If you were desiging an lotr rpg (as is actually happening with Cubicle 7), would you do it in such a way that allows, maybe prompts (surreptitiously), players to convert the stuff you can't use (ie the Silmarillion) given how germaine that is to the setting as a whole?

I can't really say I understand your question. Do you mean creating a game broad enough in tone and mechanics to allow for the use of such sources as the Silmarillion, eras such as the First and Second Age of Middle-earth, instead of just focussing narrowly on the War of the Ring?

I think the implication is that you only have rights to the material in LotR so would you risk a lawsuit by making reference or encouraging reference to the backstroy stuff.
Personally I woudl have negotiated a contact that stressed the in depth nature of hte LotR and the key importance of setting and history and as such made that content fair game. I mean its not like there are a bunch of guys gagging to make a silmarilion RPG so the estate shoudl use its nouse and be aware that a more realised world can only make the game more sucessful and therefore lead to higher profits long term.

Quote from: jibbajibba;363795I think the implication is that you only have rights to the material in LotR so would you risk a lawsuit by making reference or encouraging reference to the backstroy stuff.
Personally I woudl have negotiated a contact that stressed the in depth nature of hte LotR and the key importance of setting and history and as such made that content fair game. I mean its not like there are a bunch of guys gagging to make a silmarilion RPG so the estate shoudl use its nouse and be aware that a more realised world can only make the game more sucessful and therefore lead to higher profits long term.

I might be way off the mark with this as I'm paraphrasing a friend who is far more invested in Tolkien and his mythology than I but I think there are two seperate entities who own seperate parts of this IP?  One group owns the rights license to the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings (the name of this group escapes me), while the other (the Tolkien Estate) owns the Silmarillion and all of Tolkien's notes.  If memory serves, Christopher Tolkien himself is rather inimical towards roleplaying?

Quote from: Angry_Douchebag;363799I might be way off the mark with this as I'm paraphrasing a friend who is far more invested in Tolkien and his mythology than I but I think there are two seperate entities who own seperate parts of this IP?  One group owns the rights license to the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings (the name of this group escapes me), while the other (the Tolkien Estate) owns the Silmarillion and all of Tolkien's notes.  If memory serves, Christopher Tolkien himself is rather inimical towards roleplaying?

This is exactly correct. This company - Tolkien Enterprises - negotiated the rights to commercialization of the Hobbit and the LotR with Professor Tolkien himself in the sixties, much like Amarillo Design negotiated a gaming license with Gene Rodenberry for Star Trek TOS in the sixties. These licenses are basically perpetual, so long as the licensee keeps to their end of the bargain. The Tolkien Estate is not interested in licensing anything it owns for gaming, for whatever reason, so there cannot be any game based in whole or in part on the Silmarillion without drawing down a big lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate, who would *love* to get control of the Hobbit and LotR back from Tolkien Enterprises.

So, basically any movie/game/tvshow/whatever licensing rights from Tolkien Enterprises is limited to the Hobbit, the LotR Trilogy, and the appendices in RotK.    

-clash

Okay. That makes the OP clearer. Thanks Clash and Jibba.

So. Yes, I would want a system that is broad enough in scope to be able to use material from the Silmarillion and other non-negociated Tolkienian sources.

We can debate all day long about how MERP did or did not do this, but I do remember some excellent adventures published during the 80s and 90s in French gaming magazines that took place during the First Age (during and around the time period of Barahir, immediately in the aftermath of Dagor Bragollach, IIRC).

Now, my ideal is to have something comparable to MERP in terms of scope and versatility of the rules, but at the same time, I want them to be more specific to Middle-earth, its history and cosmology, in particular. This means, for instance, no mages wielding fireballs and casting lightning bolts besides the Istari, to give a specific example, or a treatment of the healing techniques of the Eldar that aren't just clerical spells disguised - these aren't spells, to begin with.

I may be risking bringing some form of wrath down upon my head for suggesting this- Burning Wheel, though it doesn't specifically use any Tolkien terminology accomplishes the feel (at least within the text of the game) rather nicely.  I don't care much for the ruleset, but the treatment of its "elven skills" is an especially nice implementation of your last request:

Quote...or a treatment of the healing techniques of the Eldar that aren't just clerical spells disguised - these aren't spells, to begin with.

Quote from: Angry_Douchebag;363812I may be risking bringing some form of wrath down upon my head for suggesting this- Burning Wheel, though it doesn't specifically use any Tolkien terminology accomplishes the feel (at least within the text of the game) rather nicely.  I don't care much for the ruleset, but the treatment of its "elven skills" is an especially nice implementation of your last request:

LOL yeah. The Flaming Keystrokes of Truth, indeed. Well, I don't know Burning Wheel, so you're not going to get flames from me on that front. It does have elven skills now, does it?

Quote from: Benoist;363815LOL yeah. The Flaming Keystrokes of Truth, indeed. Well, I don't know Burning Wheel, so you're not going to get flames from me on that front. It does have elven skills now, does it?

The original Burning Wheel was a trad RPG designed to emulate the feel of LotR, which was latched onto by the Forge. It only became explicitly Forgish with BW Revised, though less so than the other Burning * games which came later.

-clash

I've never really understood the need for an LoTR specific RPG when compared to other RPG's.  The only real distinction beyond naming things is how magic works and in LoTR magic is generally not in the hands of the players.  

I have fond memories of playing a LoTR campaign using WFRP v1 for a good long while back in the days where the animated movies were the only known ones.  To do so we limited some of the careers and left magic as that mysterious thing that is in the hands of the GM.

Quote from: Benoist;363815LOL yeah. The Flaming Keystrokes of Truth, indeed. Well, I don't know Burning Wheel, so you're not going to get flames from me on that front. It does have elven skills now, does it?

It does (I wanted to take a look at my copy of it before elaborating further), many of which are described in terms of their lyrical or musical qualities.  It makes the attempt also to differentiate between the skills of different races.  The Elven Lyric of Healing is different mechanically, than say the general skill known as Surgery.

Quote from: jibbajibba;363795I think the implication is that you only have rights to the material in LotR so would you risk a lawsuit by making reference or encouraging reference to the backstroy stuff.
Personally I woudl have negotiated a contact that stressed the in depth nature of hte LotR and the key importance of setting and history and as such made that content fair game. I mean its not like there are a bunch of guys gagging to make a silmarilion RPG so the estate shoudl use its nouse and be aware that a more realised world can only make the game more sucessful and therefore lead to higher profits long term.

What you propose is impossible. Tolkien Enterprises hasn't got the rights to the Silmarillion, and the Tolkien Estate won't license anything at all. If the Tolkien Estate had had the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, there wouldn't have been any Middle Earth RPG ever.

Flyingmice explains it quite well in his post.

Quote from: Claudius;363858Flyingmice explains it quite well in his post.

Thanks, Claudius!

I should emphasize this more, perhaps, because I've explained this on several different fora, and some folks still didn't get it:

If Tolkien Enterprises had it's way, there would never have been nor would there ever be a LotR movie, or game, or toy, or anything but the books. Tolkien Enterprises wants the rights back to stop all LotR merchandise everywhere, for every type of merchandise, for all time. It is not interested in merely licensing the property to someone else.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;363863Thanks, Claudius!

I should emphasize this more, perhaps, because I've explained this on several different fora, and some folks still didn't get it:

If Tolkien Enterprises had it's way, there would never have been nor would there ever be a LotR movie, or game, or toy, or anything but the books. Tolkien Enterprises wants the rights back to stop all LotR merchandise everywhere, for every type of merchandise, for all time. It is not interested in merely licensing the property to someone else.

-clash

That is interesting. I wasn't aware that there was a split in the License ownership. Any one know why Christopher Tolkein and the estate are so anti merchantising? Although this might explain why we keep getting bunches of tolkeins notes wrapped in book form.
Also what can you use from the appendicies?
My LotR is from the 50s and has a huge set of appendices about half the RotK volume is appendix. Does that all count or is there a specific volume. I have a LotR all in one paperback that has scant appendices.

Quote from: jibbajibba;363875My LotR is from the 50s and has a huge set of appendices about half the RotK volume is appendix. Does that all count or is there a specific volume. I have a LotR all in one paperback that has scant appendices.

Interesting. I've never seen an edition of LotR that didn't include all the appendices. The appendices do, indeed, take up much of Return of the King in the usual three-volume split of the book. In my thirty-some-odd years of reading and re-reading LotR (probably close to 20 times, now), that's how it's always been. Where was this one-volume version with scant appendices published?

The question about the appendices is one that interests me. Are the appendices off-limits? I always wondered why people were asking about the use of the Silmarillion, when it seemed like a good end-run would be to use the LotR appendices. I guess that hole was plugged, right?