Here is the official announcement:
Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games have announced plans to make a Dungeons & Dragons® compatible roleplaying series for J R R Tolkien’s legendary fantasy world of Middle-earth, the setting for The Lord of the Rings® and The Hobbit®.This is exciting news, at least for me, as I played a ton of ICE's Middle-earth Role-playing ('MERP') during the glory days of my gaming youth (from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s). I haven't used Middle-earth for my gaming in fifteen years, but I still very much like the world, and look forward to seeing what Cubicle 7 produces for it. (I assume that the standard 5e rules will be heavily tweaked, as they are quite inappropriate for Middle-earth as written.)
Cubicle 7’s CEO Dominic McDowall said, “We’re all very excited to be building on the success of The One Ring Roleplaying Game and bringing Middle-earth to D&D® players. Uniting two things very close to the hearts of gamers, me included, is very cool – I can't wait for the summer.”
The best selling The One Ring Roleplaying Game will continue as a separate and independent line, with some very exciting announcements coming this week. The new series will be based upon Francesco Nepitello’s highly praised work in The One Ring®, with Francesco acting as creative consultant.
Further details will be released in the coming months, with the release set for Summer 2016.
Do you remember the classic Dragon article: "Gandalf was a 5th level magic-user"? I guess we'll soon find out whether Gandalf can be a 5th edition magic-user...
[Gandalf by Frank Frazetta.]
Thanks to C. Robichaud for alerting me to this!
ReplyDeleteAs a DnD AND The One Ring GM I have to say this is very promising news! Even though I like the TOR rules they're, especially compared to Dnd 5e, a bit clumsy. But I do hope they keep/incorporate the excellent Fellowship phase rules in the DnD version.
ReplyDeleteI only played TOR a couple of times (as a player, not a GM), and I didn't care for it. But that may be because I did not fully understand the rules. However, I think I'm more comfortable with a 'traditional' RPG approach (like MERP or, hopefully, the forthcoming 5e D&D variant).
DeleteIt's really quite close to Pendragon in its execution. I agree with Joakim that it's the one ring is a little clumsy mainly the dice rolls the d12 the symbols and the d6s.
DeletePs. Nice picture! :)
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to learn some years back that Frazetta did a number of Middle-earth illustrations:
Deletehttp://akraticwizardry.blogspot.ca/2011/04/frazettas-middle-earth-pictures.html
Interesting. I loved MERP back in the day, even though the magic system was not a very good fit for Middle Earth in my opinion. We mostly has warriors and scouts anyway though.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up about the forthcoming adaptation.
MERP was a lot of fun, but the magic system was indeed quite 'off' for Middle-earth. I don't think I could bring myself to use it (at least RAW) today. Many of the supplements remain awesome, however.
DeleteWhat issue of Dragon did that article appear?
ReplyDeleteIssue #5, page 27
DeleteCan hardly see how you'd make D&D work for LOTR and still even remotely resemble the awkward beast that is D&D, guess we'll see.
ReplyDelete