Must haves, must nots, and maybes?

[Morfedel]

I have the main rulebook, and was wondering:

Regarding the other products already out for LotR, what are Must haves, what are Maybes, and what are No Go's?

Thanks!

[CorpBoy]

Originally posted by Morfedel
I have the main rulebook, and was wondering:

Regarding the other products already out for LotR, what are Must haves, what are Maybes, and what are No Go's?

Thanks!

Here is my point of view regarding the other products out:

1. Map set - nice if you are interested in that sort of thing (which I am) but seems overpriced ($30? I don't think so), so I'd say No Go.
2. FOTR Sourcebook - Contains good all around reference material (locations, people, events, etc.). For me a must have.
3. The "Adventure" games - I wouldn't advise wasting your money on these as they are just introductory adventures. No Go.

Edit - Also Fell Beasts and Wonderous Magic (not avail yet) - With new creatures and magic items, I'd say a must have for any GM, and at LEAST a maybe for everyone else. For me (I'm a player) it's a must have.

[Morfedel]

Isn't the Narrator's Screen out? What about that one?

And I hear that Hero's Journal is coming out like now, yesterday, or tomorrow - something incredibly soon. Obviously, its a bit early to say yet, but I'd love feedback on that too.

Thanks again!

[Ineti]

It depends on what you want/need for your game.

1. The Core book - Natually an essential.

2. The FOTR Sourcebook - An essential for me, if only because I wanted to see stats for everyone. The book also has a ton of info and adventure ideas for the locations in the book/novel, so I'd say it's useful.

3. Maps of Middle-earth. Hugely useful for me. I used a couple of the maps in my campaign to track the party's movements (from Gondor to Mirkwood) and it was really handy to have a map to trace and point out where the players were. The booklet in the set is useless, since it's a straight reprint from the Core Book.

4. The Narrator's screen. Errors aside in a couple of the tables, I'm getting a lot of use out of this too. Saves a lot of page turning in-game. And the intro adventure it came with was a good source of inspiration and format.

5. The adventure games are essentially useless to me, though they do come with a nice large map of Middle-earth (a larger version of the one in the core book on pages 34-35).

Don't know about the Hero's Journal, since I haven't seen it yet.

[Mijoro]

Originally posted by Ineti
It depends on what you want/need for your game.

1. The Core book - Natually an essential.

2. The FOTR Sourcebook - An essential for me, if only because I wanted to see stats for everyone. The book also has a ton of info and adventure ideas for the locations in the book/novel, so I'd say it's useful.

3. Maps of Middle-earth. Hugely useful for me. I used a couple of the maps in my campaign to track the party's movements (from Gondor to Mirkwood) and it was really handy to have a map to trace and point out where the players were. The booklet in the set is useless, since it's a straight reprint from the Core Book.

4. The Narrator's screen. Errors aside in a couple of the tables, I'm getting a lot of use out of this too. Saves a lot of page turning in-game. And the intro adventure it came with was a good source of inspiration and format.

5. The adventure games are essentially useless to me, though they do come with a nice large map of Middle-earth (a larger version of the one in the core book on pages 34-35).

Don't know about the Hero's Journal, since I haven't seen it yet.

I pretty much agree. The FotR Sourcebook is a good bet because of the info/adventure hooks alone. Stats for the Fellowship are a great bonus.

I would recommend the map set if the maps came:
a) not in a boxed set. I 'm not a fan of boxed sets - they get crushed too easily, and take up tons o' room on my shelf.
b) with a distance legend or hex overlay. I like to use maps in my games and these as is are pretty much useless to me, except to show my players the "general" area they need to be in or are starting in, etc. But they sure are purty.

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Mijoro
I would recommend the map set if the maps came:
a) not in a boxed set. I 'm not a fan of boxed sets - they get crushed too easily, and take up tons o' room on my shelf.
b) with a distance legend or hex overlay. I like to use maps in my games and these as is are pretty much useless to me, except to show my players the "general" area they need to be in or are starting in, etc. But they sure are purty.

I pulled the maps out of the box and tossed the box. Wasted space. The folded maps fit nicely into my binder.

As for distance legend, don't the maps in the Maps of Middle-earth set have distance bars on them? I was sure the Gondor map I used had a distance legend on it...

[CorpBoy]

Originally posted by Morfedel
Isn't the Narrator's Screen out? What about that one?

And I hear that Hero's Journal is coming out like now, yesterday, or tomorrow - something incredibly soon. Obviously, its a bit early to say yet, but I'd love feedback on that too.

Oops. Missed those two. Well, here's my opinion on them:

Narrator Screen - Even with the errors, this is good if you are a Narrator, otherwise don't bother.

Hero's Journal - Haven't seen it, but if it's a 30+ page glorified character sheet, I won't buy it. I'll have to reserve final judgement for when somebody does get it and tells us what's in it.

[Phantom]

The book I am awaiting is the Fell Beasts & Wonderous Items...I think it will be a must have (hope so anyway.)

The Trilogy sourcebooks I would put in the maybe category. I wasn't in any rush to pick it up when I flipped through it. Kind of highly priced for what you get, WW Mummy Players Guide was also in the store when I was there, cost less (by a couple of bucks) and was almost twice the page count. You can get pretty much the same info from other (cheaper) sources. However, I probably will pick them up sooner-or-later (later, I have more pressing things to spend money on...SG-1) as I am somewhat of a compeletest.

The Screen? My policy is if Don has very little good to say about a product...Stay away from it.

So long story short;
FB&WIs-Must have.
FoTR, TTT, RoTK Sourcebooks-Maybe
Screen-Don't need.

[Mijoro]

Originally posted by Ineti
As for distance legend, don't the maps in the Maps of Middle-earth set have distance bars on them? I was sure the Gondor map I used had a distance legend on it...

Hmmm. I don't remember seeing one - I'll take a closer look when I get home tonight.

[Greg Davis]

After pulling out my map set to check, it does appear that all of the maps from the boxed set do indeed have distance scales on them. Having said that, I still wasn't totally thrilled with the boxed set of maps, as it didn't include a map of the Mirkwood region. Still, I managed to get it for 1/2 price, so in that regard it was a decent purchase. Still though, I don't think of it as a 'must have', as there are many sites on the internet where Middle-earth maps are available (with many of those maps being of decent quality).

I do think that the Fellowship of the Ring sourcebook was a good purchase, and one that I'm glad I managed to get ahold of (as it appears that a lot of people are having some difficulty in finding it). Good adventure information, stats for the primary and many secondary characters and good location information made this a 'must have' for me.

As for the Narrator's Screen, I've never been one who liked to use screens during gaming (as I don't like the idea of hiding die rolls from players, since I don't like die rolls hidden from me). I don't mind a little book flipping now and then, and if it becomes a necessity to reference certain charts over and over again, I usually just photocopy or scan those charts and put them into a binder for easy reference (which usually saves a few dollars, too).

I didn't bother with the Adventure sets, since they were aimed as introductory products and didn't really seem to fit into the main product line (in terms of usefulness) but, at the same time, I think that they have their usefulness in terms of bringing people into the game who might not be fully into the idea. Still, though, if a member of a group already has the Core Book, and can run an adventure, then the gaming value of the Adventure sets are pretty limited, in my opinion.

As for the Heroes Journal, it's my understanding that it's primarily just an expanded set of character sheets and record keeping forms, perhaps with an adventure or something included. If so, then I'll be skipping this as well, as I generally either design my own character sheets, or use the fine ones produced by Patrick Murphy (he of the Mad Irishman fame).

So, to my mind there aren't that many great, useful products available for Lord of the Rings, as of yet. Still, the future looks bright, with the second boxed set of maps that will detail various strongholds of Middle-earth, the Two Towers sourcebook (in the same vein as the Fellowship of the Ring sourcebook), Fell Beasts and Wondrous Magic (who doesn't like creatures, spells and treasure tidbits?) and the Helms Deep sourcebook, recently revealed by Doug on the Lord of the Rings message boards run by Decipher, which will be the first in a series of location-specific sourcebooks.

Now, if I could just get my hands on Fell Beasts and Wondrous Magic, I could really get around to running the Middle-earth campaign that I've been planning...



Greg

[Mijoro]

Originally posted by Greg Davis
After pulling out my map set to check, it does appear that all of the maps from the boxed set do indeed have distance scales on them....

Yep. I stand corrected.