4 out of 5 rating for Adventures in Middle-earth Player's GuideI'm a big fan of The One Ring (TOR) game line. I have played the game with great pleasure and rediscovered the marvels of Tolkien's fiction through a well thought out gaming experience that manages to stay true to the material that inspired it.
Having said that, when the time came to run the game, I choked a bit on the crunchiness of the mechanics. If I had the opportunity to play TOR on a regular basis, I would probably get used to it, but as a casual game, it's outside my comfort zone.
When Cubicle 7 announced the publication of a supplement offering a D&D5 experience in Middle-Earth, I was favorably intrigued. I rather like the 5th incarnation of the Great Old Game. It's not exactly a light mechanic game, but its unified and fluid approach makes it easy to learn and handle. The implicit promise of a lighter mechanical side on the sub-systems that caused me the most pain in TOR (travels and interaction) was appealing too.
I read Adventures in Middle-Earth (AiME) with great ease and pleasure. I should stress that the book is not stand-alone in two ways. First, you need the D&D5 ruleset (at least the Player's Handbook) since it's an OGL product: it doesn't attempt to reproduce or fill in for the parts of the system missing from the Systems Reference Document, it uses open mechanics to rebuild something more suited to Tolkien's world and the atmosphere the game aims for. Second, AiME's Player's Guide is also not fully stand-alone when it comes to Middle-Earth since it doesn't include any setting information (nor monster stats). These come with the recently published Loremaster's Guide.
So you can look at AiME in one of two ways: if you own some or all of the One Ring supplements (as I do), you can use AiME as an alternative system. You'll have to do a bit of tweaking on creature stats unless you own the Loremaster's Guide, and more generally you'll need to adjudicate certain things that are designed for TOR. Nothing insurmountable there. Or you can also buy the Loremaster's Guide to fill in the blanks and have a full workable game. If you don't own the TOR supplements, they will be rereleased with AiME mechanics, with the first one (Tales of Wilderland) already announced.
Overall, Adventures in Middle Earth is a success. The main achievement (and my main concern before reading it) is in the character classes offered. The designers must have been tempted to treat magic the way D&D does, but they (rightly in my opinion) decided not to. None of the classes on offer (ported over from The One Ring) have spellcasting abilities. That doesn't mean there's no magic, but it's managed differently. The classes on offer are Scholar, Slayer, Treasure Hunter, Wanderer, Warden and Warrior. The class builds are close to classic D&D but only the martial classes near identical to their D&D counterparts. All classes have in-built feats that are in line with what we see in Tolkien's world.
The game, just like The One Ring, also offers cultures instead of races (although in some instances cultures are races). It even includes two cultures that are not part of the core set of The One Ring and were only recently included in the Adventurer's Companion supplement (Men of Minas Tirith and Men of Bree). Characters are further fleshed out via virtues and rewards as well as D&D style backgrounds with a little more to them.
AiME also includes specific mechanics ported over from TOR. The travel mechanics are a little simpler and quite adaptable to probably any D&D game. They spice up travel nicely. AiME also includes rules for the influence of Shadow as well as a system for interaction. Interaction is one of the aspects of TOR that really does not satisfy me, and while AiME's approach is simpler, I'm not fully convinced it works much better. Finally, AiME includes guidelines for a Fellowship phase following each Adventuring phase. The fellowship phase is when the characters get more deeply enmeshed in the setting and grow not only in power but in involvement.
This adaptation offers a very complete toolkit even if the Loremaster's Guide provides some of the missing bits, particularly setting information, creatures and more details on Shadow rules and Fellowship phases. Reading Adventures in Middle Earth made me want to get Tales of Wilderland out and start running it to my son and his newbie friends. And the system absolutely delivered. Its main failing is that ugly cover that is neither good looking nor canon.
If you've played or run The One Ring, don't expect the games to feel exactly the same. This is a D&D adaptation and as such is inherently more heroic. In a way, AiME is Peter Jackson's take on Middle-Earth whereas TOR is closer to the Tolkien original feel. But it's a great option for a GM who loves Tolkien to offer his D&D compatible players an experience that's much closer to Lord of the Rings than vanilla D&D by a long shot. And considering Cubicle 7's flawless track record in publishing amazing adventures and setting supplements, it would be a shame not to take advantage of those just because the original system is too crunchy or too different from D&D for your playing group. Of course you might lose some subtle flavor but will compensate that by more fluidity and familiarity.
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