Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerwen
Yes, but the problem is that the original poster, Paradus, though he indeed seemed to thinking rather in D&D terms, was asking about "Tolkien's world"– that is, presumably, Tolkien's own writings rather than any roleplaying system based on them. Tolkien didn't write the "Ambarquenta" rules, did he?
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No, he didn't. Nor did the author of the AQ rules write LotR. And reading AQ would say nothing meaningful about Tolkien if you haven't read a great deal of Tolkien. I would say AQ is a not particularly good rules system unless one has a fairly deep love of Middle Earth. AQ is a reflection, inevitably a distorted reflection. As such it needs a correction which might best come from players with a knowledge of and respect for the original. I did assume
Paradus familiar with the original.
I might say AQ doesn't answer anything. It perhaps asks far more questions than
Paradus. For every point where it states something firm about how the books step outside realism, you can and perhaps should ask if the rules got it right. Tolkien's number one priority was not nitpick level consistency, while RPG rules have to act like rules. The job of writing rules can't be done perfectly. Still, my thought is that if one immerses one's self in the sub-creation, one learns different things than if one discusses the sub-creation in abstract. If one doesn't attempt to find patterns, one isn't going to learn patterns.
I do see Paradus's questions as relevant. What can one do in Middle Earth with song and magic that one can't do in our poor mundane reality? Who can do what, why, when and where? Yes, I am echoing Saruman's heresy of breaking things up to understand the parts. Perhaps I might be missing something of the whole.
But if one shuns the W questions, something is missing too. AQ was put together by people with a great love of Tolkien. In setting up RPG rules one has to address the W questions. An academic exegesis, if it avoids the W questions, isn't going to be complete.
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