The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

by Stan!

Wow! What a movie! I waited anxiously for a whole year, and it still lived up to my expectations! Of course, that means that I've got another whole year to wait for the conclusion to the trilogy, but in the meantime The Two Towers has given me a lot to think about.

Oh, I already knew the plot. (I mean I've only read The Lord of the Rings seven or eight times over the past twenty-five years) But director Peter Jackson gave me a lot of insights that will be quite useful in my own work—and there's quite a bit any game designer or GM can learn from the movie.

Whole Parts of the Sum

For months ahead of time, I knew that The Two Towers was going to suffer to at least some degree from "middle story syndrome." That is, being the second of three parts, it is not a story where you get to meet a bunch interesting new characters and get caught up in their quest. Nor is it a story where plots link together, sagas are concluded, and a sense of resolution is given to the events and characters. No, this is the story that connects the beginning to the conclusion—and that is a dangerous place to be. When done well, the movie can be like The Empire Strikes Back, standing so well on its own that many consider it to be the best of the Star Wars series. When done poorly, it becomes a film like Back to the Future II: annoyingly derivative of the original, providing the audience with little other than an entreaty to come back for part 3.

What does this have to do with games? Well, like the saga of Middle Earth, many roleplaying campaigns center on big stories. They are grand tales about the rise and fall of empires, and they often take a good deal of time to play from beginning to end. Dungeon Masters should pay careful attention to the way Peter Jackson spins a 3-hour movie that feels whole and satisfying despite the fact that it begins in the middle of a story that remains unconcluded when the final credits roll. (For that matter, most fantasy novelists should go back and pay attention to how JRR Tolkien did it in the first place... but that's a different rant.)

If I had to choose a single lesson to learn in this regard, it would be that each part of a large story should contain a nugget of resolution. Every chapter in a saga needs its own miniature beginning, middle, and end. The story of The Two Towers is clearly about the war against Sauron and the effort to destroy the Ring of Power. However, if you ask me what happened in the movie, I could tell you about the salvation of King Théodin... or the ents' attack on Isengard... or Frodo and Sam's capture by Faramir... or the siege of Helm's Deep... and each one of these tales would be complete. In fact, if I wasn't careful in my telling, you might think that was all the movie was about.

Each part of The Two Towers is a story unto itself, just the way each day is a whole unit that together makes up a week, which when added together make months, which when added together make years. Strive to craft stories with that same sense of periodic completion. Your campaigns will benefit from it, and your players will sing your praises for years to come.

Moments to Shine

One of the design principles was impressed upon me during my days at TSR and Wizards of the Coast was to make sure that every adventure provided at least one moment for each character to do what he or she does best. The Two Towers does this far better than anything I ever wrote, giving each character opportunities to do several things at which he or she excels. Aragorn not only gets to prove his might in combat, he uses his ranger skills to pick out an impossibly obscured trail, and uses his natural leadership to save the kingdom of Rohan. Legolas once again takes our breath away with his amazing skill as an archer, uses his sharp eyes to spot things no one else in his group has a chance of seeing, and makes incredible displays of agility.

The best part is that neither Aragorn nor Legolas can be said to have stolen the show with these displays. Everyone has chance enough to excel at something and in the end we see the fellowship as being mutually supportive—they're all heroes!

DMs can apply this lesson to just about every game session they ever run. Even in a combat-heavy plot, provide a few situations where stealth, charisma, magic, or faith is the path to the optimal solution. Though a tale is set in a medieval metropolis, create moments when knowledge of nature or an affinity with creatures of the wild will provide the group with an advantage. Give every character something important to do in every adventure and you will succeed in making the whole party stronger.

Now THAT'S Epic!

The word "epic" is thrown around an awful lot in modern fantasy and, in my opinion, it is more often than not completely misused. Epic is more than just a descriptor of volume or breadth—it's more than just the next size up from grand or colossal. Epic denotes (or at least, it should denote) something that's not only large in scale, but also deep in impact.

The Lord of the Rings is epic in every sense of the word. It is epic in scale, showing us the world of Middle Earth from the top of the Misty Mountains down to the depths of Moria, from the fetid swamps of Mordor to the tranquil glades of Rivendell. It is epic in scope taking us from the bucolic hobbit holes in the Shire to the chiseled halls of Helm's Deep, passing through Lothlórien, Isengard, and the plains of Rohan along the way. It's epic in theme as it examines not only the great evils of war and racism, but also poses questions regarding the nature of technology, the interaction between fate and free will, and the power of an individual to change society. And through it all it remains a completely captivating tale of adventure and heroism.

If you want to create epic roleplaying campaigns, remember to do more than simply draw a continent-spanning map. Be sure to layer your setting and your adventures with themes that interest you and create dynamic choices for the players. Should they use a source of evil power to defeat another evil power? To whom do they owe ultimate allegiance—their family, their friends, their kingdom, or the more esoteric concept of life itself? When the major political forces split into armed camps, will they join one side against the others, start a faction of their own, or work to prevent the world from descending into a period of bloody violence from which it might never recover?

Spot the PC

Perhaps the single biggest thing that players and GMs alike can take from The Two Towers is a new concept of the similarities and differences between Player Characters and Non-Player Characters. Too often it seems that the PCs are the only characters in a game setting who are capable of performing heroic actions. The ordinary folk of the world sit back and wait for larger than life heroes to save them.

In this film we see that while the heroes are clearly more capable than ordinary folk (or even ordinary soldiers), they are still people. Aragorn is the heir to Gondor, but he mingles freely and naturally among the people of Rohan. When war comes to Helm's Deep, Gimli and Legolas stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other warriors—their exploits during the battle will distinguish them as heroes, but they do not radiate an aura of importance that sets them above the common man. They are just as uncertain, just as fallible, and just as frightened as anyone else in the world. It is their potential (or rather the fact that they live up to, and even surpass, their potential) that makes them heroes. But even when that happens, they never stop being people as well.

In many roleplaying games one gets the idea that the PCs are completely different than everyone else, as though they were filmed in brilliant Technicolor while the NPCs and the rest of the world are shot in faded, grainy black and white. The Two Towers shows us another way to approach the difference. It gives us a model where the PCs are an integral part of the world (and the world is an inseparable extension of them)—they are simply the part on which we focus—even when they are not on screen, we can usually hear their actions above the sounds of others'. Aragorn, Frodo, and Gandalf are our instruments to measure the world.

For GMs, this notion is mostly useful in plotting and in roleplaying NPCs. It is a thought that will keep the world from spinning at the whim of the PCs, and help the NPCs be more than Newtonian responses to the PCs' actions.

Your Turn

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