This is Question I5 of 31 and it might be my last for the month of December.
Work, life, and the holidays have gotten in the way, making it difficult to finish, let alone catch up to where I should be by this time.
Fret not! I sure won't. Not this time.
The whole point of this endeavor you see was to light a fire of inspiration under me and it has done just that. December has the most posts I've put up in one month since back in August. Usually when I do these blog challenges I don't hit my goal and end up feeling bad about it. This has been and is very different. Here the goal was never 'to win'; I never prioritzed completing 31 answers to 31 questions. Rather, the objective was to 'get better engagement with the viewers/readers of the blog by interacting with them more and using said interactions to fuel my desire to post more often'. I feel I've accomplished that.
I've seen more responses and comments these past four weeks then I have in a long while. Again, I've also posted more this month than I have in the past three months combined! I'm mentally cataloging this as a success and it has me itching to prep for next month in advance.
With all that, here is Question #15 - it comes from my friend Miguel de Rojas, who has my sword, my bow, and my axe but remember, I'm just lending them to you. I need them back.
For a guy with such love for IPs and a stated interest in medieval Europe's myth, legend, and folklore (not to mention RPGs), The Lord of the Rings is conspicuously absent from your blog. Can you explain your relationship with Tolkien's works?
As Gandalf himself once said, “The wise speak only of what they know.”
I don't really know Middle-Earth. Not the way I feel I would need to in order to run it.
I discovered the Hobbit after first playing D&D and The Lord of the Rings sometime after the Hobbit. It took me a while to get through all three books of Tolkien's trilogy but get through them I did and yeah, I really enjoyed it. Those books started my interest in reading more Fantasy books of the Appendix N variety.
Thing was, there wasn't more Lord of the Rings after Lord of the Rings (at least not that I knew of at the time). At the end of the story, the tale has been told. After the original Star Trek series there was the Animated Series, comic books, novels, later movies, and further on there'd be much more material across many different forms of media. The same is true of Star Wars, Marvel and DC Comics, and a host of other franchises.
Lord of the Rings impressed me but it was all there was to it. After a while it fell off my radar. It was never my all time favorite thing, it wasn't something that I really wanted or needed more of, and that was fine because there really wasn't more to have.
It was also a story that didn't (and to some extent still doesn't for me) lend itself to continuing. It was a set story with some unique characters, and we know (largely) their final fates. There are a specific and very limited number of Mages and we know what happens to them (for the most part). Frodo (and to a lesser degree Bilbo) were rare and truehearted enough to carry the One Ring and again, they have a happily ever after of sorts.
I mean, the LotR series focuses on 'The One Ring'. There's only one, it's in the name. We know who was part of the one Fellowship that went to rid the world of the One Ring, and the events that ultimately did so.
It's what I tend to refer to as a Closed Story or Closed Setting. Star Trek, as an easy example, is an Open Setting. We learn there are other ships, with other crews, doing other things. It's inherent in the make up of the franchise's universe. Lord of the Rings feels more 'closed'; a single, specific group did a single, specific thing with a singular object. The End. Star Trek doesn't have a The End. It keeps on keeping on.
Part of that is because Star Trek is indeed a franchise, an IP, not a story. There isn't one book or trilogy called Star Trek. There will always be Superman comics. Star Wars could theoretically go on forever as well. Lord of the Rings just doesn't have that feel.
Personally I never loved it enough to learn all the details and complicated history of its world. There are many people, including several of my gaming friends, who know far more about the setting then I. This puts me at a considerable disadvantage as a GM. I wouldn't mind playing in that world for a short while though.
Lastly, while Middle-Earth might be influenced by European folklore and myth, it isn't Ars Magica. It's its own animal and one that I am less confident about adding my own stuff to, a key necessity when running in an established IP.
I liked the Peter Jackson movies more than I ever did the books. I also enjoyed the animated film way back when. That's about as far as my love of Tolkien's creation extended for me today.
AD
Barking Alien
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