Wizards of Middle Earth

[algi]

I have this little game idea, but I don't know where to start, what to care about, I just know what I would like to achieve. I noticed reading LotR, that one of its levels is the strategy of the wizards, namely that of Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron. Each of them has some similar, but unique special abilities. For example they all have the special ability of persuading people: Gandalf somehow knows the place of the people and pushes them gently, Saruman has the Voice, Sauron is lying all over. They all have a great "willpower" and they all can move armies if they want (the Free Peoples, Orcs, etc.), and they all have some physical power.

I'm thinking about a board game that could be extended to become a role-playig game. The map of Middle Earth is the board and the players are wizards. They raise armies and lead them against each other. Noone is better then the others. Gandalf is not "Good", Sauron is not "Evil", they just have different powers.

I was thinking as a core similar to the Dune of Avalon Hill, and I was thinking about just modifying the game rules for Dune. Maybe it could become a "mod" or something like this for Dune with a different map. But I really would like to know where you would start developing this? With the interaction between the board and the wizards? With the interaction of the players with each other? Something else?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I guess I'm not seeing where the role-playing is. What you're describing sounds to me, at most, like playing a board game and talking in a funny voice to act-out a character at the same time. Can you help me understand better what you have in mind?

Best, Ron

[algi]

Hi!

Well, actually the core of it could work as a stand alone board game, just like the combat mechanic of D&D. As I noticed the core mechanics of each and every RPG should work as a stand alone parlor game. As I see it roleplaying comes in when it makes a difference what the players act out. I think at least one of the mechanics could be based on this acting out dramatic game.

The real problem is I myself really don't see how exactly should it work. My opinion is that it could become an RPG, although it would have less roleplaying in it, than D&D has. (I hope we all agree that D&D is an RPG.) Or better phrased: it would have less conflicts that are based on the dramatic play, although it could become very much more important part of the game, than any other mechanic.

That is one of the things I'm not sure of. Whether it should work as an RPG. I would love and I really want to do this as an RPG, but it would be okay for me if it turns out that it is not possible. This is one of the reasons that I posted this, to see if someone else sees the hope for this to be an RPG.

This is really just a stray first thought, not at all thought through, just a setting: I know what the characters should do (weaving strategies and battling against each other), I know what the game would be about (the battle of wizards of ME), but I don't know what the players would do, and that is what makes a game roleplaying.

Maybe the mentioning of Dune was misleading. I really could use D20 for it. It's not that either of them would be optimal, it's just I would like to toy around with this idea and see if it would work as an RPG.

I hope this answer is satisfactory. Maybe the thread title should've been Make my Idea into an RPG.

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Well it seems like you need some non-board interaction and of course story. Story seems to be mostly missing. Sounds great to be a powerful wizard raising armies, but if it's a "Risk" affair with opponents facing eachother and not much else, it's a board game, nothin' wrong with that. But if yoiu have some sort of play outside of what happnes on the board with your armies, particularly on a scale smaller than the armiers fighting then it could be an RPG. But then that begs the question of how do you run that game as an RPG without a game master, and if there isn't one, what sophisticated mechanics are you gonna come up with a la Universalis to determine who narrates?

What you could conceivably do is have a game where each person takes turns narrating in order like a board game, but that begs the question, what does each narrate?

[algi]

Ron's post prompted me to think about it and I think I have already some interesting ideas. One of the most crucial points of this game would be interacting with Middle-Earthers, that is NPCs. Persuading the kings of the Free Peoples to fight for your cause and interacting with each other. I think it could work to have some mechanics wich would prescribe who should play wich NPC in the face of wich wizard player. Although I think it would only work if I would drop that the players are competing to win the war. Unless I can come up with some very great mechanics wich would assign NPCs to players that it wouldn't become boring. (I mean who would say yes to the enemy?)

Wich means most probably that the outcome of the war would only be an interesting thing, but not the point of the game. Or if it would be the point of the game, it would only be interesting: what outcome will be if we do this and that, and it would work like a model for the players.

I don't really understand what you mean under story. As I see it you don't mean the row of happenings and deeds, wich is there even in Risk and Monopoly. Do you  mean that "anyithing can happen"? I mean, if the rules are about the map and the armies, than the scenario could be for example "one of the wizards lost an important token of his power and is found by some halfling" wich isn't handled in the rules and can happen anything at this level. For example you could change it that some magic toy of Saruman is lost and a young goblin found it. Or something else with more imagination and fantasy. That could be a story wich is handled totally by the players and has a great impact on the war fought on the table.

I'm thinking whether this board game idea has something to do with this, because why not throw out the board on the window and just play the scenario about that token of power? I'm not sure whether this should/could be one game or two different games, and I don't want to remake MERP, nor anything similar wich would be about the scenario part. Maybe it was a failure to post this idea on this board, because the requirement to make it into an RPG is a very heavy burden on this game. I don't want to make it into a sweated RPG instead of a fun boardgame, if it won't lend itself to become an RPG.

[greyorm]

Well, actually the core of it could work as a stand alone board game, just like the combat mechanic of D&D. As I noticed the core mechanics of each and every RPG should work as a stand alone parlor game. As I see it roleplaying comes in when it makes a difference what the players act out. I think at least one of the mechanics could be based on this acting out dramatic game.

If you tie portions of the war's success to the dramatic role-playing aspects of the game, you have an RPG wrapped in a broad-scale wargame. If you are playing the parts of officers and generals, even the wizards themselves, who must convince allies, terrorize enemies, foil maneuvers by enemy generals, find lost artifacts, and so forth, and all this occurs as singular scenes within the larger context of the war playing out across the board.

I don't know if you've ever played, for example, Birthright (even the computer game by Sierra), or RSI's play-by-mail Hyborian War, but those have some interesting ideas that might be incorporated into your own game. They both involve moving from the large-scale overview to the small-scale actions of individuals (the former more than the latter).

Ultimately, what I'm (badly) trying to say is that your answer seems to be that when each player attempts an action, a short role-playing scene central to the resolution (success/failure) of that action should take place and have a significant influence on the outcome, if not decide it.

There's little else I can suggest specifically without some idea of the mechanics of the whole. But if one is using a dice pool, the role-playing scenes might result in additional dice for the roll, or a bonus to a set number of dice, or something along those lines.

[algi]

Thanks. I thinking about similar things along the line. Unfortunately I haven't played either of the games you mention. The problem is with how the singular events influence the war shouldn't be only some mechanical result, because then it won't be a question who decides what. I'm still waiting for the enlightment wich will come sugganly out of thin air, wich will tell me how to do these scenes without the possibility for the players to degenerate it to a "Okay, what woul you give for three dice?" Because that won't be any different then the "singularity" of the boardgame Dune where you can make alliances, but it won't make it an RPG or something similar to the bartering of Monopoly and other boardgames. I really would like to avoid that.

[Callan S.]

Well, have a look at the riddle of steel - each spiritual attribute is just pure, cold mechanics. Then players stick on some issue, like 'loves his son' or 'avenge the slain' or 'will regain control of the pirate fleet' or something.

If your game is about taking territories, each of them could be assigned an issue invented by a player. Though it's very different to riddle of steel, mechanically - riddle of steel is very cuddly in terms of issues, throwing rewards at players for engaging them imaginatively like an indulgent parent pouring sweets on their child. A territory with an issue gives its reward once (when you take it) and can be lost again. That's not very cuddly - if you go this way, prolly a good idea to look into making it more cuddly.

Anyway, to summerise - considering charging territories with issues beforehand. The ensuing boardgame will emperil or endanger these in various unforseen ways. Hell, something kind of like this works for capes - that's an absolute no roleplay boardgame, if you remove the issues.

[algi]

Callan,

If I grab your suggestion and LotRishize it, I get: to persuade a king for example the players should prove himself/herself in some moral/humane quality or challenge the king somehow. Gandalf for example succeeded persuading Théoden, and succeeding raising the army of Gondor, although at what cost? He couldn't persuade Denethor. Saruman didn't succeed persuading Fangorn, although he thought he did. Saruman succeeded persuading the wild people who later attacked Helm's Deep. Sauron managed to persuade many peoples in the East and in the West.

Although in this case it has no meaning playing in West ME as LotR was set, but who said you have to? There is still the North and the East and the South, etc., and who said that there should be only two blue wizards? Actually who said that it should set on ME? Wich means the players could set up the board and deciding about these challanges of morality at the beginning of the game.

Now this is starting to look like something more interesting, than what I saw in my mind at first. And last I can use my favorite mechanic: the players themselves write the cards wich are played in the midst of play. With notes like "Are you noble enough?" or "We want more wealth".

I think you, guys, found for me the right track.