Tolkien style chronicle suggestions?
Hello
I bought the game book a long time ago out of curiosity. I knew it may have a very slim chance to get used to but nowadays I have started think that maybe if I can come up with a good enough chronicle I could persuade some gamers into the game.
CODA itself is very familiar, we play Star Trek game now and then. Most of our gaming time goes into Forgotten Realms / D&D 3e.
That's the biggest problem. I have (and I know that players have too) quite high expectations if we go into Middle Earth game. Game should feel like it is part of Tolkien's world not just D&D in another setting. That would definately ruin Middle Earth.
So, ideas anybody? =)
As for time era I am still uncertain. I migth like to do 2nd age or 3rd age game. 4th age would have it's appeal (unwritten future) but that would be the most low fantasy setting of all those.
Granted, some dangers still would exist in Middle Earth but nothing very grand. Humans of course would start to expand and 4th age would almost certainly rule out possibilites of using elves as characters but not entirely.
Surely 4th age would give a very free setting.
In 2nd age would be a lot of action (or anticipation of it) and in 3rd age waiting for future..
Apart from high fantasy style I'd like something more 'real'. Middle Earth was never very flashy in magic and when monsters roamed it's hills they really roamed there. They did not wander.. =)
First I would need to find a suitable place for setting. Gondor and Rohan have their appeal and so does Bree.
Most of Middle Earth (west) is quite unihabitet I gather. How have you handled this in your chronicles? For example in 4th age, how did humans expand their circle of influence over wild lands?
And for chronicles itself. I don't want a monster hunt campaing this time. We have enough of those in Forgotten Realms.
Surely, there can be orcs and other nasties but big wars and expectations have been present a lot.
Maritime adventures would be interesting but how do you get a lot of appeal there? =) Sea voyages were adventures of their own but for ordinary people sea voyages are usually passed quite smoothly.
What would make a group of people (2 to 6 say) to go on and leave their home turf? In Tolkien style and feel.
Thank you for any ideas you contribute.
Vesku
Re: Tolkien style chronicle suggestions?
Quote:
Originally posted by FDor
What would make a group of people (2 to 6 say) to go on and leave their home turf? In Tolkien style and feel.
One theme might be recovering an ancestral item or homeland - a common-enough theme from fantasy games, but one particularly true to the post-War of the Rings setting.
Dwarves are eager to reclaim Moria now that Durin's Bane is gone - though it is still teeming with Orcs.
Esgaroth and the lands surrounding the Lonely Mountain were torn by war during the final battles, though this battle brought the Dwarves and the Dale-folks closer together.
One "realistic" touch you might make is to ask players to play characters who aren't necessarily fighters - such as Craftsmen, Loremasters, Nobles, and others who might help in the reconstruction in the wake of the War.
As King Ellesar is struggling to unite his domain, and to aid those subjects who need it most, characters could be sent to an area hard-hit by the war, and find themselves embroiled in trouble which was not fully eradicated.
Unfortunately, too, this is a time when many old rivalries are likely to be surfacing once more - perhaps a group of Rohir are dispatched to the far north, to Framsburg, to see what has befallen their old homeland, abandoned long ago. Now inhabited by other Northern races kin to Dunlendings, or even Beornings, perhaps some difficulties might ensue.
Or a Dwarven embassy might return to Meduseld demanding some share of Scatha's treasure - which they have seen pieces of while aiding the Rohir rebuild Helm's Deep.
My suggestion is to review the trilogy and see the buried bits of backstory or lore which could be revisited - the Appendices and the post-war chronology is rich with seeds for adventure and conflict. Even Tolkien's tenative Fourth Age story "The Return of the Shadow" (I think that is the title) has hints of Sauron-worship in Minas Tirith long after the War of the Ring.
