Glorelendil wrote:
I see those things as being contradictory: a single $40 book that also has rules and adversaries and artwork that tries to address each of those lands is going to end up having a very short entry for each.
Look, the main thing is that the book includes a 5E Culture (i.e. a D&D "Race") for each of the key peoples of the entire West-lands. That would be a satisfactory foundation for me. Cultures in D&D don't take up much page space--not as much as classes. I'm not talking about a national almanac for each country.
At least these:
Shire-hobbit
Longbeard Dwarf
Grey Elf (the Elves choose a particular Homeland which forms part of their "racial/cultural" package: Lindon, the Wandering Companies of Eriador, Rivendell, Lorien, or the Woodland Realm)
Silvan Elf
(If we're pressed for space, then High Elves could be left out of the core book's array of PC cultures, since they seem to be mostly unique figures, such as Galadriel. Similar in stature to the Istari.)
Dunadan of the North
Bree-folk (it would be funny to combine the Bree-hobbits and Bree-men into a single Culture/Race: "Bree-folk" which share a set of Bree-specific cultural traits, but which have two separate builds depending on whether the character is one of the Big Folk or Little Folk.)
Dale-man (for the core book, Lake-men could be combined with Dale-men, but they are culturally and narratively distinct enough to warrant two Cultures, at least in a future supplement.)
Beorning of the Upper Vales
Woodman of Western Mirkwood, or of the Middle Vales (the Middle Vales woodmen figure prominently in one passage of The Hobbit.)
Horse-lord of Rohan
Hillman of Dunland
Wose of Druadan Forest
Man of Gondor
Snow-man of Forochel
That's 14 playable D&D "races." The lucky number.
So okay, if we are pressed for space, I admit that the one-liner canonical peoples, which Thorin and Company or the Fellowship don't actually visit (Men of Dorwinion, Hunter-folk, Fisher-folk), and PC Cultures for the enemy Men (Southrons and Easterlings), could fit in the regional supplements.
Even if you separated out the rules in a separate book, it's still not very many column inches per land. The result? "a watered-down, vague rendition of Middle-earth" that looks like a "generic fantasy blob" because there isn't room to go into interesting detail on each one.
I'm not talking about a chapter for each country--just a PC Culture/Race write-up, which needs only a few paragraphs of explanatory text.
I mean the creation and description of interesting characters and places and plot hooks, with maps of the cities and other cool artwork.
I don't want site-maps and art in the core Worldbook. I'd rather have 14 playable Cultures/Races than maps of cities and yet another drawing of some random cool scene or character.
As for artwork...there's plenty of Tolkienian art available elsewhere...I don't need it in my RPG rulebook. (Though I like it in my adventure book, to show players what the adventure sites look like.) Just give it a beautiful cover, a handsome font, pack it full of everything needed to form a Company composed of adventurers from all of the main countries in the West-lands, and call it done. 
In order to add in the colorful parts you're talking about more $40 books, except now the information for any one land is spread across several books.
"The colorful parts I'm talking about" are only Race/Culture write-ups, not regional almanacs!
I'd much rather have it organized by region. Yes, I'll be salivating to get my "The Sands of Far Harad" expansion supplement, but I'd rather wait for it than get a dry encyclopedia as the first release.
Umm...so what are you expecting in the core ME-D&D rulebook? You're hoping it just has Wilderland?
Ever seen Ptolus? If any setting deserved a Ptolus-sized effort, Middle-earth does. It would sell. A Ptolus-sized complete, juicy encyclopedic ME-D&D worldbook would make for a million-dollar Kickstarter. Probably too late though...slated for summer means the book is already put together. It is what it is. Either way, I'm interested in what C7 does. They'll do fine. My suggestions are my consumer preferences.
Statistics: Posted by Middle-earth Way — Sat May 07, 2016 2:25 am