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Writer's picturePaul Wolfe

Lords of the Darkness: Playing Middle Earth with Shadowdark RPG



I've been noodling on how to run pretty much anything using Shadowdark as a base. I really want to play / run a game in Middle Earth. I tried running the One Ring, but I didn't care for the game system. I tried running in the Adventures in Middle Earth Roleplaying Game (5e conversion of the One Ring), but the system doesn't fit the look/feel of Lord of the Rings, in my opinion.


I think Shadowdark might.


So, I took a stab at converting some stuff over to Shadowdark using a combination of the One Ring and the Lord of the Rings RPG (new 5e version of the One Ring).


I cut all the classes but Fighter and Thief. I added the Scholar class. There's not really any "user level" magic in Middle Earth. Anyone that uses otherworldly powers are either super powerful or super evil (or both). But, I wanted the Scholar (and everyone really) to feel like they're walking that line between light and shadow. So, I took a little different tactic on my Scholar class.


For Fighter, I renamed it to Warrior and gave the player access to alternate Talent tables. In this way, they can shape their warrior in different ways. I did the same for the Thief (renamed to Rogue). The base classes are almost completely unchanged, with the exception of hit dice (which I bumped up 1 die type) and the #12 position on their talent tables.


Anyway -- let me know what you think.






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