Hi all,
I'm sure this has come up in the forum before, but I wasn't able to locate any discussion of it using the search function. Has anyone actually run a Middle Earth game using TRoS, and if so, have they posted their adaptations anywhere?

Thanks,
John

I have contemplated a Hârnic/Middle-earth hybrid, but don't have anything posted on it. To this point though I'd not allow fully articulated plate armour, and mail with augmented plate protection would be very rare. I'd also not allow the cut & thrust sword, the doppelhander, estoc, saber, and rapier. Because of the severe limitation on heavy armour, I'd also consider not allowing the bastard sword either (even though you do see quite a few of them in the LotR movies and they are my personal favorite). I think I'd also get rid of all of the pole weapons except the pike, quarterstaff, and spears as well as the flails. As far as magic is concerned, I haven't really done much in that arena because the magic of Middle-earth and TRoS are so different. If you want to allow Men to use spells, then I'd recommend looking at Decipher's LotR RPG and try to incorporate that system into TRoS. For my own personal tastes, only the wizards and elves had any real magical powers, I'd incorporate Authentic Thaumaturgy for magical use with the rest of humanity.

I had just come here to post this very same question. I was thinking last night about converting my Forgotten Realms D&D game to Riddle of Steel when I came to the conclusion that it was just spraying some perfume on a pile of crap.

What I really wanted was a good Middle Earth game and I looked at my bookshelf and thought that the Riddle of Steel system would make a pretty good match for it.

Like Durgil said, I think that it would only take a few minor changes to the weapons to really match the feel, and I think the grittier feel of combat and the spiritual attributes would be good for the system. The races also wouldn't need too much change.

I think the magic system would be the trickiest part.

There's a discussion in the Heroquest forum along these lines that might be helpful, especially with regard to magic.

Mike

The reason why I turned to TROS was to make a middle earth campaign. I will order the handbook as a christmas gift and after a careful reading, I'll look into the customizations necessary for a middle earth campaign. For instance races and magic items.

TROS magic works well with literary world - magic as plot device. One thing you need to do with magic for middle earth is to change the costs for casting spells. Some suggestions would be some form of corruption (themes of power corrupting are common in Tolkein) and drawing attention to onesself - i.e. perhaps failing the "age roll" exposes you somehow makes you vulnerable to being detected by/revealed to other wizards depending on the level of failure. I would probably incorporate both simultaneously as they go well together. Fatigue is another option that could be compounded with the other two.

The other thing you would need to do is re-tool some of the vagaries. Level 3 motion, for example, is not in keeping with LotR.

I don't think it would be a large task to make the magic work with the right feel - just some fine tuning.

I wanted to thank everyone for their responses. Keeping these suggestions in mind, I've written up a little 1 page word document with primarily racial mods and lists of common, rare, and nonexistent weapons and armor. I'd be happy to email it to anyone who was interested, and would welcome any feedback on the adaptations.

John

You can send a copy my way if you like.

Durgil wrote: You can send a copy my way if you like.

Thirded!

Fourthed.

blake@lunarlogic.com

Thanks!

Would it be possible for the "Fifthed" and successives to be made by PM instead.

Seconded ;)

Valamir wrote: Would it be possible for the "Fifthed" and successives to be made by PM instead.

BTW - This is really only a skecthy first run at a TRoS adaptation for Middle Earth. It consists primarily of a table of racial priorities, attribute modifiers, and innate gifts (some of which would be new to TRoS). I also included additional bonus skill multipliers for longer lived races (i.e., instead of 1 X MA in points to buy new skills or -1's to existing skills, other races get 2 X MA, 3 X, etc.)
The rest is just a list of common, rare, and not allowed weapons and armor lifted primarily from Durgil's post above.
Just wanted folks to know it's definitley not a complete adaptation, by any means. I'd be happy to get any feedback folks have on what is there, however, as well as what else would be needed to actually run a game in ME using TRoS.

John

John man, just e-mail the damn thing to everyone.. cuts down on the frustration that the forge can give ya. Attach the word document to the email and forward it to everyone... that is if you check everyone's profile that wants it and they have their email listed. And you all that want it can PM john with your email in case you dont want to broadcast it to everyone on here.

There, situation solved.
-Ingenious

Got the document. Looks like a good start, here are my initial questions, I don't have a lot of time to come up with some detailed stuff yet, being at work and all.

1) What is lightfooted meant to represent for elves?

2) Ok, I didn't have another question yet.

They can walk on snow. They leave few if any traces on the ground and things like that. Almost as if they could walk on water.

That is what I thought, but I just wanted to be sure before I made any assumptions. I mean, Lightfooted could stand for any number of things so I wanted to make sure that we were on the same page.

I've not done it, nor am I particularly interested in running in Middle Earth, but I will say that TRoS was on my mind while watching that movie last night. Matter of fact, TRoS has changed the way I watch movies.. Anything with any sort of action often has me pondering on the SAs in effect for each character in a given conflict, as well as having me make observations for how they change, grow or decrease as the story progresses. TRoS would indeed do Middle Earth very, very well.. And Spiderman.. and Star Wars.. And, and.....

Wolfen wrote: I've not done it, nor am I particularly interested in running in Middle Earth, but I will say that TRoS was on my mind while watching that movie last night. Matter of fact, TRoS has changed the way I watch movies.. Anything with any sort of action often has me pondering on the SAs in effect for each character in a given conflict, as well as having me make observations for how they change, grow or decrease as the story progresses. TRoS would indeed do Middle Earth very, very well.. And Spiderman.. and Star Wars.. And, and.....

kenjib wrote: *SPOILER ALERT*
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yeah, Samwise could never have taken out those four orcs in the tower of Cirith Ungol, let alone Shelob, in any other rpg system. Only in TROS can a gardener truly kick butt. :)

Hey...

I just discovered TROS and this topic. Would someone please send me an email with that MiddleEarth stats, because i want to introduce TROS in my gaming group with a MiddleEarth campaign. And if there's already some kind of conversion, i don't have to do all the work myself ;-)

thanx in advance...

Farlon