[Interest Check] THE ONE RING 1st edition

I'd be interested in getting into a game of TOR 1e should someone be interested in running it. I have quite a bit of experience as a player of this game, as well as one failed attempt at running it several years ago.

Until now my TOR gaming has been confined to the Tavern-Keeper gaming site, where there are several games of TOR 1e currently going (and a couple games of TOR 2e). My username over there is "Bacon!"

So, would anyone be interested in running a TOR 1e game? Is there any player interest besides me?

Welcome to GP, Bacon/Eggs! Good luck finding a group here!

I would run it but I don’t have access to TOR. I’m actually building a Middle Earth game right now that I can switch to this system if you’d like, but I don’t know the system yet. This adventure is in Rhun during the end of the second age. Thoughts?

Welcome to GP, Eggs!

I'd be interested in playing in the world of Middle-earth!

But do not have the bandwidth to run another game.

@Thunder_Lungz clicking on your account, in the campaign you're planning, do you play as the Agents of Mordor/the bad guys? Or are the players the "valiant souls"who arise to fight against the agents of Mordor?

I picked up TOR during lockdown but have never played it (and would love to have an excuse to).

And/or I have many of the 5E supplements for "Adventures in Middle-earth" (and am DMing a game of that right now, right here on GP), and am down to play that as well.

Very interested in hearing about the supplements you’ve been using. I’m adapting a small part of the monstrous amount of content available from the MERP (middle earth role playing) game and all the many fan made resources that I’ve stumbled into.

My campaign will place the PCs against the agents of Mordor at the end of the second age. I’m building it now with 5e rules, some custom content and a lot of house rules related to magic. I wanted to make it accessible to as many players as possible and also almost all the content for Middle Earth settings is centered on the Third Age and the peoples of that time. But I wanted a look into the second age with a little mix of unexplored lore touching on the influences of the blue wizards in the East.

Here’s a preview:




In the East, where shadows wane,

The ancient powers stir again.

Beyond the veil, the Maiars might,

Shall clash in ruin, dark and light.

Year 3433 of the Second Age.

Sauron has returned to Mordor. Numenor has fallen and the desperate forces of Gil-galad and Elendil are gathering for war. The Dark Lord’s grip has tightened upon the Eastern peoples of Rhûn and agents of Mordor prepare the vassal kingdoms for the inevitable conflict. If successful in mustering the necessary forces, the Dark Lord will finally assert his dominion over all. Sauron's command is clear: all means must be employed to secure allegiances before the armies of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men arrives. The fate of Middle-Earth hangs in the balance.

Yet all hope is not lost. Amidst the shadow, valiant souls arise to achieve great deeds in the darkest of times…

Yea, so if it helps, a company called Cubicle 7 created a whole line of products to bring 5E into Middle-earth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_Middle-earth

They based a lot of it on The One Ring. And it's pretty well done, but OOP and really expensive on the used market.

Then Fria Ligan took over the license, and created Lord of the Rings Roleplay 5th Edition - and it is just getting started, and, I hear (much like all of FL's ouevre), also very well done.
https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/the-lord-of-the-rings-roleplaying/

So if you want to save yourself some work, it's probably about all been done for you :P
That sounds cool. The first homebrew campaign I put together for Adventures in Middle-earth focused on Rhun and my head-canon for what the Blue Wizards were doing out there (but in the 3rd Age). It's nice to play in the blank spots Tolkien left in his lore, cuz Tolkien fans can be a sensitive lot when you tread in the turf of true canon...

I think the Second Age is a good fit for 5E, more heroic, more magic in the world, etc. Still requires some heavy modification, but yea, all sounds pretty cool to me.

Very cool! I had heard of AIME but hadn’t seen it anywhere for sale online (makes sense now). But I looked at an overview and admit it sounds quite cool. How did you work it in your Eastern campaign? All my cultures are mostly Eastern variants for example. And this campaign is also 3000 years before LOTR takes place. I’ve reflavored things from MERP and elsewhere to make it work.

I really like the sound of the AIME classes, but as you said, second age is slightly more magical and I want to make a tiny bit of room for that. Is there some magic or is it generally martial characteristics for all the classes? The virtues idea sounded cool too, but they all have specific racial titles that I’d need to reflavor.

Very grateful for you putting those resources on my radar!

Was gonna come here and say the same, that you'd be able to find the latest LotR in 5e from Free League. They refreshed the material and put it out in two different systems, their own flavourful engine, and also one that caters to the broader reach of 5e. They'll be pumping out some more stuff!

Well, the campaign started in Esgaroth, so I just used all of the standard "western"/Eurocentric Tolkienian cultures and classes and flavor. Essentially the group found a journal of a captain that fought in the Wainrider War who thought his unit had discovered something that could lead them to the Annuminas palatir stone. And they followed the clues in the journal and it eventually took them to Rhun.
By default there are no player caster classes in AIME.

It's pretty much Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue which have been mostly untouched.

And then Ranger, Bard, and a kind of healer class called the "Scholar" which are all heavily re-worked.

I always wanted to see a reworked Monk, even though it didn't really fit with Tolkien's more European flavor...

That said, the Loremaster Guide does have some guidance for bringing more magic into the game (mostly it's just a "Tolkien-appropriate" spell list). Which I did use in that same Rhun campaign. Basically, the way I did it was, the ability to cast spells was linked to having the appropriate book/tome/scroll with the spells written in them and because it was something that could be done on top of "normal" class abilities, I balanced it by having it carry the chance of slowly corrupting the caster, and/or causing Exhaustion, and/or drawing the attention of the Eye of Sauron.