At the moment I’m running a game based on Tales from Wilderland and Darkening, with my own take on it. I mean almost literally at the moment; I want to run some stuff this evening.

It says in Darkening that the key is to have player characters people who care about the cultures in Mirkwood. I’d actually go further; the key is to have players who go out to do stuff for the Woodsmen. Things like Treasure Hunter or Slayer are more like an approach to what they do, rather than the types of adventures they go on. That’s working for me quite nicely and things are going rather sandbox (and there’s such a number of scenarios and seeds where I can pull out bits from different sources).

I’ll probably reach a conclusion of the game with a finale similar to Tales from Wilderland, rather than getting all the way to the end of Darkening.

Oh, and Gareth Hanrahan is probably the best scenario writer in the RPG business.