Pendragon seems ideally suited to playing in the Lord of the Rings universe. After some rather extensive searching online and reading through the old (and very good) Song of Arda conversion, I’ve tried to do one of my own.

My basic goal is to port the excellent Pendragon system with its passions and traits into Middle Earth. I want to allow PCs to play characters you might find in the LotR books or movies, or in the Silmarillion. This requires more character types than the standard heavily armed mounted warrior, and races other than human. Elves are particularly difficult to balance since they live forever. My solution is to start elves off at a higher level than other starting characters, but greatly slow their growth over time. In game, I’m hoping this results in an elf PC watching several generations of his human companions quickly gaining martial power and just as quickly growing old and dying. I think that would allow for some wonderful role-playing opportunities.

Skills are changed slightly. Industry is replaced by Crafting. Faerie Lore is just Lore. Swimming becomes Athletics, and covers climbing, running, jumping, etc. Falconry becomes Animal Handling. The Gaming skill includes riddles, and becomes more important. Recognize now includes heraldic symbols, such as the white hand on the standard of the orcs or the silver swan on the human banner. The following skills are removed: Heraldry, Religion, Romance, Tourney.

The Crafting skill uses the rules for casting runes/using magic from the 4th edition core book and Saxons! When a character reaches a Crafting skill of 15, he becomes a master craftsman. He selects 6 traits, and their sum is the PC’s crafting limit. If all those traits are 16 or higher, the crafting limit is doubled. The PC also gains one rune of his choice, plus two random runes. Crafting a major item requires giving up your normal Winter Phase training and checking each trait that contributes to your crafting limit. Write a sentence specifying what the item will do and which runes will be used, using the rules in the Saxons! book. Make a crafting roll for the sentence, with a -1 penalty for every two full words in the description of the item. If the crafting succeeds, you may spend up to your crafting limit on the item, or double on a critical. Any previous items crafted by the same character give a penalty to the crafting limit. Sample items:

Eolh warn of orcs, Thorn bite foes. Small sword with a -3 penalty to craft, 40 crafting points. Emits light when orcs are nearby, and deals +1 damage.
Ur ward me. Light mail vest with a -1 penalty to craft, 150 crafting points. Grants +5 armor in addition to whatever the vest would give normally.
Is hide my steps. Cape with -2 penalty to craft, 90 crafting points. Grants +3 to Hunting rolls.

Basic character creation follows the Book of Knights and Ladies, with the following exceptions:

- Humans have a cultural stat maximum of 18, and can choose one stat that maxes at 21. They begin aging at 30.

- Dwarves have a cultural stat maximum of 21 for Str and Con, and 18 for the rest. They reach maturity at age 30, and begin aging at 40. They only make aging/childbirth rolls and conduct Winter Phase training every other year. They must use ponies instead of horses, and cannot receive mounted combat bonuses (including charging). Their heavy armor grants +2 protection. Dwarves may attempt to craft a major item during Winter Phase without giving up their training. Since they do not rely on horses, they may swap their Horsemanship skill with Crafting, and their Lance skill with their choice of weapon skill. Recommended trait templates: Saxon or Danish or German, with Selfish set at 13.

- Elves never make aging rolls, and never have Winter Phase training. They only improve by rolling checks or spending Glory points. They receive 1 Glory point for every 2000 Glory accumulated. They make childbirth rolls every 20 years, and are immune to death in childbirth. When making a childbirth roll, they roll one die normally plus one additional die for every living child, and use the result that gives the fewest children. They start with 5 additional stat points (for a total of 68), but must have App and Dex of at least 12. Cultural maximums are 18 for Str and Siz, and 21 for the rest. Before assigning skill points in character creation, they set two skills at 20 (at least one must be non-combat), three at 15 (at least one must be non-combat), and four at 10. This replaces the standard practice of one skill at 15 and three at 10. Recommended trait templates: Pict, Byzantine (Manichaeist), French, Italian, or Zazamanc.

- Hobbits have a cultural maximum of 10 for Siz, 15 for Str, 18 for App, and 21 for Dex and Con. They reach maturity at 30, and start aging at 40. Like dwarves, they must use ponies instead of horses and cannot receive mounted combat bonuses. They may swap their Horsemanship skill for Sling, and their Lance skill with their choice of Stewardship, Gaming, or Folklore. After character creation is complete, increase their Valorous and their Hunting skill by 5 points each. Recommended trait template: Irish.

Training. Each PC selects a training option to reflect their upbringing. The titles vary, but should give a general idea of the type of character. Options:

- Rider of Rohan / Knight of Dol Amroth / Shield Maiden / Horseman. This is the default option from Pendragon, and these characters may use heavy armor without penalty, and use melee or ranged weapons on horseback without penalty. They may also switch weapons for free after a lance charge.

- Heavy infantry / Warrior / Dwarven Warrior. They may use heavy armor without penalty, though only on foot. Heavy armor grants them 2 additional points of protection.

- Ranger / Burglar / Ranger of Ithilian / Hunter. They may use heavy armor without penalty, though only on foot. Awareness may be used as a complementary skill for Hunting, Athletics, Boating, First Aid, Chirurgery, and Animal Handling, granting +5 to the skill on a success or critical and +0 on a failure/fumble. Receive a +5 to attacks when ambushing an unaware opponent.

- Noble / Bard / Courtier / Lord. May use heavy armor without penalty, but only on foot. App may be used as a complementary stat for Courtesy, Dancing, Flirting, Folk Lore, Intrigue, Orate, Play, Recognize, or Singing, granting +5 to the skill on a success or critical and +0 on a failure/fumble.

- Archer / Master Bowman. May only use light armor. If wearing light or no armor and using a ranged weapon, may use Dex to defend against enemy attacks (no multiple action penalties for doing so). The Dex roll may be divided as usual to defend against multiple attacks. A partial success on a Dex roll blocks damage equal to one-half Dex value.

Instead of the Chivalry ideal, PCs may achieve the Servant of the Valar ideal. The effects are the same. I also use a variant of the Pugnacious Knight ideal called Loyal Warrior, that requires 80+ points in Vengeful, Generous, Honest, Arbitrary, Proud, and Reckless. It grants +25% hit points. The Loyal Knight ideal for elves uses Suspicious instead of Generous, and the Loyal Knight for dwarves uses Selfish instead of Generous.

Valor checks are very common, and provoked by many enemy creatures. This is especially true when facing wraiths, trolls, etc. Failing a valor roll can have one of several results: cannot attack or deal damage this round (can still defend, but without the +10 bonus), lose 1d6 or 2d6 hit points, become disheartened and suffer -5 to all skills for one round, fall back in a charge and leave an ally or fellow PC to fight two enemies at once, etc. A fumble could result in a PC running/cowering in terror and unable to defend at all, making an immediate aging roll, falling unconscious, suffering a -10 to all skills, or losing points from one or more passions or traits.

Travel is difficult and fraught with danger, and traveling safely requires a group effort. The guide needs to use the Lore skill to pick the appropriate path and avoid false shortcuts and washed out river crossings. The lookout needs Awareness to spot enemies or quick weather changes. The hunter needs the Hunting skill to find food and avoid foul water (and fumbles that might indicate trying to bring down dangerous creatures). If traveling by boat or using ponies/horses to carry supplies, Boating or Animal Handling are used to maintain the means of transportation. And of course someone can always use Sing or Play to keep up the spirits of everyone in the party.

EDIT: Ranged damage depends on Dex. Ranged damage is 2d6 at Dex 4, 3d6 at Dex 8, 4d6 at Dex 12, 5d6 at Dex 16, 6d6 at Dex 20, etc.

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That’s what I have so far. It’s very much a work in progress, so I’d appreciate any feedback, ideas, suggestions, criticism, etc. you might have.

I have done some GMing of one-shots in Middle-Earth using KAP, and my long-term 'dream' has been to one day to GM a campaign stretching from end of the Second Age to the end of the Third Age. Not every year by any means, but skipping even hundreds of years until reaching another 'interesting period' in time. Then playing like a generation or so (20 years) and then skipping forward again. The descendants benefiting from the Glory and deeds of their ancestors, etc. This kind of episodic campaign would avoid most of the problems associated with the different speeds that the different races age, and hence avoid MOST of the race balancing issues. Elves are still a pain, of course.

Here are a couple of older forum posts I have made on the topic:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=183.msg15497#msg15497
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2370.msg18174#msg18174

As for your suggestion, I did skim rather quickly over them, so I will just give my first impressions for now...


Character classes:
I don't think this is a good idea. Heavy armor, especially, is something that is EASIER to wear on horseback than on foot. So it makes no sense to limit heavy armor use to only infantry. Simply give sneaking around penalties for heavy armor, so the sneaky types tend to use lighter armor.


Lifespans:
Dwarves live regularly to around 200 years. Thorin was around 200 when he died, and he was still happily kicking ass. Dain II was around 250 when he died in battle, although it was mentioned that his fighting prowess was still exceptional despite his age, hence hinting that most dwarves would be too old by then. This to me hints that Dwarves should probably have 2x maturation (around 40, call it 50?) and start aging around 5x (so around 165, call it 150 to keep things nice and simple). Dwarves should probably roll aging every 5th year until 200, and then start rolling once per two years. This would make a 250 old dwarf equivalent to a 35+10+25 = 70 year old human. Seems to work about right.

For Hobbits, 1.5x maturation seems about right; 21 human = 32 old hobbit... Hobbit 'age of adulthood' was 33, so this is just about perfect. Hobbits seem to live over 100 regularly. So maybe start aging at 50, every second year until 100. And then roll yearly. This makes 130 year old hobbit comparable to a 90 year old human, which again seem about right.

Elves don't age, so that is that. Due to this, the elves miss out on the generational game. Thus, I would only use Elves as NPCs, like a mentor character to the PKs. A Merlin, if you will. Just to mention quickly that Elves tend to procreate VERY slowly, get only a couple of kids, and marry for life. So something like once per century would probably be closer, and roll 1d20 vs (number of children)*5 after each birth. On a success, the elven woman is now barren. That tends to work for almost all cases, save for guys like Feanor and Finarfin.


Winter Phase Training:
The big question here is how long the campaign 'episode' will be. And what is the mortality rate. If the campaign is heavy on combat and it is pretty sure that you will lose a character or two every human generation, then lifespan is not really an issue. But if death is rare and the yearly play continues for decades and decades for the lifespan to matter, then yes, you'd have to scale it... Having Dwarves get a Winter Training every other year might be a bit too generous in this case, though, although it should work fine for Hobbits. So maybe every third year for Dwarves or even every 5th year. It really depends on the campaign pacing.


Deadliness of Pendragon and light armor:
You probably need some kind of mechanic to allow the light armored rangers and such have a chance to survive a fight. One quick idea...
If you roll a partial success and if your roll is less than 10 points away from the winning roll, you halve the damage not using a shield, and cancel damage completely with a shield. You still may suffer Knockdown. Example: Aragorn is fighting an Orc Boss and rolls 8. Alas, the Orc Boss rolls 13, succeeding. The damage result is halved and Aragorn's chainmail tunic absorbs the damage. Alas, Aragorn has to roll DEX vs Knockdown, and falls due to the force of the blow.
I think that probably would work? Heavy armor still renders you much more able to take those chance hits, making it useful, especially when facing more than one opponent, but a lightly armored character with high skill could still probably duel a foe (especially if using a shield) and hope to get through with just minor injuries.


EDIT:
Statistics:
Numenoreans and Elves may be a bit of a problem again. Elves tend to be tall but not especially bulky (except Ecthelion of Gondor who is described as muscled, and perhaps Beleg Cuthalion as well), so perhaps just high-ish SIZ, capped at 18, is OK. They are deceptively strong for their looks, though, which would argue a high STR, and of course the DEX is legendary. Middle-Earth Elves simply are Much Better Than You in pretty much everything, especially the Noldor, let alone those who have seen the Light of Aman (Galadriel and Glorfindel might be the only ones left by the end of Third Age, backstory of Celeborn varies). Numenoreans should get SIZ, STR and CON boni, and perhaps even APP, or at least higher average APP (like 2d6+6). Again, they have been blessed, and probably should have at least triple the lifespan of regular humans at the start of the Third Age, Probably like double in mid-Third Age, and fading to pretty much normal by the end of Third Age, with the Dunedain of the North being the exception (especially Aragorn).

EDIT2: Edited some typos. Also, additional comment on my suggestion on how to handle partial successes that reduce damage... This does mean that if someone like Aragorn (Sword 20+) faces off against some orc rabble (Skills less than 10, damage 4d6), he will do very well as long as he can take them one at a time. As long as the orcs don't roll a critical, he should be able to get only scratches and bruises past a chainmail tunic, and take down dozens of the orcs before he would finally be whittled down. Actually, the most probable result would be that at some point he falls and the orcs get the chance to swarm over him, forcing him to split his skill and then he might be in trouble. Of course, you could add a house rule that rather than divide his skill, Aragorn simply suffers -5 to his skill per additional opponent (max two additional opponents). So he would fight with 15+ against two orcs, still likely to cleave through them, and at 10+ against three (probably would start taking serious damage at that point, as one of them stabs him in the back).

That long-term dream goal sounds awesome. It would be so much fun to play in / run a campaign like that. I’m aiming for something smaller, probably along the lines of starting in 2508 TA serving under Eorl the Young, and following an extended kin group as they establish Rohan, fight orcs and Dunlendings, handle cultural friction with the remaining Gondorians in the area, fight monsters, build Edoras, and maybe eventually make it to the War of the Ring. I’m envisioning playing normal sessions for a few years, then skipping ahead 5 or 10 years. Time would progress faster than a typical Pendragon game, and allow for more generations of PCs.

I’m not quite sure what to do with the character classes. My goal is to encourage the sort of behavior you find in LotR. In Pendragon the mechanics strongly push you towards getting heavy armor and staying on a horse whenever fighting happens. In LotR that’s certainly a strong choice, but I want there to be other options that are viable, even if not optimal. I want to allow a PC to run around relying on a bow and not using melee weapons quite as much, or to pull a Gimli and stay on foot all the time and complain about riding on horses for travel (and never fighting on a horse). Something along the lines of your idea with light armor could work, though I’d prefer something that was easier to adjudicate quickly. Still puzzling that part out.

Good thoughts about relative lifespans and aging times. That might be something to adjust depending on the game. If you’re planning on the default of one session = one year and you aren’t going to skip ahead at all, you might make PCs begin to age sooner. If you’re aiming for a longer game or planning to skip ahead more, you might go for more “realistic” lifespans.

For Thorin and Dain, I think it’s safe to assume that they’d have plenty of glory points to boost their attributes and keep them functioning for longer than average. So instead of 250 year dwarf = 70 year human, maybe Dain should be the equivalent of the super high glory Baron with 600 annual glory who keeps going even though he’s 90 or so. I’d probably go for reaching maturity at 40, start aging every other year at maybe 100. If a human gets 15 years of normal growth before aging at 35 and a dwarf gets 60 years of half normal growth before aging at 100, that’d make a human of 75 and a dwarf of 195 approximately equal (100 + 2*40 + 15).

Regarding the Numeoreans and Elves, I think you’re right as far as lore goes. I think a major consideration is lore vs. game balance, and if you’re okay having some PCs simply better than others. I think that could make for an interesting game with the right group, particularly if you restrict it to only one elf/Numeorean in the entire group. It also depends on when you might run the campaign. If you’re doing a campaign close to the War of the Ring, you probably won’t have any Numenoreans at all. If you want to have a campaign about watching Sauron’s influence corrupt your civilization and convince your leaders to build a fleet to attack Valinor, that’s entirely different.

Thanks. Your campaign idea about concentrating on the Rohirrim sounds very interesting, too. The advantages there are numerous:
1) You have almost pure-Rohirrim player characters, so you don't actually HAVE to worry about elves and dwarves and hobbits nor even Numenoreans, who by that time are all but extinct/faded closer to the human norm (at least very close to the Rohirrim in physical size and prowess).
2) The 500 year period from Eorl to Theoden is pretty decently documented, as Middle-Earth history goes. You have the main happenings with dates and some idea of the personality of the Kings. Should be easy enough to use that as a framework for a multi-generational campaign.
3) Rohirrim are pretty much Anglo-Saxons on horseback, so it is pretty easy to use Pendragon rules. Chainmail-wearing mounted warriors rule the plains and infantry is more for defending castles and cities. Pretty much as in Pendragon. Which leads me to...

I don't share your misgivings about needing to shore up other options. Especially not by limiting the players by their classes. Rohirrim did have horse archers, as well, so specializing in a bow over a lance is OK. Especially as the enemy are probably mainly the Dunlendings who tend not to have such heavy armor as uruk-hai. Even a 3d6 bow is going to hurt on a hit, and a couple arrows is probably enough to make the average Dunlending raider sit down and think hard on the life choices he has made. All this while the lance-wielders are still trying to get to the poking range. Trust me, archers will have plenty of fun even without any special rules. :)

And you can always make up quests and adventures where the people will have to be on foot. In my convention mini-campaign, I had the player characters participating in a boar hunt (they figured it was probably the most dangerous mission in the campaign! :P ) and defending a fortified, isolated farmstead in the Wold against an orc attack. Neither of those included horses (well, the preparation for the orc attack did).

In the end, I come back to the point that Rohirrim are supposed to be the Horse-Lords, literally. Trying to make them infantry is going counter to their main 'thing'. :)

Re: Dwarven lifespans. Balin was about 230 when he was killed. Again, this age was not considered anything unusual. Dwalin lived to about 340! Thror reached about 250 before he was killed by Azog. Thrain was 200 when he was killed in Dol Guldur, and no one compared him to an doddering elder yet, but figured he was well and hearty to travel to the Lonely Mountain. This all points to the conclusion that a dwarf reaching 200 is still a force to be reckoned with. Sure, the named dwarves tend to be the famous, high Glory ones, I agree, but in Pendragon, aging is murderously quick. You'll lose about 1 stat point per 2 years, which means you really need to be getting enough glory to just counteract the stat loss, or otherwise your stats drop fast enough that around 50, you lose one die of damage, and around 65 you are lucky to do 3d6 still. Hence, I'd definitely would not start the dwarves to start rolling for aging from 100. Gimli was about 130 during the War of the Rings. Using your scheme, this would make him aging equivalent to a human of 50 years (human starts to roll at 35, Gimli starts to roll at 100, human rolls 15 years, and 15 rolls is what a dwarf would roll in 30 years). He then went on to live another 120 years before he decided to head to Aman with Legolas. In my scheme, he would be about equivalent to a human of 30, in other words, still in prime condition.

Long lifespans are harder to balance, I grant you that, but in a Rohirrim campaign, you wouldn't need to. Not really. Dwarves live far in the north, elves are mythical, even sinister creatures of legend, and hobbits, while probably better known around 2500 TA than 500 years later, are still an elusive and poorly known race. You pretty much have the Rohirrim, the Gondorians and the Dunlendings, and Orcs, of course. Three of those are human with human lifespans (even in Gondor, the pure-blood Numenoreans are rare and faded) and Orcs are not player characters.

I like your ideas quite a bit. Definitely going to be using those when it comes to running a campaign. The specifics of houserules I wind up using will probably depend on the time period the game covers.

On a related note, how would you deal with some of the larger enemies in Middle Earth? Something along the lines of a ringwraith, or balrog, or dragon? I'm wondering if it would work to make Valor checks a substantial portion of combat against certain foes, since the fear and terror seems to be a major portion of, for example, the ringwraiths. Instead of the base assumption of success/failure means you can/can't attack normally, maybe more detrimental effects could be used. "Oh, you failed a Valor roll against a wraith? You're disheartened and have a -5 to all weapon skills, and you're also going to require Chirurgery after this. Oh, you fumbled? Make an aging roll." Other options might be taking minor amounts of damage, gaining directed traits of Cowardly: Ringwraiths, falling unconscious, running for your life (and granting opponents a +5 to unopposed attacks against you while you retreat), losing stat points as if taking a major wound, or the like.

On a related note, how would you deal with some of the larger enemies in Middle Earth? Something along the lines of a ringwraith, or balrog, or dragon? I'm wondering if it would work to make Valor checks a substantial portion of combat against certain foes, since the fear and terror seems to be a major portion of, for example, the ringwraiths. Instead of the base assumption of success/failure means you can/can't attack normally, maybe more detrimental effects could be used. "Oh, you failed a Valor roll against a wraith? You're disheartened and have a -5 to all weapon skills, and you're also going to require Chirurgery after this. Oh, you fumbled? Make an aging roll." Other options might be taking minor amounts of damage, gaining directed traits of Cowardly: Ringwraiths, falling unconscious, running for your life (and granting opponents a +5 to unopposed attacks against you while you retreat), losing stat points as if taking a major wound, or the like.

For some reason, I totally missed this follow-up until I started going through LotR -related threads on the forum again.

Since I would not expect any of the player characters to meet with such monstrous opponents, I haven't given it much thought. But, on a whole, I'd probably be on the same lines as you are. I'd probably do it like this:

Roll Valorous (with penalties PER PERSON depending on a monster, likely ranging from -10 for a minor Nazgul to -20 for the Balrog or Smaug).
Critical: Congratulations, you master your fear and can act normally! Gain Directed Trait: Unafraid of X at +2d6.
Success: You have a choice between fleeing or standing your ground, rolling Skills at -5 due to your fear.
Failure: You flee as if confronted by Passion: Fear X.
Fumble: As a Failure, but you make an aging roll and gain Fear X at 2d6, that you will have to roll before attempting Valorous if you ever meet this kind of monster again.

Alternative would be to have the bigger monsters have a Terror value and do it as an Opposed roll.

On third consideration, I might neglect the roll altogether! The great heroes of Middle-Earth don't flee from the fight simply because they got unlucky in rolls! I might use a simple threshold method: Valorous 16+ to stand against a Nazgul or a small dragon and 20+ to stand against the Balrog or Smaug. You can (and many heroes would) use Passion to increase your Valorous.

Have you checked The One Ring, by far the best Middle-Earth emulation today? It might inspire you even if you don't use it.

Have you checked The One Ring, by far the best Middle-Earth emulation today? It might inspire you even if you don't use it.

I assume you mean the Cubicle 7 RPG, The One Ring? I took a quick glance at it on your recommendation.

Unfortunately, It is not that useful for me:
1) It doesn't use Pendragon system. We are totally committed to retaining Pendragon as our platform of choice.
2) It is explicitly geared to a single period of time and rather peripheral region to the story I wish to tell; The Wilds of 2900s rather than the Rise and Fall of Gondor during the whole Third Age.
3) It is geared (from what I could glean on a look at the list of adventures) to the usual 'adventuring heroes' stereotype, where they wander from one place to the other and right wrongs. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but again, not the story I want to tell. Our PCs will be the Lord and Ladies of Gondor. Not quite on the same level as the Prince of Dol Amroth, but able to trace their lineage to Isildur's shipmates, when they fled Numenor. They will hobnob with the great nobles and kings of Gondor, and potentially have pivotal roles to play.

I do have a stack of old MERP books that I am mining for ideas. Unfortunately, many of them just regurgitate the official history, and only focus on a rather narrow range of dates (mainly 1640 TA, the 'official' campaign setting). They also tend to suffer from the same stereotypical wandering adventurer syndrome, so I have some adapting to do if I choose to use some of their adventures. On the other hand, they do give a lot of ready NPCs and geographical & society & city information that I can use almost as is. The major disadvantage, as said, is that they tend to focus on just one period, with just an occasional foray to other dates (such as Kin-strife). Unfortunately, the mid-1600s is otherwise quite boring (in Gondor, that is, the situation in Cardolan & Arthedain would be somewhat different). There is the Raid of Pelargir followed by the Great Plague, but neither of those are really something that the PCs can do much about. So we will probably end skipping over that, and focus, for instance, the latter half of 2900s when 'Thorongil' is active in Rohan and Gondor.

So in any case, I am probably ending up doing quite a lot of heavy lifting on my own to prepare the campaign.

EDIT: As a quick aside, I absolutely detest the fact that MERP is stuffed to the gills with magic weapons. I was just reading one adventure where the ABANDONED thieves' nest in a rickety warehouse has magic items lying around for the taking. Well, not in my campaign, dang it!

SNIPPAGE
There is the Raid of Pelargir followed by the Great Plague, but neither of those are really something that the PCs can do much about. So we will probably end skipping over that, and focus, for instance, the latter half of 2900s when 'Thorongil' is active in Rohan and Gondor. Oh don't skip over them!! Even if the PCs are not directly involved in the Raid, how they and their families handle the Raid and the Great Plague would immensely effect things in the future.
Did they lose anyone during the raid?
Did they hoard food or healing herbs during the Great Plague?
Did they run off into the wilderness to hide from the GP, and then have to "reacquire" their own lands from people who stole it?

I ran a MERP campaign that started about 50-100yrs post Great Plague. Using the Pendragon system, I could actually start there and move to the 4th Age.
Intriguing!

By the way, I started my own thread here:
http://nocturnalmediaforum.com/iecarus/forum/showthread.php?2839-Morien-s-Lord-of-the-Rings-Conversion


Oh don't skip over them!! Even if the PCs are not directly involved in the Raid, how they and their families handle the Raid and the Great Plague would immensely effect things in the future.
Did they lose anyone during the raid?


Very unlikely, as they are based in Ithilien.



Did they hoard food or healing herbs during the Great Plague?


Can be handled as a decision point, rather than a mini-campaign. It is one decision, not an adventure or a series of adventures.



Did they run off into the wilderness to hide from the GP, and then have to "reacquire" their own lands from people who stole it?


They are already in as much wilderness as you are likely to get in Gondor, since they will have their own country estates. Secondly, even if they run away, unlike in the North, Gondor's society does survive this, as do its laws. There is no widespread anarchy. Getting the lands back should be a relatively minor hassle, unless the GM wishes to make it into a huge one.

Again, this can be handled as a decision point.



I ran a MERP campaign that started about 50-100yrs post Great Plague. Using the Pendragon system, I could actually start there and move to the 4th Age.
Intriguing!

That's kinda like the point. :)

Alas, it does mean that I will have to drop some stuff, most likely. There won't be enough years in real life to do justice to everything. But please, feel free to comment. For instance, your comment about the Great Plague did make me pause and think about it, and it might spark some new ideas that I didn't consider. :) Who knows, I might end up running a Great Plague setting mini-campaign after all. I definitely would, if I redo this campaign idea for the Northern Kingdom. too.

EDIT:
The above being said, I could see the benefit of enlarging the Great Plague to a series of short adventures, dealing with the chaos and uncertainty. Good opportunities for merciful and generous or cruel and selfish roleplaying, too. Maybe I was a bit too hasty in closing the door on that one. Sure, it might not be a 20 year-span like Kin-strife, but it can still be a rather powerful and interesting couple of years. Something to definitely to ponder at some length. Thanks, Sir Ukpyr! :)

EDIT:
The above being said, I could see the benefit of enlarging the Great Plague to a series of short adventures, dealing with the chaos and uncertainty. Good opportunities for merciful and generous or cruel and selfish roleplaying, too. Maybe I was a bit too hasty in closing the door on that one. Sure, it might not be a 20 year-span like Kin-strife, but it can still be a rather powerful and interesting couple of years. Something to definitely to ponder at some length. Thanks, Sir Ukpyr! :) You're quite welcome.

I had missed that your campaign was set in Ithilien, which would have a definite effect on how the Great Plague effected things.

Rather like how the Wastelands don't ravage southern Logress to anything close the level that it does in the central lands.