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There Are Games Afoot! - Page 8

© Michael Martinez

Nor can you impose Massive Overwhelming Superior Force (tm) upon the adventurers when they show up at this relatively unknown sorceror's fortress. Either they'll all die, or they'll run over to Lorien and tell Amroth (or Celeborn and Galadriel) about the huge army massing across the river. On the other hand, if you say, "Well, everyone knows the Necromancer is very powerful, and there is just no way to beat him", the players may make you prove your point. So a pen-and-paper game system has to be flexible enough to give the game master the means to keep the players from totally wrecking the timeline. There have to be balancing forces which keep the non-player characters from following the player characters on the ultimate quest a thousand years too soon. And a military victory has to be out of the question. Furthermore, it's not fair to the players to let them put the pieces of the puzzle together before the timeline allows people to do that. That is, Gandalf didn't find out that Sauron was the Necromancer until the 29th century. Arnor and Gondor didn't figure out that some dark power was working to isolate and destroy them until the 19th century. As frustrating as it might seem, the players cannot have their characters go charging into every court in the 17th century saying, "The Great Plague was started by Sauron so that Mordor would be left unguarded! We've got to do something!" Why is it unfair to the players? Because they are being cheated of adventuring in Tolkien's world. To stay faithful to Tolkien, a game has to keep the play at a level where, no matter how powerful the characters become or whom they topple from power in their adventures, Sauron's plans remain intact. And Sauron himself has to remain unassailable. Otherwise, what you end up with is just a pale shadow of Tolkien. There is a lot of room for filling in details. And the adventures don't even have to fit into the various wars that Tolkien documented throughout Appendix B. Who is to say there weren't other, less significant wars? For example, how did King Valandur of Arnor die a violent death in T.A. 652? Tolkien doesn't say. Something must have happened. And who were all those valiant men and women sung about in the songs of Rohan? If people want to play female warriors, they certainly don't have to depart from Tolkien (as long as they take shieldmaidens from a northman community).

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