As a work of art and a book, the Lord of the Rings Role Playing Game "core book" is beautiful. The book is well written, well edited, and has excellent artwork, most directly from the books or movies of the same name. If you already love the books or movies, then you might like this book. The core book explains much about Middle Earth, about the various races, and magic. The authors have certainly thought a lot about the world in which the Lord of the Rings story takes place.

This role-playing core book assumes that you have read J.R.R. Tolkien's works. If you have not, you will miss many references. Fortunately, the book includes brief descriptions of the main places and people in the books (and movies). Unfortunately, not having read the books means that you might not be able to play the game as well as those game masters (GMs) or players who have done so. This game uses Tolkien's works as a script and as the whole and sole basis for this game world.

As a Role-playing Game, however, this work falls a little short. I have some minor quibbles and complaints about the role playing system. It is more complicated than necessary, though that should not interfere with game play too much once you get started. Skills, Attributes, and Abilities combine to allow a player to meet their "Tests" in combat or plot development. In the end, after you take a lot of time to read about character traits and select one or two, for example, you then might get to add a few points to an attribute. Your newer players can still have fun creating their characters, but this might take quite a long time.

My major complaint is against the philosophy of the game. In a nutshell, for all major plot points "Thou shalt not deviate from Tolkien". Only if you play far away, in time or space, from the story line of the books can your character do whatever he or she pleases. The authors call game campaigns "grand epic stories", not adventures. The games master is even called the "Narrator", even though a good GM should never completely script and 'narrate' the plot of an adventure. Player characters must have freedom to make decisions, not be tightly restricted to the confines of a previously written plot. If a GM says "you can't do that", the reason should be that a character does not have the ability or strength, not because it will ruin the GMs script (or Tolkien's plot) later on in the game. Any experienced GM knows how frequently a game must be modified during the course of play to account for unexpected player decisions and odd plot twists.

The writers of this book state outright that you must not interfere with the main story line. That works for a movie written unalterably onto DVD, but not for a game played by unpredictable human beings out to have a good time. When I buy a game, I want to play it, not be confined to a fixed story line. I think a new GM who uses this as his first role-playing game book will probably not be prepared to play any other games.

If you're an experienced GM who also loves Lord of the Rings, by all means do buy this book. You'll have to simplify the rules for new players. You might also have to convince Tolkien purists that even if a main character dies or the bad guy wins once in a while, it's all right. When you take the books off of the shelf, in there the good guy still wins. (It's amazing how the authors do not understand this simple point.) If you're a new GM who thinks this is a good way to start role-playing games, then I say don't even think about it. If you really love Tolkien, then I'd recommend buying this book for your amusement, but not strictly for gaming.