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When I heard that Iron Crown had lost the license to the Lord of the Rings, I was heart broken. I was almost as broken hearted as when I learned that my beloved Star Wars Roleplaying game (West End Games) was dying. My two greatest loves (one literary, the other cinema) were going to fade away in the gaming world.
Some time later, however, there was light on the horizon. A new company had picked up the license and was hard at work bringing the king of RPG settings back to life. I read all that I could read about the upcoming release and waited like a child two weeks before Christmas. Granted, I had never heard of Decipher, but they had such a rich and powerful world to work with, they would do just fine. I saw the first film of the new trilogy and my interest flared! I was pumped! I was checking my local store every week for the game to arrive and when it did I wasted no time. Here is what I found (I’m not going to do a step-by-step analysis of the game since plenty of others have already done this. I’m simply going to provide my opinion of the book and leave the details up to previous reviews).
Upon first look the book was gorgeous!! I mean addictively gorgeous. I could hardly stop staring at the beautiful cover. I have to say I was a little disappointed that 99% of the interior art was stills from the movie. There was vast potential for some stunning original artwork, but I suppose that with New Line Cinema’s name printed throughout the book, this was to be expected (I’ll get to that later). As I said before, the films did fit my imagination of how the world looked and felt, but I feel additional artwork would have enhanced the look of the book.
The opening chapter concerning the lands of Middle-Earth was very well written with just enough to introduce you to the important aspects (although a book dedicated to this subject would be useful in the future). The game mechanics (which use Deciphers CODA system) seemed very smooth, and very playable (at first glance) with an emphasis on heroism and drama. I loved the concepts of Courage, Renown and Corruption. I was anxious to get started on a campaign.
This is when I began to run into problems. My first problem was that the book was absolutely riddled with misprints. Not since the wonderful works of Dream Pod 9 had I seen so many errors in printing. If these were simple spelling errors or grammatical errors I would not have a problem (in fact I probably wouldn’t even have noticed them). However, the problems range from obviously untested ideas to outright omissions! The book definitely needs serious work.
I later learned, by reading the support documents on Decipher’s website, just how bad the editing was. The listed damage for all the weapons is incorrect, either due to a misprint or a change in the lethality of the game. Many people have lamented the lack of a step-by-step guide to character creation (a must for freshmen gamers). Some character creation rules are eluded to in examples, but not actually stated in the body texts. Again, these were not simple typos, but problem causing mistakes. I should also note that this is a trend that apparently continues through the entire line of books. In fact, the incorrect damage codes from the core book are repeated in the Narrator’s Screen.
There are also a few small things that make me believe the creators of the game never even played a roleplaying game before embarking on this journey. For instance, photocopying the color character sheet is next to useless. Also, every character will have numerous specialties and variations of the Lore and Language skills, yet the character sheet only allows for one of each. If you choose not to use the character sheet and write things out free hand, you run into a problem with the money units. When abbreviating Silver Pennies and Silver Pieces you get SP and SP. Even if you write one in capital letters and the other in lower case, when written out free hand they can look too similar. I know these are small things, but I don’t know an experienced gamer in the world that wouldn’t have spotted them. Steven S. Long (a veteran of game creation and a contributor to this game) must not have been in the office that day.
This is also when I learned the “evils” behind the game. Apparently, Decipher does not have enough freedom to draw from the world in order to create a game based on Tolkien’s works. For instance, their license for the setting does not include the bulk of the Silmarilion! How, in the name of all that is holy, are they supposed to work like that? I discovered they couldn’t even use the term Tharni (a Gondorian term for a monetary unit) because of licensing issues. Now, granted, the lack of the word Tharni isn’t likely to impact my campaigns, but…c’mon!!!! On a side note, did you know the word Balrog is actually trademarked!!!! This sickens me to no end! Oh, wait…I guess I should pay royalties for writing the word Balrog.
The bottom line is this: I suppose the evils of corporate America will have little impact on how I run my campaigns. I have other sources from which to draw my information from and the concept of the CODA system will adopt any idea fairly well. The system has a strong basis and represents its intended genre quite well, though it has many kinks that need worked out (overall, not bad for a company’s second stab at a roleplaying game). It really comes across as though Decipher did not spend enough time in play testing with experience gamers and review time with the editors. I really feel that much of the errata should have been caught before the book went to print. This setting was a big one to take on, but the team at Decipher did quite well considering. They have formed a very strong base on which to work wonders in future editions. The slickness of the book and beautiful layout earns this book a 5 in Style. However, the printing errors, omissions and general errata bring the Substance down to a 2. The designers had fantastic ideas and intentions, but the result was poorly executed. I truly believe that with only a little work this game could easily be the greatest in the industries history, boasting the first perfect marriage of campaign style and game design.
My recommendation is this: If you are a new gamer, with no past experience, you will either drown in confusion, or prosper in the bliss of ignorance. Experienced gamers will do well if they don’t mind playing with the system or doing a bit of tweaking. If you’re a rules lawyer, or have munchkins in your group, avoid this game like the plague. If you tend to run fantastic, story-based campaigns, with less use of rules and more use of roleplaying, you will probably do well. For both experienced and inexperienced gamers, though, I would save your hard earned money for a second, corrected printing, or even a second edition.
All of this is, of course, my opinion.
