. As a note of possible interest Games Workshop (the company who still own White Dwarf magazine (the mag's gone down hill over the last 180 issues though )) have bought the rights to make the "The Lord of the Rings" wargame, very little information is known about this but I suspect that it'll be simpler than the six different versions of Warhammer to date, and probably an entirely different system (rather like Warrior Knights which used troop ratios (another classic of theirs) to determine success).

[dominions]

I would have thought that the Alternity rules would have been better with regard to a conversion of Middle Earth - it's got all the "realism" you would want.

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...Lister sighed like a burst tyre...

[Axterix]

>>Next, it takes a lot of work to change all of the creatures in order to make them fit, for instance many players would get pretty annoyed if they remembered that no living man may harm the Morguhl Lord.

It doesn't take much. For starters, the Morguhl Lord is such a major character, that if you allow your characters to kill him, well, you're screwing up the plot line Second, it's a pretty magically scarce world. How many people were running around with magical weapons above a certain +? Mostly a few hobbits, 1 ranger, and a wizard. And, third, it's not hard to add a single line of text to a critter that says "final blow can only be struck by a hobbit/female". Most critters though, you stick a sword in it, it dies. The rest are not described very well.

As for the realism, it works out okay. Let's face it... the common people die left and right. The heroes do pretty good. Look at how many arrows Boromir took. The level of realism is more of a player thing. Some people prefer to play under Chartmaster (well, Rolemaster, I guess). Other people prefer to play a bit faster type of game like D&D. That's personal preference. What makes it work is the GM. Did Frodo survive the spear in the dwarven halls because it was stopped by Mithril or because it didn't do enough hp's to kill him? Doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that the GM says he's alive because the Mithril stopped the spear. Did Gimli and Legalos kill so many orcs because they've got great skills and didn't roll something that says 'you chop off your own arm'... or did they have enough levels to cleave through a horde of orcs? Again, it doesn't matter.

If your GM can make the world feel alive, then there you are. If he can't, then, sure, you can have a bunch of rules that make it 'realistic'... but it won't be as enjoyable. The main thing about the system is that it must be able to generate appropriate type characters and be flexible enough to allow for the generation of a few rules to cover game world specific instances.

[Bleys]

Axterix
Good point, it is the duty of the GM and the players to make it realistic. There are some rule changes you can make to 3ed a lot more realistic, but the trick is getting the descriptions right. If it is a 'you take 20hp but have 84 left' kind of thing then of course it is boring. But then the same can be said for Rollmaster a 'you took a 99 on table E-slash, you are dead, spend next 3 week creating a new character.' is just as boring. The trick is to give good discretions of the world, and try and leave the mechanics out of it.

I still don't think the 3ed rules would be that good for Lord of the rings. I think something like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay would do a far better job if it was modified.

[Axterix]

Aye, I'm inclined to agree that D&D wouldn't work too well, mainly because of the emphasis on magic. Magic to heal. Magic to fight. But mostly the healing. Not familiar with Warhammer's mechanics, so I can't comment on it's suitability or lack there-of.

Wonder how well the L5R system could be adapted. Magic in it is much more subtle and while hp's can increase as you level, it is due to improving stats, which don't exactly skyrocket up. Combat is lethal and the way they balance skill vs natural talent is nice. Overall one of my favorite gaming systems, but adapting it to something else properly would probably be more work than it is worth, as so much of it's underlying logic and skills are culture based.