Quote from: Imperator;408660- Mook rule: mooks have 1, 2 or 3 Health levels. Combats run faster, and you can get instakills on mooks.

Yeah, this was one of the things I loved in the core rules. I used them a lot. When I saw 4e D&D used the same basic concept for minions, I was very pleased.

Related to the remarks about the LOTR movies (sorry to push on the sidetracking conversation, but that's just coming to my mind), someone once asked on some message boards "where is our blockbuster D&D movie?" to which someone else, I think Monte Cook actually, if memory serves, answered "There's one already: it's called the Lord of the Rings..."

Which makes it kind of weird for D&D to kind of step away from the tolkienian tropes at this point. Because let's face it: the LOTR movies are EXTREMELY popular. Still. They marked the subconscious of people in the same way Star Wars did. When you say Frodo, mimick the voice of Smeagol or speak about the hatred between Elves and Dwarves, Sauron and the Burning Eye, pretty much anyone will understand what you're talking about nowadays. Which is amazing to me, when I think about it.

Anyway. LOTR is this common main stream experience of fantasy D&D could build on. I'm glad Essentials go back to the basic Elves/Dwarves/Halflings paradigm in that regard. This is something that should stop being stepped away from, when so many already are familiar with Middle-earth's aesthetics and imagery.

Quote from: Benoist;408695Related to the remarks about the LOTR movies (sorry to push on the sidetracking conversation, but that's just coming to my mind), someone once asked on some message boards "where is our blockbuster D&D movie?" to which someone else, I think Monte Cook actually, if memory serves, answered "There's one already: it's called the Lord of the Rings..."

Which makes it kind of weird for D&D to kind of step away from the tolkienian tropes at this point. Because let's face it: the LOTR movies are EXTREMELY popular. Still. They marked the subconscious of people in the same way Star Wars did. When you say Frodo, mimick the voice of Smeagol or speak about the hatred between Elves and Dwarves, Sauron and the Burning Eye, pretty much anyone will understand what you're talking about nowadays. Which is amazing to me, when I think about it.

Anyway. LOTR is this common main stream experience of fantasy D&D could build on. I'm glad Essentials go back to the basic Elves/Dwarves/Halflings paradigm in that regard. This is something that should stop be stepped away from, when so many already are familiar with Middle-earth's aesthetics and imagery.

You make a good argument. I get that they are trying to draw in the electronic gamer crowd by borrowing game mechanics and narrative tropes. What baffles me is how they seemed to try to distance themselves from Lord of the Rings-style trappings just at the time it would have benefited the game the most.

For that matter, I find it curious they didn't get the license to do a Lord of the Rings RPG when the movies were still in the process of being released. To be frank, as soon as I heard that a smaller company had gotten it, I knew it wouldn't last long...and it didn't. It didn't even last long enough to produce a sourcebook for Return of the King.

WotC had a good run with Star Wars, one of the most recognizable scifi franchises, yet for some reason seemed to eschew what is often seen as primary source material for its flagship game. I know some wag will try to give it all a reasonable explanation, but it just seems flat-out bizarre to me - the most successful fantasy movies ever, and they take the most well-known fantasy RPG and make it less and less like those movies. I just don't get it. After Decipher no longer had the license, why not at least license LotR for a D&D sourcebook or boxed set? Barring that, why not at least take a cue from whatever it was that motivated them to move back towards classic D&D with Essentials and return to the more Tolkienesque trappings D&D had in the first place?

I could go on and on. It's one of my rant-triggering subjects.

Quote from: Imperator;408660*snip*
I agree with you on this, though I won't miss Tom Bombadil. I fucking hate musical numbers.

:rotfl:

Quote from: skofflox;408739:rotfl:

What can I say. A pet peeve of mine

Quote from: Imperator;408886What can I say. A pet peeve of mine

I'm with you 100% on that

I guess I didn't mind the ending of the movies vs. the books because I never saw the scouring of the shire as the actual climax or as the maturation of the hobbits. To me it always came across as just some residual dribble on the belly of the story, so to speak, with the actual climax always being Sauron's defeat. The maturation, to me, is represented by the passing of Bilbo and Frodo and the portrayal of Sam getting on with life through marriage and children. As for the other details and their changes, I couldn't care less. I do have to agree, however, that I did not like the "dark Galadriel" scene, thought it could have been done much better. Otherwise, the movies worked just fine for me.

On the contrary, I've never thought too seriously about gaming in ME because I have always been skeptical of whether the game experience could live up to my expectations... the same concern I have for any licensed property. This concern has been proven valid, for me. I've tried both Star Wars gaming and Song of Ice and Fire gaming and found both less than satisfying. I concede this is most likely due to my expectations, not due to any deficiencies in the games themselves. It also might have been that the GMs of the games had different ideas about what the essence of those IPs are than I did. Anyway, while I'd love to game in ME, especially in the fourth age where the IP's integrity would not be as important, I've always been wary of trying it. Oddly enough though, I have no problem MMOGing in LotRo. Go figure...

Quote from: Sigmund;408903The maturation, to me, is represented by the passing of Bilbo and Frodo and the portrayal of Sam getting on with life through marriage and children.

Oh yes. The Scouring of the Shire, for me, makes the characters aware of the changes. The passing of Frodo and Bilbo makes the reader aware of the maturation of the characters, and creates the emotional ending to the book. That, and the appendix telling of Aragorn's death and Arwen's mourning. Dude, do I cry reading that part.

In that regard, the movies deliver.

QuoteOn the contrary, I've never thought too seriously about gaming in ME because I have always been skeptical of whether the game experience could live up to my expectations... the same concern I have for any licensed property. This concern has been proven valid, for me. I've tried both Star Wars gaming and Song of Ice and Fire gaming and found both less than satisfying. I concede this is most likely due to my expectations, not due to any deficiencies in the games themselves. It also might have been that the GMs of the games had different ideas about what the essence of those IPs are than I did. Anyway, while I'd love to game in ME, especially in the fourth age where the IP's integrity would not be as important, I've always been wary of trying it. Oddly enough though, I have no problem MMOGing in LotRo. Go figure...

Well, most of my experiences running licensed properties have gone great, so I would attribute your lack of satisfaction to your expectations and your GM's.

And you don't need to go Fourth Age. Most of my ME gaming has been set of Third Age, around 1640, and it went swimmingly. I've also run games during the War of the Ring, no problem. heck, I even run a game using the Fellowship of the Ring from the ICE books, and it went like hell (and Boromir survived!).

ME is a mood, not a concrete set of events. I don't think you need to worry about getting the exact dates perfect, as long as you get the mood of darkness rising, decay of the good, and the mourning for what has been. The only people who don't miss the Old Days are the Hobbits, because they have almost no history.

Quote from: LordVreeg;408602I guess I fall in the camp of, "This was nowhere near as bad as I'd feared", with some, "This is a pretty cool visualization"  thrown in.  I will say up front that I enjoyed 1 and 2 very much, despite the strangeness of Elves in Helm's Deep, etc.

I guess that I liked the films a bit more than you.  

When I first started watching the FotR film, I kept comparing it to the book.  But then, after about 20 minutes or so, I tried to stop doing that, and decided to view the films as 'inspired' by the books, rather than representing everything that happened in them.

Some things still rankled (e.g., elves and Helm's Deep, the portrayal of Denethor as an arrogant boor instead of as a tragic figure, Aragorn dishonourably beheading the Mouth of Sauron during a parley, etc.).  Some changes bothered me, but I understood why they probably had to be made (e.g., the way in which Arnor was never mentioned in the films, and Aragorn's connection to the throne of Gondor was left quite vague).  Some changes bothered me not at all (e.g., I didn't mind Gimli being portrayed somewhat comically, I liked the bridge of Khazad Dum scene, I liked the scenes of ruined Osgiliath, etc.).  

Overall, though, if I had continued to think that the films should be viewed as representations of the books, I would have found them very frustrating.  Instead, I enjoyed them as extremely good -- but not perfect -- films.  

Quote from: LordVreeg;408602The Scouring of the Shire is an extremely, extremely critical part in this.  Tolkien himself said, in an unrelated comment, that it was a necessity, forseen from the outset...

I agree with this about the books, but in the films the 'Scouring of the Shire' simply would have fallen flat with audiences not already familiar with the books.  I knew, with absolute a priori certainty, that the Scouring would not be included in the films, so I wasn't disappointed when they, in fact, weren't included.

Quote from: Imperator;408660...I agree with you on this, though I won't miss Tom Bombadil. I fucking hate musical numbers.

Tom Bombadil is my absolute least favourite character in all of Tolkien's books.  In fact, i think that the Fellowship of the Ring would have been better had Bombadil not been included at all.

So, yeah, no tears from this fan at his absence in the films.  

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408716...For that matter, I find it curious they didn't get the license to do a Lord of the Rings RPG when the movies were still in the process of being released...

Apparently WotC considered the license, but declined because of the costs and complexities involved.
:idunno:

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;408716.After Decipher no longer had the license, why not at least license LotR for a D&D sourcebook or boxed set?

Again, I suspect that this can be explained by the costs and hassles of dealing with Tolkien Enterprises.

And now that Cubicle 7 has the license to produce a Middle-earth RPG, WotC is out of the picture.

Quote from: Akrasia;409034Apparently WotC considered the license, but declined because of the costs and complexities involved.
:idunno:

Sure, I remember hearing something about that. Something about it strikes me as suspect, though. I mean, they got hold of Star Wars, which has to be an expensive license, and Lucas has always been known to be at least a little difficult. My own personal theory, which of course means nothing, is that it may have to do with the old specter of the "cease & desist"'s TSR received way, way back for using the term hobbit and some other recognizable terms. It could be that it became ingrained in the culture of TSR, and later WotC, that D&D didn't "do" Lord of the Rings.

Quote from: Akrasia;409034Again, I suspect that this can be explained by the costs and hassles of dealing with Tolkien Enterprises.

And now that Cubicle 7 has the license to produce a Middle-earth RPG, WotC is out of the picture.

For now. We'll see how long this particular incarnation of a Lord of the Rings RPG lasts.