Quote from: danskmacabre;1018607Ok thanx, that's good to know.

So if I just get the Middle Earth Adventures Players guide only.  can I run the game with just that?
Or is the Loremaster guide an absolute necessity to run it?

For example, you can quite easily run DnD 5e without the DMG, but it's a nice to have.

What the Loremaster gives you in order is.
1) The Wilderlands setting and initial time-line
2) Describe Lake-town
3) A chapter of four page of pre-campaign advice
4) That explains specific rules in details like Rest, Exhaustion, Inspiration, Multiclassing,ec). (9 pages)
5) Getting into the nuts and bolts of Journeys (7 pages)
6) 18 pages of NPCs and how to deal with them focusing on Audiences.
7) 35 page monsters of middle Earth
17 pages of Wondorous, Legendary, and Healing Item.
9) 4 pages of commentary on magic in Middle Earth
10) And it wraps it up with more details on the Fellowship Phase.

Basically the "stuff" NPC, monsters, and items are as different from 5e standard as the classes are different. Much more low key and fits the tone of Middle Earth.
So it kind of needed but on the other hand, you could run a low fantasy campaign with just the first book. Except the 5e monsters and and 5e magic items don't feel very Middle Earth.

Quote from: estar;1018640What the Loremaster gives you in order is....

Yeah, that's a lot of pretty important content, even if you're just messing about with a test session.
So it looks like getting the Player's book and Loremaster book is basically an essential purchase, which is a bigger buy in.

That's what I like about the DnD 5e PHB. It's got everything you need to try it out, including a small selection of monsters and stuff at the back.

Still, when I have some spare cash, I might splash out and get the the Player's book and Loremaster book.  It'll probably be a fun read, as I've been a Tolkien fan for many years.

I think it's a fairly good emulation of genre.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1019017I think it's a fairly good emulation of genre.

Agreed. While the rules are still basically the 5E you've already seen, the feel of the books is a lot more Middle-earth than the regular 5E rulebooks.

Over the years I've played MERP, the Decipher LotR game, The One Ring, and others, and overall I think this is the version of Middle-earth I like best. (TOR had a decent feel as well, but I wasn't as happy with the rules. The other games never really felt like Middle-earth to me that much.)

Agreed. Though in some ways, it's a tough setting to play well. You can end up feeling pretty peripheral to the epic stuff that you as a player might expect of the game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1019764Agreed. Though in some ways, it's a tough setting to play well. You can end up feeling pretty peripheral to the epic stuff that you as a player might expect of the game.

Cubicle 7 handled that well by setting it in the Wilderlands after the Battle of Five Armies. From the Return of the King appendices we know stuff goes down but not detailed well. So there a lot of room for the PCs to eventually becomes the heroes in this area of Middle Earth.

The stuff for Bree, Rivendell, and Rohan also take advantage of the gap between the Battle of the Five Armies and the events of the Lord of the Rings. For example the Rohan material is set during the reign of Thengel the father of Theoden.

Setting it in some in-between-time certainly helps, but it's still not like they would get to be the fellowship of the ring.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1020002Setting it in some in-between-time certainly helps, but it's still not like they would get to be the fellowship of the ring.

You ran a long-term Legion campaign, were people who weren't Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or Green Lantern disappointed?

Part of the reason the War of the Ring happened the way it did is because people were kicking some serious ass up in the North, and Tolkien never got around to detailing all of that, although he thought about it.

Middle-Earth is probably the most expansively detailed fantasy setting that exists, and yet for so many people, if you're not the Fellowship, there's no point to play.  It's like saying there's no point to playing in Greyhawk if you're not Bigby and Robilar, or no point to Westeros if you're not Daenarys, or no point to the Realms if you're not Elminster.

Isn't the whole point of a "Living World", "World in Motion", "Sandbox Style" play that the PCs aren't the star of the show?  The PCs not being the Fellowship is the Feature for that sort of play, not the Bug.

Really the only difference between playing in the time between Hobbit and LotR and a standard sandbox campaign is that the in the standard sandbox, only the GM knows all the various factions and how things are likely to play out without PC intervention.  Playing in ME, we all know how things will likely play out without PC intervention.  But, if the PCs colossally screw the pooch in all the TOR campaigns, the War of the Ring might very well turn out differently.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020022You ran a long-term Legion campaign, were people who weren't Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or Green Lantern disappointed?
...
Really the only difference between playing in the time between Hobbit and LotR and a standard sandbox campaign is that the in the standard sandbox, only the GM knows all the various factions and how things are likely to play out without PC intervention.  Playing in ME, we all know how things will likely play out without PC intervention.  But, if the PCs colossally screw the pooch in all the TOR campaigns, the War of the Ring might very well turn out differently.

I would think that the TOR world is really quite good for sandbox games, and less good for scripted or quest games. In the latter, you run into the problem Pundy is describing--the greatest tale in that world has already been told. Yes, you can play characters who theoretically have an influence on the War of the Ring, just like killing the emperor and destroying two Death Stars aren't the only things the rebels have to do to defeat the empire in the Star Wars setting. But in both, only one party gets to destroy the ring/kill the emperor, and we know who that party is. A sandbox game set in that world ('we're in this world because you all already know it, and your goal is to just fight evil and adventure, there is no quest') would be better, I feel, than being Filbo and Stroder, who are tasked with capturing the outpost which secures the supply lines of the Variags, such that they cannot march west and join the war of the ring.

I think the difference with a long-term Legion campaign is that Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern are very rarely 'saving the world.' And even if they do once a year or so, they also stop random super-villain of the week, same as whatever Captain Expy the players decide to make up. Two of my favorite DC characters--Captain Marvel and Firestorm, if they weren't official DC characters could totally be characters some player rolled up for a campaign to battle crime 'along side' or 'the next town over from' Superman and Green Lantern, respectively.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1020002Setting it in some in-between-time certainly helps, but it's still not like they would get to be the fellowship of the ring.

Everything is connected, who to say what the PCs do wasn't an important foundation for the success of the Fellowship later on? Or what the PCs did allowed the Council not to worry about Wilderlands and Rhovanion as a factor in their planning. Not saying it easy creating a situation where that a possible outcome but it not rocket science either.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1020032I would think that the TOR world is really quite good for sandbox games, and less good for scripted or quest games. In the latter, you run into the problem Pundy is describing--the greatest tale in that world has already been told.

I been dealing with this issue for decades with the Majestic Wilderlands. By this point a considerable amount of the setting is a result of PCs screwing around. Some areas are effected by multiple waves of PCs doing their thing. What I learned that any quest is suitably epic if it is important to the circumstances of the players.

What makes Cublicle 7's take on Middle Earth so good is they add enough interesting details to the blank spots on the maps to allow the referee to create those circumstances for a given group of PCs.  While in the grand scheme nothing is as important as destroying the One Ring, other people in other lands have to deal with existential threats as a result of Sauron's machinations. In the end from the point of the view of the PCs it amounts to the same thing.

For example, while using Cublicle's stuff I have a few things of my own woven in. One of them resolves around Pallandro one of the Blue Wizards of the Istari that was sent to the east. He was corrupted by Sauron, and is tasked with preparing the Easterlings beyond the Sea of Rhun to act as the spearhead of the invasion of Erebor, Dale, and the Wilderlands.

One possible resolution would be the PCs find Alatar who is "lost" but not corrupted and convince him to help deal with Pallandro. If the PCs are completely successful the end result is that the Easterling are weakened enough to give the Free Peoples of Middle Earth a chance at military victory.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020022Isn't the whole point of a "Living World", "World in Motion", "Sandbox Style" play that the PCs aren't the star of the show?  The PCs not being the Fellowship is the Feature for that sort of play, not the Bug.

I see your point.  I think for some players, that idea doesn't work, because for those players, playing in Middle Earth is about affecting the main story.  That is, I don't want to run Middle Earth, because I want to run sandbox, but if I ran Middle Earth, the players would expect something plotted.  Of course I could get around it, but that's work I don't particularly find appealing.  It's the same reason that I so seldom run alt-history.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020022You ran a long-term Legion campaign, were people who weren't Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or Green Lantern disappointed?

Actually, in my Legion campaign the Players DID play canon characters: Ultra Boy, Sun Boy, Invisible Kid, Colossal boy, Chameleon Boy, Tyroc, Invisible Kid II, etc.

The problem is that while in the Legion you can make up new stories, there's really only one main story in Lord of The Rings.

I wrote about my initial impression of the AiME Players' Guide here: http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2016/09/initial-impression-of-adventures-in.html

Since then I've run a campaign (about 6.5 adventures, over 14 or so 3-hour sessions). It's still not over, though the characters are heading towards a big confrontation and the resolution of a number of personal quests...

Regarding:

Quote from: estar;1018264The Supplements
Are kick ass way better than any previous Middle Earth RPG included ICE's MERP supplements. I got all the books now including the The One Ring versions. Even if you don't ever use AiME or TOR the supplement are just great to have for Middle Earth Roleplaying.

I agree that C7's Middle-earth books are very good. But I'd put in a good word for a lot of ICE's MERP books. One complaint I have about C7's Rhovanion Region Guide is that it's surprisingly 'crowded' (there are a number of Northmen tribes never mentioned by Tolkien, a lingering Easterling tribe from the Wainriders' invasion centuries ago, some Anduin 'wild' Hobbits still around, Riverfolk traders, some lingering Eotheod tribes [they didn't want to go to Rohan for some reason?], etc.). In this respect, ICE's books on Mirkwood surprisingly deviate from Tolkien less than C7's take. (Of course, in other respects ICE deviates far more, as it relies on the MERP system, which is way too magic-rich for Middle-earth.)

One great thing about AiME is that it is relatively to translate MERP stats into 5e (or it is for me). So if you have a decent collection of MERP stuff, you can translate the stuff you like for your AiME campaign.  This is what I'm doing: drawing on both C7's AiME books and ICE's MERP books for my campaign.

Quote from: estar;1020043Everything is connected, who to say what the PCs do wasn't an important foundation for the success of the Fellowship later on? Or what the PCs did allowed the Council not to worry about Wilderlands and Rhovanion as a factor in their planning. Not saying it easy creating a situation where that a possible outcome but it not rocket science either.

This is my view as well.

But for those folks who fret about not the PCs not being able to be the 'main' heroes of the world, or that the great conflict is pre-ordained to be resolved in a particular way (as described in the LotR), one could always set a Middle-earth campaign in the Fourth Age. Indeed, one of my favourite published campaigns is the Palantir Quest for MERP. It involves a quest for -- surprise -- the lost Palantiri of Arnor in the early 4th Age.