Author: Toby

Introduction

The aim of these rules is to allow role-playing in Tolkein’s Middle Earth within the ethos of Tolkein’s world. There have been various role-playing systems that have been used for Middle Earth, but they have all used mainstream rules-sets and ignored the unique features of Middle Earth, and have therefore short-changed the player. The key aspects of Middle Earth that I see and that are rarely reflected by rules-sets are:

• There is no real magic in Middle Earth. It is magical but there are no spell-casters in the classic RPG tradition. Superhuman abilities and feats seem to derive from the natures of the protagonist.
• There is no religion. The Valar may be analogous to gods but they are not worshipped and there is no evidence of any organised cults.
• There is an emphasis on lineage and authority, especially as concerns magical items.
• There is an expectation that people will behave according to their archetypes which needs to be reinforced and rewarded by the game system.

As a solution to these problems I propose to use a modified version of Greg Stafford’s Pendragon RPG system.

Traits

The heart of the system are traits, which measure your character’s behaviour in 14 areas, each on a scale of 0-20. Each area has a pair of reciprocal traits, the sum of which will always total to 20. Personality traits are altered by actions – the Games Master may add or deduct a point automatically for a particularly string deed, or he may ask you to make a personality check for a more nuanced need. In this case you need to roll over your current score in that trait in order to increase the trait by one.

Boons

Combinations of traits can lead to boons. This is the key game mechanism that allows for character development and progression. The ratioanle is that as the character becomes more noble or courageous or just, then they gain concomittant abilities. Thus someone like Aragorn, who is the epitome of courage, justice and nobility, is genuinely superhuman and protected by the powers from danger. Conversely, characters who are degenerate and depraved will gain abilities reflecting these personaility traits. Retaining the abilities depends on maintaining the personality traits, so you need to keep acting heroically to maintain your heroic abilities.
In order to structure the boons more conveniently, they are attached to Valar, which gives them a connection to the ethos of the world.

Skills

Skills are the general skills of the character, such as riding, sword-fighting or swimming.

Feats

Feats are the exceptional skills and abilities of the character. Feats are gained as a result of hero-points, which are given for heroic activities. Feats do not need to be specified at the time the hero-points are allocated, rather hero points can be used whenever to specify a new feat. Thus the ability to run without rest for three days is not a skill, it is not within the normal range of human or elven or dwarven ability. It is rather a feat. If the need suddenly arises to run without rest for three days, the character could use unused hero points to gain this feat. Once a feat has been gained, it can be used as many times as required. Feats need to be kept quite specific and rare in order to not unbalance the game. The cost of a feat in hero points should match its potency and scope.

The dreaded encumbrance rears its head.

Now that you are no longer all lightly armed barbarians and some of you are starting to aquire significant levels of armour, we need to start doing encumbrance properly.

You need to work out your actual encumbrance at the start of the next session and then deduct your encumbrance from ALL skills in the following categories:

Agility (including parry)

Manouver (including attack)

Stealth

Magic

So there.

Seriously though – this will give a trade off for those of you who aren’t in tin cans and makes the whole heavy armour thing more realistic. Also makes you think about whether to bring that extra 100′ of rope at 15 ENC with you.

New combat system (probably stolen by my subconscious from either Pendragon or HeroQuest).

Take your attack skill and divide by 5 to get a number between 1 and 20.

Opponent does same with either Parry or Dodge.

Each of you rolls a D20, attempting to get under your target number. A 20 is a fumble.

Defender is under target number, attacker is under target number = parried hit – attacker does damage equal to the amount he exceeds the defender by, capped by the maximum damage for his weapon.

Defender is over target number, attacker is under target number = hit, attacker does his score in damage, capped by the maximum damage for his weapon.

Attacker is over target number = miss.

Then just roll another d20 for the location and deduct armour from damage as normal. If the attackers score was equal to his target number, its a critical and doesn’t deduct for armour.

Only three dice rolled rather than 4 (6) and parries are more progressive – which is probably important as you get to higher skill levels. More chance of a fumble and critical though, and the chance of a fumble and critical are not influenced by your skill.

A dualistic world caught between two sources of power, an aetheric energy whose source is the sun and a cthonic energy whose source is the earth. Each energy source is antithecal to the other and yet also capable of interacting with it – the surface of the world is the point of interaction.

Each energy is associated with a major and a minor element. The major aetheric element is Fire, the minor element is Air. The major cthonic element is Earth, the minor is Water. The two major elements cannot interact with each other, but they can influence the opposing minor elements. The two minor elements can combine, but the result depends on which is the dominant element in the combination. Air and Water with Air dominant is Foam, with Water dominant is mist or miasma.

The cthonic power is served by the cthonic beings. These are cold blooded, from the lore-wise dragons down through various orders of lizards and lizardmen. The aetheric power is served by its own range of creatures, from angelic faeries down to men. The higher creatures of each power are pure, the lower creatures are alloyed and impure, which makes them less powerful but more tolerant of the power of the other. For example the faerie are pure creatures of light, they are filled with aetheric energy but find the touch of metal deadly since it is cthonic in origin. Dragons are pure cthonic creatures – they cannot fly or breathe fire but can shake the foundations of the earth. They find the very touch of light hard to bear though.

The middle races, men and lizardmen, have no such power and suffer few such problems. They can feed upon both sources of power, the earthpower the flows from the ground beneath their feet and the lightpower than shines down, although they find their preferred power easier to comprehend. For all of them though, power is something that they are blind to and need to scrabble for.

Its interesting (and has only just occured to me) that in the same way that there are different playing styles that people prefer and feel most comfortable in, there are styles of DM’ing as well. Or rather, its obvious there are styles of GM’ing, there are styles of player-GM interaction. I guess there are probably a few dominant DM’s out there who like to pull all the strings and micro-manage the players, but I am very much a ‘world-builder’ DM – I like to create a coherent and consistent world and for the players to create their characters and define their own goals within that world. I am then there to help them acheive their goals and make them worth acheiving by having struggled on the way. Its no fun if you don’t acheive your goal and its no fun if you acheive it easily.

I also tend to be very protective of the ‘feel’ of my world – I like the players to create bits themselves but I demand a veto over their creativity. Its all part of my obsession with internal consistency – anything that doesn’t fit right breaks the suspension of belief. The biggest problem that I have is when the real world is plonked into a fantasy world. Classic example is Dun County – I can never see the Old Sun Dome temple as anything other than Fountains Abbey, because it is.

Interestingly David is a completely different sort of DM, he likes detail and characters and plot. He is very good at designing a scenario and great characters for it, but doesn’t mind if they are no part of a world. He is quite happy playing one-off scenarios, whereas I find them pointless because there is no scope for character development – he like the problem solving. Its my biggest frustration with Call Of Cthulhu (which I otherwise enjoy) – the inevitable degradation rather than ascension of the characters.

I’m not sure how many styles of DM-player interaction there are. I can think of:

• God – where the DM wants to control every aspect.
• World Builder – me – create a great world and want the players to define their role and motivations in the world. I tend to be very protective of my creations as well.
• Crossword Setter – creates problems for the players to solve. Consistency from scenario to scenario is not necessary, nor is playing the character – its a problem solving game. Most CoC has to be played like this I think.
• Story Teller – very popular nowadays – the players and the DM are there to create a joint narrative. Characterisation is everything. Doesn’t work with problem solving because it is as much about character growth through failing as it is about winning (or surviving). Different from World-Builder in terms of approach and focus – Story Teller is normally bottom up rather than top down.

Generated a star map for the new campaign last night – an area 20 parsecs by 20 parsecs with 150 odd systems and 11 terran planets – so its fairly sparse. But thats realistic – there will be a lot of empty systems out there.

I originally was going to be hyper-realistic and do it all in 3D, but mapping it and showing it to people became impossible. Its just too difficult to work out routes and borders and things like that. Maybe I will make it 3D when they invent holographic displays, but even VRML wasn’t really doing it properly and even with VRML you can’t just print it out and scribble on it.

Still a map is always a good first step in anything.

To remind myself when I’m at work but am also looking on eBay, these are the Traveller supplements that I have:

Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 5 – High Guard (x2)
Book 6 – Scouts

Supplement 1 – 1001 Characters
Supplement 2 – Animal Encounters
Supplement 3 – The Spinward Marches
Supplement 7 – Traders and Gunboats (x2)
Supplement 8 – Library Data (A-M)
Supplement 9 – Library Data (N-Z)

Adventure 1 – The Kinunir
Adventure 3 – Twilight’s Peak
Adventure 4 – Leviathan
Adventure 6 – Expedition to Zhodane
Adventure 7 – Broadsword
Adventure 8 – Prison Planet
Adventure 9 – Nomads of the World Ocean
Adventure 11 – Murder on Arcturus Station
Double Adventure 1 – Shadows/Annic Nova
Double Adventure 2 – Mission On Mithril/Across the Bright Face
Double Adventure 3 – Death Station/The Argon Gambit
Double Adevnture 4 – Marooned/Marooned Alone
Double Adventure 5 – The Chamax Plague/Horde