A Lord of the Rings RPG?

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Why not use the Infinity Engine for a Lord Of The Rings to make a similar RPG to Baldurs Gate, set in Middle-Earth?

The prospect of using a Buckland Hobbit to combat the idiotic forces of Bree Hobbits almost makes me drool!

 

Yeah that be so cool, although I think it would be better in the style NWN is going to be. But that could be a shitty game....


I have already discussed this topic, under a different name(DragonSlayer21)
http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000502.html

[This message has been edited by Turambar (edited October 28, 2001).]

 

Yeah, good idea. You go ahead and do that.
Just remember to get the licence to do it first...
There will probably be a game out shortly after the first movie though.
But why would you want to do it with the Infinity engine? Isn't that engine a bit old nowadays?

 

Eletronic Arts owns the licences, so they will make a lot of games, I think. Will they be any good? I don't know...

 

I'm a bit confused now. Has LoTR ever been translated into an RPG game. If not, what would prevent it from using a DnD game engine, since it would have no basic rules of it's own? I think the basic DnD rules can work with any setting; all it would take is changing around the some of the other things like a few classes or spells. The basic rules, not the setting mind you, are pretty general. If it has been, where can I find information on it? I'm interested to see what was done with it.

 

Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) has (or had?) the license for PnP games based on the Middle Earth setting. They put out a lot of fairly decent sourcebooks and adventures that were set during the era of the WitchKing of Angmar (ie after Elendil but before LotR). The sourcebooks were designed to be used either with the Rolemaster system or with MERP (Middle Earth Roleplaying), which was a simplified form of Rolemaster.

Rolemaster has its good points, but you would be better off using 3e IMHO. Rolemaster's success was essentially due to having a reasonable skill system (which D&D most definitely did not, at that time). Otherwise, its pretty cumbersome.

Addition: As for CRPGs based on LotR, I'm not familiar with any. There have been board games and card games, though.

Aloha
Vormaerin

[This message has been edited by Vormaerin (edited October 29, 2001).]

 

We can't have a LotR CRPG game. We all know the storyline, and the game had to be completely different from the book because of the lack of fighting (a CRPG without fighting would be boring).

But we could have a CRPG in the LotR world, with the characters from the book as interesting persons you meet. However, the book doesn't give you as much variety in for example monsters as the games we are used to.

 

heh, that's just a standard problem with any conversion from literature to a game. Most fantasy novels not based on a game don't feature the main characters seeking out combats for the heck of it. Even Conan doesn't look for extra combats! If you think the situation in fantasy is bad, you should look at the cyberpunk genre! Read Gibson or Sterling and then look at the games and go "huh?".

Aloha
Vormaerin

More commentary:
Hey, Mollusken, there is a lot you could do with a CRPG set during the Ring Quest. Tons of stuff was going on besides Frodo strolling over to Mt. Doom. The Kingdom Under the Mountain was besieged, Radagast and the Elves of Mirkwood were up to their eyeballs in problems, you name it. There are plenty of places like the Withered Heath and the Iron Mountains that are only mentioned indirectly, but could make good settings.

You could also set it just after the War of the Ring. I'm sure the new King has lots of things that need taking care of.

The real problem with Middle Earth, from a gaming standpoint, is that its pretty low magic. Essentially, every PC role is a fighter or, maybe, a rogue. The only good guys who do "magick stuff" are either Maiar (like Gandalf) or ancient elves from the First Age (like Glorfindel 2). Even that's pretty nebulous.

The LotR franchise is worth a fair amount of initial sales, but I wonder if the lack of "flash, bang, boom" would hurt too much. I don't know the marketing demographics enough to say.


[This message has been edited by Vormaerin (edited October 29, 2001).]

 

Some of the stuff out of the Silmarillion might lend itself better, set in a rather more violent age with more magic.

Throwing down Morgoth and capturing the Silmarillion. Hmmm mouth watering. Not sure about the romance aspect though..... perhaps a bit too sickly.

**Fingers seem to work independent of brain when I type!!! Perhaps they are dyslexic?**


[This message has been edited by Viking (edited October 29, 2001).]

 

The story of Turin in unfinnished tales by Tolkien is perfect. Combat since the day he was born and to top it all off, he actually fights a dragon at the end of the story.

And to have that in the style that NWN is going to be woulb be just perfect. With the toolkit it might be possible to make something like that, although with the wrong set of rules but still.....

[This message has been edited by Turambar (edited October 29, 2001).]

 

Vormaerin is right, Middleearth doesn't fit into the DnD rules, because there asn't too much magic in this world, and Dnd doesn't deal with the philosophical nature of the magic The MERP isn't any good, its rules are too strict. Maybe a storyteller system could be the solution: the rules are flexible, you can easily make any type of character you want, and it focuses on roleplaying.

 

Yep, TSR has a quite poor record with regards to plagiarism. In addition to Tolkien, they got busted by Michael Moorcock. I think they were using Leiber's Newhon stuff illegally as well, but bought the rights to do so after the fact.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

They did make a LOTR and a Hobbit RPG/Adventure, I think they are abandoned now though
http://www.tolkiengames.com I seem to remember the link as...

 

Not meaning to be a bummer ... but wouldn't the already constructed story line to this game already make it a tad bit too predictable? That is if it were to be released as an RPG. Nice idea though ...