Roleplaying: Middle Earth
Jul. 18th, 2004 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharplittleteethRan the penultimate session of my Middle Earth roleplaying chronicle yesterday.
It's been good. My skills as a GM are a bit rusty, but I'm enjoying it.
Part of the appeal of running a game set in Middle Earth is that the players all have at least a passing idea of what the world looks like, who the major factions are, and how thier characters are expected to behave.
But there is another appeal - for all its beautiful elves, frolicking hobbits and endless endless songs, Middle Earth is a world heavy with sorrow. Despair is the real enemy, far more than Sauron and his orcs.
Tolkien lost all his circle of friends in the trenches of World War I. That loss tolls all through his works.
But Tolkien is no nihilist. There is always hope, he tells us. It may by tiny, reluctant, and come from the most unlikely places. But there is always hope. And with it, we can drive the darkness back.
---
I got inspired to run some Middle Earth roleplaying after watching the making-of documentaries on the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD. Bought the official RPG rulebook. Decided I didn't like it (too complicated, combat underpowered). Wrote my own rules. Pored through websites and chronologies and English-to-Sindarin dictionaries. And so plotted out a story.
The heroes (a hobbit, a ranger, an elf and a dwarf) travelled to the Lonely Mountain to help King Bard rebuild Dale after the death of the dragon Smaug. But the dragon's foulness had poisoned the land. So, guided by an Elvish prophecy, the heroes went in search of a cure. On the way they angered Shelob's sister, woke an Ent from millenia of sleep, and saved Dale from an army of orcs lead by one of Sauron's pet werewolves.
Epic stuff, for a three session game.
But the players enjoyed it, I think we nailed the atmosphere pretty well, and so the tale grew in the telling. My ideas expanded into a trilogy of three session "books".
In Book II, tensions between the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Dale exploded. There were fights. King Bard's betrothed was found murdered by a Dwarven axe. Bard took his army up to storm the Mountain. It was up to the heroes to find who was really behind it all: the spider Gornaneth, sister to Shelob, whom the dwarf had made an enemy of in Book I by falling into her lair and then cutting off one of her legs.
We're two sessions in to Book III. Gwathgaur, the werewolf from Book I, is gathering a new army at Dol Guldur. The heroes have led their own army there to slay the beast before its forces grow too strong. Last night's session was the preparations before the final battle. They talked strategy with the Elves of Lothlorien, and each character had a flashback sequence which bascially asked them the question "who are you?".
The last session will mostly be combat, I suspect, and I thought it was important to flesh out the characters before it all ends. Props to the Angel finale for inspiration there.
There were some technical problems (I lost my map and the remote for my CD player), and my acting range seems to only stretch to two types of NPCs - grumpy men and pensive women. Still, I think the players enjoyed it. And it was great to see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andricongirl speaking up and getting into character as the annoyingly cheerful hobbit.
The final session is next Saturday. Stats for the werewolf have been written up. There shall be blood, and battle, and very probably death.
It's been good. My skills as a GM are a bit rusty, but I'm enjoying it.
Part of the appeal of running a game set in Middle Earth is that the players all have at least a passing idea of what the world looks like, who the major factions are, and how thier characters are expected to behave.
But there is another appeal - for all its beautiful elves, frolicking hobbits and endless endless songs, Middle Earth is a world heavy with sorrow. Despair is the real enemy, far more than Sauron and his orcs.
Tolkien lost all his circle of friends in the trenches of World War I. That loss tolls all through his works.
But Tolkien is no nihilist. There is always hope, he tells us. It may by tiny, reluctant, and come from the most unlikely places. But there is always hope. And with it, we can drive the darkness back.
---
I got inspired to run some Middle Earth roleplaying after watching the making-of documentaries on the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD. Bought the official RPG rulebook. Decided I didn't like it (too complicated, combat underpowered). Wrote my own rules. Pored through websites and chronologies and English-to-Sindarin dictionaries. And so plotted out a story.
The heroes (a hobbit, a ranger, an elf and a dwarf) travelled to the Lonely Mountain to help King Bard rebuild Dale after the death of the dragon Smaug. But the dragon's foulness had poisoned the land. So, guided by an Elvish prophecy, the heroes went in search of a cure. On the way they angered Shelob's sister, woke an Ent from millenia of sleep, and saved Dale from an army of orcs lead by one of Sauron's pet werewolves.
Epic stuff, for a three session game.
But the players enjoyed it, I think we nailed the atmosphere pretty well, and so the tale grew in the telling. My ideas expanded into a trilogy of three session "books".
In Book II, tensions between the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Dale exploded. There were fights. King Bard's betrothed was found murdered by a Dwarven axe. Bard took his army up to storm the Mountain. It was up to the heroes to find who was really behind it all: the spider Gornaneth, sister to Shelob, whom the dwarf had made an enemy of in Book I by falling into her lair and then cutting off one of her legs.
We're two sessions in to Book III. Gwathgaur, the werewolf from Book I, is gathering a new army at Dol Guldur. The heroes have led their own army there to slay the beast before its forces grow too strong. Last night's session was the preparations before the final battle. They talked strategy with the Elves of Lothlorien, and each character had a flashback sequence which bascially asked them the question "who are you?".
The last session will mostly be combat, I suspect, and I thought it was important to flesh out the characters before it all ends. Props to the Angel finale for inspiration there.
There were some technical problems (I lost my map and the remote for my CD player), and my acting range seems to only stretch to two types of NPCs - grumpy men and pensive women. Still, I think the players enjoyed it. And it was great to see
andricongirl speaking up and getting into character as the annoyingly cheerful hobbit.The final session is next Saturday. Stats for the werewolf have been written up. There shall be blood, and battle, and very probably death.
