Hey, all!

This is my first post on the forums, though iv'e been lurking here for quite a while.
Tomorrow i am going to start my first TOR game with a group, and i had a few questions that i needed answers for.

1. could some one explain exactly the whole initiative (attacker/defender) in combat?

2. How exactly do i play adversaries (seeing as they have no combat stances n all)

3. could someone explain encounters?

4. could someone clarify things such as how to get a patron (fellowship phase) and how is he useful? (same goes for sanctuary). actually, a clearer explanation on the entire fellowship phase (improve standing, standard of living) would be most welcome.

5. Tomorrow i will begin an adventure with 4-5 players, (besides one of them, no one has characters) and wanted to know if someone could send a link for an easy explanation of Character creation and basic rules.

6. (and final), could you help me come up with ideas for an introductory scenario (to both form the fellowship and explain some elements, ie journeys, rolls, combat).


Sorry for all the questions, answers are most welcome

Wow, that's a tall order! Let's see if we can shed some light.

1. Initiative.
Basically, there is no "personal" initiative in TOR, so if you're used to that in games like 3/3.5, you need to break out of that. Either the party has initiative or the adversaries have initiative. To that end, bad guys are apportioned out against good guys and several "mini-fights" ensue. These mini-fight are resolved in order of "stance". So player 1 declares forward stance and is being attacked by 2 orcs. The party has initiative. Therefore, you resolve the Forward Stance character (player 1); he fights first, followed by the 2 orcs that are engaging him in Forward. You then do the same for Open, Defensive and finally Rearward.

Determing which group has initiative (good guys or bad guys) is a little more subjective and requires some judgment on your part.

2. Adversaries.
Correct, they have no stance. THis makes your job as LM much easier. You don't have to worry about making decisions for them, the players do all the work. So the ease at which they hit and get hit is determined by the players. All you have to decide is how many bad guys are pitted against each player, and what attack they use and/or if they tap into their hate pool.

3. Encounters.
Umm...can you be a bit more specific?

4. Patrons.
A very subjective part of the game. I'm writing in my own houserules to handle this very thing. As far as how you get to access a Patron, you could have this be the reward or end-result of some questline. Once they have them as a Patron, there is any number of things you can do, both soft rules and hard rules. They could, for example, grant them access to certain skill advancements with a discount. In my houserules, I'm making it such that getting a skill to rank 6 is not possible without a "master" and different Patrons have different masteries. Radagast might be a master of Lore and Exploring, for example, while Elrond is Master of Healing and Riddle. Gandalf could be a master of Persuade and Inspire, Beorn a master of Battle and Awe. You get the idea.

5. Highly recommend using the pre-made characters for those who do not already have one made up.

6. Use the Marsh Bell Scenario provided in the LM book. Seriously, it exposes you to every facet of the game.

thanks for the quick reply

Regarding encounters, what exactly is tolerence? and how do encounters go down? (steps and such).

Regarding combat, where does the "battle" common skill roll fit in?

thanks!

Encounters.

Ok, so you mentioned "Tolerance" which leads me to believe you're only talking about social encounters.

The basic idea is that every social encounter has a certain Tolerance level; this represents the amount of patience and time someone of note (a king of elven lord, for example) has for the party before they dismiss them.

In game terms, the "Tolerance" is the number of failed Social skill rolls that can be reached before the socially engaged personality declares "ok we are done here".

Tolerance levels are usually set by a party member's Wisdom or Valour score; usually the person with the highest rating in whichever score the person being engaged prefers. (In published adventures, this is pre-written, but as you GM, you'd have to determine for yourself). Modifiers are sometimes added to reflect biases the person might have, for or against certain cultures or sexes, for example.

Once you have set the Tolerance, you require social skill roles from party members (usually the ones who are doing the talking/interacting). While doing this, you count the number of success the party reaches in total before they reach the tolerance rating in failures. This then gives you an idea of how the engaged person is going to respond. There is a bit of guessing and strategy involved here. Some people for example have no use for bravado or pompous demeanors and so "Awe" will simply not work, no matter what the role. Others have no use for honeyed words, so Courtesy falls on deaf ears. As LM, you should let the party members know what is and isn't working, so they can adjust their strategy for dealing with a person on a social level and having a successful encounter. (After all, most of us can tell when we are annyoing or boring our listener)

Battle.
The only RAW usage I've seen for the Battle Skill is to determine initiative in certain situations, and to confer combat advantage at the onset of Battle. I've also houserules this to use it as more of a guideline for sheer combat prowess, similar to Base Attack Bonus is used in 3/3/5. (I like a little more crunch to my game)

Thanks!
So finally, any tips for my upcoming campaign, as a lore master?

Don't forget about the Online Character Builder -

TOR Character Builder by Azrapse

That will help you with #5... as it completely streamlines the pc generation process.

The standard is that the defending group always has the initiative, unless they are ambushed.

Situations can make that vary, but I would stick to that 99% of the time. It gives weight to ambushing.