Adventures in Middle-earth D&D 5e Tolkien-based Gaming

by Hawke Robinson — published Jun 20, 2015 05:05 PM, last modified Feb 05, 2023 12:22 PM

While I received the PDFs many months ago, I finally received the hard copies of the d20 Tolkien RPG System based on The One Ring (TOR) by Cubicle 7: "Adventures in Middle-earth Players guide" for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. You can count on this version being at next year's Tolkien Moot XIII!

I was one of the first 70 to get the early TOR rules, and we have been running it at our annual TolkienMoot.org ever since.

I like what I see with the d20 version. I have had very good results with TOR's system but it is far from the mainstream and not easy to find/buy, but d20 is the lingua franca of RPG.

I am going to be heavily play-testing this with group(s) over the next few months, but if it goes as I suspect, I may very well adopt this system and setting as the primary use for Fantasy RPG for education and therapy clients for RpgResearch.com, RpgTherapy.com, & the RpgTrailer.com.

I have been running Tolkien-based campaigns since the early 80s. The "TOR-ification" of D&D in this release, greatly tones down some of the "problems" with D&D, and greatly enhances more cooperative play far more than default d20. TOR has effective rules that help encourage much more supportive shared roles between the party and directly supporting each other, tracking of cumulative "bad" choices with the Shadow and Corruption features (alignment if removed).

And of course, with my strong Tolkien background as founder of the Ea Tolkien Society (TolkienScholars.org), an official Smial of the U.K. Tolkien society, it seems an ideal fit.

Hopefully the translation to d20 holds up reasonably as well as the original TOR.

I'll report back in a few months on the results. Happy Gaming!