The One Ring...

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Akahige

I guess a question that really needs to be asked (at least for me) is: How many of these explanations were spelled-out by Tolkien in his works and/or interviews, and how many are based on his posthumously-edited material, and assumptions made by people over the years?

The stuff I was mentioning, anyway, is all from Tolkien's work, although not all of it being published predates his death. The History of Middle Earth is where you want to go for most of this, but it's a slog of a read in places - I'd say you have to be a pretty dedicated Tolkien fan to be willing to go through some of it.
The business of the Ring focusing the "Morgoth Element", incidently, comes from volume 10 of the History, "Morgoth's Ring".

Originally Posted by Akahige

Another thing that I question is why, if Tolkien's world is so clear-cut and easily understood (and I don't mean to be facetious), there isn't already an extensive and authoratative fan-written adaptation for GURPS that the community can turn to as being perfect for the job.

<shrug> Probably a few things:
1) There's already a Lord of the Rings RPG, so at least some of the people who'd be doing it in GURPS otherwise are probably just playing that (well, either - there's the current one and the old MERPS game).
2) There probably is a lot of fan-made stuff (I know I've seen several discussions here on the boards, for example), but no-one has gone through and compiled it all into one source.
3) Going through the Histories is, like I said, a slog. Finding the gems of concise essays requires reading through a lot of half-finished jot-notes. Not everyone is willing to put in the work.