Conflicts in LotR

[Enfid]

Everytime I see a battle report for Gondor vs Rohan, it made me wonder if it is possible in-universe. I did a bit of research (not a hardcore LotR fan), and found that Gondor swore a permanent alliance with Rohan since Earl the Young was king of Rohan. And even before that time, I don't think the two realms ever have problems with one another.

In regards to Dwarves and Elves, there was some conflict that leads to "suspicions" between the two races, but there was never such thing as a "War of the Beard" as in Warhammer Fantasy, where there was an all out war. The two races became indifferent of one another at worst.

So I ask, is there a satisfying way to explain battles between the forces of "good"? The rulebooks are pretty vague about this matter. Even with Warhammer Fantasy it's a bit hard to explain why The Empire and the Dwarves are fighting each other.

Is there some kind of 'fanon' that can finally stop me from batting an eyelid every time I see Gondor vs Rohan? Perhaps something a bit unorthodox, like how Blizzard handled Death Knight in World of Warcraft?

It's just my opinion that, unlike Warhammer 40k and fantasy, good and evil is clean cut as white and black in LotR. Please enlighten me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, why would the devoted Easterling ever fight Mordor? Don't they worship Sauron? Even for evil vs evil it's hard to justify it, I think.

[HsojVvad]

I can't explain why Gondor would go agaisnt Rohan, in real life fluff inTolkiens world, but in game wise, I can't see why it can't be done.

There are so many ways it can be explained. Say Borimir got The Ring, or Farmir brought The Ring back to Denethor. One of them got corupted by The Ring and would eventually go to war against Rohan.

Or say Denethor of hearin of The Ring, wants it so bad, since he is on the borders of Mordor, he ends up like Saurman and does what ever he can to get possession of The Ring.

Why would you have a problem with this in game? It's just a game after all.

[Enfid]

I know it's a game, and anyone can go up against anyone, but sometimes there's a narrative that I need. I think the ring is always a good excuse to make human fight each other.

[someone2040]

The ring is a pretty decent excuse, cause you can always figure it into a 'what-if' scenario. Certainly better than...
Gandalf made them do it (aka a Wizard did it).

[Steam_Giant]

Sauron corrupted the men of Numenor without the use of the one ring. Even persuading them to sail to the land of the Valar to engauge in open war. I would say its possible he could persuade Gondor to go to war with elves,men or dwarfs. Especially as the steward Denethor is using a palantiir.

Rohan could be explained by the power of Sarumans voice and his servant Grima. Convincing them to go to war.

It would be more complex with dwarves and elves, but its not like your short of fluff to explain it.

Quote

good and evil is clean cut as white and black in LotR.

Good and evil is never clean cut. The children of Hurin has some fantastic stories of corruption and redemption, look at Andróg & Mîm as an example

[jaws900]

you can just say that they where 2 waring nation before the time of Sauron. Also some battle are a little vage as with the fields of celbrant it says that they where a special type of esterling but they had Chariots and loots of cavalary too but Esterlign don't really have them so Rohan/Khanadish warrios are more sutable

[Condottiere]

Denethor was ambitious and slowly twisted to Sauron's will. Saruman's agent Wormtongue inflames the righteous anger of the Rohan.

[Rykion]

Originally Posted by Steam_Giant

It would be more complex with dwarves and elves, but its not like your short of fluff to explain it.

Right. Lets just pretend a group of dwarves took back a fallen dwarven city from a dragon and an army of elves appeared to get some of the dragon's loot. Nah, that would never happen.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Gondor vs. Rohan, specifically, really wouldn't happen according to Tolkien's fiction. You'd have to come up with some kind of "what if" scenario like people have proposed above.

Warring human nations, on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable and in this case the army lists could simply be seen as representatives of different human factions.

Although a very cool fictional universe, part of the problem with Tolkien's Middle Earth (for a gamer) is that everything is so well defined. There's a strict timeline of events, wars, alliances, etc. that leaves little room for deviation. So on the one hand while it is very rich in detail, much moreso than GW's original lines, it is also much more restrictive in terms of what you the player can take into your own hands while remaining true to the source material.

Of course, that's partially the point of the LotR game, right? I see no reason why you shouldn't come up with your own "what if?" scenarios - the whole point of playing the battle game is to take things into your own hands, which isn't that much fun if you don't allow your games to have some kind of consequence.

[Enfid]

Originally Posted by Rykion

Right. Lets just pretend a group of dwarves took back a fallen dwarven city from a dragon and an army of elves appeared to get some of the dragon's loot. Nah, that would never happen.

Are you referring to the Battle of the Five Armies? I'm not sure

Even then, I feel like the elves are reluctant to fight anyone who isn't on Sauron's side, and they are practically immune to greed (at least that's what my impression is).

......so the only idea I can come up with Elves vs Dwarves is that the dwarves are the aggressors, and the elves have no choice but to defend themselves.

I dunno. I'm not a fan of having elves be superior and reasonable all the time. Like the entire race is made of awesome.


By the way, anyone have any idea of a narrative for a classic-style campaign as in "carving you own kingdom" featuring mixes of both good are evil armies? Or does that seemed a bit far fetched, even by "what ifs".

[Steam_Giant]

Originally Posted by Whitwort Stormbringer

Although a very cool fictional universe, part of the problem with Tolkien's Middle Earth (for a gamer) is that everything is so well defined. There's a strict timeline of events, wars, alliances, etc. that leaves little room for deviation.

I think thats a pretty poor cop-out ! Use your imagination !

Originally Posted by Enfid

By the way, anyone have any idea of a narrative for a classic-style campaign as in "carving you own kingdom" featuring mixes of both good are evil armies? Or does that seemed a bit far fetched, even by "what ifs".

Each kingdom could invade their neighbours on the pretext of finding "weapons of mass destruction" near their important resources ? Or perhaps to spread democracy or another work ethic ?

Theres plenty of reasons to "justify" going to war in this day and age, just open up a newspaper

Infact: Make each players kingdom legitimise their own campaign expansion !? Good exercise for the imagination.

[Dr Death]

Whitwort Stormbringer is largely correct. The problem with Middle-earth is that because of the depth and detail that Tolkien invested into it's history, it becomes rather prescriptive for someone wishing to 'make their own mark'. This is far more of a problem than the perception that Tolkien deals only in very good and very bad. There are actually significantly more examples of civil wars in Tolkien than wars among allies. You've got the three kinslayings when the oathbound Feanorian's attacked other elves during the War of the Jewels, you've got the Kinstrife which emerged over a matter of blood-purity in Gondor in the Third Age, and you could say the Helm's war with the Dunlendings was in a sense civil since it emerged over a matter of kingship.

In the narrative of the fall of Arnor, there were battles between the three kingdoms which were quite overt when Angmar made Rhudaur a client-kingdom.

The big rift between the elves and the dwarves in Tolkien's world was caused largely by the Sack of Doriath which happened in the First Age. The underlying tensions between cultures are far more overt in the First Age because of the catalyst of the Silmaril. However Dwarves are 'ones to watch'- there is a darkness to them in Tolkien's works that rarely surfaces but there are hints.

As for between Gondor and Rohan- well early on in the development of the Lord of the Rings Tolkien originally thought that the Rohirrim would be hostile to the fellowship, so depending on how far you want to stretch the bounds of 'what if?' you could conceivably make that conflict work.

Dr Death

[Rykion]

Originally Posted by Enfid

Are you referring to the Battle of the Five Armies? I'm not sure

Even then, I feel like the elves are reluctant to fight anyone who isn't on Sauron's side, and they are practically immune to greed (at least that's what my impression is).

......so the only idea I can come up with Elves vs Dwarves is that the dwarves are the aggressors, and the elves have no choice but to defend themselves.

Have you actually read the Hobbit? The elves of Mirkwood were openly hostile towards dwarves. First they imprisoned the dwarves for the "crime" of being in elven territory. Later, an elven army shows up at the Lonely Mountain to fight the dwarves for a portion of Smaug's treasure. Elves aren't immune to greed. If the orcs hadn't shown up, there would have been bloody elf on dwarf action.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Originally Posted by Steam_Giant

I think thats a pretty poor cop-out ! Use your imagination !

As Dr. Death pointed out, my statement that Tolkien's works leave little room for deviation is in relation to the fact that the fictional world of Arda is not at all open-ended, the way in which the Warhammer and 40k universes are. I'm not opposed at all to thinking outside of the box with LotR gaming - on the contrary I think that's really the only way you can do it right. While re-enactment of Tolkien's battles is fun, it can also be unrewarding. It's often either "oh look, they did win at Helm's Deep, so now Rohan will still be able to go to the Pelennor Fields" or, vice versa, "oh no, Rohan was crushed and now Gondor is up the creek without a paddle." We're often using named characters whose entire lives are down on paper already, so to have Aragorn killed by a troll in an ambush is a bit underwhelming when you know that he's supposed to go on and lead the combined forces of men to the Black Gate.

No specific instance is isolated, and so you're always either confirming the results as they're meant to be, or creating an alternate sequence of events. In that case, it's usually most fun to go on and say "well, what would Gondor do if Rohan hadn't shown up?" and here's where you have to start getting creative. Maybe as a result of their dire need, some of the elven kingdoms opted to spare forces for the defense of Minas Tirith. Maybe more fiefdom troops showed up. My brother and I have played out our own Lord of the Rings before, in which one of the hobbits dies early on, Borimir survives and participates in the battles of RotK (supposedly now clear of the Ring's influence, with Frodo gone), etc.

The end-point being, in order for games of LotR to have lasting consequence in the world of middle earth, they mostly have to be player-devised "what if" scenarios, which naturally involves a great deal of creativity on the players' parts. Gaming in Middle Earth while keeping Tolkien's Middle Earth intact, by the book, is practically impossible.

Originally Posted by Rykion

Have you actually read the Hobbit? The elves of Mirkwood were openly hostile towards dwarves. First they imprisoned the dwarves for the "crime" of being in elven territory. Later, an elven army shows up at the Lonely Mountain to fight the dwarves for a portion of Smaug's treasure. Elves aren't immune to greed. If the orcs hadn't shown up, there would have been bloody elf on dwarf action.

Not to mention the acts of Feanor and his sons in their relentless quest to retrieve the Silmarils. In Tolkiens world, elves are "superior" to a fault - their pride and sense of self-worth has gotten them into all kinds of trouble. The reason they come across as the omniscient leaders of good in The Lord of the Rings is largely because they've had many thousands of years dealing with Morgoth and Sauron, and have been able to reflect upon their various errors over that time. It's not like humans wherein each new generation has to learn the mistakes of their predecessors, sometimes by repeating them.

[Enfid]

I actually have read the hobbit, and remembered the dwarves and elves not liking each other and the king of the Elves wanting to put them in jail for some reason I can't remember. Then the battle of the Five Armies was vaguely remembered by me to say the least. So yep, read it, but forgot about 70% of it. Maybe I should reread it.

[Steam_Giant]

@Whitwort:

I think we are in agreement that playing the game towards a result exactly as written, or only engauging in conflicts that actually took place in the legendarium is rather dull and redundant.

However where you see restrictions i see posibilities

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Originally Posted by Steam_Giant

where you see restrictions i see posibilities

Missed the gist of my posts. The point being that yes Tolkien's Middle Earth is at-a-glance very restrictive to gamers, and in turn it is this very restrictiveness that creates and encourages the possibility for gamers to come up with their own alternate methods and storylines for Middle Earth.

[VeriNasti]

They all got greedy