LOTR Trilogy RPG (9 Players)

Ok, so I've started work on a lord of the rings rpg. However, I'm not rushing it, and I'm trying to make it as good as it can be. Here's the rundown, instead of walking to get to the next battle or area, a cinematic is played explaining the story between the major areas of story. It does cover all 3 books/movies by the way. For example, after Gandalf falls into Moria, Galadriel talks about how the fellowship laments in her forest, Lothorien and that she tells Froddo that Boromir will try to take the ring soon, and explains about how it happens, as if she is looking back on past events. Basically Galadriel is the narrator of the entire map, and she'll direct most of the cinematics.

- Custom spells (some triggered as well)
- Specialized levels (not just constant hack n' slash, also stealth and searching for 'the lost ents')
- A bit of a "What if..." I've taken some liberties, like, what if the ring wraiths attacked rivendell with some orcs accompanying them, just before the fellowship set out?
- The cinematics aren't mind blowing, but still decent, and above average in some respects.
- 8 stages, characters will be divided into teams, Boromir's player takes control of Gollum after Amon Hen, and joins Froddo and Sam, while Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli go off to Rohan, etc...so, even if you've won the game, you should try playing a different character to learn about their path.
- Custom items, lost ring of the dwarf lords for example, elvish bread, elvish rope, herbs for aragorn to use...etc
- Custom skins for some things, not everything though, don't want a huge mapfile, but definately some nice little things, like the ring of power, the eye of the enemy, etc..

And just to tantalize your tastebuds, here's an image I captured...

Looks Interesting. But I really hope there is no text box with "I see you" In the map ;)

Actually I should do that ;) but no, not really, it's simply for cinematics. Anyway, I'll post some more screenshots tomorrow, when I have time. Any thoughts or suggestions people might say would be helpful, I'm all ears to good ideas that could make my map even better.

thats nice..sentry ward and tower....except for the fact that u really have to model a totally new one if ur to make a campaign

Weeeeeeelll...I was planning on leaving it as that, this is a multiplayer map remember, size is of the essence, and I think I can do without modelling a new tower...Anyway, I still haven't been home yet, so I can't put up any of those images I promised, I must apoligise. But I'll tell you about the heroes a bit more, if you were wondering about Gandalf, yes he does fall with the Balrog at Moria, and is left out of Amon Hen, however he returns as Gandalf the White, with new hero spells, and a spellbook ability that taps into his old hero spells, but only level 2 versions of them. Every hero has a normal ability as well as their hero ability. Gimli has a normal bash added to him, Aragorn has the ability to turn 2 herbs into a potion (the type of potion depends on the 2 types of herbs) Legolas can swap from his bow to his knives and his abilities tweak slightly to accomodate a more melee based hero. Froddo and Sam have auras that only affect friends, not themselves, making them work best when together. And those are just a few, and if you were wondering what becomes of the person who controls Gollum, after he turns evil, he gains control of Faramir.

That's all for today.

well, you can always edit the model of the sentry ward and merge it w/ a tower in a modeling program so that u can improve it...

Yeah...but again...that increases filesize...understand? besides, I can resize the height of the tower until it consumes all of the ward below the eye. I don't think the wasted space of an imported model is such a good idea for a multiplayer map. Besides, the tower itself doesn't feature much, I'm more concerned with making room for character skins and importing swords for the hobbits. But thanks anyway.

This map will not work because terrain is clearly wrong

Yeah.. The terrain means lot, its the most important thing in maps.

Indeed, show us some terrain...

Long post: lots of ideas inside! And spoilers!!! ^_^

Yeah, terrain is quite important. Clearly you can't make an entire middle earth, just a few "arenas" for individual "missions" and a few areas for between-mision cinematics. But these must be well made, there's no need for them to be extra large, but they must be nice to the eye (and I don't mean the desolate landscape that would be nice to the eye of Sauron, but something more like a detailed, natural terrain that is nice to the eye of the players.)

Another important thing about terrain: since you must make so that you put all the stuff in one map, it is best that you first make a good plan of the stuff you want in before you start making the map, because you don't want to run out of space for the last missions/cinematics. (ok, that can be saved by copying terrain in a larger map :) )

Another general tip about LotR: yes, I agree that, for the sake of gameplay, you must add and change stuff a little, but keep in mind, that you must not allow yourself to get carried away too much, and always keep yourself focused on the fact that the changes may only be little. So, I don't know about the whole "ringwraiths assault the Rivendell" stuff, I don't think this is such a good idea. The ringwraiths were supposedly destroyed at the ford (well, not really destroyed, but unmounted and unmasked, so their power has diminished).
Oh, and another thing, if you really want to make a tribute to Tolkien, try to follow the book, not the movie. Things were changed for the sake of the movie that do not need to be changed for the sake of the game, so there is no need to copy changes from the film.

Allrighty, now let's get to more specific ideas. First the storyline. Since this is a "whole fellowship" RPG, it would be, I think, best to start the game with the council of Elrond. much of the story up untill then is revealed there, so there is no problem with "starting in the middle". Yes, you leave out the events on weathertop this way, but this is about the only action sequence up untill then, and there is work only for the Aragorn player there (the four hobbits can only run away), so it's not a big loss.
But, since you start at the Rivendell, it would be kind of too much to be assailed at the start by ringwraiths and orcs. Especially because, as it is in the book (and not so much in the movie), the nazgul don't really like open combat.
So, why start with an invented event that will only cause doubt amongst the Tolkien fans if you have an excelent "introduction battle" allready in the book. The attack of the spectral wolves!

[Mission1: attack of the wolves] ;)

Basically, our heroes must defend a hill/themselves against attacking wolves, untill Gandalf lights up the tree. For that, the Gandalf player would have to do some special preparations (think something vagualy similar to last undead TFT mission; but of course, not exactly the same, just a similar concept, like puting runes around on some places where the attacking wolves can destroy them if the other players don't defend well), but at the same time, he would have to aid his friends in combat because otherwise the wolves would get past them disrupting his work, and also if he would have a healing spell he would be needed... well, you get the idea, an interesting tactical mission. The players would have to spread out to cover all incoming paths, and you could make the ammount of attacking wolves from different directions variate a litle, so the players must help one another when more wolves come in one place, and then spread out again when wolves attack in other places so that they don't destroy gandalf's runes... how many possibilities!

After this (no need to make it extra long, after all, there can't be like thousand's of wolves, make them fewer and make them stronger), the fellowship moves on; you could do something with the spy-birds, a hiding-mission perhaps, but what would be the point, the birds see the fellowship and go away anyway, so no good material here. The pass of Caradresh...dodging falling ice shards? Don't know, maybe if it's a very short minigame... But now we get to the cool stuff:

[Mission 2: The gates of Moria]

Time to go mano-a-tentacle with the Watcher. Again, interesting tactical stuff presents itself: the tentacles go mainly after the ringbearer, and other players must protect him, and you could do a little change here to make the battle last slightly longer and make it so that Gandalf has to do a little magic again to get the door open while fighting at the same time. This should be a shorter mission, because clearly the watcher can't have a million tentacles for the fellowship to slash. :)

Afterwards, a short cinematic ensues of the fellowship going through the mines, and then, bum, trouble again!

[Mission 3: Balin's tomb and the bridge of Khazad-Dum]

Basically, an ordered retreat to the bridge is required, fending off pursuing orcs. The important thing in this mission would be staying together as a group, not allowing to be seperated by the orc onslaught. Occasionally, some orcs block the way, so the players must fight their way through before pursuing orcs spill around them and comepletely block the way. Since the whole thing is happening in a mine, you can use some levers in combinations with doors or traps to spice up the path to the bridge (like you get to a closed door and then one of the players must climb to the lever while the others fight the pursuing orcs). In the end, after a number of rooms and corridors, the fellowship gets to the bridge, and at that moment the barlog shows up; time for cinematic ending!

The fellowship makes it to the forest of Lothorien. Time for more cinematics, but, as you already know and said, there can't be that much of them in a game, so basically it is just a half-a-minute recap with narrated text saying "the fellowship reaches the forest, they meet the elves, they rest, get some gifts, and move on..." :) .
Now, you could have another mission of fighting pursuing orcs here, but since you will be already having a forest battle at amon hen, this would probably be redundant. There is lots of action going to happen quite soon anyway, save the "invented" events for the time when there would be too much cinematics. Right now, after the fellowship leaves Lorien, you are going to have...

[Mission 4: The battle of the river]

This is one action sequence that they totaly left out in the movie. Basically, it goes like this, one night of the journey down the river, some mordor orcs make some racket on the south side of the river, shooting arrows across at our fellowship on the west side, and then as a finale the winged nazgul appears (we don't really know what it is then yet, it is just a threatening shadow above the river untill Legolas shoots it with his new bow).

But, with a little changes, this could be an interesting mission. Let's say the orcs have two or three rafts and are coming across the river in small groups. The fellowship would have to fight them, but because new ones would come again and again, the final goal of the mission would be to destroy the rafts that are bringing reinforcements. You could only damage the rafts when they bring new orcs, and that would happen at random places of the coast in the "mission area", so the players would have to spread along the coast so they would see the approaching orcs and be able to damage the rafts before they disembark their cargo and retreat again to the east coast. Another objective could be that the fellowship must defend their own boats, so that the orcs could disembark at different locations at the same time, and if the whole fellowship awaited one of the boats and didn't guard their camp as well, then the orcs from the other boat would destroy it. Another interesting tactical mission. If you include the nazgul in it's ending as a part of the challenge or just a cinematic, that's your call.

And now we are approaching the ending of the fellowship of the ring. All we have is the last battle,

[Mission 5: the battle of Amon hen]

The fellowship starts the battle divided, caught unprepared while searching for Frodo. Aragorn is alone, Gimli and Legolas together, and Boromir has found Pippin and Merry. Frodo and Sam must stealthily find their way to the boats while other characters fight it out with the orcs. It would be cool if in the map, players would have total freedom, but it would still be impossible to save Boromir. The majority of the orcs would assault him, while others would be scattered across the woods to impede the progress of other heroes. But even if Aragorn and the others would run as fast as possible and fight as little as possible, they would be too late. Merry and Pippin would be able to fight untill captured, and then Boromir could still cave them by slaying the orcs holding them. Altrough Boromir is fated to fail, that still means that you can't "screw up" the mission; that would happen, if Frodo or Sam got captured, or if Aragorn, Gimli or Legolas got killed.


Here, the fellowship of the Ring ends, and you have 5 quite intense missions ready to go without changing the story much in any way. Yes, it has been a long post, ^_^ that's because I have been thinking already before today, how would it be like to make a war3 map after this book, but I don't think I will ever make it (so many other ideas, so little time :( ), so I am typing this down here hoping you will like any of these ideas.
That's it for today, I have been typing for too long, time to stop, because
a) I am tired, and
b) no one will read this if it gets any longer
I'll type any more ideas later, after I get some feedback if they are even appreciated.

Yikes, Anitar, thankyou for your contribution, I'd kinda forgotten about the map, didn't realise so many posts had been made recently. Ok well the terrain is nothing like what you see in the background of that image, since I just put the tower in the middle of some empty space to show off the model itself. And yes someone said the minimap design looked really wrong, which it would but might I remind you and so did Anitar, that the story jumps around the map and has no resemblance to the real middle earth map.

Ok, well the stages, I must admit I've never read the books, I know a fair bit about the differences, but not much about what was left out...if that makes sense, in that I know what was added and changed, but not what was left out of the film. So I threw in the rivendell battle just so people could get their feet wet, so to speak, no pun intended since they fight near the river :P. Anyway, there is an opening cinematic with Galadriel, who talks about the ring, and who owned it, who found it, etc..then it cuts to the council of elrond, with elrond discussing the quest, froddo standing up saying he'll take it, the fellowship being formed, etc. and then Galadriel acts as the narrator for the entire game, as if she was looking back on the entire thing some 50 years later.

Now, yes I did forget about the map, but I'll get back on track to working on it. You did have quite a few cool ideas I'll admit though Anitar, the sneaking I'm already intending for froddo and sam in mordor though, the wolves mission I might include, outside moria with the watcher, I'm not sure about that, currently you do battle the watcher, but the tentacles just keep spawning, finally Gandalf yells that they MUST enter moria, and talks about the riddle, then anyone who types "friend" causes the doors to open, and you can escape, as you run in, the area caves in. The Balrog is actually fought, but as he approaches death it changes to a cutscene and Gandalf sacrifices himself. Then they come to Amon Hen, froddo merry pippin and boromir start off fighting Lurtz, and the rest of the fellowship are on the otherside of the forest, and need to reach them to help etc..
A few other things if you're interested Anitar, Orthanc, is a siege mission for the merry and pippin, who gain control of the Ents. They also have to run around gathering Ents for the siege of Orthanc beforehand, in Fangorn they need to wake up the trees, however many they wake up, they take into the siege mission.

And that's all I'll say for now, I'll try to take some terrain shots tomorrow and post them. Thanks again Anitar, very cool ideas.

Phiuh.. That was a one damn good plan. Someone should really make a campaign like that!

This map has potential, HOWEVER, i dont think you should include too much brain requiring stuff, some, but not too much, else it will be no good for casual play on B.Net.
Considering that some people can get their asses wiped even in the typical Balins Tomb maps...
Well, a campaign of this size would be pretty hard to get a decent game on when you put together:
-n00bs
-puzzles
-demand for teamwork
-solo freaks
-special missions (Gandalf rune work)
-Quitters

Well, it sounds largely like a map only for arranged play

Also, fellowship splitting up, how u deal with that?
When other part finishes mission before other?
Will others have to just WAIT?

A lot of possible problems, good luck. :)





Oh, and i have seen this kind of cool playing aronud with camera bounds in the "Pyramid Escape" map.
I think you should try such, on a large map, it´d be far easier if you would be allowed to look only at the current mission area at the time.

I agree that my ideas have limited aplicability; it being a 9 player RPG, it would be a BIG problem getting 9 players that would be able to work together like my ideas require; newbiez, quitters, solo-players, laggers, whatever, they would all make the game unplayable, even if the first mission was easy enough that you couldn't die, they couldn't get over it without teamplay. The only way you could probably play a map like that would be in a clan or on a lan. And, of course, 9 heroes would be way too much to make it a single player RPG. I still think these are good ideas and this is still the way I would make such a map, but I very well understand why you wouldn't, if you want more people to be able to play it.

There is also a reason why my ideas end with the Fellowship of the Ring. After this, the fellowship splits up, and I never thought it would be possible to have the story continiue for all players. You found some interesting solutions to this with giving the Boromir player gollum and later Faramir, but these characters don't really do much. Before turning against Frodo and Sam, gollum does nothing but lead them around, there is little material for any "missions" here. The first "action" thing to come is escape from shelob's lair, and there gollum isn't on their side anymore.

There is also little fun in playing solo, so when playing as Faramir later in the fight for the river and Osgiliarth, that player would be all alone and bored, while the players playing the "best" characters of the fellowship are together defending Helm's deep. And as TrollZzz said, if you are going to have paralell missions, like Helm's deep and the siege of Orthanc happening at the same time, what happens if one mission finishes before the other? And what mission could Frodo and Sam have at that time? Maybe escape from Shelob, but that can't possibly last as long as Helm's Deep.

For these reasons I would suggest making the map last only as long as the fellowship rather than as long as the entire LotR. After all, the longer the game, the more grief quitters/noobs will cause.

Oh, and another suggestion: Read The Books. ;)