Question of how to LoTR

So we all know the world of LoTR, we read the books seen the movies, so how do you incorporate a LoTR campaign into the world of Tolkien since there is so much already happening. How do you throw in PCs to the Tolkien lore and world?

Especially without changing the story of the LoTR universe.

Alternate universe, or a different version of the Fourth Era.

Easiest is to just not set it during the War of the Ring. There's plenty going on throughout the history, it doesn't have to be during a fairly short period of great upheaval.

Alternatively, set it in the backwoods of Gondor or something, a location the Fellowship never visited. There's a lot of setting info added by various rpgs, MERPS especially. Check that out and use it as a framework.

There's a fuckton of time that isn't War of the Ring, and there's fuckton of space that isn't occupied by the Fellowship or invaded by Sauron. A bunch of urchins in Laketown planning to pull of a grand heist and abscond with city's winter funds connects to the novel's plot only in that it might be indirectly instigated by a Mordor agent tasked with weakening Dain's allies.

The main questline of the Lord of the Rings Online deals with exactly that.

There's a game, War in the North, where the party is sent off to Angmar to kill a dragon during the War of the Ring, bugger all to do with main events, bugger all impact on the main story or canon (to the best of my knowledge) but a nod and a wink of "If they hadn't stirred up shit in the North then the War might have been far worse"
Something along those lines would probably provide a satisfying campaign thrown well off the beaten track.

Campaign in the east where the two blue wizards lead opposition to Sauron to hamper the Harradrims support of the war to the west

The story takes place either long before the events of Hobbit, long after the events of LotR, in the exact same time as Hobbit but far-far away from there, or just instead of all that
You don't.
So, this.

First Age baby.

The problem with "Don't do the WotR" while that war is going on is that players are just going to not give two shits. Nobody cares about being Riders of Rohan dealing with raiders, or the Dwarves and the Men of Dale fighting orc armies. Not while they know the One Ring exists and is being taken to Mordor by Frodo and pals. Nobody wants to be the sideshow to LotR's main plot.

You'd be better off trying one of the major wars from the Second Age IMO. The plot is less detailed so there is more room to insert PCs.

Yeah i found that about Tolkien's writing the problem is he wrote such detailed histories etc that it becomes impossible or extremely hard to write in anything without fucking up what already exists.

Basically, what the other anons said, do something that isn't focused on in the books. I once ran a campaign where the players were a group of "tribal" humans in the second age attempting to resist growing Numenorean incursions (It was a stealth Tolkien though, I didn't reveal explicitly this was in Arda at any point, although my players did eventually catch on.)

I had another which never got off the ground of helping the Blue Wizards stir up trouble for Sauron's people out east.

Or you could do something in the early 4th age, maybe trying to recover the lost Palantiri, or poke around in the ruins of Mordor looking for artifacts. Or try to reclaim Moria again for the Dwarves. Or just help set up civilization in a resurgent Arnor, if you have players who like to be town-builders.


You also have about a 60 year window between the end of the Hobbit and the start of Fellowship where you can stick in almost anything.

Play The One Ring RPG by cubicle 7 they set it during the period between The battle of Five Armies and The War of the Ring, which has shit ton of quest hooks to use.

I think the party also helps out the eagles during the main quest as well.

There was a lord of the rings RPG where they followed the fellowship or scouted ahead of them or something to, but that was a bit dodgy plotwise.
The new "Shadow of Mordor" games whilst definitely not a good source of plot for an RPG (unless your players want to be mordor orcs?) show that you can have a game about conflict with mordor without you having to win. From memory the MC in that manages to save some humans from slavery, keep some artifacts away from servants of the dark lord etc.

I would love to host a lord of the rings campaign focused on playing as the forces of evil and fighting during the war of the ring, with a different or modified fellowship as their opponents so they cant just metagame where the ring is etc. Talking Spiders, war trolls, mighty orcs/uruk-hai like lurtz, black numenoreans, easterlings and haradrim theres lots of interesting characters to play. Heck considering how weak the ringwraiths were at the start of the story (five to one they couldnt beat a guy with a torch) they would probably make decent player characters.

Which now that i think about it, if is your problem then why not just replace the fellowship? You could maybe keep Gandalf or someone around as a DMPC (until he gets balrog'd or equivalent) but why not just let the players take the ring to mordor their own way? I feel its sometimes awkward when players interact with major figures in an RPG setting, but if you push past that it can be really fun.

If a bunch of nobodies doing smuggling runs in a star wars rpg fight darth vader it comes off as forced, but if the players were the ones who got the death star plans, studied under old desert hobo etc it becomes more natural.

This, and even if you don't want to get into One Ring fully, just get the Darkening of Mirkwood or the Mirkwood Campaign (for the DnD version) to see how you can easily do a larger campaign without stepping on the toes of the LoTR and associated lore.

And as others have mentioned, you can just change the era, the third age alone took over 3000 years, with loads of interesting periods to play in like the Kinstrife, or the Fall of Arnor, lots of amazing adventuring to do.

Playing the fall of Arnor has always proven the most effective for me. However, I have a group who is experienced with Call of Cthulhu, and so understand the concept of playing for a limited victory. YMMV

I thinking something having to do with the Fall of Gondolin

Make it personal, not save-the-world stuff.

The Hobbit is more like a traditional D&D adventure than LotR. It's a good example because there's a basic motivation (Bilbo wants to see the world and is also promised lots of treasure) and beneath that are deeper motivations (the dwarves want to reclaim their homeland, Gandalf wants to deal a blow to the forces of evil), but ultimately it's about a dragon, a mountain and a shiny rock. Your characters could be a group of people looking to get rich quick by finding the long-lost treasures of Moria or Angmar, and you can then layer on that a deeper context that makes their adventure important in the bigger picture (eg. the Witch-King is also trying to find the same treasure), but if you get people invested in their characters then getting rich and escaping with their lives should feel like victory enough without bringing down Sauron. Same if they're trying to help their people, take vengeance, reclaim a homeland, or whatever.

I found the one ring so dull to play because you just play random chumps in the world who ultimately will have zero impact in the grand scheme of things as the entire plot railroad has already been decided.

No to run this properly you just let the party play as the literal fellowship, with some reskins and twists as you desire, and see how events play out this time around.