I've never played 5E, I'm mostly familiar with AD&D (and a bit with D&D 3E and 3.5). I'd need some guidance over the finer details, though I do have the Basic Rules download and the OGL SRD file.
Are you going to adapt the rules to suit Middle-earth, or adapt the setting to better work within the rules? Maybe a little of both?
i'm a very cinematic DM i like to describe the world a situation more and let the player have more of free hand. The basic rules are enough. i also go by rule of cool which is if what the player suggests or does is cool i'm more likely to allow the attempt. So obviously dice rolling is integral but i prefer running for realistic (as you can be in a fantasy setting) so characters have to have real flaws and personalities and not just a stat line.
I'm an AD&D player myself. I've done at least 3 different ways to do Middle-earth campaign with AD&D. I'm in the process of thinking up another way to do it.
I've never gamed on either platform. The closest I came to that was a TOR campaign played on the RPGGeek forums. The Loremaster had to abruptly cancel the game when he found he was too busy to run it.
It was based on the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, but all the Tolkien references were removed. Still, it would work really well for a Middle-earth game. Here's a summary of the game if you're not sure:
How would magic and magic-based classes work in your game? Not a lot of (non-celestial) magicians and clerics in Tolkien's Midde-earth, especially among Mannish cultures and Hobbits; and most Mannish magic-users are aligned with the Shadow. What magic we do see tends to be more subtle than flashy.
One way to do it is to limit player characters to fighters, thieves/rogues, and rangers. I personally don't mind that option, although I know a few people who won't like it. You'd also need to find some way for characters to heal quickly since healing magic would be rare.
One game designer, Dr. Lewis Pulsipher, once stated that magic in Middle-earth was clerical in nature. In his Khazad-dum adventure in an early White Dwarf issue, he wrote up Gandalf as a cleric and equated Sauron to a clerical lich. You can use that approach. State that clerics must be either good or evil, not neutral. Good clerics are healers; evil clerics are necromancers.
One Dungeon Master who plays the original D&D game, allowed clerics to use swords and called them rangers. Beornings were druids. Note that the original D&D classes were fighting man, magic-user, cleric. Druids and thieves came out in later supplements. Rangers first came out in The Strategic Review (this later turned into Dragon Magazine) and weren't made official until AD&D. That's why the DM made those changes.
I wonder if Dr. Pulsipher wrote his essay before the publication of The Silmarillion, which clarified that Gandalf and the other Wizards of his order were Istari, incarnated Maiar sent from Valinor and not mortal magic-users? It does seem clear to me that Gandalf's powers are more wizardly than clerical--though perhaps a bit of both.
If you wan't to pay fidelity to the setting, it would seem you might greatly limit the spells available to both players and most NPCs. I would not allow any player to have an Istari wizard period, though Elves, Dwarves and even Men would be capable of learning some magic. I've even conjectured that Beorn might have once been a student of Radagast the Brown's. Human sorcerers, though, might be very vulnerable to falling into Shadow.
If you're more interested in borrowing the trappings of the setting than remaining true to the spirit of Tollkien's legendarium then all bets are off and you can go far off-script.
Yup, that issue was published in 1983, after the publication of the Silmarillion. Whether Dr. Pulsipher had read it is a different matter. He described Gandalf as more cleric than magic-user in another article, however.
Here's a review of the issue, in case you're interested. The Khazad Dum part is around the 13-minute mark and lasts a couple of minutes. I's still worth a look if you're curious about early White Dwarf issues. I have to add the NSFW tag for the cover.
And yes, the Khazad Dum adventure is a great one-shot. I ran it a few years ago.
What system would be in play?
I'd be interested. My campaign is sadly on hiatus right now.
i could run it through D&D 5th edition
Sounds fine. I'm not too familiar with 5e. but I can always download the rules. I think Wizards still offers a free pdf of the basic rules.
https://online.anyflip.com/ofsj/cxmj/mobile/index.html#p=1
I've never played 5E, I'm mostly familiar with AD&D (and a bit with D&D 3E and 3.5). I'd need some guidance over the finer details, though I do have the Basic Rules download and the OGL SRD file.
Are you going to adapt the rules to suit Middle-earth, or adapt the setting to better work within the rules? Maybe a little of both?
i'm a very cinematic DM i like to describe the world a situation more and let the player have more of free hand. The basic rules are enough. i also go by rule of cool which is if what the player suggests or does is cool i'm more likely to allow the attempt. So obviously dice rolling is integral but i prefer running for realistic (as you can be in a fantasy setting) so characters have to have real flaws and personalities and not just a stat line.
I'm an AD&D player myself. I've done at least 3 different ways to do Middle-earth campaign with AD&D. I'm in the process of thinking up another way to do it.
Here's an online dice roller if you need one.
https://orokos.com/roll/
How would you run online? Roll20 with Discord?
I've never gamed on either platform. The closest I came to that was a TOR campaign played on the RPGGeek forums. The Loremaster had to abruptly cancel the game when he found he was too busy to run it.
My players seem to be too busy when game time rolls around. Not sure if that's a reflection on my skill as a Game Master.
Here's an alternative system if you're looking for a rules-light system:
https://app.box.com/s/g51smljghzwf142q6yxapo3kwqfudq86
It was based on the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, but all the Tolkien references were removed. Still, it would work really well for a Middle-earth game. Here's a summary of the game if you're not sure:
https://stargazersworld.com/2019/08/27/first-look-simple-fantasy-adventure/
How would magic and magic-based classes work in your game? Not a lot of (non-celestial) magicians and clerics in Tolkien's Midde-earth, especially among Mannish cultures and Hobbits; and most Mannish magic-users are aligned with the Shadow. What magic we do see tends to be more subtle than flashy.
One way to do it is to limit player characters to fighters, thieves/rogues, and rangers. I personally don't mind that option, although I know a few people who won't like it. You'd also need to find some way for characters to heal quickly since healing magic would be rare.
One game designer, Dr. Lewis Pulsipher, once stated that magic in Middle-earth was clerical in nature. In his Khazad-dum adventure in an early White Dwarf issue, he wrote up Gandalf as a cleric and equated Sauron to a clerical lich. You can use that approach. State that clerics must be either good or evil, not neutral. Good clerics are healers; evil clerics are necromancers.
One Dungeon Master who plays the original D&D game, allowed clerics to use swords and called them rangers. Beornings were druids. Note that the original D&D classes were fighting man, magic-user, cleric. Druids and thieves came out in later supplements. Rangers first came out in The Strategic Review (this later turned into Dragon Magazine) and weren't made official until AD&D. That's why the DM made those changes.
I wonder if Dr. Pulsipher wrote his essay before the publication of The Silmarillion, which clarified that Gandalf and the other Wizards of his order were Istari, incarnated Maiar sent from Valinor and not mortal magic-users? It does seem clear to me that Gandalf's powers are more wizardly than clerical--though perhaps a bit of both.
If you wan't to pay fidelity to the setting, it would seem you might greatly limit the spells available to both players and most NPCs. I would not allow any player to have an Istari wizard period, though Elves, Dwarves and even Men would be capable of learning some magic. I've even conjectured that Beorn might have once been a student of Radagast the Brown's. Human sorcerers, though, might be very vulnerable to falling into Shadow.
If you're more interested in borrowing the trappings of the setting than remaining true to the spirit of Tollkien's legendarium then all bets are off and you can go far off-script.
Yup, that issue was published in 1983, after the publication of the Silmarillion. Whether Dr. Pulsipher had read it is a different matter. He described Gandalf as more cleric than magic-user in another article, however.
Here's a review of the issue, in case you're interested. The Khazad Dum part is around the 13-minute mark and lasts a couple of minutes. I's still worth a look if you're curious about early White Dwarf issues. I have to add the NSFW tag for the cover.
And yes, the Khazad Dum adventure is a great one-shot. I ran it a few years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QwDoPVW2eQ
I'd like to share the write-up of the Fellowship, but I'm not sure if that's allowed.
I think it's okay to show a recap of my game, however.
Are you still planning to do a game? Just asking for interest, I'd like to join if you do.