From: mvoorhis@granite.WPI.EDU (Michael C Voorhis)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: ME maps
Date: 18 Dec 92 19:45:11
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609-2280
	<BzGz7v.BnM@sci.kun.nl>
NNTP-Posting-Host: granite.wpi.edu
In-reply-to: heinr@sci.kun.nl's message of Fri, 18 Dec 1992 19:23:54 GMT

In article <BzGz7v.BnM@sci.kun.nl> heinr@sci.kun.nl (Hein Ragas) writes:
> Please Mike, fill me in, what are ICE's 'fact-making' policies? As far as I
> know, ICE takes great care that all their products are in line with LotR,
> which they use as a main source, and not in conflict with later publishings
> about ME.

A while ago, there was a discussion on this bboard about A character in
Tolkien's world (Tom Bombadil); a person posted a message saying
(paraphrased) `ask no more questions about Bombadil, ICE has published all
the answers', and followed this with a quotation from a recent MERP
publication containing a dissertation about Tom Bombadil.  My response was
`how does ICE back up this information?', and my post was followed up with
a few other posts saying, for the most part, the same thing.  It seems that
ICE had published information on Tom Bombadil (I no longer remember what
the information was, unfortunately), intending that their readers interpret
said information to be factual.  However, ICE's information was not backed
up with references, and was not verifiable by a search through Tolkien's
works.

Since ICE has done this, I decided from that point onwards to take
ICE-published information on Middle Earth with several grains of salt, as I
indicated in my post, to which you made your response.  I'm sorry that I
cannot make direct references to the post about Tom Bombadil where this
person posted the ICE `Bombadil information', but it was a while ago, and
the message concerned has been deleted from my site's disks.

If any other person on the net who is following this discussion has the
message, might they post the passage to which I refer?  Then I could use
that message in this discussion.  Once again, sorry that I don't have it
with me now... anyway...

> Their modules are quite detailed, and they offer much information. Of
> course they have to fill in the gaps, because JRRT didn't detail
> everything.  Overall, I like their stuff.

I don't doubt this.  The only thing from ICE that I have (had, more
specifically) is their `Arms Law' critical hit and combat package, which I
thought to be very detailed, if somewhat complex.

You mention that ICE does `fill in' gaps.  This is what I find
objectionable.  If ICE is going to publish what amounts to a reference work
about Tolkien's world, then they should at least mention that they took
liberties, filling in gaps where there was no documented evidence of a
certain thing that they claimed was a fact.

So, ICE modules may be very detailed, but in some instances they do not
offer facts, they offer *speculation*, which their readers may incorrectly
interpret as fact.  I thought their `Arms Law' package was pretty cool, but
understood that it was a thing entirely of their creation-- not a
statement-and-appendage of someone else's creation, that they claimed to be
fact.

Any comments to my opinion are, of course, welcome.

	Mike.
	(mvoorhis@wpi.wpi.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien