LOTR Advice needed

[Aldaron]

I've had a flick thru the LOTR (CODA) at my local game store, and I must say I'm impressed.

I flirted with MERP (from ICE???) many moons ago, but never went anywhere with it, and I'm sort of equivocating about getting the LOTR game now.

My main question is: is it playable? Not from a game mechanics POV, but from a story POV?

I mean, we know what happens after the end of Return of the King - Sauron dead, evil critters dying off, elves shuffling off to the Grey Havens.

Can there still be a "Middle Earth" feel about it? Or does it simply become another stock fantasy setting?

In other words, how do people go about getting the Tolkienish feel to their campaigns without involving them in what we know is the really important stuff?

I'm rambling a bit, I know. It's late, and the question just occurred to me, but hopefully people sort-of know what I'm talking about.

[Ineti]

The LOTR RPG is wonderful, especially from a story standpoint.

I knew nothing about LOTR before the film came out, other than that it was a book I was "supposed" to read, but could never get into. The film came out, blew me away, and I attacked the book with new vigor. I got through FOTR, and am in the middle of TTT now.

Reading just the RPG book gave me tons of plot ideas not related to the main story going on in the books/movies. I don't know the history of ME all that well, but I put together a couple stories and will be running them soon.

Even reading the first book of TTT gave me many plot hooks.

And I love the Coda system. It's so cinematic in feel.

[Greg Smith]

The book does give a few ideas for campaigns. It suggests setting your story either between the Hobbit and LotR or after LotR.

There is a nice example of a short campaign regarding a sorcereror who has taken the Witch King's place. IIRC. Of course there are plenty of big nasties still around, and did all of the elves leave Middle Earth?

The book's position is: just because Tolkein never wrote about it, doesn't mean that jolly important stuff didn't happen before or during the war of the Ring. And there are plenty of big nasties still around afterwards, and did all of the elves leave Middle Earth?

Plenty of adventure options, IMHO. Go buy it.

NOW!

[Ineti]

My limited knowledge of ME tells me that there are still some palantirs unaccounted for, as well as possibly some of the assorted rings.

Lots and lots of adventures could be built around those.

[Sarge]

Another possible story before LotR would involve the attack on the fortress of Dol Guldur in southern Mirkwood. IIRC, Gandalf said that the dark lord of Dol Guldur was Sauron, but he hadn't reached his full power yet. He was driven from the fortress and the Council thought they had won a real victory. There don't seem to be any details on this attack, so it shouldn't be hard to come up with an original adventure based on that incident.

[Owen E Oulton]

Um, isn't this the wrong forum? This is the Star Trek General (i.e non-CODA) Role-Playing forum. Shouldn't this be in the CODA System or General Chat fora?

To quote Admiral Don:
"This board has been expanded to cover all Star Trek RPG questions, regardless of systems. Questions regarding Icon, FASA, or even GURPS are allowed here. Please denote in your topic header (if applicable) the type of system in question.

For non-system-specific questions, simply post away!

Decipher (Coda) system questions are covered in their own forum."

[Aldaron]

My mistake, sorry.
I saw the "General RP Systems" title and...well, as I said, it was late!

I'll ask the moderator to move the thread to the appropriate spot.

Thanks for the tips, guys...it's got me thinking seriously about buying it!

[Sho-sa Kurita]

Even if you didn't want to run Middle Earth, I'd still get it just for the magic and corruption systems, as well as CODA design in general.

-- Daniel

[AslanC]

The 4th Age is a wide open door to play in as Tolkien only really accounts for vagaries in in, and specific undertakings of King Aragorn.

Do a google sreach and stuff should turn up.