The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game


The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, released by Decipher Inc. in 2002, is a role-playing game set in the Middle-earth of J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction. The game is set in the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, but may be run at any time from the First to Fourth Age and contains many examples of how to do so. Sourcebooks cover the events of The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation.
The system for LOTR is called CODA, and involves rolling two six-sided dice to resolve actions. In 2003, LOTR won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game 2002.
The game is the second licensed role-playing game for the setting, the prior game being Middle-earth Role Playing from Iron Crown Enterprises. A third role-playing game set in Middle-earth is currently being published by Cubicle 7 under the title The One Ring Roleplaying Game.

Races

The character races available in the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game are:
The character classes available in the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Adventure Game are:

Printed publications

The following printed publications have been released by Decipher for this roleplaying game.
TitleDatePagesISBN
Core BookAugust 2002304
The Fellowship of the Ring SourcebookMay 2003128
The Two Towers SourcebookAugust 2003128
Fell Beasts and Wondrous MagicApril 200396
Narrator's ScreenFebruary 200316
Hero's JournalApril 200348
Maps of Middle-EarthNovember 200232 + 6 maps
Helm's Deep200596

Digital sourcebooks

The following adventures were available for free download on the website of Decipher.
TitleAuthor
Quick-Start Adventure. The Road to Henneth AnnûnDouglas Sun
The House of Margil

Decipher published a PDF version of corrections to the Core Rulebook and several sourcebooks. The PDF includes some errors that were not corrected in the first and second printings of the book.

Unofficial Digital Supplements

Due to some criticism of the game by the gaming community for its lack of balance, especially during character creation, some digital supplements have been created, which can be found on the Ambarquenta website. These supplements are unofficial and are not published by Decipher.

Current status

In 2011, a new role-playing game set in Middle-earth, The One Ring, was published by Cubicle 7.