[bearclaw]

This is a great idea . I offer my help and counsel. Not sure how much actual work I can put into this, but feel free to use any of the stuff from Hack and Slash module.

Thanks. I'll see what might work.

some ideas:
1) The widerness map should be devided into several maps, of course (duh, I bet you thought of that yourself). Probably a 3x3 or 4x4 grid would work best. This way you can have different monsters in different areas in Middle Earth. From the occasional Nazgul in the wilderness around the Shire to hordes of Uruk-Hai around Isenguard and in Rohan.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I had in mind. I've got 24 map ideas so far and that's only up to the end of The Two Towers. I haven't seen the second movie yet and i'm re-reading the books for the first time since I was 14. What I do have is the BBC radio broadcast on 13 tapes. Works out great because I can make notes while listening.

2) maybe a good starting point would be the Council of Elrond, since you can also take a different character then Hobbit. (Well, this is assuming that the character is the Ringbearer, not sure if you want to do that ir not).

I came to the same conclusion too. I'd really like to have Bree, Weathertop and the barrows in there though. Here's a thought. Is there anyway, can anyone think of a way to make it that the starting place is different depending on the class chosen? If so, the Hobbits could start in Hobbiton, Elves in Mirkwood, etc. And the first quest for everyone would be to get to Rivendall. I'm thinking now that the story would be carried by the quests. Once you've left Rivendale, the quest would be to get down the Anduin to Rohan. There, you could take one of two qwests depending on how you wanted to progress the story. You could accept the RingBearer Quest and journy to Mordor, or take the Warring Quest which ends up leading to Gondor.

I'm now putting together the Quest list that would implement this.

3) Other characters from the fellowship could be nicely implemented via summoning scrolls. Make a scroll 'Summon Legolas' then he will follow you. These scrolls should be specific items of course that can be gained at certain points in the quest.

Heyyy!! I like this idea. Didn't even think of that. My thought was to have each character represented by different items (Gimli's ax, Gandalf's Staff), but this is much better.