Overview
The main idea of this game would be that the setting is post ‘the defeat of Sauron’ so to speak. It’s not meant to be middle earth but that’s the closest shortcut I can think of. The dark load has been defeated and everyone is a bit like now what. Some potential areas this could go:
- Political intrigue: Now that the dark load is no longer in control of the world… who’s in charge? There could potentially be a variety of players involved from long lost kings and queens to common folks that aren’t keen to trade one ruler for another
- Bad lieutenants: You could potentially have a series of the evil lords 2nd/3rd/4th in charge that are now rampaging across the land. Just because the evil lord is dead doesn’t mean that their army is gone
- Reclaiming “Mordor”: What happens with all that land? Who is clearing out the bogs and caverns of the evil that resides within. There is a lot of opportunity for adventure.
I think it’s interesting to take the idea that it’s not all ‘happily ever after’. Things though I might avoid from LOTR:
- Magic fading from the world: TBH that’s not really fun for the players. Or at least most of the time. Nobody wants to constantly be playing in a world that is a shadow of it’s former self.
- Over present ‘heroes’. I’d avoid having the major heroes of the war be alive or dominant in the world. The players will be overshadowed by what are effectively GM PCs. I’d either have them died in a noble sacrifice, or gone on to the ‘undying’ lands a la the elves in LOTR.
Thoughts about world
Some broad strokes about the world:
- The dark one/evil overlord had ‘won’ at one point. Maybe they didn’t conquer the whole continent but they were the dominant power across a large swarth of geography and for a few generations in some places.
- They’ve recently been defeated. This is Star Wars a year the Battle of Yavin. Bureaucracy hasn’t set in yet. The world in some places is still rough around the edges. Orcs and monsters are still in the wilderness at the edge of civilization.
- Evil is still present even if it’s defeated. This is a story that can be about the evil of ‘man’ and not necessarily of the devil. There are still evil/power hungry people even though the threat of the dark one ruling the world is over.
- The dark one is definitively dead. There is no ‘somehow the emperor’ is still alive. They’re dead, there is no coming back. No weird resurrection plots. There might be new evils abroad, but you’re not constantly playing whack a mole on evil cults bringing back their dead leader.
Character roles
I’m imagining characters might start out ‘higher then 1st level’ depending on the system. The idea is that characters are veterans of the wars and should mechanically represent that. To use AD&D/OSR D&D as a scale I’d say probably around 3-4th level. Backgrounds should represent someone who was active in the war against the dark one in some fashion, though it doesn’t necessarily need to be front line combat.
In terms of game I think we’d need to decide on a primary theme and a secondary theme in terms of gameplay. Are we focusing on politics with a dash of adventuring or adventuring and then maybe some mystery solving.
Ideas
- Weapons are somewhat rare in formerly conquered lands as they were prohibited. If the war didn’t touch the area then a sword is a very rare thing