Lord of the Rings - Decipher, Juxtaposition

I have mentioned before that right after my introduction to D&D I was told I had to read a book called The Fellowship of the Ring. I had been a hard sci-fi person before getting introduced to the D&D so I was skeptical. To reiterate what has been said before...I never really looked back.

I have collected most of the MERP stuff and sold it and have since recollected most of it. I own a few of items for the second version of game from ICE as well. After seeing the movies I had to own the Decipher version of the game as well. I know the movies are not loved by all and there were some liberties taken but over all I still rank all three in my top ten movies of all time.

Having said I had to have them I need to add that having a game in my world and having played it do not always mean the same thing. I buy many games with the intent to play them and it just does not happen. Sadly this is the case with The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game. The book is impressive to look at and someday I hope to play it.

In doing some research I find that the game won the 2003 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game 2002. It uses the CODA system which Decipher uses in its Star Trek games so if you have played those this system will be old hat. I have never played the Star Trek games either though (but again do own a number of them).

Most people seem to like the book itself but there are issues apparently with the way the content is laid out and proofreading. Having occasionally caught what I type online I am a little forgiving of errors like that but then again I am not selling the stuff I post. The book is also limited by the license that Decipher was granted. It appears that they could only use whatever was in the movies, the book trilogy and the Hobbit. This would seem to make explaining somethings hard but most things can be addressed.

There has not been anything new from Decipher in this line for some time. I do not think they still hold the license and with the Cubicle 7 release of The One Ring pending this seems like it may be the case. I will of course be spending a lot of money buying a new game system based on something that is so tied to my introduction to D&D, and roleplaying, it would be impossible to separate the two.

The books and other material for the game can be picked up fairly cheap on eBay and through Amazon even. I would say pick it up if you like the books and movies just so you can have it. I can't advise picking it up to play since I have not even done that myself.


Spell:

Juxtaposition

Level: Seventh
Range: 3"
Duration: 5 Rounds + 2 Rounds/Level
Ares Effect: Two Individuals/Creatures
Components: V,S,M
Casting Time: One Round
Saving Throw: Special

Through use of this spell the magic user si able to cause two individuals/creatures to be summoned to a single spot for the duration of the spell. There are three options on how the spell will work and the caster specifies how things will transpire at the start of the spells casting.

The first possible option is that the caster will be pulled to the location of a second individual. The second option is that the specified individual will be pulled to the location of the caster. The last option will be that two individuals will be pulled to the current location of the caster.

For this spell to work the caster must have at least seen the individual entities that will be affected and have been in direct physical contact with them. One other option is that the caster posses a personal item that belonged to the individual. An actual portion of the individual such as lock of hair can also be used.

If the caster has either a part of the individual ora personal item then the intended participant in the spell is not entitled to a save. If the caster has only been in physical contact them the participant will be entitled to a save if desired. If they are willing no save is required but if they are unwilling then they are entitled to a save versus Spells with a -2 modifier.

The material component of this spell will be the a fore mentioned personal items. If these are not available then there is no material component required for the spell.

Disclaimer: The spells that you will see, for how ever long the write ups last, were all written up or conceived of back in the 80's so the terminology may not appropriate for anything other than 1e and depending on how well I did back then it may be slightly off for that as well. If there is any duplication of spells that exist now it is most likely I wrote mine first :) Please feel free to comment on them but try not to be too hard on me. If anyone wishes to use these in anything they print please let me know in advance and all I ask is proper credit.