The story of a level 1 adventurer who hasnt chosen a class yet, on a mythic level campaign, but with loaded dice

Sam was making mounting checks too, if not quite as bad, and then wore the thing into Mordor, and proceeded to scare the shit out of Orcs and such.

Yeah, Sam was a bad ass motherfucker and is the best character in the entire trilogy. But he still didn't have a corrupting major artifact dangling around his neck for 95% of the trip there.

Sam wore the Ring for a fraction of the time Frodo did, and Tolkien himself said that nobody had the actual willpower required to throw the Ring in the Cracks of Doom on purpose. Literally impossible. It had to be an accident.

I always liked the theory that Frodo inadvertently used the Ring to cast a curse on Gollum when he agreed to let him help then get to Mordor. And that's why Gollum died after grabbing it from him.

Old D&D has rules for inheriting sweet shit from your previous PCs, so.

In the books, during a fraction of a second, Sam could see Frodo casting the image of an elf lord while taking Gollum's oath.

Sam was the true hero of the story.

What does the elf lord image mean?

Eh. He was the NPC everyone had to escort.

People complain all the time that an eagle could throw the ring into the volcano and that would be it.

But wouldn't the eagle be corrupted super quickly by the ring?

>everyone had to escort
>disappears a third of the way through the campaign
>the PCs go off and fight orcs and forget about him

I was going to make a joke about this being the easiest escort mission ever, but now I think about it, this would actually be totally normal for players. Expected, even.

>Samwise wasn't there

He's the real hero of those stories.

There's that, and the fel beasts, and Sauron can conjure weird storms and dark clouds and shit too.

Frodo was just Samwise's companion/cohort NPC.

The eagles were dicks anyway. They never got involved unless they were certain their involvement would result in zero eagle casualties and guaranteed success of the task at hand. They're basically the book's equivalent to that one party member who hides in the trees during the fight, then comes down to claim some of the loot once it's all clear.

It means he was using some high tier magic when he had Gollum swear that oath.

It'd get killed by the Nazgul's Fel Beasts before it got close.

Absolutely. They were fierce and proud creatures. They'd fall quicker than Boromir or Isildur, no question. Rule the world with an iron beak and so forth.

also the eagles were something like the "last pure good" in the world so Sauron would've literally been able to sense them if they got anywhere near. There's a reason they were hiding out in the far northern mountains.

>Rule the world with an iron beak and so forth.
I like you.

>Boromir corruption meme
Boromir wasn't weak he just consciously believed using the ring as a weapon against Sauron to save his people in Gondor was the right and true thing to do.

Boromir was like a WW2 US Marine sick of fighting in the Pacific Islands tasked with helping desk jockeys at the Manhattan Project to destroy their weapons and research for the greater good. These bombs could Deus Machina the war in a week but we can't let that happen! Doesn't take much corruption to reconvince that Marine using the bombs was right.

Sure we know that the Council of Elrond were correct but that's how it seemed to Boromir.

>People complain all the time that an eagle could throw the ring into the volcano and that would be it.
>But wouldn't the eagle be corrupted super quickly by the ring?

While that "question" is usually a trolling attempt, you seem to be asking it sincerely.

As the others have pointed out, flying to Mt. Doom would show up to quickly on Sauron's "radar" so to speak and he had all sorts of countermeasures available like Nazguls on the flying Fell Beasts, a couple million orcs to garrison the mountain, etc. You also couldn't simply throw the damn thing in the volcano's crater. You had to enter those caverns and toss it into the Crack of Doom.

The other reason involves what the Eagles were. Please note the capitalization because it's important. There are Eagles and eagles in LOTR. The Eagles are a type of Maia. They're akin to Gandalf, Saruman, Tom Bombadil, and even Sauron.

The Eagles are descended from Thorondor, an Airbus-sized fucker who was sent to Middle Earth during the 1st Age by Manwe to help the Elves. He and the other Eagles did all sorts of air rescue work and fought Morgoth's dragons along with Earendil during the War of Wrath.

Having an Eagle fly the Ring into Mordor is like having Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, or some other VIP carry it. You'd basically be shouting "HEY ASSHOLE! IT'S OVER HERE!"

The Ring is also more tempting the more power you already have. Boromir fails because of this while Saruman never saw it and still wants it. Gandalf and Elrond both avoid handling it when they can. Galadriel voluntarily renouncing it earns her parole from the Valar. As a Maia, an Eagle like Gwaihir would be as tempted as the others.

So, you needed to sneak the Ring into Mordor to get past Sauron's "radar" and VIPs like the Maiar and High Elves couldn't really be trusted with it long term.

>The Eagles are descended from Thorondor, an Airbus-sized fucker
Who was his wife?

An airbus?

>Who was his wife?

Your mother.

>An airbus?

It's a big passenger jet like the 747, dipshit.

I get that it wasn't particularly funny but fuck son, calm down

No one likes your meme game.

Another giant Eagle, bro. Obviously.

The Ring's attempts to seduce Sam with promises of power always amuse me.

>you like gardens, well here, have the biggest garden in the world!
>well that's just stupid, how would any one person tend a garden that big?
>...fucking hobbits, I swear next time I'm staying at the bottom of that fucking river.

literarystarbucks.com/post/100685425353/frodo

Don't forget that the Eagles actually have their own job, which is watching for the battle at the end of the world and being ready for it. Anything else risks drawing them away from that, especially if any of their number die in the process.

The main reason they come and help Gandalf all the time is because Gwaihir likes him and owes him a couple of favours.

Tom Bombadil isn't a Maiar, he's something else entirely

It's more of a meme to hate GURPS for no reason than to play or mention it, at this point.

Frodo only started with the ring.
He got sword and armor later.

>Boromir wasn't weak he just consciously believed using the ring as a weapon against Sauron to save his people in Gondor was the right and true thing to do.
Wow sounds exactly like how the ring corrupts people. Of fucking course they think they're doing the right thing.

What do you mean, inadvertently? He's well aware of the consequences of Gollum swearing his oath on the "Precious".

The thing about Gollum throwing himself into the fires comes later, in Mordor itself, and again, seems to be quite intentional.

And just orcs shooting arrows.

The psychological aspect is part of the ring's power. Boromir wasn't weak, he was actually pretty justified and that's what makes the ring so terrifying.

The willpower against the ring isn't just resisting a vague mystical pull it's resisting your own nature and desires.

Yeah I love that bit. Sam's the only guy who manages to tell The Ring to fuck off.

>Warlock
Nah. Harry Potter wizards are some kinda weird ass sorcerer/wizard combo. They have to be born with the ability to use magic and at least part of the strength of their spells comes from their force of personality (Sorcerer, CHA), but the actual spells rely on rote memorization and understanding of magical theory (Wizard, INT)

I'd say that translates to getting your spells known (and maybe spells per day, if it's Vancian) from INT and their spells DC from CHA

This raises the question: Was Sam's player a That Guy or a This Guy?

There's also the fact that warlocks are a whole other thing in the HP universe, which is a title similar to someone being knighted in medieval times.

what is a This Guy

>Not Paladin Samwise
>Scourge Of Barad-dûr
>Savior Of The Fellowship

The opposite of That Guy

Know your heritage, newfriend

1d4chan.org/wiki/This_Guy

Sam wasn't just a Good Guy. Sam was a Best Guy.

go to bed samwise

>Galadriel voluntarily renouncing it earns her parole from the Valar

Elaborate on this? Parole for doing what?

Not him, but it's fairly involved.

Go WAAAAY back, to when the Noldor left Valinor and returned to Middle-Earth. While Feanor was all hot to regain the Silmarils, part of the motives wasn't just to regain the shiny rocks, or even to fight the Big Evil; The Elves didn't exactly like being at the bottom of the totem pole in Valinor, and wanted to carve out realms for themselves in Arda.

So what do you see during the 1st age? The Noldor show up, kick the shit out of a bunch of orcs, take one look at Thangorordrim (sp?), decide it's too hard to actually press the thing home, and fuck off and masturbate for a bit over 400 years, the bulk of the first age, only attacking Morgoth's forces when they attack the Elves. They're FAR more interested in ruling their own realms and prosecuting their feuds with each other, which is why they eventually go down one at a time.

Galadriel was right up there with the rest of them, and although her backstory was constantly revised, she wanted to rule a realm more than most of the Noldor, which is one of the reasons she married into a "lower caste" of Elf, and ruled over a group of Nandorin. She wasn't allowed and possibly wasn't interested in returning to Valinor at the end of the first age, because deep down, she still wanted power, she wanted to rule, an unchanging ELVEN realm, as opposed to one set up by the Valar.

And that's why the Elves tried to make the Rings in the second age. Remember, the Elven Rings aren't weapons or instruments of dominating others like most of the rest, they're tools of preservation, for creating an unchanging Elven paradise, and her usage is in part what befuddles the Fellowship of the sense of the passage of time when they're in Lorien.

Galadriel, when put to the test of Frodo offering the Ring, finally makes the morally pure choice, she gives up her power for a greater good, rather than trying to cling to her realm and grasp for all the power she can.

Joining Feanor and travelling over the sea to middleearth. She didn't really like Feanor in any way, but when he took ship, she sailed with him and so she became "cursed" too. As in, not permitted to go back to Valinor. IIRC.

Sam resisted the ring for like a day; Frodo carried it for months or maybe years.

>His thought turned to the Ring, but there was no comfort there, only dread and danger. No sooner had he come in sight of Mount Doom, burning far away, than he was aware of a change in his burden. As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring's power grew, and it became more fell, untameable except by some mighty will. As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor. He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows. Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be.

>In that hour of trial it was his love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

>'And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself.

>hasnt chosen a class yet
He's a level 1 hobbit.

>but with loaded dice
DM rolls all the dice. Behind a screen.
No need to load them.

Are you high? You can't just make shit up.

>deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense
The greatest and most powerful force in middle-earth. If some pointy eared gits in ancient times had had this rare and wonderful gift history would have been much different. Also less dark.

>Hey mister elf, wanna save the world and relight the Two Trees?
>FUCK OF AND STOP LOOKING AT MY SHINY ROCKS OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!

I'm pretty sure Tolkien said somewhere that if Samwise had the ring from the start, he still would have succeeded. Frodo was doomed from the start.

Hobbit's not a class.

>The story of a CoC player who went just a little too far into eldritch lore

In basic D&D they are

No edition of D&D has both Hobbit and race-as-class.

LBB/OD&D and Holmes had de-facto race-as-class.

this is a good reminder that I really do need to reread these books

You're trying to hard.

The real reason is because the books aren't about dropping the ring into the volcano - it's about the journey.

De-facto is not the same as actual.

It's a big plane for carrying people, but that's not important right now.

No he's pretty much spot on

>he's something else entirely
Which is a whole other issue

If you were a Dwarf, you played a Fighting-Man with Dwarf powers.
If you were a Hobbit, you played a Fighting-Man with Hobbit powers.
If you were an Elf, you alternated between playing a Fighting-Man with Elf powers and a Magic-User with Elf powers.

If you were a Human, you played a Fighting-Man with no level cap.
If you were Questionably Human, you played a Magic-User with no level cap.
If you were a Human named Van Helsing, you played a Vampire-Hunter with no level cap.

Thank You! I was about to loose my shit that no one had pointed this out yet... On Veeky Forums...

I chuckled.

Sam was the ultimate This Guy..

He was happy to support and follow Frodo until the bitter end.

He never gave up and even carried the ring and resisted its temptations.

Sam was the man

Frodo's class is landed gentry--scion. The Shire is Wales, the breadbasket of England. In other words, Frodo was the king of Campbellian farmer boy heroes, before campbell.

>If you were a Hobbit, you played a Fighting-Man with Hobbit powers.
Exactly, so hobbit's not a class in and of itself.

If you choose to be a Hobbit, you aren't making a choice of class.
You can nit-pick the semantics, but it is race-as-class in all but the name.

Not that it's a nit worth picking,
Moldvay only codified race-as-class for clarity's sake.

If you choose to be a Hobbit, you give up the opportunity to make a choice of class.
You can nit-pick the semantics, but it is race-as-class in all but the name.

Not that it's a nit worth picking, Moldvay only codified race-as-class for clarity's sake.

Well part of it is that the ring doesn't just tempt you, it temps you in ways that make you more like Sauron when you resist. Even if you successfully resist its temptation by steely force of will, after a year of steely willfulness you've become a pretty driven, self possessed dominator of adversity. Spend another year crushing the down the ring's power on you, and another, until the ring beats you or you become the iron fisted lord, of unshakeable vision and utter efficiency, that can dominate it and weild its power. At that point you're indistinguishable from Sauron, because the ring is a device that contains the greater part of Sauron's soul, and is itself sentient, and much like Sauron, it only cooperates with Sauron.

On the other hand his secret superpower is being a filthy peasant.

Sam was originally an NPC follower of Frodo. Boromir's player took over after he died, hence the whole badass later on.

Now, it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure Bilbo gave him the sword and mail pretty dang early. As I recall that was in Rivendell, and everything before that was (in vidya terms) basically the tutorial section.

Haven't people statted out what the characters in LotR likely are, and the martial types are only level 6ish? Aside from Gandalf and the Hobbits, of course, but Gandalf hides his power level and the Hobbits level up over the course of the story.

Tutorial section was up to Tom Bombadil actually. But the movies cut all that stuff out.

user, he was talking about GURPS, not D&D.

Nah. It's the story of a D&D player in CoC, unable to comprehend that some shit is better left undisturbed.

Honestly that's pretty cool. Never thought of it like that.

It doesn't have to trick you into wielding it; It just needs you to realize how much easier it all could be with a touch of well-managed power.

Lord knows, You're a good guy right. Even if you're too weak to wield it, that just means you need to harden the fuck up. You'll grow into it with time, and you'll be the same good and kind ruler when you get there.

Promise.

Veeky Forums is never better than when it produces posts like this.

Who would have believed that reading thoughtful analysis would be more satisfying than the constant "hurr durr why no eegulls depr herp" shitposting?

...

>don't start out with a magical sword or mithril chainmail
>start out

You realize his adventure starts before he gets that shit, right?

As an aside, Galadriel is very morally grey. Rohan men call her a witch, and she basically kills any men who enter Laurelindorenan. The fellowship was the only men accepted in the forest since ages ago.

She always was the most militant and xenophobic of the elves. Not surprising, seeing she's in the family of 'biggus dickus' Fëanor.

Oh sweet Lord dat ass!

As much as it's an imperfect and in many ways even an *unfinished* game, Strike!'s got an alright hook for that.

He rolled for it.