We have lots of experience with fantasy rules. Tell us what you want, how complex you want the play systems and the generation systems and I am sure we can whip you up a system. You could probably use the Quest system straight out of the box. You could add a couple of races and get rid of several classes and couple of skills. Nothing serious. What would make it Tolkien is the fantasy setting of course.
I was thinking today of that wonderfully executed scene in the Fellowship movie where Galadriel considers taking the Ring:
“In place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”
Or in the book:
“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”
So… what if Galadriel had been unable to resist the call of the Ring, and had taken it up and become the Dark Queen? And all her elves had followed her, wiped out the Dwarves and Hobbits (because they’re hard to play in larp), then warred against Sauron for rulership of Middle-earth… leaving only the humans in the middle to fight the two dark masters and their hordes?
That alternate Middle-earth could make an interesting larp setting. None of this “all the big stuff is sorted out in the book” stuff - in this version Galadriel does away with the Fellowship and it’s up to the human PCs to clean up not one dark lord but two, each of which has quite different flavours.
I like that idea quite alot, come to think of it. Lately i’ve been trying to write up a new fantasy setting and the idea of humans being in the middle of a war between two greater forces was one of the major ideas I wanted to incorporate. Plus this also solves the problem of everything in the LARP having to fit the book down to the letter, and mostly addresses my innate hatred of good-guy elves.
Edit: At the same time, though, I feel that the next big fantasy game needs to be an original work. Where is No Man’s Land?
Wow, Ryan, that’s a really cool idea!
Heh, sounds… evil
Apart from elves and humans there could be half-elves there, I believe. Plus of course orcs and half-orcs… Wizards too, though this option is more for NPC characters. Another stuff for NPC could be nazguls, maybe troll (if we find someone big and tell the players he is very strong ). Not sure about Balrog… someone with a whip and with red ribbons fluttering on the costume?
I’m not sure how many big nationalities of Humans there were in Middle Earth, but they were very different from each other which gives space for character making too…
In terms of plot the whole idea of two evil ones instead of one sounds just brilliant. I will see both of our great Tolkien specialists (Rhiannon and Nadia) tonight, so if they don’t see this thread before that I’ll make sure they are aware of the idea.
A Middle-earth larp needn’t be big, necessarily. It could be based around a specific group of freedom fighters or something. Anyone, it’s not like someone is likely to take my idea and run it - people generally like running their own ideas - and I’m not planning to run it. I was just mentioning the idea. But I agree that it solves a lot of the usual adaptation issues.
In Cameron’s head.
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]
In Cameron’s head.[/quote]
Its coming…slowly but it will get here…remember the cheese ads
“Cheese takes time”…I mean “good things”!
But seriously its still being worked on to get it as smooth and slick as possible.
Hmmm. No clerics. Limited magik.
Sounds a lot like Dragons of Winter Twilight to me…
The magic and healing is subtle, but there. And with things having changed in the setting, you could mix things up a bit.
[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
Sounds a lot like Dragons of Winter Twilight to me…
[/quote]
Now that would be fun.