Hi Everyone!

I hope all is well. I want to start out by saying that this post is by no means meant to be a bashing of this beloved system. It was the first non-mainstream RPG I played (though I have played many since), and I think there is a lot of good contained within its pages.

However, I do feel that most of the reviews I see about this game are not critical enough of its shortcomings, and I wanted to ask the community if the faults I see are seen by others, or if they are unique to me.

First and foremost, the character creation. I like that it is mostly fast, and I understand that Tolkien treated a lot of his fantasy cultures like a monolith, but I find it to be very restrictive. Although the character may grow into a unique path over the course of a campaign, almost all characters of a culture will be very similar at creation, which seems problematic in a skill-based system. Elves will try to use lore wherever they can, hobbits will be courteous at every turn, etc.

Second, I feel the dice system is over-engineered. I love the d12, but the extra d6s produce a strange curve on top of it, and the existence of 3 special symbols in addition to counting numerical results make resolving a task take much longer than other systems, especially if someone in your party wants to make several checks in a row.

Third, the division of what skills go under what attribute is straight up bizarre in many cases. Why is "Song" under Strength and not Heart? Why is "Craft" under Strength and not Wits? Why is "Healing" under Heart and not Wits? I could go on.

Lastly, while I mostly like the flow of combat, the protection system is alarmingly unbalanced. A dwarf with 4D of protection will almost never take a wound, but someone with only 1D of protection will take one way more often. Although this would normally be balanced by Load, dwarves also get to 1/2 the load of all armor, making encumbrance trivial.

Does anyone else have these same (or other) frustrations with the game, or are these unique to me? Let me know what you think. Thank you and have a great day!