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

I think you mean the Tolkien Estate (the literary entity made up primarily of Tolkien's heirs).

Tolkien Enterprises (the commercial entity founded by Saul Zaentz) is happy to revel in Happy Meals, Gandalf shampoo, action figures, and all manner of merchandising.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;363921Are 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?

Some portions of the appendices are off limits, primarily the materials outside the scope of the events depicted in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Quote from: jdurall;363932I think you mean the Tolkien Estate (the literary entity made up primarily of Tolkien's heirs).

Tolkien Enterprises (the commercial entity founded by Saul Zaentz) is happy to revel in Happy Meals, Gandalf shampoo, action figures, and all manner of merchandising.

Damn! yes! Apologies! I meant the Tolkien Estate.

-clash

Quote from: jibbajibba;363875That 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.

I guess that, like Mrs Harry Potter, they probably think that anyone else engaging in the universe of middle earth through anything other than Tolkien's actual work will pervert it or otherwise dilute it. it's sad that they can't see the value of storytelling in other forms, but i suppose that's their right.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;363921Interesting. 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?

No idea haven't got it handy some time in the 80s I guess bit fat one volume paperback paper is thin like in a bible.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;363974I guess that, like Mrs Harry Potter, they probably think that anyone else engaging in the universe of middle earth through anything other than Tolkien's actual work will pervert it or otherwise dilute it. it's sad that they can't see the value of storytelling in other forms, but i suppose that's their right.

Yeah but JK Rowling wrote the book and has merchantised the crap out of it so needs no more income from it what with being the wealiest author in the world and all.
Tolkein had already sold the rights to his main work in his lifetime so getting precious about the shoe boxes filled with the full transscript of the Lays of Lorien or whatever is surely somewhat moot.

Quote from: jibbajibba;363875That 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.

Christopher Tolkien sees himself as the guardian of his father's legacy - with some justification seeing as he was raised on his father's stories and knows them probably better than anybody else. I think he probably thinks of merchandising as a vulgarisation of Middle Earth. I tend to agree. I do however rather like MERP, so I'm a bit conflicted.

Quote from: noisms;363985Christopher Tolkien sees himself as the guardian of his father's legacy - with some justification seeing as he was raised on his father's stories and knows them probably better than anybody else. I think he probably thinks of merchandising as a vulgarisation of Middle Earth. I tend to agree. I do however rather like MERP, so I'm a bit conflicted.

Sadly, if Christopher Tolkien can't see the difference between a Lotr Happy Meal and a Middle Earth rpg or boardgame then he either doesn't understand games or doesn't want to.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;363987Sadly, if Christopher Tolkien can't see the difference between a Lotr Happy Meal and a Middle Earth rpg or boardgame then he either doesn't understand games or doesn't want to.

In fairness he might not be against people roleplaying in Middle Earth, just against people publishing a game set in Middle Earth with the inevitable changes to his father's vision that would entail.

I mean, look at MERP. It does a decent job with the source material but also takes a hatchet to it at times.

Apparently the Hobbit movies (2) will feature material from the Silmarillion to do with events between the Hobbit and LotR and that C. Tolkien has dropped legal objections after a lawsuit for unpaid royalties from New Line Cinema was settled out of court.

Even more apparently Viggo mortensen gets to be Aragorn again (presumably in film 2).

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;363991Apparently the Hobbit movies (2) will feature material from the Silmarillion to do with events between the Hobbit and LotR and that C. Tolkien has dropped legal objections after a lawsuit for unpaid royalties from New Line Cinema was settled out of court.

Even more apparently Viggo mortensen gets to be Aragorn again (presumably in film 2).

Yuk.

The Hobbit is so easy to film the way it is. I don't know why they have to dick around with it and make it into two films.

Oh wait, yes I do. LOADSA MONEY.

Quote from: jibbajibba;363875Any one know why Christopher Tolkein and the estate are so anti merchantising?

I don't think that he is completely anti-merchandising.

One can argue that the Tolkien calendars (that frequently portrayed scenes from the Silmarillion) and Karen Wynn Fonstad's wonderful Middle-earth atlas (which included Silmarillion geography and history) are de facto merchandising.

I'm not convinced that a LoTR RPG "needs" to have Silmarillion stuff in it.  The vast majority of tolkien fans (the ones who got into LoTR through the movies) have never actually read the Silmarillion, only the more dedicated Tolkien-nerds have.

RPGPundit

Call me a pessimist, but i expect a similar game to WFRP 3e.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;363991Apparently the Hobbit movies (2) will feature material from the Silmarillion to do with events between the Hobbit and LotR and that C. Tolkien has dropped legal objections after a lawsuit for unpaid royalties from New Line Cinema was settled out of court.

Even more apparently Viggo mortensen gets to be Aragorn again (presumably in film 2).

I read an interview with Del Toro that said they are going to include the Coucil meeting at Rivendel. they felt it tied the films togehter well (ie the Hobbit and LOTR) gave some exposition about why gandalf leaves the group and built the film up to 2 movie length. The issue they had was that the hobbit comes out as too long for a single film but too short for 2 movies so the council and I think the flight/pursuit of gollum lets them provide some continuity, bring back some old characters like Aragorn, and bulks it out to 2 films.

Unlike most gamey geeks I love the three Lotr movies. I have some exceptions, the Deadmen of Dunharrow are too easy and the supposed loss of Aragoron to give some emotional tension to The Two Towers but the rest of it I agree with and Arwen is a far stronger character and that makes that key romance work so much better.

But back to the RPG. Its not an easy one. You don;t need to knwo the Simlarilion to get the LotR but the LotR itself is a hard setting to game because of the huge imbalances in power. If only Maiar or ring wielders can cast spells, if elves are as superior as they are in the books then the only balancing effect is character and that is a hard one for designers to leave alone.