DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Tolkien?

I am old, played D&D and fantasy games for years, and when I was younger,, I devoured all the Tolkien Lord of the Rings and Hobbit books. Shared these with my English students for years.

Point of this post is Tolkien. Loved the movies. Supposedly a new one finished and edited by his son Christopher will be released in August, I think.

Any interest in the Shire and Mordor in Middle Earth anymore. I will be getting this probably. I hope it is easier than the Silmarilion.

I am fire. I am death.

I could write a PhD level thesis on those books. I have the extended versions of the movies, and always wondered why they left out Tom Bombadille, and the Battle of the Shire. Lots of license taken with the Hobbit too.

RotK is my favorite movie of all time (I suppose it gets a generous bump because the entire trilogy is so great). With that being said, I almost enjoy the movie just as much while listening to the director/writer and actor commentaries. The commentary by the Hobbit's was so funny (when they're saying goodbye to Frodo, they all had one-liners that were classic). The Peter Jackson commentary was great for where and how they filled as well as why they did certain things (like leaving out certain characters or why lines by those characters were given to others).

Additionally, there is so much "making of" material on the extended DVDs. I've watched all of it and it's amazing how much work went into each costume and location and how most of it originated in artwork from 1-2 artists.

Such a great experience.

As for the Hobbit, I like the first two while the third was trash. They didn't have the magic the others had.

I don't know. I rather enjoyed their representation of Dain Ironfoot. Seeing as Bilbo was unconscious for the entire battle, they took a lot of liberties.

Just curious, what type of characters did you run in D&D. I had a magic user/theif in one game, and a battlerager dwarf in another. I had to promise the dm that I would run the dwarf to kill him, as he was a monster.

I can't resist this thread! I played D&D (AD&D version) for many years. I used to like to play clerics, illusionists and occasionally fighters. Either human or half elf

They did a phenomenal job with Smaug and his treasure, almost too much treasure and richness to see. Got numb to the treasure abundance. I thought the movies were shot well and just the eye candy part of the landscapes was incredible to see. Somebody got the scope, the scale, the "Vision" thing right for High Fantasy. Pretty incredible just spectacle of each one. The combat by races was impressive as well. Hope the book is good.

I ran different characters over the years, and be mindful my group literally grew up in the game as it was released, book by book. So we were reading Dragon mag, new books were had, debating done, and we were really aware of the roots of the reading and sources for the game as it evolved were shared by Gygax and others. Tolkien was certainly a major part of the D&D multiverse. We played multiple characters.

I played a human monk and took him all the way to max (and beyond in an expansion that allowed him more levels), a gnome thief, later adding MU, and a half-elf rangers. All my magic users made dead early; all my clerics got robbed blind. One interesting character I had was an assassin who looked for the world like a paladin. That caused a number of issues.
I had read fantasy and SF and horror for years. This was like coming home for me.

For what it is worth, I also owned a Number One Dragon for a year or so.

If you write it, I would read it! LOLetc.

Just so many great memories rolling dice with my friends . .. .

Have you heard about this?

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter...e-a8292196.html

I'm a big fan of The Hobbit and The Trilogy but have never read any of the other stuff. Loved the Peter Jackson's Rings movies but thought he failed miserably with that bloated mess of a Hobbit trilogy.

I grew up watching the animated Hobbit film before I ever read the book. I can even stand some of Ralph Bakshi's attempt at animating Lord of the Rings, which mostly stunk.

I have been reading about the huge, expensive Middle-Earth related tv show that cfrs15 just posted about. I am SO glad it is older tales and not Hobbit & Rings all over again.

There's a new book out in August. 'The Fall of Gondolin' It's Tolkien's story but edited by his son, Christopher. I'm buying that for my Dad who got me into all of this as a kid.

The King Returns? This loser calls herself a reporter?

My elf mu/theif was a specialist in necromancy and fire spells. He was also the one that usually took out guards and broke into places to let the rest of our group into fortresses. To top it off, he and a cleric of Loki managed to capture a troll and use its blood to make healing potions. We constantly ticked off the dm with some of the things we did.

The battlerager was a dwarf of high strength, medium intelligence, and low wisdom. He also had a magic axe that allowed him to instantly go beserk. He killed two members of our party because he couldn't recognise friend from foe when beserk. As I has said before, I had to run him with the intent to kill him, so there was no such thing as retreat. He killed everything he came across. I miss playing sometimes.

Smaug was fantastic... love the books and movies

I think the best scene was Gandalf and the balrog at the beginning of the Two Towers. It was as I imagined it when I first read it.

I don't know how it will do but I probably will give it a chance.......

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/feature/entertainment/amazon-lord-of-rings-tv-show-3668938/


Home Feature Entertainment Feature
Amazon Lord of the Rings TV show latest news
Amazon is bringing Middle-earth to the small screen in a Lord of the Rings TV series
By Dominic Preston | 12 Apr 2018

For most of the past decade, TV producers have been desperate to find ‘the next Game of Thrones’, and now Amazon apparently reckons it’s found it: Lord of the Rings.

The retail giant has reportedly spent an astonishing $250 million to secure the rights to an ongoing TV show set in Middle-earth, with a commitment to multiple seasons and the potential for a spin-off, all to air exclusively on its own Amazon Prime Video streaming platform.

When is the Lord of the Rings TV series coming out?
Right now… uh, we don’t know. It was only announced that Amazon was buying the rights in November 2017, so the final show is probably a long way off still. There’s an outside chance it’ll arrive in late 2019, but realistically it’s more likely to turn up some time in 2020. We’ll keep you posted.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon's contract requires it to enter production within two years, which makes November 2019 the deadline for production to kick off, adding to the sense that 2020 is likely the earliest it will hit our screens.

Whenever it turns up, it'll be an exclusive to Amazon Prime Video, Amazon's rival to Netflix. You can get Prime Video as one of several benefits from a general Prime subscription, with other perks including free next-day shipping and Prime Music.

Prime normally costs £79 a year, but you can always try it for free through a free trial. There are also rumours that Amazon is in talks to launch a totally free, ad-supported version of Prime Video in the future, but it's all uncertain right now.

What’s the show about?
Again, we don’t know much, but we do know a little. For one, the show “will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring,” according to Amazon’s statement - but we don’t know if that means between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, or before the both of them.

Amazon apparently "may use material from the films," and there's even a chance that original director Peter Jackson will come on board as an executive producer, so whatever happens it's likely this will exist in the same universe as the film series, rather than rebooting it entirely.

Matt Galsor, a representative for the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins also explained that Amazon will “bring to the screen previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings,” so we know it will at least partly draw on Tolkien’s writing.

There’s one big unadapted prequel - The Silmarillion - but since it reads more like a history textbook than a novel, it would be tough to adapt into an ongoing show. Still, Amazon could be taking it as a source of loose inspiration.

There are also a number of published books based on Tolkien's notes and unfinished writings, such as The Children of Húrin or the Unfinished Tales compilation. There's yet another on the way in 2018 - The Fall of Gondolin - and anyone keen to figure out what Amazon's show will cover could do worse than reading all these books, as it's almost certain that Amazon will be drawing on one (or more) of them to tell its story.

We do know that Amazon has signed a multi-season deal - so it’s clearly confident about the show - and also has the option for a second spin-off TV series if everything goes well.

I've lost count of how many times I've read the books. Haven't read The Unfinished Tales or anything past The Silmarilion but I'm pretty versed in the main stuff. As far as the Amazon series goes, I really hope they do the whole Silmarilion, speed it up in the beginning where they need to (no one is going to watch chapters of the creation of the Tolkeinverse) but those stories are pretty epic.

The LOTR trilogy were near perfect movies, I didn't like how Mortensen portrayed Aragorn as a guy that didn't want the job, he totally wanted the job. If he doesn't become king, he doesn't get the girl.

The Hobbit trilogy, ohhh boy. The thing I liked the least was the escape from Mirkwood, riding in barrels made to look like a theme park ride.

Some people complain that they turned one book into three movies, well, if you read the Appendices you'd know that all that stuff was actually going on during that time.
Or the inclusion of Legolas, he was Thranduil's son so, it wasn't a bad deviation from the original story.
Didn't like the 'love triangle' between two elves and a dwarf. That would never happen.

In parts it looked to me like Peter Jackson was thumbing his nose at the Tolkein family for the strife that went between them all due to monies owed to whomever that were never paid.

I'm also looking forward to the next book, the story of Gondolin was one of my favorites in The Silmarilion. Maybe a third through the Beren and Luthien book now.

Sad and sorry.

I do not remember that one. Hire the ignorant.

I am not an Amazon consumer, so, no, I had not read it or heard about this. Budgets are no guarantee of success, but solid eye candy is always worth the risk in my opinion.

What does one do to see it?

All kinds of interesting role-playing possibilites for an assassin that resembles a paladin.

I read the books 3-4 times in my youth. I've seen all the movies and will undoubtedly watch the Amazon series.

As for D&D, I still play. I started playing when I attended college in Beloit Wisc in 1978. Beloit was very near to Lake Geneva where Gary Gygax lived and worked. Although I never met him, several of the students I learned to play with had. Through the years I have continued to play either online or PnP (pencil and paper). I currently play DDO (D&D online), and am in 2 games at Immortals Inc. in Westlake. One game is run by the shop's owner and I've been playing in his games for about 10 years. My current character is a gnome Wizard specializing in illusion. I also play in a game run as part of The Adventurer's League, a world-wide system of D&D games following strictly to the basic rules so that characters can be carried from one game to another. There I am just starting out with a classic half orc, maul-wielding fighter.

In D&D 3.5 there was an anti-paladin option, intended to be a paladin fallen from grace and using his powers for evil. I had a friend who played one based on the historical Gilles de Rais. de Rais had fought beside Joan of Arc and rose to the position of Marshal of France (essentially the general of the French armies.) He retired as a great military hero. After his military career he fell into satisfying his blood lust in evil and horrific ways and was eventually hanged for his crimes. (I've supplied a link for anyone who wishes to know more. I won't detail it here.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais

I bow to my betters! Wow! That is a lot of high-caliber play in a number of directions. It must be good for you to keep that many irons going.

I kind of abandoned some of this when Wizards bought it up. We played intensely up through 2.0 and the insane number of expansions and monster manuals and class expansions and such. Not to be maudlin, but there was a purity to the original as it evolved that a lot of the later "merchandised" game had, and we just never embraced it or we rejected it outright. Western, Japanese, I admit to embracing the Lovecraft crossover as a huge fan of the mythos since my youth, and on and on. Nothing equalled the love of the original as we grew our characters into AD&D. If I play now, it is "old schoole" who want a simpler game where characters and choices are the pistons.

If I had to explain the difference for old men in that kid game, there was too much to buy too often, and the game forced you to keep up with newer versions. Supposedly done for "reality" and authenticating believability and verisimilitude (is that even possible in a Middle Earth-typed fantasy multiverse?), it messed up characters and their campaigns, some of which ran for months. It got to the point where we weren't role players, we were system wonks, where the battle got lost behind the weapons and class specialization.

The game remained best when we rolled dice and let outcomes shape the game and the campaigns directions. And I will admit to being a dice junkie! Had/have some great ones.
Pun up! The magic of the original is still here for me. Thanks for some really sweet posts that I have genuinely enjoyed.

Bard, I believe you would like the 5th edition. 3.5 got way too complicated, 4e tried to make the game more like Hollywood movies. With 5e they realized exactly what you are talking about, simplified the whole system and made the characters balanced and the game outcome driven. And I totally agree, it's way more fun to roll the dice.

I was just chuckling about the psychiatry 'experts' that said all us D&D players were going to wind up in the sewers trying to kill alligators.

Alligator tail is quite good as long as you don't let it get rubbery, and they also make excellent shoes.

my friend Penny Petticord worked for TSR for many years. I was fortunate to play in many of her campaigns. I remember an NPC female paladin of hers, who was disguising herself as an assassin to infiltrate the Assassins Guild. This was AD&D, way before Wizards of the Coast bought D&D.

Oh !

Back when it was good.

How awesome is this?! DT has it's own gaming Convention!!!! LOL

I dabbled in D&D in middle school, but really got in to it in the 90's in high school and for awhile after. I really miss those all night weekend gaming sessions pounding Mt. Dew jammin' to Alice in Chains. I admittedly played a dangerous game back then.. by day I was role player, by night I was a table top wargamer (Warhammer 40k). Gamin was very cliquish where I grew up lol

Favorite characters? I had one for years starting in high school.. a dark elf fighter who was paired up with my buddy's orc fighter (yes, I was influenced by R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt... who by the way I became one of my least favorite characters the more I read the series).

I also had a human fighter/thief that I let the events of our campaigns mold him more than having given him a tightly pre-established personality. Easily one of the more enjoyable characters I've created.

As for Tolkien..

The movies were great, but dragged a bit for me. I have to admit that I can't stand Frodo. Bilbo I respect... but Frodo chaps my arse. I have a serious dislike for main characters who contribute the least to the party. Bilbo was 10x the Hobbit Frodo ever was.

Other stories I'd like to see hit the screen: R.A. Salvatores Drizzt series which would probably make a really good Netflix/Amazon type series for several seasons.

I'd also like to see The Dragonlance Chronicles made in to a series.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to game in years

I appreciate the last statement there. We played intensively when I was younger. We were focused nerds. Big bang Theory, them is my folks!

Sadly my group broke up; they died, moved, moved on, and it fell apart. For a few decades now, I have done Origins in Columbus, but it is getting too big, too pricey. So, I may be done, but it was fun. Hot rolls for everyone!

I've never been to Origins, but been to GenCon 3 times now in 10 years. One of the biggest changes I've seen over that time is the exponential improvement in the quality of costumes. It used to be just gamer nerds dressing up like their favorite character. The rise of cosplay has brought in fit, attractive people wearing expensively elaborate costumes across multiple genres.