This is a possibility that I have also been musing about.

TOR's rules create a good framework for running a campaign on the fly, utilising a large amount of player input.

If anyone is familiar with MouseGuard, that RPG using quickly alternating phases between GM and players to allow a game to be run with minimal prep (a few Hazards and an end goal). The campaign then evolves during play too.

The other similarity that TOR has with Mouseguard is that the conflict and reward systems pretty much bring the fun by themselves. They don't just judge the result of actions, requiring that the GM consider all the complexities in advance. Combat, Journeys and Encounters (especially when you add the Boon notation I proposed in another thread) set up a framework for most forms of scenes that when interacted with roleplaying creates not just individual actions but an entire scene.

Using the Hobbit as an example:

1. Players choose how the Fellowship is formed and their objective. In this case, they are a group of Dwarves returning to the Lonely Mountain to regain their treasure and ancestral home from a Dragon.

2. GM embellishes the opening details, adds Gandalf as an NPC who brings the map and key to the mix.

3. First Journey Phase. The players get a Hazard and the GM decides its a Troll. The scene plays out and the GM awards Treasure.

4. First Fellowship Phase. Arriving at Rivendell, the players decide that they need to be tougher after being beaten by Trolls. A few spend their XP on Valour and add magic swords as Rewards. The GM embellishes this by making them Elvish blades (makes sense given they are in Rivendell) and say they glow when Orcs are about. The GM adds the reading of the map by Elrond.

5. Second Journey Phase. The players get a couple of Hazards. The first is the bad weather. The second is another monster. The GM chooses orcs, given that the PCs have Elvish orc killing blades. The scene plays out as written. The GM gives one PC a magic ring to stir things up. The PCs get a third Hazard. The GM already has inspiration from the PCs being chased by orcs, so throws in the Wargs.

6. Second Fellowship Phase. Players plan their journey and decide on going through Mirkwood. The PCs use their Standing to narrate the impact of the previous scene, saying that they killed the Great Goblin. GM embellishes with a comment about an enchanted stream.

7. Third Journey Phase. Through Mirkwood. Hazards are the enchanted stream, then an Encounter with the Elves. The Encounter with the Elves could be quickly notated using the system that I proposed in another thread. Then its just a question of riffing off the players who come up with a way to escape whilst holding of agreeing to give up a share of treasure. Final Hazard sees the PCs take a battering due to Bilbo's poor judgement.

8. Third Fellowship Phase. The PCs make Esgaroth a Sanctuary and resupply. GM adds two new NPCs - Bard and Master of Lake Town.

and so on

The climax of the Hobbit (Battle of the Five Armies) is really just a culmination of the PCs actions and inputs throughout the game.

Strangely, this actually reflects pretty much how Tolkien wrote the Hobbit with only brief ideas for each section which he expanded by building up on the story as it went along.

Thoughts?

Skywalker, you are awesome. Those are some really neat ideas.

I'm not very familar with the MOUSE GUARD rpg (other than the fact that it's based on "Burning Wheel", which I also have not played) but it sounds like that game could be mined for ways to run adventures in THE ONE RING and so I may have to track it down as well.

Thanks for the adventure ideas!

I am a big fan of Mouse Guard and I agree with your assertion of the similarities in how stories are created by the GM and Players together, not told by the GM and reacted to by the Players. In fact, I would argue that this method better replicates conventional storytelling better than almost any other RPG technique, and could be applied to ANY great story. The Hobbit and LotR are just extremely well suited to this technique, though.

Mouse Guard is more rigid than The One Ring. But the same elements are there that would allow TOR to be used in this way. In fact, TOR's looseness would make it even better IMO

The important thing is to let players have real authority during those times when the game suggests it, such as during the Fellowship setup, Fellowship Phase and with things like Rewards. As GM you catch what they throw you and after adding your own spin, you throw it back to them in the Adventuring Phase. The back and forth is how story is generated collaboratively.

The other element is ensuring that simple ideas can easily be expanded and made fun. TOR Journeys and Combat do that. Just plug in a route on a map or monster from the bestiary and the systems help expand that into a more detailed scene. I think Encounters are also needed and do that too to an extent (though again I think they need to take one more step with having a simple form of notation so that you can plug in a few details and have the scene framework ready to go).

The end result is that a GM can come to the table with little more than an open mind (filled with Tolkien lore) a few Monsters, a few Hazards and an Encounter or two and be able to fill the session full of awesome that will be uniquely tailored to the PCs.

I agree. I guess my only other point is that TOR mechanically allows for this method of story making more than most traditional RPGs, with the exceptions of similar RPGs like MouseGuard and Prince Valiant.

Using Decipher's Lord of the Ring as an example, those rules took a traditional approach of using mechanics mostly measure a person's power and adjudicating their actions. It did little to formally allow player feedback into story and character or to provide broader structures to create entire scenes from a few component, rather than just describing the components within them.

I guess another thing that has kind of hit me is that, with no intention to be negative, a lot of the scenes in the Hobbit are not that complex. The Trollshaws scene is pretty much the PCs are hungry and there are three trolls with food. Now go roll with the PCs' shenanigans.

Even some of the more detailed scenes seem to be sparked by a pretty basic premise that is built based on PC action like the Halls of the Elven King. I could totally see a basic scene framework being all that was needed to interact with the PC actions and the Encounter rules, to create the entire goings on in that entire chapter with almost no prep

My overall purpose of highlighting this part of TOR is to encourage people to jump in and start running adventures. Tolkien's world can be intimidating, but I think it often seems more intimidating than it should be, mostly due to Tolkien fans rather than Tolkien's work per se. Tolkien himself was often inconsistent with his own body of work and intentionally created inconsistencies when it made for better stories

"Fight for what you believe!"

/wolf

This is a fantastic idea Skywalker! I'm going to let your ideas soak in while I'm musing about Barrow-wights in the Monsters thread, this is definitely a thread to come back to. Slow down man! We can't keep up with you!

"He runs as if the very whips of his masters were behind him."

No probs. I am about done, though my Encounters thread is kind of relevant to implementing this idea.

Couldn't agree with you more. That is what makes his work so compelling. Simple ideas, dressed up in strong literary prose. Frankly, this approach works best for RPing too, I think. I mean, how many times as a GM have you come up with some really complex idea (or even a complex challenge) only to have it fall apart in front of you because either the Players don't make a connection or because they simply don't find it engaging? I've come to find that the excitement, for me at least, is taking the simple aspects of a game (like Journeys, Combat, and Encounters) and making them interesting via the details, not via a complex series of objectives or solutions.

Way, WAY too metagame for my tastes. The last thing I want is for players to be thinking about "The Story" in any way, shape or form. I want them inhabiting their characters as much as possible. I'm never going to tell the players "Ok, now we're entering the 'Fellowship Phase" and you are in a "Sanctuary". All the narrative mechanics I'll handle and make as invisible as possible so my players can spend all their time immersing in a character living in Middle Earth. Role-playing, not Storygaming.

I think anytime you can take a narrative framework, apply it to a novel and get an exact result (as you did with The Hobbit), you're running into trouble role-playingwise. A MERPG, IMO, should emulate the setting of Middle-Earth, not the novels in Middle-earth, which are a completely different type of narrative construct.

What you're doing is creating a framework for shared narrative story-telling, with a focus on Story and novel emulation. Which is fine if your players enjoy narrative metagaming to that extent.

I agree with Krueger, I'll make it invisible as possible.

I'm not going to hide it from the players forever, if they ask me about it I'll them it's divided into some game terms, but I won't be forcing them into it.

It will be something smooth as I've always done. Thankfully I have friends who enjoy much more the "Fellowship Phase" than "Adventure Phase" in all RPGs we've played so far.

Exactly. Horses for courses and all that. The advantage with TOR is that explicitly accomodates both and can be run any number of ways - roleplaying, storygaming, a combination of both. Choose which suits you best.

I love this idea. It is exactly the kind of thing I have always mused about.

The problem was with ICE MERP is getting mired down in mechanics, and tailoring imagination to somehow fit into charts and formulas, Spending nights crunching numbers instead of penning stories

I am glad I leaned of this game so early on and have a community to share ideas with and most importantly learn with

Actually looking at what I wrote there is only one example of the Players having to think on the story outside their PC and that is when they narrate the impact of killing the Great Goblin. Arguably, this is something the GM could have come up with just as well.

The only other possible example of the Players doing this is them using the Reward mechanics to gain swords and then narrating that these were from the Troll's treasure. However, the fact that the GM then uses this to tailor the antagonism in the next Phase is not really Storygaming. I think many RPGers would consider this to be good GMing by listening he the Players to heighten the excitement in the game.

As for the Phases, how explicit they are presented is over to each group. Arguably you could achieve exactly the same effect I describe above using traditional roleplaying techniques and approaches.

So, whilst I agree that you can play up the Storygaming or Roleplaying aspects, only one possibly two specific things in the example I gave is Storygaming. A good chunk of this overall approach of the GMing listening to the Players to set up the next adventure is not contrary to Roleplaying at all.

No, it's not contrary to roleplaying. Good GMs wing stuff on the fly based on what they know about their players' wants, needs and goals all the time. The difference is, it's not usually formalized.

Take a look at the conversation Peregrin and I are having over at therpgsite(start around post #9).

There we're discussing a psychologist's theories about different layers of thought in role-playing. To boil it down, you have Social Consciousness, Player Consciousness and Character Consciousness. The first two really exist in practically any game, it's only RPGs that add in Character Consciousness.

There are a couple ways to do what you're suggesting in this thread. One way would be to do it in a more immersive fashion. Don't segment things so structurally into phases, don't have players thinking about things "in game terms", etc. This would allow the characters to simply do what their characters would be doing and have the GM do all the stuff where the intent meets the mechanics as far as different phases, hazards, rewards, what have you.

The method you propose (which is a highly structured narrative one, which this game favors) has the players highly involved with the mechanics and structure as players, not only as characters. In other words, they are as much engaged with the unfolding story from a level of Player Consciousness as they are from a level of Character Consciousness.

Does that mean they are not roleplaying? No, of course not. It does however, mean they are also dealing with a narrative metagame, and so delving into Storygaming.

This is increasingly a popular type of activity however, as the success of FATE, WFRP3, etc can attest to. It's a type of storygaming/roleplaying hybrid that really has little to do with Edwards and a lot more to do with Robin Laws.

Anyway, I think we both enjoy discussing this stuff, but I didn't really mean to do an Epic Threadjack.

It's not a thread jack. FWIW I understand what you are talking about.

Yes, TOR includes explicit structure and mechanics for players to take on a formal narrative role. Also, unlike many RPGs that include such things, the aspect can be downplayed as desired.

In terms of my example, I think the process I am getting at here can be done easily by embracing this aspect of TOR. But I think it applies even if you use a less formal structure to player narrative. The Phases I was using are in TOR but they are also found in the Hobbit and could easily occur naturally in a game with no formalised structure in place.