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Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game
Image via Free League Publishing

The Lord of The Rings Is Playable With DnD 5E Rules In New RPG

It's time for D&D players to use Smite Evil on the Balrog.

The people familiar with the Dungeons & Dragons 5E ruleset and want to go on adventures in Middle-earth can now do so, as The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying game adapts Tolkien’s famous setting to the popular tabletop RPG rule set. This is a new edition of The One Ring RPG, which has been rebranded and features new and updated rules.

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D&D was heavily inspired by The Lord of the Rings, to the point where lawsuits were flung around during the game’s early days. Since then, there have been several attempts at creating official tabletop RPGs using The Lord of the Rings license over the years, with varying degrees of success, as capturing the feeling of the books doesn’t always translate well to the silliness and power-gaming that happens with many RPG groups.

Related: Dungeons & Dragons: Starting Tips For New Dungeon Masters

The Lord Of The Rings Roleplaying Is Now Available And It Uses The 5E Ruleset

Bilbo Baggins on the cover of Shire Adventures Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game
Image Via Free League Publishing

Free League Publishing has announced that The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying is now available as a 236 core rulebook. There is also a Shire Adventures companion book detailing the famous home of the hobbits, as well as five adventures, seven pre-generated characters, and a Loremaster’s Screen, which is the DM screen for the game. Plus, it includes a compendium that discusses Rivendell and its inhabitants.

While the name Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t appear in the game, the term 5E declares that it uses a variation of the D&D Open Gaming License. This doesn’t mean that it’s a straight copy of D&D with some Middle-earth names, as The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying has unique mechanics of its own, such as all players having access to a Fellowship rating that grants them buffs in combat, and a larger dependence on magic items over class abilities. This works well with the setting, as magic was a rare occurrence in Middle-earth, and it doesn’t fit the feeling of Tolkien’s work for characters to be running around throwing fireballs and lightning bolts at the enemy.

Related: DnD: New Player Guide To Actions

D&D players will quickly become familiar with the main campaign settings, such as the Forgotten Realms, which have appeared in many D&D media projects, including the recent movie. The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying lets you go on adventures in their most iconic fantasy setting of them all, and if you think the Fellowship of the Ring was a gang of poorly optimized warriors, you and your friends can show Gandalf and Frodo how it’s done.


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Scott Baird
Scott has been writing for Gamepur since 2023, having been a former contributor to websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, Screen Rant, The Gamer, and TopTenz. A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started as a film student before moving into journalism. Scott covers Dungeons & Dragons, Final Fantasy, Pokémon, and MTG. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.