Why has there never been an iconic Middle-Earth roleplaying game for tabletop? Is it because MERP poisoned the well for everyone for so long with how bad it was? Is it because the licensing is a nightmare?
>>94410789Because Middle earth sucks dick as a setting to play in. And autists would riot once they realize Developers understood that and tried to make it more fun
>>94410789Merp
>>94410789The main problem is that Lord of the Rings wasn't written to create a balanced gaming setting, OP.Good luck making an enjoyable game when hobbits have half the strenght and toughness of other races, with no advantage beyond being underestimated by opponents. Or how elves just start out with max stats in all fields, with no drawback. Or how wizards aren't playable, just five NPCs scattered around the world.D&D is what you get when you take LotR and change the lore just enough that it works as a game.
ME cant be a game because it would only be fun if autists dont meta game it and guess what they would do 2 seconds in?
Set it during this time period
>>94411620based
>>94410789I think Burning Wheel provides a solid base to play a Tolkien-based game. It even has a good amount of difference between the different races.And I'm looking forward to play The One Ring, which seems to be a good game (but I've read plenty of criticism, so I don't know which version is better).
>>94410789Because the Legendarium isn't very "gameable" if you want to stay true to the lore. Some settings just aren't built to be games AND THAT'S OKAY.
>>94410789The Noldor ruin everything: The setting
The One Ring is a really good system though. It does a wonderful job capturing the spirit of the world in the mechanics, my group has been playing it for almost a year now.
>>94410983>>94412109Completely untrue. Moria is the quintessential mega dungeon. All of the books take place over literally thousands and thousands of years, with many thousand year gaps completely uncovered by the books. If you can't see how that is fun and easy to make gameable without breaking lore, you don't know what you're talking about and you are simply uncreative.
>>94411063>Or how wizards aren't playableYou can still be a magic user like galadriel, wizards specifically are a type of fantasy angel.
>>94411063Third post best post
>>94413286Came here to say this only to find it was already said.Unless your players are hellbent that their actions don't matter unless they're the ones to beat Morgoth or Sauron there's infinite possibility to adventure.
>>94411063Maybe if all you want out of your game is superhero shit.
>>94411620Why he never finished it bros... It could have been so good?
>>94410789There have been several. You just don't hear about them because they died during the ttrpg contraction in the early 2000's and their 40+ playerbase has moved on with their lives.
>>94410983>>94411063>>94412109These three posts are made by people that know nothing about Middle-Earth.
>>94413308He was very bad at finishing what he started and often went all the way back to his earliest stuff and started rewriting it again only for it to peter out. Also according to a letter he thought it was "too sinister" or something like that.People have commented that The New Shadow reads like a Tolkien political thriller by what little we have of it and that to me sounds fucking rad. No big epic quest this time but a bunch of weird cults and political backstabbing in the Fourth Age. I bet it would have been good given how much Tolkien learned about letting his characters drive the narratives while writing LOTR
>>94413346>No big epic quest this time but a bunch of weird cults and political backstabbing in the Fourth Age.That sounds fucking glorious. God now I want to read it even more.
>>94413286>>94413339And you'll end up with a generic fantasy game with Middle-Earth names. Trust me, I have done it. Two times in fact. It's not bad but if you have to make up gaps in a setting to make it playable then mind as well make your own setting.
>>94413518"Generic" in the sense that it doesnt have furries and other freaks? Sounds good to me.
>>94413518Just stop talking. Is obvious you don't know what you're talking about.
The One Ring is really good. It isn't "iconic" because Middle-Earth as an adventure setting does not have mass appeal over D&D kitchen sinks.
>>94413339>No, you are all wrong!Ok anon. Now point us all the games that refute those posts and prove that Middle-Earth is a good setting to play in. There must be many, given how big profile ME is
>>94413777IronicAlso - what a waste of a good trip
>>94413777d&d copied and shittified a lot of LotR ideas (alongside stuff like Conan, Elric, Dying Earth and a kitchen sink approach to folklore, mythology and religion), then other fantasy copied d&d.Understanding that, it's impossible for LotR to not feel generic nowadays.Hell, if anything the parts that would feel less generic are the weird or whimsical parts that people like >>94413530 hate.
>>94413834Heavenly trips prove the post right. You can keep seething, Satan.
>>94413915>Heavenly tripsThat's three 3s
>itt: terminally online faggots arguing with each other about things that only exist in their heads to bait each otherNone of you playsNone of you read through LotRNone of this has anything to do with the hobby.All you care about is 0.01 miligram of endorfin you get from a shitpost.
>>94413888D&D is nothing like Middle-Earth, period. Nothing you have to say holds any value when you depart from a false premise.
>>94413936>Nooo reading books and playing games is HARD! Nobody does it irl!You're just projecting.
>>94411063Third post best post.Fags still going "no true Scotsman" like retards.
>>94413888I don't hate the whimsical oddities of Middle Earth. I hate the (always sexual) degeneracy almost aways implied and baked in by "unique fantasy" settings of the modern era.
>>94414348>(always sexual) degeneracyThat was also common decades ago in edgier, pulp fantasy.The more "uniquely modern" degeneracy might be depicting the most disgusting crap as "loving adults in a consensual relationship" rather than depicting the same acts as shit that insane cultists do because they're insane cultists.
>>94410789Posting witch king stats in the loremaster system.Loremaster/Merp is highly iconic and loremaster is way fucking cooler than d&d ever was.
>>94411063merp1 dot free dot fryou are retarded nomerp
>>94410789Getting Middle Earth tonally right is hard. Also you run into the meta rpg problem where everyone wants to go kill Sauron but he’s an important metaplot npc and so you can’t . In addition, magical power or any power is inherently corrupting in Middle Earth. Your average d and d metagaming warrior trying to be the strongest is going to end up a slavering lunatic slaughtering innocents for practice at best or enslaved by some dark fell power at worst. The bad guys get all the cool powers while the good guys get spunk, courage, and faith, which are hard to give out as stat bonuses.
>>94410789I just want to know what the fuck was up with the Numenoreans, like, what the fuck made them so chad and based no one else wanted to deal with them
>>94410789He did nothing wrong
>>94414482I love MERP. It missed pretty badly on magic but the setting material is incredible. The Lords of Middle Earth splats were my Tolkien wiki before wikis existed.It's not too hard to get the magic in line though. If you replace mage and animist with sage and redistribute spell list DP to magical skills and languages the core works fine. Limit spell lists to 5th level and make sure the bulk of the magic comes from daily use and activation items. All the tools are there to Tolkienize the RM system. You just have to squint a little.
>>94416704Honestly this, Merp and Rolemaster are fucking great, but precisely because its not hyper focused on telling direct to line another Lotr or the Hobbit story. Instead they take the setting of these stories and expand it to create a dark ages deep low fantasy setting. Setting it in 1640 was also a great idea, even though some fans bitch and moan about it. Its set before the war of the ring by 1400 years, giving tons of wiggle room and with tons of conflict with the Arnor northern war and Gondor with the war against Umbar. With regards to magic, its entirely optional and these later supplements are not necessary to use, all of Merp is based on the assumption that its extremely low fantasy. Merp also still has an active community and fans keep making adventure modules for it. Plus the art if fucking great, way more grounded than Peter Jacksons take.
>>94415299In Merp's expanded middle-earth the Numenoreans basically influence the whole continent. It gives expanded backstory for the Witch-King and makes him part of the Numenorean royal family. While extremely high powered, because they have mastery over steel when other human cultures are basically bronze age, they are not "chad". They start to have extreme fear of death and become jealous of the elves even without Sauron's interference. The event of the first Numenorean king to not pass the throne before their death, is seen as the start of corruption. Aragorn in contrast willfully passes away and passes the crown to his son and Arwen does the same.Thus there is an in-universe explanation on why things like Middle-Eath sorcery or "black magic" exists, which is basically alchemy to extend life. Thus all things "sorcerous" in middle-earth are evil and traced back to Sauron's influence or more generally sapping and corrupting life to gain power, like the one ring does on max scale, also its almost always tied to a place or item, like the haunted Barrow Downs or the Morgul Blades for example. Honestly you can take Numenoreans as the Atlanteans from Howards Conan and Kull and little changes. If you take the Merp expanded canon, then Numenoreans are absolutely not uniformly good guys and I like this treatment of them.
>>94416891Another aspect of the Numenoreans that I like is that they are not really an absolutist monarchy. Diverting from the usual Tolkien trope of default monarchist feudalism, in Merp the Numenoreans have a "sacred king" who derives authority from Eru, but the rest of the Numenorean nobles since thousands of years have passed , are more like primus inter pares. This explains several things that are somewhat contradictory about Gondor in lotr, that looks a bit feudal when in fact its more like a political confederation. First why the kinslaying happened and why Umbar became independent. Besides Saurons meddling, Pelargir and Umbar were not inferior to Minas Anor or Osgiliath (the first capital), but equals. Thus Numenoreans in Umbar would claim they are more Numenorean than the Gondorians and derived pride from being superior Numenoreans. In contrast the Gondoreans felt forlon and were kind of morose after Numenor's fall and did not derive great pride from it. Gondor essentialy derived its culture from the "faithful" and spoke Sindarin in all official manners. The position of the Steward after the death of the final king of Gondo shows how they are extreme sticklers, archaic and resistant to change. By the time we are in Lotr's time, this confederation has almost broken down completely, Minas Tirith is basically according to Tolkien a decaying Contantinople and there are no more pure Numenoreans left. By this time Gondor is indeed feudal and has to call on each fief to answer its call for war. Aragorn is given the crown even though he is not of the line of Gondor's (he is though of Arnor) kings because Faramir is ok with it basically due to him saving Gondor. This was suggested before by the way after the death of Averdui but was refused by Gondor's leading families. All of this is sketched very broadly by Tolkien in the appendixes but never fully fleshed out. I think Merps realistic take on Lotr politics is pretty grounded and faithful overall.
