The One Ring - Headscratchy

[Evilgaz]

We gave TOR a go this week to get an idea how it works and feel for it before anyone has to go tot the trouble of making a character or committing to a longer run of the game. While we could all see potential there, equally there were quite a few head-scratchy moments. In no particular order:

The rulebooks are laid out really poorly and the index is of White Wolf levels of uselessness. Some useful and simple rules bits are buried away in innocuous text. I’d like more sidebars actually.

Interactions (social challenges) are poorly defined in terms of what you need to do to “win”, although how many mistakes count as a loss is very clear. It seems to be that you talk as long as you want to, trying not to annoy someone enough that you “lose”, while garnering successes along the way, with more successes meaning more benefit.

Combat seems a multi-layered ritual that will probably do a lot better once people know the steps involved, but on the goes we had in that one session it seemed a bit of a chore. Defenders having the initiative seems counterintuitive, but worked out okay. We liked stances and moving between them for different manoeuvres. If you stay in the same stance and just bash someone it could get dull quickly (like Pendragon’s roll a d20 until you win combat).

The Woodsman got a lot of traction from Awing his enemies getting them to flee. If the players roll a Sauron icon then its bad for them and the enemy gets a free Called Shot, which made poisoning Kenners* a joy.

The stuff around damage/edge/injury rating for weapons and a lot of messing about to wound someone seems over-egged. I was only using simple baddies though, so didn’t have any Hate to spend, and they went down fairly easily without needing a Wound, so I’ll try some tougher things next time and see if we get more traction.

I wasn’t convinced by Journeys either. Even with half the fellowship lacking in Travel skill (it took a while to find out that’s what you rolled for Fatigue tests), there were only a couple of potential Hazards and simple skill rolls put pay to them.

The thing I’m conscious of though is that people were spending Hope like it was going out of fashion, and in a campaign game this would presumably not be quite the way to go about it.


So…

How do other people handle Interactions? Do you come up with a table of Wins before hand and just let players go at it until they reach Tolerance or stop trying?

Anyone seen a proper index floating about?

Any cool ideas around making Combat smoother? I’ve got the voidstate playmatt things which worked okay, but wondered if there was anything else that was actually useful (i.e. I’m looking for stuff you’ve used that’s good, not something you think might be possibly).

Any tips on running the baddies to make it more interesting, beyond the usual stuff? (i.e. I’m looking for things TOR specific.)

Are Journeys worthwhile? How about if all the characters have good Travel skills and you don’t see much of Hazards?

How do you find the Hope economy works out? What’s an average spend? Do players needs to milk the Fellowship bond idea?

Cheers!

Gaz

* His character, obviously, I didn’t actually poison Kenners.

[thenovalord]

QUICK COMMENT

social:
your playing it about as i have run it

combat:
in the LOTR books the good guys rarely went on the attack, baddies seek out the way of violence, they stood there ground and readied and thats why they go first
the baddies have got to have hate, otherwise i imagine combat is dull!
in the 8 sessions etc we played awe, protect, etc where all pretty cool tools to use and not overly powerul...many characters should be able to overawe as many orcs as they like....baddies can use hate etc for their own tricks, counter et al

the only combat rule we struggled with was called shots which we got wrong at first...some baddies can only be finished off by called shot

Travel:
is fine....there should be few hazards met unless you are in Mordor etc BUT it should wear down at the parties fatigue and make them arrive at not 100%. this fits well

wounds
again is really clever when you get to grips with it. being wounded is pretty bad and is a short cut to getting dead.

hope
TOR isnt a con game really, as players will burn through hope quickly. Being fairly generous in the campaign, even after only about 6 sessions, shadow was really beginning to build up, hope recharged slowly and the players were often on the edge of misery. without hope to power some of there wisdom/valor stuff

TOR is a slow death over many seasons/sessions before the pcs gets worn down ala boromir, frodo, et al

[Orpheo]

I haven't actually GMed this yet. Tomorrow night I'm going to run a few mock combats to get folks used to the dice and the rules. I can see some things in the system that I'm likely to do differently. There's absolutely no way I'm using a system of multiple skill rolls to resolve social interactions. Skill challenges and I went our separate ways some time ago. Am I taking her back now she's had a makeover? Nuh-huh.

As for journeys and hazards, I think I would have to make the hazards a RP feature.

[Jon Hodgson]

Just a quick reply re: The index

A couple of months back we instigated a project to make a new, really comprehensive index covering both books. Most of the sterling work has been done by ardent TOR fan and writer James R Brown, and we're proofing it right now. Hopefully, all being well it will be out and about as a free download in a couple of weeks.

Francesco is also (I found out just today) creating a nicely comprehensive rule summary, which will appear either as a download, or as part of an upcoming product, or possibly both.

Both of which should go some way to smoothing out that learning curve.

And there goes my dropbox ping with an update to the edit index...

Cheers!

[Tim Gray]

I hesitate to look like I'm trashing other people's work... but my impression of TOR is that it has some really great elements but multiplies them needlessly, and didn't get the best guidance on structure and presentation. If it were me I'd also have had an eye to making it accessible to non-gamer ME fans, in case any were motivated to give it a go.

I suspect we all want it to be really great and it's only pretty good.

[thenovalord]

that is the trouble with an impression....you need to play it for real

It is very good id rate it, not perfect...forex it isnt a great one off IMO

It fits ME excpetionally well, and thank goodness they didnt make it to generic

it is easy to hack with with, i done it twice

[Orpheo]

Well. We played our mock combat. I put them all in Balin's tomb and sent waves of orcs at them followed by a cave troll. This account is only about combat and not the broader game.

The company size was 6 characters and they fairly easily handled 3 waves of about 8 orc soldiers with just one character death. Although, as it was a one-off combat with new characters, they were spending hope freely. The cave troll was, for the most part, reduced to zero endurance by 1 character in a close combat stance and the other firing missiles from a rearward stance. The cave troll was singularly useless with it's crush attack, it seems a bit futile to have Crush 1 as a favoured weapon skill. It was far more successful with its Bite 3. When the troll was reduced to zero End, it was still unwounded so the characters had to inflict a wound on it to kill it (Great Size). The troll's Armour 3d made this nigh on impossible and led to attrition. As far as I can tell, monsters are not subject to encumbrance and weariness, so there were no factors reducing the troll's dice even though it was on zero End. I decided to subject it to weariness at this point and a couple of rounds later it was wounded. The cave troll was a bit of an anticlimax, I would have expected it to be barging in and tossing the characters around like rag dolls, but it was about as damaging as an orc, easy to reduce to 0 End and then hard to kill.

Difficulties we had:

Getting our heads around rolling the Edge number on the feat die, which was quite infrequent.
Remembering and applying effects of the G and S runes and their corresponding effects for monsters.
As a GM having the monster abilities explained outside the stat blocks in a prior section of the book made it difficult to play the creatures most effectively.
As a GM, tracking automatic called shots for creatures after a player rolls the S rune.

Positives:

It was fun, I think.
The ease with which the party got rid of the first wave of orcs indicates that most combats will be quick.
We liked the deadliness, when wounds are actually achieved. (It's true! My players like the risk! )
The Hope mechanics and Endurance/Encumbrance/Weariness mechanics, while they take a bit of time to grok, they work quite well and actually make Encumbrance relevant.
With a retrospective review of the combat rules to tie up any missed loose ends, as a GM, I think I'll have my head around it.

What might I do differently?

I'm not too fond of the set effects of called shots, they can sometimes be counter-intuitive to the specific combat situation and are certainly arbitrary. For instance the dwarf's great-axe, in my opinion, should be the perfect weapon for cleaving chunks of flesh from the cave troll, but no, the called shot effect from axes smashes shields - that's it. What about spears though? They're piercing, right? A spear's called shot inflicts a piercing blow! Let's run that beggar through! Thats all very well, but the spear's injury rating of 14 (great spear 16) meant that it is really easy for the cave troll to make his protection test when rolling 3d plus the feat die. Called shots are probably going to get houseruled into a number of options per weapon.
Edit to add: I can't see this improving as the characters advance in strength through xp either, as the chance of a piercing blow is based solely on the feat die.

The horse has bolted on this next one, but I would have preferred a system where a player's roll is somehow compared against a static armour value to determine wounds. Stripping out that additional layer of dice rolls would be good. Good design isn't about what you add, it's about what you take away - streamlining.

Overall

This post has been about identifying the issues. Overall it was fun and I'm looking forward to playing a proper scenario to see how the combination of elements, roleplaying, combat, journeys, social interactions works together. I've already said that I can't abide dice throws for their own sake in social RP interactions, it will a be about what is said, what traits the characters can apply and if it calls for a dice throw based on a skill, then that's what will happen. I can't forsee many situations where I'll be calling for multiple dice throws.

“Fool of a Took!" he growled. "This is a serious journey, not a hobbit walking-party. Throw yourself in next time, and then you will be no further nuisance.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

[Evilgaz]

I'm surprised you had trouble remembering the Sauron rune when the players rolled it, that was one of my favourite bits!

I quite like the fixed effects of weapons' called shots currently, although it may get dull. If players want a variety of effects, they'll have to tool up with the respective endurance / fatigue cost. As far as Great Axes go, in my head (despite fantasy artists' drawings to the contrary) these are based on the Dane Ax, which has a long haft, but (relatively) small head, they were designed for splitting shields (and breaking the arm underneath) rather than for cutting off gobs of meat, so that's probably where the design decision comes from.

I haven't tried any of the big boys yet, so I'll see how that goes. I think there are some advantages players can get later on where they roll two feat dice and that sort of thing, which would obviously help out with the whole edge thing, although what you do against 3d armour, I haven't looked into yet.

We should be making characters in a week or so, and I'll get back to people on how things develop from there.

[Orpheo]

I'm surprised you had trouble remembering the Sauron rune when the players rolled it, that was one of my favourite bits!

One of the things I identified last night is that with 6 players I need to have a tracking system for a number of things that are triggered by dice rolls in the previous round.

I quite like the fixed effects of weapons' called shots currently, although it may get dull. If players want a variety of effects, they'll have to tool up with the respective endurance / fatigue cost. As far as Great Axes go, in my head (despite fantasy artists' drawings to the contrary) these are based on the Dane Ax, which has a long haft, but (relatively) small head, they were designed for splitting shields (and breaking the arm underneath) rather than for cutting off gobs of meat, so that's probably where the design decision comes from.

I haven't tried any of the big boys yet, so I'll see how that goes. I think there are some advantages players can get later on where they roll two feat dice and that sort of thing, which would obviously help out with the whole edge thing, although what you do against 3d armour, I haven't looked into yet.

We should be making characters in a week or so, and I'll get back to people on how things develop from there.

I take your point about the real-world use of axes. In mechanical terms though, piercing blows from axes are more effective as they have a way higher injury rating, 18 and 20 as opposed to the 14 and 16 of spears. I still am inclined to shake up called shots a bit to allow piercing blows from most weapons.

[thenovalord]

the game is based on the books not the movie

they didnt kill the cave troll in the book
they didnt really fight it

so, IMO, the fights shouldnt be epic/detailed in the cut and thrust and orcs and goblins should fall quickly and in decent numbers. Though the called shot rules do seem a bit wonky, until you have used them enough

in a one off you can burn your fatigue and hope....in an 'adventure' you cant.

Wait till the party find a big horde of treasure and have to lead most behind cos it too encumbering to carry

The game isnt suited to doing trial runs of the 'mini-games' within I dont think

The rules can have a bit of a learning curve. they are written a bit scattered and the monster powers are a pain being seperate. I tend to cut and past from the pdf to get better organised better before i run

[Orpheo]

I know it's based on the books. They may not have fought the cave troll in the book, but my players fought one last night in our mock combat. I wasn't trying to recreate Tolkein's vision or Peter Jackson's, I just used a scene from the film to inspire a session to help us learn the combat rules. All I'm saying is that the troll and orcs were samey, it just took infinitely longer to knock the troll over, but it certainly wasn't any more dangerous than the orcs. I agree that the combats are supposed to be quick, I've said as much. We used the called shots, they were unsatisfactory. We will see how an actual game plays before rewriting the rules however.

Why is a trial run of the game's own combat system not suited for by the game? Surely it's no different from running a combat in-game? The only anomaly I can see is the spending of hope, but I've already considered that. In some ways the hope issue was mitigated by the sheer number of adversaries I threw at them, several waves of orcs, plus a cave troll.

[Evilgaz]

it is easy to hack with with, i done it twice

What hacks have you done, and did they do anything different? Details!

I tend to cut and past from the pdf to get better organised better before i run

Have you got those things in a nicely laid out format, you can ping across, or do I have to do everything myself?

[thenovalord]

it is easy to hack with with, i done it twice

What hacks have you done, and did they do anything different? Details!

a generic fantasy, so loosing the d12 dice and a few other things

a near-steampunk setting in a land of ice....using black powder and a very-lite TOR set

I tend to cut and past from the pdf to get better organised better before i run

Have you got those things in a nicely laid out format, you can ping across, or do I have to do everything myself?

what i mean is as i write a mod, i cut and paste bits of map, rules, art, abilities etc into word for example, so i dont need to look at rules during the game when i run it. Can email you some of my LOTR 'vision' if you wish!!

[Evilgaz]

so loosing the d12 dice

How did you make the d12 more loose? Put lipstick on it or something?

a near-steampunk setting in a land of ice....using black powder and a very-lite TOR set

Sounds exciting.

I'll PM you an address for sendage of stuff!

[thenovalord]

so loosing the d12 dice

How did you make the d12 more loose? Put lipstick on it or something?

doh, always tell my classes of for doing that!!!