Gaming in Middle-earth - Free League's The One Ring RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying game 5E

Gaming in Middle-earth - Free League's The One Ring RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying game 5E

May 2023

Over the years with the change of publisher and two separate lines, it is understandable that there is some confusion which line a newly released book is connected to. Below I've created a short guide and crib sheets to help resolve any confusion. 

Free League Publishing took over the reigns of publishing The One Ring roleplaying game in 2020 after Cubicle 7 dropped the game in December 2019. The game is produced in a partnership with Sophisticated Games through a license granted by Middle-earth Enterprises (owned by Embracer). 

The One Ring 2E was first released on Kickstarter and now has several supplements with more in production. Free League also continued the tradition started by Cubicle 7 of producing a second line aimed at the D&D gaming crowd. Cubicle 7's 5E line was called "Adventures in Middle-earth" but under Free League they have now released "The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying 5E".

So there are now two lines for Tabletop RPGs set in Middle-earth:

• The One Ring Roleplaying Game: 2nd Edition (TOR2E)
• The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying 5E (LOTR5E)

🎲 Understanding the two Tolkien lines published by Free League

TOR2E has it's own ruleset based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and designed with great observations of the books and canon by the game creators and TOR2E leads the lines with products coming out first. After a TOR product is released we generally see a LOTR5E release of the same content but with the 5E (D&D) ruleset.

Each line has it's own visual style for covers though in general the interior art and content is the same in both lines, just the ruleset is different in each book depending on which line the book is for. The main exception is the TOR2E got a starter box set and LOTR5E got the Shire Adventures book, though the map included with the box set was also in the LOTR5E equivalent book.

You can see the logo difference below:

🎲 Crib sheets showing product releases for the two lines

I've created a couple of handy crib sheets to show the two lines and their current (and upcoming) products so far to help understand which book from one line is connected to the book from the other line.

* Please click the images below for the full size.

Page 1 of 2

Page 2 of 2