No real Surprise I guess. They lost the license. Technically they put the axe to the card game, but I assume the license was a package deal. Maybe not.

LotR licenses are pretty strange anyway. Rather restrictive in what you can use. Hobbit, LotR, Silmarillion, movies... I don't think we'll get anything really good until a good, healthy company gets all the bits in one place.

Part of the big problem seems to be Christopher Tolkein, actually. Playing Lord of the Rings Online, there is a lot of discussion abot what is and isn't allowed based on ownership. One company holds Hobbit and the Trilogy, Christopher Tolkein has all the rest of his father's works, so its tricky to know what can and can't be used, apparently.

I still think the RPG is a good, solid game. I hope that if anyone else gets the license to do an RPG uses the same team of designers, or at least cleaves close to how the game is designed.

I bought it on the expectation that I would be recieving as high quality a game as Star Trek was.

It was a massive disappointment.  Beyond the mechanical wierdnesses (All weapons are 2d6?  WTF?), it was just plain dull as dishwaterm and the writing was so dry it put me to sleep, I was never able to even finish reading the damn game.  

Star Trek was a great game, with mechanics that fit beautifully with the setting, and some of the best RPG writing ever, text so evocative that it made you want to play it, and filled your head to the brim with adventure ideas.  

LOTR was the exact opposite of Star Trek.

Quote from: J ArcaneIt was a massive disappointment.  Beyond the mechanical wierdnesses (All weapons are 2d6?  WTF?), it was just plain dull as dishwaterm and the writing was so dry it put me to sleep, I was never able to even finish reading the damn game.  

I cannot disagree more with this assessment. I actually ran a campaign with the game, and it was fast-moving, exciting, and fun to play. Easy to learn and run. Plus the writing was actually good - clear, concise, and certainly much less sleep-inducing than many games.

LotyR is a stupid idea for an rpg; what do you do other than copy the storyline of the books?

And to even consider attempting a middle earth rpg wihtout access to all the source material is luahgably ridiculous. No wonder Decipher's game tanked.

Where does it say the lost the license for the ccg? As far as i was aware they had the rights from the movie people, nothing to dow with the Tolkien estate.

Decipher were never planning to print the game endlessly; it was always meant to have a finite lifespan (though i think that was a few more years - still they have had a good run. It died here years ago anyway).

Quote from: signoftheserpentLotyR is a stupid idea for an rpg; what do you do other than copy the storyline of the books?

I don't even know where to begin. Middle Earth is a vast setting that can accommodate plenty of campaigns that don't bear directly upon the storyline of the books. I mean, why does everybody focus on the quest to destroy the Ring? Hell, the 4th age doesn't have the Ring at all to worry about, and the appendices in the books outline all types of things that went on then that would be suitable for long-term campaigns - the subdual of Mordor's erstwhile allies/client states/conquered areas, the destruction of Minas Morgul, the cleansing of Mirkwood, the cleansing of Mordor, etc. The Ring doesn't have to be the focus of a campaign; it's part of the background, both pre- and post-destruction. Its influence is there no matter what, but that doesn't mean the only thing worth doing is carting it to Mount Doom. It's akin to wondering why anyone would play Pendragon; after all, the Grail Quest had a pretty specific beginning, middle, and end that the PCs wouldn't be able to influence.

LotR isn't ME; ME is never going to be an official rpg, ever.

The LotR rpg that Decipher put out was broken, pretty and useless.

Unless you wanted fucked up rules for adventures that were just sub-lord of the rings storylines. Everything in the third age is geared around the Ring and Sauron. That's it. It's totally inappropriate IMO for roleplaying in just about every way.

And because they couldn't use the whole of Tolien's work, Decipher were hamstrung from the beginning. Didn't help that the game wasn't playtested at all.

Quote from: signoftheserpentLotR isn't ME; ME is never going to be an official rpg, ever.

The LotR rpg that Decipher put out was broken, pretty and useless.

Unless you wanted fucked up rules for adventures that were just sub-lord of the rings storylines. Everything in the third age is geared around the Ring and Sauron. That's it. It's totally inappropriate IMO for roleplaying in just about every way.

And because they couldn't use the whole of Tolien's work, Decipher were hamstrung from the beginning. Didn't help that the game wasn't playtested at all.

You just pulling things out of your ass?   There was an rpg based on ME it went under the clever moniker Middle Earth Role Playing.  It was basically Rolemaster light and had, at the time of it's release it was rather well known and had quite a good selection of supplements.

But back to the point there is a whole hell of a lot you can do with ME asside from just playing through the stories.   While I won't sing praises over Decipher's LOTR game, it's solid enough and isn't so limiting in it's scope that you are trapped to what you may have seen in the movies.

Quote from: kryystYou just pulling things out of your ass?   There was an rpg based on ME it went under the clever moniker Middle Earth Role Playing.  It was basically Rolemaster light and had, at the time of it's release it was rather well known and had quite a good selection of supplements.

I think ICE made the correct decision in setting a lot of the material a couple of thosand years prior to the events of LotR. Sauron is nowhere near the dominant force he was or will become, the politics are more varied and there's the whole issue of Angmar to deal with. It's a fun time to adventure in Middle Earth, and the history is sparse enough to accept all kinds of campaign-based variations without changing the complexion of the world significantly.

I played both MERP and LotR Coda. According to my experience, LotR Coda is VERY, VERY superior to MERP as a Middle Earth RPG. The despiction of magic, races, etc, was much better.

This doesn't mean I didn't like MERP. MERP is a very cool game, as a generic fantasy RPG, but it doesn't do Middle Earth very well IMHO, its rules don't capture the spirit of Middle Earth.

That said, I think LotR Coda should have had a 2nd edition to polish some rules, and to benefit from better organization.

Yep, that's about right. I'd say that MERP is the better game, but the CODA variant was better suited to the Middle Earth spirit. Due to the fact that I'm not a big Tolkien fan, that isn't a big win for me...

Apart from that, the system had its flaws. There's some promise in there, something like a streamlined D20. Yet I had some problems with the organisation and the combat certainly had some flaws, especially in emulating the genre. Uruk-Hais are supposed to be tough, but there was too much whittling down...

Quote from: signoftheserpentLotR isn't ME; ME is never going to be an official rpg, ever.

The LotR rpg that Decipher put out was broken, pretty and useless.

Unless you wanted fucked up rules for adventures that were just sub-lord of the rings storylines. Everything in the third age is geared around the Ring and Sauron. That's it. It's totally inappropriate IMO for roleplaying in just about every way.

And because they couldn't use the whole of Tolien's work, Decipher were hamstrung from the beginning. Didn't help that the game wasn't playtested at all.

Like I said, I actually ran the game for a few months. I didn't just sit and read part of it and pronounce it broken. And I'm saying it isn't any of the things you say it is.

The whole "LotR isn't ME" argument is meaningless. They used all the background available in the trilogy, which is a hell of a lot more  information to work with than most games based on a given property have to work with.

Quote from: ClaudiusThat said, I think LotR Coda should have had a 2nd edition to polish some rules, and to benefit from better organization.

I agree with that. The errata for the game, which wasn't very extensive, really, was still pretty important. And the organization of the core book sucks.