Interested in Being a Player? Battle of Five Armies & The Third Age of Middle-Earth The current year for our Middle-Earth campaign is set during the year of 2946 of the Third Age. Inspired By J.R.R. Tolkien

This will be my first Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy system that I've ever ran, since for pretty much my entire gaming life, "I've ran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons exclusively". I try and do my best to give my players a fun game as best I can.

I've ran games around the table in the past, I've never had anyone complaint so I guess I must be decent but this time I'll be doing an online campaign using Discord/Roll20 so I'll have to work extra hard to make this thing fun for my players.

"I prefer classic D&D because there is no way I can create a sense of horror or fear in my campaigns/adventures as a Dungeon Master using the 5e rules. The 5e rules allows the players characters to always have a safety net beneath them compared to the classic systems "in my humble opinion of course". To play classic D&D, you don't have to learn the rules, you will learn them as you play and the rules are very simple to learn and understand. One of my players from another group, Joe Rice, had never played D&D before in his life and from the start he had no trouble understanding how to play and now he loves the system.

This is a rules light system, your choices as a player matter more than dice rolls. Actions of your character are less defined by your character sheet than on creativity and thoughtful planning. Players have agency, they decide the plot. They're actions have consequences. There is no pre-determined plot. It plays faster and smoother, with more player agency overall, and a kind of classic “feels” or “vibe” that can’t quite be gotten via modern-style rules sets. In a nut shell, It's just like 5e, except all the rules that tell you what you can or can't do are gone. Instead, you tell your Dungeon Master what you want to do and the Dungeon Master tells you what attribute to roll equal to or under. Don't be afraid to try this system out, who knows . . . you may end up liking it."

- Here is our Race & Class page.
- House Rules: We do have a few "quality of life" house rules to help make the game run a little smoother and be slightly more forgiving than it is in it's current form. These rules may change over time.
- About Our Campaign: Here you can read all about our Middle-earth campaign.
- Journals Page: This is where my players can find everything they need to know about our campaign.

- Discord: This is the eastiest way to reach me. Click the Discord link for a link to my Discord server.
- Facebook: You can also find me on Facebook.
- Email: If all else fails, my email is jamesefullard@gmail.com

Alright, now for the good stuff lol I hope you made it this far. This campaign will take place online using Roll20/Discord - so, Roll20 will be used for character sheets, dice roles, and maps. Discord will used for our voice audio. I "might" do local recordings of our campaigns, if I do, we will use reactive portraits instead of webcams.

If you have read this all the way this far, then you must be at least somewhat interested. Sure, classic D&D does not have all the bells and whistles of 5th edition, classic D&D is not meant for you to start out at level 1 and be a superhero. It's dark, it's gritty, it's more realistic and believable but above all else, classic D&D is high fantasy, not modern fantasy like 5th edition.

I am not putting down 5th edition "well yea, maybe I am a little", I simply want to express just how different the two systems are, kind of like "Lord of the Rings" vs "Honor Among Thieves" - it's just not the same style of fantasy. This "slightly modified" Old-School Essentials system is like that and is very easy to understand.

Character creation takes minutes "excluding buying starting equipment", not two hours like 5th edition, we don't "build" characters, we "create" them. Classic D&D is about normal "mortals" setting out for adventure to try and be the heroes of the land. The Middle-earth setting is the perfect setting for this. I don't consider myself a GREAT dungeon master, as a matter of fact I think I am more or less average but one thing I can say is every game I've ever ran my players have had a good time and I will do my best to make this campaign the same way.

If you're looking for a friendly atmosphere, friendly down to earth players and a Dungeon Master that tries very hard to give his players something special, I would love to hear from you.

Everyone currently in this group are middle aged people with ages ranging from late 30's to late 50's. We are all easy to get along with, very friendly and have a lot of love of Middle-earth. We don't bring anything political to our table, we also don't bring any religions or anything from the real world into our games, we also don't do the pronoun silliness. We are all adults here but when we sit down at the table, it's about the "game" and nothing else.

One last thing . . . we are "eastern standard time" players, we have one from the UK and his schedule is opposite of what ours is, but luckily he stays up all night but for future players we prefer to bring in players from the USA with similar time zones as ours, it just makes things easier to schedule play times/dates.

We currently have the following characters . . .

Open Slot:
Hordus Blackforge: Dwarven Fighter of the Lonely Mountain
Open Slot:
Elora Dawn: Mirkwood Elf Scholar
Open Slot:

Rules
• Other Games During Game Time: Look, be respectful and while we are playing D&D, don't have World of Warcraft pulled up in the background etc. etc. Either you want to play in our campaign or you don't. Just be respectful please, your DM puts in a lot of hard work to try and give his players a good solid game.
• Be Mature: We are all adults, please ... let us all act like adults when we play. (no need to elaborate on this any more - this should come naturally)