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| Landathrad’s
Review
Let’s start with a first impression: The book looks beautiful. I know that it may not mean a great deal to most of you, but Decipher has truly put together a beautiful product. The very look of the book “feels” like Middle-Earth. The images are well-chosen, the typeface is crisp, and the Tolkien textual citations throughout add to the aesthetic quality of the book. My only complaint is that there is not enough original artwork. The movie images are great, but one of the most appealing options available to a roleplaying product is the use of original artwork and images… Style – 9.5 Now, on to the real discussion. The message board at Decipher has been burned up these last few months, with eager fans anxiously awaiting the arrival of the jewel – or garbage – or lump of coal – depending on the particular fan’s mood of the day, that Decipher would bring to us. It truly amazed me that so many people (maybe even myself) made judgments concerning a game that was not yet released, but I suppose this is an example of the intense feelings we fans of the most wondrous fantasy world in history can exhibit. How dare they add anything the professor did not intend… How dare they leave out this detail or that detail that we all know is essential to the atmosphere of Middle-Earth… Most of these concerns were valid ones. The reason that Middle-Earth is so loved is that one man (admittedly with the aid of a handful of others) created a richly-detailed world, that just somehow seems “complete.” To leave these arguments behind for a moment, Decipher really has delivered a solid game to us. Are there problems with some of the mechanics? Certainly. Is there a better way that “unit combat” can be handled? Probably. Are the mechanics a failure? I don’t believe so by a long shot. Once again the game is solid. I urge you to think of any roleplaying game that was perfect upon its initial release (or at any time in its history, for that matter). The game is not perfect, but it is a solid foundation that can be built upon. We have all heard it before, “A roleplaying game is always evolving, a living, ever-changing form of entertainment,” and that is true of this game. That is what a site like this one is for, what future products are for, and what fan feedback to the designers is for. Perhaps the most interesting thing I can say about the game mechanics is that a game session in fact does have a different feel or mood to it. It may be because the players and myself are more “focused” on the richness of the setting, but I believe it would be more accurate to say that somehow, in some subtle (ha, you’ve heard that word before) way, the game pacing and simplicity yields Tolkien-like results, even in hardened, power-hungry DnD players. Mechanics – 8.5 Just a few final notes on non-game mechanic content…The location descriptions at the beginning of the book are nice in their brevity. It is only hoped that Decipher will make it a point to produce tomes of products detailing ALL of these locations. These kinds of products are what I want! And I think many fans will agree with me. We must beat down the doors of Decipher (please not literally) with our requests to see more location-oriented supplements… The Narrator’s section is fairly sound. The enemies section is good, but too short… Most of my complaints come from the fact that it is unreasonable (and probably not too advantageous in a business sense) to make a book that is 1,000 pages long. But, this is what future supplements, and future spending-of-money is all about. All the same, the material that is included is well-done. Content -- 9.0 Overall Review Score: 8.5 (This is not an average in case you are doing the math in your head. I couldn’t give the folks at Decipher too good of a score to begin with, or else they’d start loafing on the job;). I definitely recommend buying the book, as no Tolkien gamer should be without it. |