[PnP] Sans Perilous Lands: PnP in the Trollkinian lands

[Phineas Cromwell]

Thanks for that link. I am very interested in Tolkien-By-Other-Hands. To
hell with those "Estate" greedmongering curmudgeons! May Slidranth consume
their souls!
This reminds me of an amateur work I came across a few years ago that was
written by two brothers, if I recall correctly; it is titled Isildur, and is
probably still available on the internet (unless it became a casualty of
you-know-who).

It is interesting that you brought that topic up, because I have had in mind
ambitious projects like casting my favorite fantasy worlds in the P&P mold,
and Tolkien's world was one of them. MERP inevitably comes to mind. I always
felt ICE's Middle-Earth Roleplaying was one of the classy-est, respectable,
and quality entries in the FRPG corpus. I have always respected them for
publishing MERP (I think their wall-sized map of Middle-Earth is
incredible), and I think they generally sustained a good-to-very-good level
of quality to the material, even when they were engaging in serious
interpretation and creating material for the eastern portions of the
continent. The game received criticism for bearing Rolemaster's high-fantasy
approach to the availability of not-so-subtle magic, but I always dismissed
that. I am involved with the Rolemaster system, and I know how it can be
tweaked. But personally, I always liked the idea of an epic treatment of
Tolkien's world that did resemble some high-fantasy stuff, at least in
certain ages or areas. I've recently learned, from the History Of
Middle-Earth material published by Christopher Tolkien, that J.R.R. actually
was planning, at least conceptually, a 'Fourth Age' continuation of his
work, but he put it aside because the ideas that were coming to him were of
a dark nature, where utopian visions were not panning out, and human
corruption were ruining matters. To me, that sounds like a great place to
potentially set a D&D-style fantasy age...

What many people seem to forget is that practically the entirety of the
information narratively related in LOTR was done via Hobbits; from what they
experienced and from what was related to Bilbo from Elven scholarly
knowledge and Gandalf. Hobbits are a simple, rustic, pastoral people; they
are not, by nature, 'world-weary' or cosmopolitan. The Red Book Of Westmarch
account was relatively narrow, even though it was deeply embedded in the
center of world-shaping events. Critics have said how they wanted to see
more cities or organized religion or the active participation of women, etc.
Well, in the whole wide world of Middle-Earth, those things could still be
there, outside of the immediate context of the Hobbit-related narrative and
in other ages of the Tolkien mythos. (This is where I thought MERP handled
things pretty ably, even if their vision was an interpretive 'stretch' to
fit what was potentially expected from FRPG gamers as a whole).

But people have different opinions and visions, and many of them
protectively purist, of what Middle-Earth is and what it should not ever be;
it can be like talking politics & religion: it almost always devolves into
heated arguments. As for me, I would be fascinated to see a P&P treatment of
Tolkien's world. Morrowind was another one I considered; 1st edition
Greyhawk, yeah... there was a few. It has to do with the elegance of the P&P
system that motivated me to translate other milieus into it.

Anyway, thanks for the info on that link.



On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 10:36 AM, Panthera Altaica <draltaica at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I wonder how many others used the PnP rules without the Perilous Lands
> suppliment?  I used PnP for DnD settings myself as only hand the Powers &
> Perils box set as a kid and thou I hated the DnD rule system for a
> Roleplaying(thou AD&D2ed is still my favorit Fantasy wargaming rule system
> :P ) I do like most of their campaign setting.
>
> What I like best about PNP is that each alienmnt has it's own idea about
> what is good and what is evil.
>
> Anyway for anyone that is interested in a making a PnP treatment for the
> Trollkinian Lands as I link to call The-Estate-That-Must-Not-Be-Named as
> they like sue anyone that even mentions THIER property.
>
> _The_Last_Ringbearer_ is apocryphal treatment of the Lord of the Rings.
>
> http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html
>
> No one sheds a tear over Mordor's downfall, although the hobbit Sam Gamgee
> does spare a moment to wonder if a dead enemy soldier is truly evil or has
> simply been misguided or coerced into serving the dark lord Sauron.
>
> Well, there's two sides to every story, or to quote a less banal maxim,
> history is written by the winners. That's the philosophy behind "The Last
> Ringbearer," a novel set during and after the end of the War of the Ring
> (the climactic battle at the end of "The Lord of the Rings") and told from
> the point of view of the losers. The novel was written by Kirill Yeskov, a
> Russian paleontologist, and published to acclaim in his homeland in 1999.
> Translations of the book have also appeared in other European nations, but
> fear of the vigilant and litigious Tolkien estate has heretofore prevented
> its publication in English.
>
> That changed late last year when one Yisroel Markov posted his English
> translation of "The Last Ringbearer" as a free download.
>
>
> Dr. Panthera Tigris Altaica
>
>
>
>
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>
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