Middle-earth is often characterized as a "low magic" setting. Personally I take exception to this description as being somewhat oversimplified. The magic and wonder, the horror and dread that constitutes the fictional setting of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is all those things and more. Fantastic hardly begins to describe my feelings about Middle-earth or the nature of its lore, locales and creatures. A more imaginative place full of wonder and magic, I have seldom encountered.
Where The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game differs most from Middle-earth, in my humble opinion, is in scope. Even in its Basic edition, D&D is a "large tent" fantasy game in that it includes many things that do fit into Middle-earth, but also many things that don't. This is true if the game is compared to most any published setting drawn from popular literature. Fortunately, the game system is both robust and flexible and easily accommodates modifications without breaking the game. I firmly believe that the aspiring referee should "make the game their own" whether using Middle-earth as their setting, a homebrew realm or some other published world.
In my last post I discussed some quick modifications to adapt Basic - in particular the edition edited by J. Eric Holmes - for adventure gaming in Middle-earth. Chief among my suggestions is for the referee to carefully craft a "feeling" for either Middle-earth by name or for a close approximation of Middle-earth by drawing on various familiar tropes and images - and perhaps names and geographies - all with an eye toward conjuring associations with known aspects of the famous setting. Using descriptions and aspects of character that are consistent with Middle-earth, one leverages the power of the familiar in much the same way that all fantasy makes use of certain assumptions about the "real world" - things like gravity which causes a dropped object to fall to ground.
Professor Tolkien's Middle-earth has more in common with a late dark-age or early medieval period when contrasted with the late medieval early renaissance feel of D&D. Hence, I would drop plate armor from the equipment list making chainmail (AC 5) the highest armor a "hero" is likely to achieve without access to better metals or magical enchantment. This immediately changes the "feel" of the milieu and makes characters and creatures a bit easier to hit and damage - both are desirable outcomes, I think. characters that hit more often are arguable more fun to play, and characters who are hit and damaged more often can result in players who consider entering melee more carefully. Combat should be a last resort in many situations.
Restructuring the Basic game to make it feel more like Middle-earth can include some significant changes to the mechanics, both subtracting from and adding to the rules as written in an effort to achieve the unique feel of adventuring in the Good Professor's fictional world (or one very similar). Chief among them is the selection of protagonists - the player characters. Fortunately, the Basic rules are pretty close to what is desired in this endeavor.
The Fighter class will be the basis for most PCs. Players should be encouraged to choose humans and by offering a number of culture heritages based on the (free) peoples of Middle-earth, each with modest mechanical benefits such as proficiency with horses, or woodcraft, etc. the human heritages will make human PCs both more attractive to play and lend the proper feeling to your milieu.
The Cleric's "Turn Undead" ability is a defining feature of D&D and is perhaps less appropriate for a game set in Middle-earth. I have both used the class and ability and also eliminated it while running my version of Middle-earth D&D and I think it can work either way. If "Turn Undead" is used, I suggest it be thought of as similar to "elven light", such as certain high-powered Noldor elves may occasionally display thereby causing evil creatures to be repelled and flee. This may make the Cleric a good candidate for conversion to "elf" as a class. If the Cleric class is converted to represent certain high elven character abilities the spell list and flavor descriptions (as well as the class name) will need to be altered appropriately.
Undead play a powerful role in the fiction of the Good Professor and should be portrayed as much more threatening than zombies ala "Dawn of the Dead", or Ray Haryhausen skeletons (both offer quite good cinema entertainment, but not exactly what I would like for my Middle-earth game). The ability for characters to harm the undead ghosts, wraiths, barrow wights and even lessor undead when under the control of shadow should be minimal in order to make such creatures even more frightening. Necromancy is a central theme of the dark forces of Middle-earth and can be used to good effect when played in just that way. The powerful servants of shadow will practice dark sorceries and command potent magic that is unavailable to "good" characters and this is indeed part of the "feel" for such forbidden lore one gets from reading the fiction. (The struggle of certain humans to achieve magical "immortality" in opposition to their gods is one of the defining themes in the legendarium.)
The roleplaying games The Burning Wheel and Adventures in Middle-earth present the idea of having a formal audience with a person of importance as a significant in-game event and each offers their own mechanical method to handle this audience. Whether as referee using the Basic rules you add skills or talents which can be directed at just such social encounters or not - and in keeping with the spirit of Basic, if you do use a skill system, may I suggest a single d6; 1 in 6, 2 in 6, etc. - the social event should be played-up a bit so as to give players an opportunity for role-play and to emphasize the importance of the "audience" event to the campaign and setting. (The culture of Middle-earth differs from our own in many ways and part of the referee's job when striving to present their Middle-earth is to impart these little factual differences to their players.)
Rest and recovery of hit points or relief from various conditions such as poisoned, sick, etc, can best be achieved while resting in a place of safety and sanctuary not while camping in a vacant hall in Moria. A quick overnight at the roadside inn may be better than sleeping by the road, but the traditional 1 hit point per day recovery rate of Basic rather sums up my feelings about how much "resting " in this manner may be worth. In order to really recover from the stress and injuries an encounter with the forces of shadow may lead to, characters ought to winter-over in a place of sanctuary. One where there will be comfort, safety and freedom from the influence of shadow. Time spent in the presence of friends and mentors will also benefit the weary adventurer in many ways which can be characterized as contributing to HP recovery and level advancement. .
The 5e system uses the terms "short rest" and "long rest" and associated system mechanics to rejuvenate certain abilities and while I would not recommend directly borrowing these mechanics (which seem over-powered when compared to Basic), the "short" and "long" concept does offer a useful distinction regarding resting - namely that not all rest is equal in its value or ability to restore the character. Some similar mechanical distinction could be brought into our Basic game to good effect.
Hopefully, the ideas presented here will help you see the potential of using The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game, with some modification, to run a version of Middle-earth with your players. The familiarity we have with the game system makes it nearly a universal gaming language in our hobby and the popularity of the iconic setting deserves more game-play at our tables. I personally think the two can work nicely together.
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