Fourth Age of Middle Earth gaming

[combatmedic]

So, the Fourth Age…

Is it boring because Sauron is gone?I’m not asking about novels, mind you, but games. Not the same thing.

My guess is ‘no, it’s not boring for not for gaming.’ Not every Middle Earth game needs to involve saving the whole world from the power of Evil, but games should have a moral dimension.

Evil remains, of course, even if its physical power is reduced. The world doesn’t just become a utopia. All the human failings that create conflict and drama still remain, and many monsters doubtless roam the darker parts of Middle Earth.

Tolkien started work on a thriller involving ‘the new Shadow’, an evil cult or secret society, and gangs of young men or boys acting in ‘orcish’ ways. He ditched it. While it might not have been up his alley, a thriller like that sounds like it could make for a great Fourth Age game set in Gondor.

Something else to consider is whether any of the orcs have changed after Sauron’s fall/banishment. If he’s not able to dominate them as he used to do, maybe some few orcs have turned from evil?
Who are the slaves in Rhun that were set free by Aragorn and given their own lands? Are they humans? Orcs? Half-orcs? A mix of all three kinds?

Magic presumably remains part of the world, although maybe magic related to Sauron is weakened. Or maybe not. Was he the source of black magic or simply a teacher of it? And what of the other sorts of magic in the world?
The elves diminish and retreat, but not all at once. I think a little diminishment of them is probably good from a game balance perspective anyway, judging by stat write-ups I have see :0

Men are the dominant race in this age, but the Dwarves and especially the Hobbits don’t seem to be badly off.
We have a fair idea of the large scale political situation of the early part of the Fourth Age.

Although Tolkien seemed pessimistic about the possibilities of success, a quest to find the missing Entwives might make a fun RPG campaign, if you wanted something grand.

All of this is just IMHO, and YMMV.

But what do you guys think?

[Flyndaran]

The hardest and most important actions for prosperity comes after the big battles and disasters, in my opinion. So I think that setting would be far more fun to play in than any of the main books.
There's a web comic that takes TLOTR as if it were a D&D clone game. The railroading and making the GM PC Frodo the Mary Sue (or Marty Stu if you're need sex agreement in labels.) show how badly such a setting really is for gaming.

[Anthony]

4th age isn't well enough defined to be a gaming setting. You could do a setting in your own homebuilt 4th age, and that might or might not be a good game, but that's largely up to the GM, not a feature of the 4th age as such.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Anthony

4th age isn't well enough defined to be a gaming setting. You could do a setting in your own homebuilt 4th age, and that might or might not be a good game, but that's largely up to the GM, not a feature of the 4th age as such.

I consider the relative lack of era speciic details a bonus.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I consider the relative lack of era speciic details a bonus.

My point is, you can do a '4th age of middle earth' game, and it could be a good or bad game, but what makes it good or bad is pretty much you, and not what Tolkien said or didn't say about the 4th age.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I consider the relative lack of era specific details a bonus.

I don't. Every bit of specific detail someone else provides for me is something I don't have to spend my own limited efforts on. And I've not yet met a game setting so detailed that it didn't leave me all the scope for my own additions I could possibly use.

The amount of effort I would have to put into a 4th Age campaign would be much better spent reviving my old fantasy campaign.


Hans

[Anders]

Remember also that the magic is dying... the Elves are leaving... the old world is fading... I'd make fourth age Middle Earth a Very Low or No Mana zone.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Is it boring because Sauron is gone?

On the contrary, IMO it becomes interesting because Sauron is gone. If you set a game during the late Third Age the players would tend to be distracted by the thought that there was something else going on that was more important than what their characters were doing, that they could be doing something more worthwhile, that they were not the protagonists, and that their story was not the story. Moreover there would be too much clear-cut conflict in which the players knew who needed to be supported and who opposed, too much patent good and evil: that leaves the players with only tactical choices to make. ("I only need to know one thing: where they are!")

So when my players asked me to run something set in Middle-earth I chose the beginning of the Fourth Age, and the Reconstruction of Arnor. There was conflict between the Dunedain of the North and the Hobbits of the Shire (on one hand) and the immigrating Men of Shadow on the other, and something to be said for each side. The Dunedain of the North had given their all to the struggle for over a thousand years, and deserved recognition and reward: Arnor was made up of lands that were rightfully their lordships. On the other hand the refugee Black Númenoreans had been promised a new start and land for the homesteading, and they had preserved arts the the Dunedain of the North needed, and they had repented, goddammit! Without open warfare and clear-cut good and evil there was a lot more to do, find out, and think about than tactics. The PCs ended up striving to prevent a split between the young and old Black Númenoreans over the issue of humility. It was fun.

[Agemegos]

Previous discussion.

[D10]

Maybe one of the blue mages gets involved (or even leads) the cult of melkor behind the scenes, and has big big plans, something so big and grand I cant even conceive