Middle Earth: Melee (TFT) or Man to Man (GURPS)

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by middlearthenthusiast

Does TFT have anything comparable to Weapon Skills like you would commonly use in GURPS combat? If so, what exactly do they do since hits in TFT are based on DX?

Well, the new Legacy Edition of TFT added Weapon Expertise and Mastery, which have new effects, including some defensive effects (-1 or -2 to be hit, or +1 or +2 dice when Defending), but they are not nearly as useful as what can be done to protect yourself in GURPS, unless you take the Defend option, but almost no one ever won a fight by Defending.

More useful perhaps are the Tactics and Strategy talents, which help you win Initiative, which is often crucial to surviving being outnumbered in TFT, because then you have more opportunities to avoid being engaged by multiple figures per turn, and then you and your allies focus on taking down the dangerous foes you do engage before they get a chance to hit you.

You could also cheat and use magic spells... Blur, Dazzle, Stone Flesh, magic armor... can all greatly increase your survival rates. So can fighting in darkness and on broken ground when your figures have a good DX advantage.

Or you can add house rules that do more to help keep the heroes alive. Olden TFT articles (and some players' house rules) suggested some optional very difficult talents that added defensive abilities, though those can take some finesse/experience/playtesting to get your desired balance right.

I've played TFT with some house rules that add active defenses to TFT, and liked them.

I also have very much liked the system Chris Rice suggested a few posts above, where you compare and offset DX, but I am still testing and ironing out details, and it is more complex than base TFT and tends to expose what your foes' adjDX is...

[middlearthenthusiast]

Thanks for your input. I’m gonna buy legacy edition.

[larsdangly]

I've played gobs of middle earth campaigns using either GURPS or TFT; they are both excellent as roleplaying systems for the setting, but I would say TFT is far more appropriate for a skirmish combat game. It contains much of the tactical nuance of GURPS, but is a lot faster playing and has way less book keeping. On the other hand, GURPS is superior as a system for 1 on 1 duels because of its hyper granular rules for hit locations, parries, etc.

[middlearthenthusiast]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I've played gobs of middle earth campaigns using either GURPS or TFT; they are both excellent as roleplaying systems for the setting, but I would say TFT is far more appropriate for a skirmish combat game. It contains much of the tactical nuance of GURPS, but is a lot faster playing and has way less book keeping. On the other hand, GURPS is superior as a system for 1 on 1 duels because of its hyper granular rules for hit locations, parries, etc.

That’s really good feedback. Have you played The One Ring? I have a lot of the books. If not, what did you use for source material and how did you manage to keep it low-magic?

[larsdangly]

I own and very much appreciate the setting materials and artwork for ToR but don't play it, for several reasons:
- I dislike new boutique systems; I already known dozens of rpg systems that are more than adequate for resolving everything that could plausibly come up at a gaming table, and I refuse to learn any more.
- The adventures are highly 'scripted', whereas I exclusively play sandbox campaigns (or one-shots that are effectively mini sandboxes).
- Other than the big regional maps, the site maps are poor and ill suited for play. E.g., the map of erebor in the book of that name is ludicrously small, simple and hard to read.

When I run middle earth (which I've done using classic D+D, GURPS and, most often, TFT), the published materials I use are:
- maps from Tolkien's books
- the Decipher map sets
- Location and regional maps from the classic ICE modules.

Re. the magic level, that is totally under the GM's control, so it is pretty easy to engineer as you see fit. The players can't encounter setting-breaking magical beings or objects if you don't put them there!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Re. the magic level, that is totally under the GM's control, so it is pretty easy to engineer as you see fit. The players can't encounter setting-breaking magical beings or objects if you don't put them there!

Well, there's still the problem of what, if any, spellcasting you permit from PCs.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by middlearthenthusiast

That’s really good feedback. Have you played The One Ring? I have a lot of the books. If not, what did you use for source material and how did you manage to keep it low-magic?

I played TOR. The actual system kind of sucks - the GM running it created some homebrew modifications to it. That said, the source material is beautiful and compelling. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to run a Middle Earth based game.

BTW, if you want to emulate the kind of amazing stuff that can be done by Elves and Numenorians, GURPS DF or DFRPG would be the way to go. Alas, they are not great for skirmishes. For those, I would definitely recommend TFT. I run a hybrid DF/DFRPG game, and combats can take a while, depending on circumstances. I can't imagine similar scenarios, scaled correctly, being anywhere nearly as time consuming.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Well, there's still the problem of what, if any, spellcasting you permit from PCs.

Nearly none I'd think if you were going by the official lore. There were only 5 wizards, the Istari, present in Middle Earth during the Third Age. They were however drawn from the ranks of the Maiar, and not even the Elves knew how many Maiar there were. Lest we forget, Sauron himself was Maiar, and he was surely a caster of spells and a wielder of magic, extending to enchantment (he made magic items, the very Rings of Power); Sauron was surely a martial wizard in the TFT sense, although one of formidable attributes and talents indeed. Sauron is, in his way, the 6th Istari. We may presume any Maiar was therefore capable of spell casting, a natural born wizard in the TFT sense, but again we come back to this: there's only the six of them in all Middle Earth.

Were there spell-casters besides the Istari? The possibility has to exist. The White Council labeled the "presence" in Dol Guldur as "the Necromancer" before they knew it was Sauron returned, so they had to be expecting (hoping) this being would turn out to be someone along the lines of a TFT wizard, which means they were aware mortal wizards, human or perhaps elvish, could indeed exist. Yet not one turns up in the entire War of the Ring, so these conventional TFT wizards would have to be indeed rare.

Could Elves be spell-casters in the TFT sense? We do know Elrond and Galadriel maintained protective spells on their realms. Presumably Cirdan the Shipwright did as well. But remember, they each owned a Ring of Power, the Three Rings that had been made for the Elves by Sauron. Anyone with a magic item can cast the spell or spells associated with that item in TFT -- that person doesn't have to be a wizard.

Yet Elves must know, or once have known, a lot of wizardry. Elves taught Sauron what he needed to make the Rings in the first place. In TFT, you have to be a wizard to use Greater Magic Item Creation.

I'm sure the Silmarillion has much more to reveal than I can remember about these things. I haven't reread it in a long time, so most of what I'm recalling is drawn from the trilogy.

[Anthony]

The way magic works in Tolkien is pretty vague, often fairly subtle, and usually more resembles inherent abilities than spells. From my recollection, in LotR, users of magic include:

• Sauron (hard to distinguish which things are magic).
• Gandalf (variety of tricks, some connected to having the ring of fire)
• Saruman (other than his Voice, nothing terribly dramatic)
• the Balrog (mostly, just fire and darkness stuff)
• the Nazgul (dread, mostly, and a cursed knife)
• Elrond (enchanted the river that protects Rivendell, causing it to rise when the Ringwraiths tried to cross)
• Galadriel (nothing much overt, but some probably illusory abilities)
• the Barrow-Wight (just weakness)
• Tom Bombadil (mostly driving off nasties with his song)

Pretty much the only person who actually did anything clearly identifiable as spellcasting was Gandalf, the rest were just using what seemed innate power.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Were there spell-casters besides the Istari? The possibility has to exist. The White Council labeled the "presence" in Dol Guldur as "the Necromancer" before they knew it was Sauron returned, so they had to be expecting (hoping) this being would turn out to be someone along the lines of a TFT wizard, which means they were aware mortal wizards, human or perhaps elvish, could indeed exist. Yet not one turns up in the entire War of the Ring, so these conventional TFT wizards would have to be indeed rare.

Apparently the Witch King of Angmar was a sorcerer, the owners of the nine rings "became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old." So one way to be a TFT wizard in a Middle Earth setting might be to arrange to become a king or queen with a ring of power :).