I'd like to address this subject more directly, and in a way that isn't just concerned with assignign ratings and heroic scales to characters, but addresses the whole issue of how the HQ toolbox could be adapted to LotR gaming. At some stage in my like I think it's inevitable that I'll want to run a game set in Middle Earth, I don't think I could consider my gaming 'career' complete without doing so, even though it may be many years hence.

It sems to me that while many of the core game mechanics from HQ would work very well in a LotR game, much of the glorantha specific infrastructure wouldn't. I'd like to make a clear distinction between what i consider core game rules and Gloranthan rules infrastructure.

The ability ratings system, augment mechanic, simple and extended contests, Hero Points and the keyword system but not the actual keywords themselves are core game mechanics. These are highly portable to other settings and genres, and while their application my vary in some nuanced ways, the rules stand.

Much of the game rules of HQ are glorantha specific, and while they may be portable to similar game worlds they won't be very applicable to many others. The magic systems are prominent examples of this.

I'd say that the notion of magical abilities in HQ, as distinct from mundane abilities, simply doesn't apply in Middle Earth. There is a form of otherworld in Middle Earth (the Wraith World), but it's totaly different from the concept of an otherworld in HeroQuest. Therefore the game mechanical distinction between mundane abilities that match against mundane difficulty ratings, and magical abilities that match against a dfeault resistance of 14 (plus modifiers for 'difficult magic') doesn't apply. All abilities in LotR work the same way as mundane abilities in HQ, and apparently magical abilities are merely the result of very high ability ratings. I sem to remember quotes from JRRT that support such a view, but I don't have references.

The next thing to say is that human magicians in ME simply don't exist. Forget it, in any game I would ever run it just isn't going to happen, and if magic just means a high rating then this is just a side effect of that. The only way you could get close is by playing a human characters with magic items such as palantiri, rings of power, and whatever other similar items you choose to include in your games. Now here I'd allow a considerable amount of leeway, even in character generation. Tolkien introduces ancient artifacts such as magical maps, rings of power, palantri and such whenever the whim strikes him. Why not do the same in your own games, and why not let your players start the game with odd bits and bobs that may turn out to be much more significant thatn they at first seem?

An important concept in HQ is relevent here. A character's rating in using an item doesn't necesserily tell you how powerful the item is, it just tells you how adept the character is at using it. For example, Frodo has some kind of an Invisibility Ring rating, but it's obviously not very high. The One Ring of Power may have huge power, but several times Frodo either cocks up using it or comes very close to doing so.

Perhaps the user only gets direct access to the item's full rating if they can overcome the item's true rating with their ability at using it (plus augments), thus mastering the item. Thus Galdriel might actualy be capable of mastering the One Ring and usurping Sauron's power. Frodo only has Use Ring of Power at 17 (maybe 5w later in the story) so he'll never truly controll it, but the ring augments that rating from it's power rating (say 10W6 for a +14 augment) to give him a usefuly high invisibility power. That might work.

So a magic system for LotR, for most purposes, would be more like an extended system for using artifacts, or for them using you! Artifacts would be handled in a similar (but diffferent) way to Followers or Allies in this regard. To make a complete system, you'd also need rules for creating such artifacts and investing power in them, though it would porbably be hardly used in the game unless you were playing in Beleriand perhaps.

Run out of time today, I'm afraid. This is a difficult subject, but an interestign one and if it can be made to work well would be an good stress test of the HeroQuest system.


Simon Hibbs

Some differences from glorantha:

limits to power advancement. In hero wars era glorantha, it's perfectly possible for a character to go from a nobody to being a literal god over the course of 10 years or so, and thats what the character advancement rules are scaled to. I don't think that is 'in genre' for middle earth at all, except perhaps for proteges of sauron.

character races. Elves are simply better than humans, in nearly every way. If you accept the argument that Legolas was a reasonably average wood elf, whereas Aragorn was the bestest human for 500 years, and Legolas would still win in a fight, then I'm not sure it is possible to create a plausible elf character at the default starting power level, unless you want to settle for a crippled outcast or something.

Tone. Theres certainly something different about the 'tone' of stories set in middle earth compared to Glorantha. Not sure how, and if, that needs relecting in a rules change. Maybe a change to the extended conflict resolution tables, to make them less random (e.g. remove the 'transfer' row, add in a 'both sides lose AP' row).

soru

I am respoding to the following quote:

soru wrote: ... character races. Elves are simply better than humans, in nearly every way. If you accept the argument that Legolas was a reasonably average wood elf, whereas Aragorn was the bestest human for 500 years, and Legolas would still win in a fight, then I'm not sure it is possible to create a plausible elf character at the default starting power level, unless you want to settle for a crippled outcast or something ...

soru

'Strange indeed,' said Legolas. 'In that hour I looked on Aragorn and thought how great and terrible a Lord he might have become in the strength of his will, had he taken the Ring to himself. Not for naught does Mordor fear him. But nobler is his spiritbthan the understanding of Sauron; for is he not of the children of Luthien? Never shall that line fail, though the years may lengthen beyond count.'" This does not strike me as the kind of thing someone who could easily defeat Aragorn in combat would say.

I agree that the advancement rate for a LotR game probably needs scaling back, but perhaps characetrs should start out more advanced than in HQ as well? Middle Earth just isn't a world full of adventuring parties of starting characters, and that's not the kind of game I'd want to run there.

On the Aragorn Vs Legolas front, the answer is in the quote: "for is he not of the children of Luthien?".

Aragorn is not your average human, he's descended from Luthien Tinuviel, 'the most beautiful of all the children of Illuvatar' and herself half elven and half Maia. In some ways his heritage is even more exalted than that of any pure blood elf.


Simon Hibbs

*Puts on Tolkien nerd hat*
Actually, I don't agree that Legolas was a "reasonably average wood elf".
Legolas was the son of Thranduil, The Elvenking of Mirkwood. Thranduil was a Sindar from Doriath, not a Silvan Elf.

Then there is the age of Legolas, which that is anyone's guess. There was a Legolas Greenleaf mentioned in the incomplete tale of the Fall of Gondolin. It is very unclear if it is the same Legolas. If it is, then Legolas is very old at the time of LotR. 6000+ years old.

Statting out Legolas becomes a stress test for any system. Keeping his skills within the realms of a system designed for mortals to become gods is problematic. If you don't think Legolas is that old, so you don't have to deal with it... Galadriel and Celeborn are around 9000 years old, Elrond is about 6000, even Arwen is nearly 3000.

Elves are a problem for any ME game. Most gloss over the facts by insisting on young elves as heroes and not considering the ramifications of elven realms being run by people with millenial experience at that job, who will not die or weaken, except to want to "Go West".

I do agree with Simon's point about magic. Very much so. I see no human spellcasters. I don't actually see any spellcasters as such. Just the day-to-day skills of beings that have lived longer than most of our human history and the items they've made to aid them in their lives.

Cheers

Graeme

I think that human spellcasters could be appropriate, but those would be dabbling in black arts. I would keep sorcery toned down, though. Most sorcerers would know small tricks. No fireballs! It is enstablished in the books that dominating others "magically" is possible. Grima does have some charms, does he not? Mostly I'd just go for smoke and mirrors though. The Finnish roleplaying game Praedor gave a good view on alchemists, who are humanitys only access to the mystical. (The sorcerers are not so human anymore. )

I have a character in one ME campaign that is considered to be a sorcerer by few of the other characters in the group. He seems to know things unknowable, his sight reaches far and he has access to all sorts of alchemical knowledge. Now, the far-seeing part may come partially from the hidden telescope, but the character does know very much about herbs and alchemy. Now, I think that if that character would ally with the enemy, he could cross the border of being a mundane wise man into a real sorcerer.

I invite you to look at the Middle Earth rules written for the Amber DRPG found here to help stimulate your thoughts.

Mac Logo wrote: *Puts on Tolkien nerd hat*
Actually, I don't agree that Legolas was a "reasonably average wood elf".

- Edited to note the cross post. The above answers some of the questions I'd have. -

Lots of good stuff. That Amber site is excellent for the quotes. From there, I think we can see that magic is more common than Simon gives credit for. It's not spectacular, to be sure, but it exists here and there. The problem is that we're never made aware the nature of such things in ME. But in addition to Grima, there's the Tongue of Sauron, for instance. Again, these people might just be siphoning off power from those who really wield magic (Maiar), but it's hard to say, really.

In general terms, the problem is that there's really only one culture being explored. That is, you have the "religion" of the elves and men, which is the pantheon of which the Maiar are part. And then you have worshippers of one of the Maiar come to dominate Middle Earth. Basically, think of all of Middle Earth as if it was Heortland with just Heortling myths. And, further, like Conan's Crom, the culture doesn't actually get any aid from it's gods. So you have nothing to base the whole HQ Gloranthan magic system upon.

The genius of Glorantha is that it has a rationale for how multiple pantheons can be thought to exist side-by-side in terms of making a system that describes the power of the gods as real. Interesingly, gaming has always had this since D&D, but only Glorantha with HQ makes it all make sense. Here, however, we've got a world that was designed, essentially, to be the myth of England. As such, it's two steps removed from HQ play. One step being that it's the myth, not the existance of the culture that belives in the myth, and it's only one myth as opposed to many existing together. So, yes, you have to throw out the whole Gloranthan end. But that doesn't mean you can't put in a new model to match Middle Earth.

Yes, I agree that you don't want people making D&D wizards from humans. But I think there's room for a form of Magic that's very Middle Earth in nature. Not too different from what's been suggested, I'd say that there's something like Common Magic, that takes the descriptions of skills. The effects of Magic would be in effect, however, for those concentrated in it. Most importantly the special resistance rule for Magic.

The one thing I totally agree with in terms of what the Amber site points out is that Magic is fleeting if it's not from an item. Only items have long term effects. This is an important theme in Middle Earth. Magic gets invested in things, and the being doing so loses some of their own power. All of it in Sauron's case (hence his destruction with the ring's).


As far as the whole Legolas Vs. Aragorn debate, I'd say that they each have their strengths. Legolas's stemming from his elven nature, and Aragorn from his heritage, which includes not only his blood line (which has been a tad diluted over 50 or so generations), but his destiny to be the king again. Lots of Leadership ability, etc.

Yes, Elves are generally better than humans. But I wouldn't say that they're all superhuman in every way. The thing you have to look at with an elf is how far back he goes. Most importantly, has he seen the light of the west. The reason that Glorfindel dwarfs even Elrond's potence is because he's from the First Age, and has seen the West. Most surviving elves haven't. The common elves of Mirkwood are probably not all that superior than humans, except for the whole immortality thing.

The problem with rating Middle Earth is that, outside of the Shire and Bree, the only folks that are encountered are the most important people in the world. Even in the very mortal realms of Rohan and Gondor, they only talk about the rulers and their progeny. Boromir is the most kickass Gondorian. Eomer is the most kickass Rider of Rohan. The only Dunedain we are introduced to is the king. They fight the most powerful beings in Middle Earth, left overs from previous ages like Shelob, the Balrog, etc.

So, the question with Middle Earth is the same as it always is. When do you play, and who do you play? This is the standard "known setting" problem. I encountered it when playing MERP. I think, in general, that people want to play in the Third Age (though if somebody wants to try the first or second age, that would be a different project). Assuing that this is the case, you have, essentially four options as I see them. You can play well before the war of the rings. This is the MERP 1600s option (there are 3000+ years in the third age). It doesn't really matter precisesly when you play too much. The second option is to play just before the war - call it The Hobbit option. The third option is to play during the events of the war. The last option is to play after the war at the beginning of the Fourth Age, essentially. They used to run an event at Cons called Ellessar's spring cleaning party in which you roamed aroung finding all the remaining monsters in Middle Earth and put them to death.

Do I have to relate the problems with each option, or are people fairly well versed in them? They mostly relate to the second question, which is who do you play. That is, if you choose, say, to play during the war, do you play the fellowship, or do you play somebody else? If somebody else, who can you choose to play that will still be dramatic knowing the world shaking events that are transpiring? Ron refers to this as playing in the Underbelly, and there was some substantial debate about it.

In general, if you play anyone before the events of the war, there's this sense that you can't disturb things. For example, if you're playing the 1600's game, and you hear about this guy called the Necromancer in southern Mirkwood (Dol Goldur), are you going to try and off him? What if you do? The fourth age comes early? If you can't deal with Sauron, then what is the GM going to put in front of you. Same question no matter who you play after the war.

The point is that most of Middle Earth is wrapped up in Sauron's influence. If you play outside of that, then what's the point? Why play in Middle Earth at all? If you do play in relation to Sauron, then can you alter history? How? Do we go looking for poor Smeagol? In any case, we know how that story ends.

I'm not saying that it can't be done. But you do have to make some definite choices about what the game is going to be about in relation to the already told story.

Mike

I'd like to get away from ratings and look at rules, which is realy what this thread is about. It's a tough subject because I think it requires edefining some key concepts in HeroQuest, but it's imperative to do this for a LotR game based on HQ to get anywhere.

The only characters with bona fide magical powers are very few in number, and most characters will only have access to such powers through artifacts. The way this works needs thrashing out though.

For a start, using magical power of any kind is very noticeable. It creates shock waves in the wraith world that other magicians can sense. How to model this? Well I suppose we could use the idea of a resistance to cross the barrier into the wraith world after all. Any attempt to sense active magic must overcome a resistance. The resistance may be augmented by distance, but the attempt to sense the active magic might actualy be augmented by the ability rating of the active magic being sensed. That way powerful magical effects become fairly easy to sense even over long distances.

Lets say a Palantir gives a Magical Vision 5w2 ability. A user of a Palantir has a 'Arcane Lore' ability. To master the Palantir and use it fully the user must overcome the resistance of the Palantir, if they can't then they only get limited benefits from it.

Merry comes across a Palantir and tries to use it to see where Frodo is. Merry only has Lore of Numenor (I think the Palantir where made there?) at 6, so he has no chance of overcoming the Palantir's ability of 5w2. As a result, he only gets and augment of +5 from the palantir to his Lore of Numenor, giving him a magical sense ability of 11. The Wraith World resistance is 14 (say) and Frodo is far away for a difficulty bonus of +10 so Merry must roll 11 against a resistance of 4W.

If Merry were trying to see what pippin was doing in the next room, that's much easier : 11 versus a resistance of 14. If Frodo were using the ring at just that time, then Frodo's ability with the ring would augment Merry's attempt to view him using the Palantir.

Gandalf tells Merry not to meddle in things beyond his ken and approaches the Palantir. He uses his Lore of Numenor of 15W, plus some augments or a HP and overcomes the Palantir's resistance. He can now use the artifact fully. That means using it's ability directly at 5W2, which he can augment using his own abilities, or vice versa.

I'm not sure this works very well. I think I'm going in the right direction, but I'm not quite there yet. For example, if Gandalf is good enough to overcome the Palantir's ability, then he's in the same ballpark in terms of ability rating. Therefore getting direct access to the artifact's ability rating isn't all that useful.

Any ideas?


Simon Hibbs

BTW a very useful web resource for any ME Narrator is The Encyclopaedia of Arda.
It contains a massive amount of cross-referenced info on every age of Middle Earth - it's a heck of a lot easier than trawling through the books for that one little piece of information. Especially if it's in the HOME books.

Graeme

simon_hibbs wrote:
I'm not sure this works very well. I think I'm going in the right direction, but I'm not quite there yet.
Any ideas?

Donald,

A long while back I was thinking of using Amber as a basis for a LotR game, which has similarities to this.

Many RPGs differentiate between skill/finesse and power. In combat systems these are combat skill and your damage roll. In RQ magic they were the spells you knew and your POW. HeroQuest tries to get away from that so while a seperation of this kind may well make things easier I am trying to find an approach that keeps as close to the HQ way of doing things as possible, which may be doomed to fail of course.


Simon Hibbs

Here's how I would handle the one ring:

The struggle not to be dominated by the One Ring is obviously an extended contest, as it's the heart of the story. That doesn't preclude other extended contests going on at the same time, as long as they don't directly overlap too much. This contest doesn't use a strict you go/it goes sequence, it just pops up whenever appropriate, sometimes laying dormant for years at a time, sometimes requiring continual back to back rolls.

For most mortals, it should generally be a hopeless struggle, the only form of victory is to delay the inevitable end by long enough for providence to intervene. For the wise, it is more of a temptation than a threat.

It attacks with a rating of about w4 (adjust all ratings in this according to taste). It can only make make small AP bids while kept away from the skin, but can make gradually larger ones the longer it is worn and the more its powers are used.

It can be resisted with just about any magical ability, personality trait or relationship, from magecraft to loyalty, strong will, proud or love of home comforts.

If the ring wins, the ringbearer gets 'Minion of Sauron 10w3' as an ability, which they must roll against whenever they try to do anything against sauron's will.

If the ringbearer wins, the ring acts as a major augment (1/4 of its rating) to most abilities of the bearer. The downside is it also adds 1/2 of its rating to the ability used to overcome it, and twists that ability into something appropriately darker.

So Smeagol wins and his 'love of home 10W' ability becomes 'hermit 10W3', Gandalfs 'White Magic W4' becomes 'dark magic W6', Boromirs 'heir to stewards of Gondor w2' becomes 'hate enemies of stewards of Gondor (including any upstart pretenders) w4', and so on.

Other rings of power work similarly, except that they have lower ratings, only add 1/4 to one ability and 1/10 to others, and don't twist the nature of those who control them.

At least until sauron gets hold of the one Ring.

soru

Soru,

Ok, that's a fair framework to build on. I don't think losing the contest makes you a servant of Sauron - Golum has obviously lost but he's not friend of the Lidless Eye. He serves The Precious, not Sauron.

Running an ongoing extended contest is nice though. I suppose you could roll an exchange every time the bearer either uses the ring, or attempts to give it up. These are the crisis moments when the hold of the ring over it's bearer is tested.


Simon Hibbs

simon_hibbs wrote: As has been said the advancement rate in HQ isn't realy appropriate to Middle Earth, where an escalating scale of advancement costs might be apropriate. Perhaps a cost of (1HP + Number of Masteries) per advancement would make sense?

- Golum has obviously lost

For the elves, I'd suggest 1HP+(num_masteries squared). Using this scale an elf who lasts from the time of the trees until the 4th age potentially tops out at w11-w12 in a single keyword or ability grouping, which I don't think I too unreasonable for 10000 years.

Der_Renegat wrote:
If you think of hongkong movies, where people are able to do amazing things, like flying and such stuff. These people must have superhuman ratings. In this genre i guess the explanation comes from being in tune with the flow of chi.

I like that framework alot. Actual use of the ring triggers a contest with a bigger AP bonus than mere possession. That works slick.

I agree that loss should cause "Minion of the Precious" not minion of "Sauron". It would seem to me that if Sauron ever got control of the ring, THEN "Minion of the Precious" becomes "minion of Sauron", which would be reason enough for Golem to fear Sauron getting it.

I think it should also provide more subtle augments, of the "Luck / unluck" variety just by mere possession. The ring needs the bearer and so will actually try to help the bearer get through obstacles...one reason why Bilbao had such good fortune through the rest of the hobbit.

...until such time as the ring decides its time to leave and then it "slips through your fingers" and the free augment becomes a penelty (or augment to the other side). This is how Isildur manages to lose the ring in such an inglorious way. The ring actively screwed him.

One might also postulate that this is how Isildur managed to defeat Sauron to begin with...the ring actively screwed Sauron. Like a bound Sorcerer demon, the ring might not be an entirely willing servant of Sauron after all. It may have a deeper ulterior motive of its own...or just enough sentience to act spitefully because Sauron hadn't "fed its need" in a while.

soru wrote: no, by my rules smeagol/gollum won -

Der_Renegat wrote: I had that thought in the HeroScale thread as well, at some point, ability and magic are becoming similar, but are they the same thing ?

One thing about superhuman ratings is that at some point you need an explanation how the rating could get so high, i think, despite of age.

simon_hibbs wrote: Many RPGs differentiate between skill/finesse and power. In combat systems these are combat skill and your damage roll. In RQ magic they were the spells you knew and your POW. HeroQuest tries to get away from that so while a seperation of this kind may well make things easier I am trying to find an approach that keeps as close to the HQ way of doing things as possible, which may be doomed to fail of course.

soru wrote:
Unless there is actually some ME equivalent of the heroplane (valinor?), where the laws of nature don't apply, and you can learn the trick of doing the impossible.

soru

I haven't played HeroQuest. I've only read the rules. So, this idea is completely untested (you have been warned):

Make traits like "Dwarf," "Elf" & "Hobbit" magic keywords. The effect would be to (for example) make the things that dwarfs do better than humans easier for the dwarfs by lowering the resistance for the dwarfs rather than by raising the ability ratings of the dwarfs.

Regarding starting ability ratings, HQ already has racial templates which give racial abilities at (usauly moderately high) starting values for free, and I think these can handle ME races well enough. Dwarves get 'Stalwart 18' for example.

Simon Hibbs

I feel obligated to add a point about Aragorn; he defeated Sauron in an extended battle of will for the palantir. Granted, he had the "home field advantage" (the palantir was dunedain by right), but this still is not a trivial point; Saruman lost this battle, after all.

So, was Aragorn a straight-up fighter on the scale of Legolas? I tend to doubt it. In the more vague realm of power, was he bad-ass? Yup.

-Jeff

simon_hibbs wrote: Regarding starting ability ratings, HQ already has racial templates which give racial abilities at (usauly moderately high) starting values for free, and I think these can handle ME races well enough. Dwarves get 'Stalwart 18' for example.

Simon Hibbs

HMT wrote: This looks like common magic to me.

Mac Logo wrote: I just cannot see Prof. Tolkien's hobbits as being any more magical than real-world English, peasant/yeoman farmers of the late middle ages.

Wow Mac. I think you've completely missed the whole nature of hobbits. Of course the hobbit abilities are magical. Of course they don't even realize it. Its such second nature what they do that it doesn't even register as unusual. Nor do the elves think their abilities are anything other than "just being elves".

To man, who has no innate magic of this type it appears wonderous. To a hobbit, its just who they are. That doesn't make it any less magical.

A major theme running through the trilogy is the giving way of the time of magic and magical beings to the time of men and technology. Hobbits are very much of the time of magic, and they are very much magical beings. Their magic is more subtle and less immediately appreciated then elf or dwarf nature perhaps but no less innate.

Certainly you don't think the shire is such a wondrously pastoral place simply because the ground is fertile...

Consider the following two quotes from Lord of the Rings, they are both from the scene in front of the door to Moria:

'Dwarf-doors are not made to be seen when shut,' said Gimli. 'They are invisible, and their own masters cannot find them or open them, if their secret is forgotten.'

'Yes,' said Gandalf, 'these doors are probably governed by words. Some dwarf-gates will open only at special times, or for particular persons; and some have locks and keys that are still needed when all necessary times and words are known ...'

If you ignore game mechanics for a moment

Are hobbits et all magical: says it right in the Hobbit, don't remember the exact quote, but it went something like this: Hobbits are earthly creatures that don't have magic, except the common innate kind that allows them to hide when the big peoples come along. It's on page three or four, when hobbits are first described. Happen to remember it as I translated the part to latin some months ago.

Now, one of course shouldn't give too much weight to a single sentence, but it just happens to give quite a clear picture on JRRT's stance in the thirties: hobbit sneakiness could be perceived as magic. I myself think that the sentence is rhetorics for our purposes, and actually means exactly what has been proposed: they are naturally really good at it.

Anyway, I support simulating these kinds of racial features as racial keywords. Whether Tolkien thinks hobbit sneakiness is magic, it's clear he doesn't think that they are the kind of magic that break natural law. It's much closer to simply give hobbits high 'Hide from Big People' trait.

On the other hand, if one wants to go specific with these. going over everything in the books with a mind on traits, there are things that are closer to magic. Like that Legolas walking on snowbanks. It is explained as the light-footedness of elves, but it should be clear that this isn't an acquired trait in the sense that humans could learn it.

HQ rules being what they are, you could still do the elves without resorting to magic rules, though. Just give Legolas and friends 'Light Tread' at a suitably high mastery, stipulating if necessary that it would be quite useless for humans: all resistances are so great that you'd have to be an elf to even try for that kind of mastery. I personally don't see any problems, of which there are plenty if you try to construe it as a magic of Light Step. I quite think that Legolas's ability wouldn't help him against a magically fragile floor, after all (one explicitly made so by active magics).

Then again, it all depends on your vision. I'm convinced that there simply isn't any magic in the HQ sense in the common abilities of the Middle-Earth denizens. There is big differences in skill, sometimes effectively insurmountable differences, but no magic. I'd save magic mechanics with default resistances and all that for "High" magic of explicit castings Gandalf and such do.

HMT wrote: I infer from such passages that such doors are notl uncommon in dwarven construction. Perhaps, all the finer craftsmen can make them.

HeroQuest calls these innate magical abilities Talents, which are part of a hero's Common Magic. Hobbits should have a preternatural ability to conceal themselves from Big Folk, because that is supported in the literature. Elves should be able to imbue even the most common of objects with subtle magic at their creation (e.g. lembas, Elven rope, Elven cloaks).

I shall bring my copy of Decipher's The Lord of the Rings roleplaying game to work over the weekend and pound out a conversion of the racial templates contained therein, since no one else seems inclined to do it. No reason to reinvent the wheel...

Valamir wrote: Wow Mac. I think you've completely missed the whole nature of hobbits. Of course the hobbit abilities are magical. Of course they don't even realize it. Its such second nature what they do that it doesn't even register as unusual. Nor do the elves think their abilities are anything other than "just being elves".

Valamir wrote: A major theme running through the trilogy is the giving way of the time of magic and magical beings to the time of men and technology. Hobbits are very much of the time of magic, and they are very much magical beings. Their magic is more subtle and less immediately appreciated then elf or dwarf nature perhaps but no less innate.

Valamir wrote:
Certainly you don't think the shire is such a wondrously pastoral place simply because the ground is fertile...

Mac Logo wrote:

HMT wrote: I infer from such passages that such doors are notl uncommon in dwarven construction. Perhaps, all the finer craftsmen can make them.

The Gates of Moria are exceedingly uncommon. They were made by Narvi, a master crafter even by Dwarven standards, with the aid of Celebrimbor. Celebrimbor was the greatest artisan of the Noldor since Feanor (and also Feanor's grandson) - he made the Three Rings of the Elves and learned his craft from "Annatar", otherwise known as Sauron.

The Doors of Durin were a "Wonder" of the Second Age, made when the traffic between the Noldor and the Dwarves was at it's greatest.

Graeme

Eero Tuovinen wrote:
Now, one of course shouldn't give too much weight to a single sentence, but it just happens to give quite a clear picture on JRRT's stance in the thirties: hobbit sneakiness could be perceived as magic. I myself think that the sentence is rhetorics for our purposes, and actually means exactly what has been proposed: they are naturally really good at it.

I'd agree with Simon. For game purposes, though there may seem to be something magical about most things in ME, I think that you should only use the magic rules to emulate effects that are blatantly magical. That leaves the players to speculate, as we do, upon just how magical other things are.

Mike

Count me along side Mike and Simon. To me, it's not that there is no magic in Middle-earth, I see it as being absolutely everywhere and not distinct from the mundane - except by degree. Within the world different folks draw the line in different places, but there is no line...

Graeme

Sorta. The point at which I'd start using the magic rules is precisely at the point where the denizens ooh and ahh at the effects. So wizards use magic, period. Gandalf does some plainly magical things at times.

The really big question is do you allow players to play elves, or, worse, wizards? Because there will be a large power gap. It's an important question, IMO.

Mike

I think there's a default assumption in the fantasy genre that the basic laws of nature are the same as in our world, except for the existence of magic. Magic can break or bypass almost any rule, but requires some kind of active power source. Magic can be more or less unambiguously detected as such by fairly simple magic - both RQ and D&D have a detect magic spell.

If you buy that assumption, then anything that would break the laws of nature in our world, such as an eagle talking, or a wind child flying, must be magic.

In both Glorantha and Middle Earth, that assumption doesn't apply. Both worlds are flat, and not as a result of some great distortion spell, but because that is the nature they have according to their own natural laws. Thier laws are not our laws. Eagles talk because that is their nature, wind children fly because they have the air rune 9whatever that means), and so on.

The difference between Glorantha and ME is that Glorantha _also_ has magic of the natural-law-tweaking type. In the HQ rules, this is called active magic. Orlanthi fly by actively casting spells to do so. If you know suitable spells, you can detect the magical energies, and even dispell them (which will not exactly endear you to the orlanthi in question, or their kin).


In summary:

birds fly because they have a 'Fly' ability. Some would say this is magic.

gloranthan wind children fly because they have a 'Fly' ability in no way different from a birds, but perhaps a bit lower. They probably do have some active magic for flying faster, flying in still air, and so on. The fact that they would give an aerodynamical engineer a fit is neither here nor there.

orlanthi fly by active, detectable and dispellable magic, using the HQ magic rules. Everyone would call this magic.

a 747 flies by it's pilot using his 'pilot jumbo' ability against a default resistance of 14, with augments form the rest of the crew, autopilot, etc. An orlanthi would consider this magic, _and so do the HQ rules_. The pilot is borrowing power to do what he cannot do naturally, by means of rote learning of a complex procedure that has only an indirect symbolic connection to the act of flying.

soru

soru wrote: ... active, detectable and dispellable magic, using the HQ magic rules ...

Maybe some variation would be:

lightfooted (mundane skill)

walks on snow without a trace (special skill only available for elves)

magic: walking without a trace (spell like power with resistance of 14)

soru wrote: I think there's a default assumption in the fantasy genre that the basic laws of nature are the same as in our world, except for the existence of magic. Magic can break or bypass almost any rule, but requires some kind of active power source. Magic can be more or less unambiguously detected as such by fairly simple magic - both RQ and D&D have a detect magic spell.

buy that assumption, then anything that would break the laws of nature in our world, such as an eagle talking, or a wind child flying, must be magic.

This is also part of the underappreciated brilliance of Tolkien's work, actually. For all people like to point to Dunsany and the faerie story tradition before him, the fact is that Tolkien presents a unique synthesis of pagan and Christian cosmology as part of the background mythology of his world. This is a deeply original piece of creativity, and while Tolkien can't hold Yeats' jock in terms of poetry of language, it's more powerful than anything Yeats ever came up with in his masturbatory descent into personal cosmologizing. Because Tolkien's mythology isn't masturbatory - it's a creative transformation of European mythology, as in, the rapidly disappearing mythology of the world most of us on these boards inhabit. One function of fantasy in general is to be a kind of cultural ark in which this mythology is preserved, and Tolkien's is one of the most brilliant contributions to that project.

Aside from this, the other reason that Tolkien was able to produce genuine literature despite being a mediocre writer is that his stories address powerful moral issues. The Hobbit is about Greed, and the LoTR cycle is about Power, both treated from a recognizably Christian point of view - with which I have some sympathy, despite not being a Christian.

Hope this isn't too OT but there aren't a lot of places one can talk about this stuff and it seemed relevant to Simon's post above.

Mike Holmes wrote:
The really big question is do you allow players to play elves, or, worse, wizards? Because there will be a large power gap. It's an important question, IMO.
Mike

simon_hibbs wrote: Middle Earth is set in an imaginary era, and with imaginary geography and characters but actualy in our world. Tolkien was a religious person, and believed in divine miracles so he wasn't writing from the point of view of atheist materialism.

Calithena wrote: Hope this isn't too OT but there aren't a lot of places one can talk about this stuff and it seemed relevant to Simon's post above.

Der_Renegat wrote: Maybe some variation would be:

lightfooted (mundane skill)

walks on snow without a trace (special skill only available for elves)

magic: walking without a trace (spell like power with resistance of 14)

By the way, what rating would you put on "walks on snow without a trace" for the typical elf? What about sample resistances for "walks on snow without a trace" ?

HMT wrote: By the way, what rating would you put on "walks on snow without a trace" for the typical elf? What about sample resistances for "walks on snow without a trace" ?

After all, they aren't only stealthy on snow.

simon_hibbs wrote: ... This suffers from the pompous ability name problem ... I'd just give Elves a racial ability of Light Footed starting at quite a decent level ...

Edited to clear up the table a little.

HMT wrote:
Your point is well taken. But, the core issue is still unaddressed. We need sample resistances for these various things that can be done by the free peoples of Middle-earth that we cannot do here.

How big is "quite a decent level" and what's the resistance to big folk walking on top of a snow bank that can't even support the weight of a hobbit?

What about the ability to see into the wraith-world (as I think Legolas does at the first meeting with Eomer)?

What's the resistance to making a door that's invisible when shut?

What's the resistance to making a door that opens with a word of command?

What's the resistance for making a stone door that only opens if you use the appropriate key during the last light of the setting sun on Durin's Day after the thrust knocks?

Eero Tuovinen wrote: Edited to clear up the table a little.
--- snipped quite a lot ...
Any help?

Eero Tuovinen wrote: ... Any help?

Eero Tuovinen wrote:
Any help?

simon_hibbs wrote: ... we'd need some story based way of restricting their scope of freedom. Perhaps by making them assume meaningful flaws or weaknesses? ...

I'm not sure I agree with that. Saruman & Denether were corrupted. Boromir fell but redeemed himself. Gandalf, Aragorn, etc, all resisted. Gollum fell hard.

I think the key is that power offered no special resistance to corruption. Just like the real world, intelligent, powerful people are just as prone to corruption as the low.

-Jeff

simon_hibbs wrote: One way to square teh difference in ability ratings between Men and Elves might well be to require that human (and hobbit) characters invest their highest abilities in artifacts or relationships rather than skill-type abilities. Elves could do either making them much more flexible characters, but we'd need some story based way of restricting their scope of freedom.

Perhaps by making them assume meaningful flaws or weaknesses?

Mike Holmes wrote: OTOH, I think that Flaws make for more interesting characters, generally, not less. So giving elves more flaws seems to be rewarding them yet again. How about not allowing them to take any flaws (other than maybe the undisciplined, aloof, etc.). This penalizes them, IMO, and makes them seem more the paragons that they are in the literature.

Yeah, I think that their placid demeanors are quite a bit about them being deeply inately magical, where the magic is all about timelessness, etc.

Yes, Dwarves are hotheaded, but that seems just to be part of their nature; and they only live a few centuries. Dunedain live nearly as long as Dwarves as well (Aragorn is 88, IIRC, at the time of the events of the book), but one of their most important personality traits is that they have a powerful fear of death. I think the idea is that common men understand that life is short and then you die. Dunedain seem immortal for a while, and I think are deluded into the idea that they can live forever with the truth nagging at the back of their minds the whole time. It's like they can't forgive their sire Elros for making them mortal, when they could be like his brother Elrond. Numenoreans were even worse about this fear, part of the reason that Annatar so easily seduced them.

(I think its cool that Elrond is Aragorn's Great^37 Uncle and Arwen is his first cousin 37 times removed - note I can't remember the real number of generations between them, it might be more than that).

Mike

Oh, and following on the post above...

The way I've been explaining flaws to players (including three last night), is to say that players can take more free abilities after they finish with chargen, at any level they like. The "catch" is that they have to be able to convince me, the GM, that these are "Flaws" meaning things that will tend to get used against them lots. Otherwise they're just like any other Ability, and can be used positively or negatively whenever it's appropriate.

Using older descriptions of Flaws, I had to cajole players into taking them. Using this definition, I had players jumping all over Flaws. I had one player decide to have a 10w2 Love for some lost girlfriend. I told him that he'd never be able to mechanically resist it's pull when it came into play. He said that was perfectly the way it should be. Who am I to argue? My Favorite was the nomad character with the Dung Collector Occupation who decided that a Stench 18 (or something like that) was appropriate.

:-)

They're not "flaws", they're free abilities. With a catch. Players seem to love that idea.

OTOH, if you forced them on a player, or they could only be used "negatively" I suppose it might work as a balance. My point, however, is that elves are pretty cool just to start, and don't need any additional means by which to make protagonists of them.

Mike

IMO Tolkien's Evels draw a lot from the Celtic Sidhe. They are better than men in every way: more beautiful, immortal, more skilled, with better senses. But in the third age, as in many of the hero tales of Ireland, the elves are few in this world most having gone west across the ocean (i.e. The West = The Land of The Young). Men are just pale shadows of their glory. So to interact with elves is to enter Faerie. Indeed, as in Celtic myth, many monsters of Tolkien's world are from earlier ages and are thus also part of Faerie (such as orcs/goblins). This is clearest, I think, in the Hobbit where the entry into the realm of the wood elves has the hallmarks of interaction wtih Faerie in Celtic tales. Jackson's Lorien evokes this too I feel. To hamstring elves for play balance in third Age games misses this. In HW terms I would put elves at the HQ heroic level (w3 or above) at least with elvish heroes at w5 or w6 .

[FYI: In Glorantha anyone using an ability at w3 or above shines with a 'hero light' - again a concept with very celtic parallels]

In a mortal centered third age campaign 'average' characters will be nowhere near as good as elves. In fact in an average centered campaign elves and their like are rare, barely seen, and an event when you do. Sam certainly seems to have this sense of wonder at elves. Elves as just another humanoid race are really anathema to Tolkien.

If you want elven characters, and you want to balance them, better IMO to make the mortals heroes than to reduce the elves.

If you want elven characters, and you want to balance them, better IMO to make the mortals heroes than to reduce the elves.

I really dont understand why people here are so concerned about balance. To me thats very much some kind of D&D concept. What do you need balance for? Its all about interesting stories!
In every story/group you have characters that are stronger than the others. All you have to do is adapt the adventure to your heroes! Something what you do anyways.
If you have a look at the fellowship-are they all equal in power ? No!

I think its quite a challenge to play a powerful character, you need to be an experienced player, not only ruleswise.
I had very often groups with roleplaying newbies and experienced veterans too. So its perfect to have beginner and herolevel characters in one adventure. And it comes quite naturally that a group has a leader.

all the best
Christian

Gimli is no Legolas in terms of power and ability, but at least he's competant enough to participate alongside him. Merry & Pippen, otoh, are just out of their league for the most part. In a book that's ok, but a game by it's nature implies some form of competitive activity, and I think it's worthwhile keeping an eye on balance, at least in a gross sense (and more, if the group wants it that way).

Btw, I'm not suggesting that everything must be about combat. If someone is the talker, someone else the grunt, and another is the scholar (to paint a crude picture), than that's workable even if the talker is a far better talker than the grunt is a grunt. At least everybody has some niche where they can grab the spotlight.

-Jeff

Defeating a foe, solving the riddle or whatever your current game is all about, to me its all about imagination, that what makes roleplaying fun.

Killing very strong foes is mostly a question of tactics not brute force alone.
Solving the riddle is all about being clever.
Your abilities give you options but most of the time good roleplaying is more in demand than high ratings, i think.
greets
Christian

"Killing very strong foes is mostly a question of tactics not brute force alone."

I'm sorry, I can't agree with this statement. Of course tactics are a factor, but when it comes down to someone sporting 10w3 skills contesting people with 10w or less, it's basically over before it began.

"Solving the riddle is all about being clever."

This is an age old debate from where I'm sitting. Is it fair to make the player solve the riddle that his character can solve with a die roll? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, IMO. I don't think it's as clear-cut as you make it.

"Your abilities give you options but most of the time good roleplaying is more in demand than high ratings, i think."

This, of course, varies with the group and their focus, and "more in demand" is an awfully flexible phrase (60-40? 99-1?).

In the end, we're talking about a game here, and one of the central facets is the extended contest (note "one of"). I haven't run the game, but I think I get the role of extend contests, and I think it's fair to say that every player should have a chance to participate in an extended contest that furthers the game every session, as a rule of thumb. The problem is that this can be hard to do when one person is so overwhelmingly powerful that his efforts constantly overshadow's someone else's. Imagine people trying to convince a town to aid their quest: "whimpy" goes to a bar, gets lucky, and convinces a couple of people to help; "slick" goes to the town council, and gets the city watch and the sons of of the council members to ride out in support.

This may be ok if "whimpy" has some other area where he shines, but in the end if he can't participate at the same level as everyone else, then his story tends to get overshadowed.

-Jeff

One problem about HQ is maybe that it neglects armour a lot. Or to put it differently, its not so obvious how to integrate powerful armour into the rules.
Think of Frodos mithril chainshirt for instance. It saved his life in Moria. Giving him a large bonus alone, doesnt justify the scene with the cavetroll.
One solution might be to give the shirt a powerful rating: Mithrilshirt 15W4 or whatever seems appropiate.
Any other ideas ?
greets
Christian

Der_Renegat wrote: I really dont understand why people here are so concerned about balance. To me thats very much some kind of D&D concept. What do you need balance for? Its all about interesting stories!

Something occured to me as I finished typing. Let me try this again.

This is a thread about converting game mechanics to a new setting. I submit that balance questions are certainly on topic for such a discussion. Furthermore, there's nothing wrong even if it's a central concern to some people. As long as the group involved is comfortable with a game where balance is a factor, than life is fine.

Regarding armor, I would treat Frodo's mithril as an active ability "resist harm 10w2" or something along those line. At the end of a fight, roll a simple contest against the AP loss (e.g. -21 aps is 1w), with victory reducing the hurt by a level (e.g. from dying to major) and each extra mastery bumping it down further. I would leave "hurt" as a minimum, though - a lost contest should always sting a little.

So, in the book the troll knocks frodo down to -35 aps, and he's dying. At the end of the fight, everyone gathers around while the GM and Frodo roll dice. 10w2 vs 15w, so one bump from master and frodo is victorious as well so he's down to a minor wound and announces "I'm alright".

-Jeff

I agree with Jeff that the system is important here, and you can't ignore how it'll affect play. I also like his armor idea (I have much more extensive notes on the HQ-Rules list, actually). Further, I was the one to sorta bring up balance in the first place.

But what I really meant was to ask Simon if he thought that balance was important for his game. To be really precise, I personally think that you don't need it with this rule set, and the right players. Why? Well as Ian mentioned it's about protagonism. Where does protagonism come from? I'd argue it's not at all from success. It's from participating in conflcits.

Now, does that mean that I'd be throwing hobbits up against balrogs undefended? Nope. But there are ways around this "problem".

First, HQ allows for weak characters to participate even when outclassed? How? By augmenting. If I'm playing a hobbit helping Gimili hack orcs, I'm not going to take them on by myself, but instead use what little ability I have to augment the combat leader. In play, as GM, every time I have one character augment another, I count this as a "Round" for that character, in that they get as much narrative as the leader does. So, despite it being Gimli who is mostly responsible for winning the round, my character gets to look good in helping out with the success.

HQ makes this more possible than in any other system I've seen.

Second, I'll split the party up at times. What this means is that, when I've got two hobbits off by themselves I can throw smaller stuff at them than when the party is whole. Contests appropriate to their Abilities.

This means we can play like the LotR narrative, splitting up, and we can have small folks with chances to shine all on their own. And when the group is all together, the small folks shine as being bold enough to help out the strong.

So, for me, it all works in the end. Now, for a group of players who compete PVP for coolest characters, this isn't going to work. But for lots of groups I think it works out just fine.

For those who've seen the movie, think about Gimli's wry comment to Legolas on the Pelenor fields. Every character's accomplishments are proportionate to their ability, and therefore each character is a protagonist in their own right. No prob.

Mike

I'd like to make a tangential comment about the following quote.

Jaif wrote: Gimli is no Legolas in terms of power and ability, but at least he's competant enough to participate alongside him ...

I think that is tangential except that it brings up a sorta important point. While I think that Peter Jackson's rendition was about as faithful as a movie would be, all things considered, it obviously varies from the books in many ways. Is this to be an adaptation of the books or the movies? Just so that we have a clear baseline reference.

Mike

Hi! I hope everyone had as good a holiday as I did.

Wow, what a film!

Regarding Mike's question about source material, the books will always be the primary source for me, but any games set in ME must be able to jive with the film to have any credibility. The books and film are close enough that I don't think this is a problem.

Going back to the question about balance, this is a difficult question. I think it's important that each character should have the potential to be distinctive, to have something about them that is unique to them. I think I've already answered this question though. Clearly a bhobbit character won't have innate abilities as high as an experienced elf character, but you can compensate for that in exactly the same way Tolkien does. Frodo is no match for Boromir or Legolas on his own, but he's the Ring Bearer and has a Mithril shirt. Several of the hobbbits have named swords forged in Gondolin with magical properties. Sam doesn't have an impressive close combat or what-have-you, but his Loyalty is stratospheric. All these were essentialy determined in Character Generation.

I believe balance is possible with a bit of imagination, in such a way that the players know that their characters matter and can make a difference.

For example in the alternate timeline campaign I described previously if one of the characters was a hobbit, I'd arrange it so that he'd be the one that saved Isildur's life. It doesn't matter how low that character's abilities would otherwise be, he's now absolutely central to the plot.


Simon Hibbs