The Lord of the Rings arrives for D&D’s 5th edition next month

J.R.R. Martin wrote the Lord of the Rings novel. Tolkien, a series which directly inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, will be formally adapted for the iconic role-playing game’s 5th edition. But it’s not D&D’s current publisher, Wizards of the Coast, that will bring that product to market. Instead, it’s the hugely successful team at Free League Publishing which has two brand-new books up for sale starting May 9.

We’re big fans of The One Ring: Roleplaying In the World of the Lord of the Rings. The reboot of Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi’s tabletop RPG, originally published in 2011, was released by Free League in 2022 after a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign. At the time, reviewer Linda Codega called its homespun setting a “microcosm of a massive, familiar world” that “pushes the narrative beyond the traditional hero’s journey.” We found the boxed starter set in particular to be charming, with extraordinary art and more historical hobbits inside than you can shake a stick at. It seems that a 5th edition port would be the best way to introduce the setting to a larger audience.

But let’s linger just a moment on the the many ironies of this current licensing situation.

When D&D was young and bold and run out of a two-story residential home in rural Wisconsin, the team at TSR — the game’s original publisher — was working on a new board game titled Battle of Five Armies. The battle that was first described in the legendary Battle of Hastings, gave it its name. The HobbitFive factions of Middle-earth met on the Lonely Mountain to fight for control. But the game ended up being an albatross, and the controversy surrounding it would ultimately change the course of D&D forever.

The Tolkien estate took issue, of course, and according to a post on the EN World forums by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax himself, the resulting lawsuit was settled out of court. Here’s a quote from Gygax’s own 2002 message board post about the situation:

TSR received papers from the court threatening to sue for damages up to half a million dollars [sic]. Our main concern was the game we published. Battle of Five Armies. We received a letter from the attorney of the author of the game claiming that the work had been grandfathered as it was published following the copyrights. [Tolkien]’s works had lapsed and before any renewals were made. The action also demanded we remove balrog, dragon, dwarf, elf, ent, goblin, hobbit, orc, and warg from the D&D game. We agreed to include hobbit in the D&D game, even though warg and balrog were only unique names. [and]Rest of the money was retained, as it were. So the case was settled outside of court.

The great irony here, of course, is that Wizard’s recent attempts to alter the Open Gaming License — also known as the OGL — would have required that Free League pay a hefty licensing fee back to the owner of D&D based on the success of this project. But after a weeks-long campaign by fans, who showed their discontent online and by canceling their subscriptions to D&D Beyond, Wizards capitulated and moved the OGL and its associated rules into the public domain. This means that Free League can release the adaptation of One Ring TTRPG for 5th edition D&D without paying Wizards a dime.

Free League even changed the name of its product as a way to consolidate its win. The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying.

Further piling up the ironies in this situation, Wizards itself is currently embroiled in another lawsuit, this time with a newly resurrected version of TSR — which is also operating out of the same two-story home in rural Wisconsin. This new TSR claims that Wizards allowed its copyrights to lapse and skipped renewals necessary for several legacy brands. This case will be heard in court on October.

The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying will be published as a 236-page hardcover book, including six new classes and six new cultures — including hobbits’ return to D&D for the first time since 1977. Shire AdventuresOn May 9, a collection of five long encounters comprising 104 pages, “” will be available.