Contributions to Other Hands Issue 20 were provided by Fredrik Ekman, Jeff Erwin, Jasna Martinovic, Olivier Morelle, and Jason Vester. Charles Watteyne and Chris Seeman handled editing. Linguistic material was provided by David Salo. Quentin Westcott handled Pagemaking. Artwork was provided by Bidget Buxton and Quentin Westcott. Alan Dep provided photography.
EDITORIAL: A Long-expected party
![Other Hands Issue 20 Issue 20 of Other Hands Gamer Magazine was published in January 1998.](http://me-archive.xenite.org/files/2012/01/other-hands-issue-20-231x300.jpg)
Well folks, here we are at last: Other Hands is five years old!!! Above all, it is a time to celebrate —to look back over half a decade of role playing in Middle-earth, and to bend our gaze forward towards many fun and fulfilling years of gaming to come. How did OtherHands come to be? Most of you have probably read (or have read about) the panel discussion and FRP seminar that took place at the Tolkien Centenary Conference that inaugurated this endeavor back in 1992. But the real story begins with my own twelve-year career as a Middle-earth gamemaster which preceded that gathering.
My involvement in fantasy role playing games began only a few short years after my discovery of Tolkien at the age of eleven. How these two pursuits were finally joined was a lengthy process which I do not now fully recall, but I do remember very clearly the moment at which my game was transported to Middle-earth. While running one of those old D&D modules, my players decided they wanted to leave the immediate vicinity of the dungeon they were exploring. Argh! Every GM’s worst nightmare: moving beyond the edge of the map. Flabbergasted, 1 reached in desperation for the only map book I had in my possession, none other than Karen Wynn Fonstad’s Atlas of Middle-earth. The game continued smoothly as I suddenly found it possible to lead my players across an imaginary terrain that was as familiar and real to me as my own backyard. It soon began to dawn on me: why merely use Tolkien’s geography to situate my games? Why not game in Middle-earth in its own right? The year was 1980.
During the course of the next decade, I devoted my energies to drawing out the implications of that question. I found a rule system that appealed to me, and set to adapting its mechanics to what I was then beginning to learn about the world I had chosen. The appearance of Iron Crown’s MERP modules was welcome fuel for the undertaking; but I never fully integrated them, as my own gaming style was moving in a different direction from that of MERP. I wanted epic — a grand tapestry of story, character and action that invoked and depended upon something more than the mere mercenary motive that so dominated the scenarios in many FRP modules.
As the years passed, this divergence grew into discontent. I needed some outlet for these ideas, but found none. In 1987 I approached ICE as a prospective author, but found that the format of the “Ready-to-Run” modules then in vogue did not permit the scale and geographical mobility my adventure ideas demanded. Frustrated, I began sending out inquiries to various gaming journals in hopes of finding one that would be interested in publishing Middle-earth material…to no avail. At that time, most major gaming magazines were fast becoming parochialized preserves for the “inhouse” products of their parent companies.
Something had to be done. Middle-earth gamers deserved to have their own voice, and fantasy role playing deserved a legitimately recognized niche within the world of Tolkien fandom. In 1990, I wrote a letter to Tolkien Enterprises, expressing these sentiments, and seeking some guidance from the people who ultimately controlled the rights to publications dealing with role playing in Middle-earth. Fortuitously, my query was answered: at that time, Tolkien Enterprises was reviewing ICE’s Middle-earth license, and so were eager to receive feedback from its primary audience. Over the next two years, the legal parameters for the existence of Other Hands were defined. The 1992 Centenary gave further impetus and visibility to the prospect, and in April of 1993, the first issue went to press.
Enough history — and enough about me. What about you all? No, I’m not looking to start up a “my life and MERP” column. I am hoping, however, to gain a more focused picture of — what you, the subscribers of Other Hands, like or dislike about the content and format of this journal, and to this end I have contrived a survey for you all to fill out and return to me. (I aim to compile and present a summary of the results in our next issue.)
There are several reasons for holding this survey. First of all, because it would be neat to get a sense of who (besides yourself) reads Other Hands and what their interests are. More importantly though, budgetary and personal financial constraints have made it necessary this year to substantially raise the subscription cost (which will NOT, however, affect existing subscriptions) and to normalize the length of each issue to 24 pages. This means that the space we do have needs to be stuffed as efficiently as possible with the kinds of material people most want to see. To accomplish this goal I need your active feedback.
Whatever betide, I think you will not be disappointed with the offerings for this issue. We are missing a few regular features this time round. There is no “Frontlines” because there have been no substantially new developments on the horizon since last issue. This month’s “Communications” and “Rastarin’s Log” were a bit late in finding their way to us, so they will have to wait until next issue. But these absences merely mean that we have more space to devote to our main attractions for this issue!
Jeff Erwin, the author of our title piece, is a newcomer to OH, but no stranger to his subject matter. Just prior to the moratorium Jeff was preparing an ambitious proposal for a Lindon realm module (a project which I hope he will continue to pursue for publication as an OH supplement). As part of his research on this region, Jeff has delved to the very roots of Tolkien’s vision of the westernmost of Middle-earth’s lands, roots which go back to the foundations of his ever-evolving mythology and its subcreative relationship to the world as we know it — and, more specifically, to the geography of England. Although Jeff refrains from exploring the ramifications of his argument for role playing in Lindon, they should be apparent to anyone who wants to set their campaign during the Fourth or later Ages. All in all, a bold and exciting piece of Tolkien scholarship.
Jasna Martinovic, who has been a reader of OH for several issues, now presents his first major contribution to our journal. His adventure, set in mid-Third Age Mirkwood, has the honor of containing the first specimens of a Silvan dialect currently being developed by David Salo (who was responsible for the invention of the Snowelven tongue of The Northern Waste module). We hope to unveil the rules of this dialect in a future issue, as there has long been a need for an accessible linguistic system for creating names for Wood-elven characters and other proper names in Mirkwood — for now, let your ears savor the beauty of green Galbrethin, of shadowy Morwatha and of dark Muristil.
You may have already noticed the ugly guy in the photo on the back cover. That’s me with some of my gaming group. I thought it would be nice for you to be able to put faces onto some the names who have made Other Hands (and MERP) what it is today. Cheers from all of us to all of you…
Chris Seeman
March 9, 1998
You may download Other Hands Issue 19 for free either from Other Minds’ Other Hands archive or MERP.Com’s Other Hands archive.