Legends of The Land RPG

[Simon W]

Here is a game I am working on.

http://www.geocities.com/legendsoftheland/index.html

It uses Jeffrey Schecters "Legends of Middle Earth" as its basis. It is not all up yet, so you are viewing a "game in the making" and therefore feedback would be welcome, especially from those who have read the first Trilogy.
What should I include? What shouldn't be included? How do I handle the Haruchai/Bloodguard, without making them seem overly powerful. Are they a class or a race? Have I got it right. Ramen - are they a class or a race? Have I got it right?
Outsiders (eg Covenant, Hile Troy, Linden Avery) how do I deal with them?
I was thinking along the lines of having three "types" - those that have only just come to the Land with next to no useful skills, but maybe a handful of Story Tokens, those that have been in the Land a while with useful Land and non-land skills and few Story Tokens and those in between. Thoughts?
I am still working on great chunks of the game from notes I made years ago for D&D and the Chaosium percentile system, so nothing is really set in stone (A Gravelingas pun there, for those in the know) yet, as I convert it to Jeph's (Jeffrey Schecter)system.

Simon

[ghostwolf]

Hrm..

I don't know that there was a 'Common Man' in The Land.  Donaldson had his world fairly well deliniated between Stonedowner, Woodhelvin and Ramen.  The Lords, Lorewardens and Warward all came from these roots.  Actually, it's hard to determine whether Stonedowner, Woodhelvin and Ramen should be classes or races, since they're all 'men' per se.  The 'races' used were Haruchai, Giants, Cavewights, Ur-viles, Wayenhim, Elohim and Men, with men being classified by their origin.

I'm done rambling now....

[Simon W]

Hrm..

I don't know that there was a 'Common Man' in The Land. Donaldson had his world fairly well deliniated between Stonedowner, Woodhelvin and Ramen. The Lords, Lorewardens and Warward all came from these roots. Actually, it's hard to determine whether Stonedowner, Woodhelvin and Ramen should be classes or races, since they're all 'men' per se. The 'races' used were Haruchai, Giants, Cavewights, Ur-viles, Wayenhim, Elohim and Men, with men being classified by their origin.

I'm done rambling now....

No, there didn't seem to be a 'common' man, although I reasoned that the men of Revelstone who were born there may then be deemed intermingled enough to longer to have their Stonedowner/Ramen/Woodhelven stock. However, I may dump 'common man' anyway, as no-one would want to play one....

I agree too that it's difficult to determine whether they should be classes or races, but as you can have a Stonedowner join the Warward for example, then race would be better, because then you can have a Stonedowner (race) character, who is a Warrior (class).

Haruchai (who are also 'men' as far as I can work out) seem more difficult, because they seem to be able only to be Bloodguard. I am re-reading the books to get more of an insight though, so watch this space.

Any other thoughts on these issues anyone?

Simon
http://www.geocities.com/legendsoftheland/index.html

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Simon,

If I'm not mistaken, we probably ought to review the way this forum works. Are you talking about a game intended for publication? If so, it seems that you're working with licensed material - the Donaldson books are someone else's Intellectual Property.

So ... if you don't actually have that material licensed, it's off-limits for discussing in this forum - in fact, it could actually be construed as actionable.

Positive solution #1: bring up the very same topic in Actual Play, and talk about how your experiences of play and design are going.

Positive solution #2: change the game so that it is "inspired by the Land" rather than actually using it, in which case it's perfectly OK to discuss here.

Check out the sticky posts at the top of the first page for this forum to learn more about this and related issues.

Best,
Ron

[Simon W]

Consider it "Inspired by The Land". Will be changed accordingly and further questions raised later.

Cheers
Simon W