This is going to sound negative but I’m asking for help being converted, which is why I post here where I expect to find mostly One Ring fans.

I am a Tolkien fan and game with several others who are also Tolkien fans (we’re talking have read History of Middle Earth series level interest).

We want to like One Ring and see many of its virtues but have found it falling flat for us. We played Marsh Bell - actually played the final part of it twice as poor player choices led to massacre and we went back to "roleplay being a bit more intelligent" and also try out system more.

Yes, we see much great about One Ring and those of us having experience of the old MERP think it a much better reflection of Tolkien’s work. The creator’s effort to have every mechanic, skill etc. be rooted in Tolkien’s work is wonderful. The way Song is important is very evocative. The low-natural-magic of crafts and song approach and nary a trace of "fantasy power gaming" the setting is very good. The time period chosen for the game and region for the first boxed set are very good choices.

Not as obvious to the players who haven’t paged through books, the artwork is beautiful and evocative of setting and tone. Touches such as the woodman cultures having Briton-pre-Roman style shields etc. very nice and fitting with Tolkien's visions. The pdf versions are great, a 1/8 of page image blown up on my ipad reveals itself in full quality not as some dinky-never-supposed-to-really-be-seen-at-larger-scale image.

The character design offers enough choice to build something customized but still reflecting the setting not "customized to point of what are they doing in middle earth".

The Hope and Corruption mechanics are good in principle - again mining Tolkien to see Hope as the key to success - brilliant. They're a bit less optimal in practice.

However, our chief issue – choices for players in encounters seem restricted.

Socially, you are directed into specific skills and rolls among players. While the importance of formal introductions in the milieu is worth emphasizing, the system doesn’t offer enough mechanical choice for players while using mechanics for social encounters. We're fine with mechanics in social encounters but don't like them to be restricting.

In combat, you have (1) choice of positioning; and (2) choice to use the weapon that goes with that position (melee or ranged) OR do that position’s special action. This appears be the total of your choice in melee unless you're willing to try a Called Shot (not a great idea starting out) or are hit and choosing knockback.

The narrative positioning system is good and the option of “special actions” in a given position also good but the choices are still few. You have the ‘spend Hope’ choice as well but don’t want to use that often of course.

Yes, one can roleplay beyond this mechanical framework narrating cool moves etc., but you can do that with any system. We once played D&D where characters had multiple special actions, now mostly play Warhammer 3rd edition where again players have multiple choices for actions in combat or social encounters (and which plays faster less fussier than D&D). Most of us have played In a Wicked Age where it's minimal mechanics and all narration - the mechanics don't limit narration at all really.

We like some mechanical crunch but want it to be flexible and offer lots of choice. So we're feeling that One Ring's mechanics aren't for us.

Are we not getting it, reading rules wrong or what?

Rob

I think you may have nailed it when you said "The One Ring's mechanics are not for us." Every gamer I know has games that they do not play because they simply don't like the mechanics.

Sometimes they will play the setting with other mechanics, sometimes they will just play something else.

For Cubicle 7's sake I hope you find the TOR products worth continuing to purchase. For your own sake I hope you are satisfied with the copy you did purchase. I am sorry you and your group didn't find the game to your liking, but that happens.

If you would like a second opinion, I would need some more information. What types of choices were you looking for (please give several examples from combat, encounters, journeys, etc.) and how specifically did you find The One Ring's mechanics to be restrictive and not flexible?

By answering some of these questions, I may be able to ascertain if you guys are missing something.

I get where you're coming from. I'll try to address your points and maybe shed some light on how I navigate around them in the games I run.

That was my original take too, and it still may be true. Five sessions in, however, I'm starting to see where Hope is not fully refreshed at the end. This may be a long term resource. Time will tell.

Your stronger criticisms, however, seem to revolve around player choice and mechanical advantage.

You are totally right here:

I propose that TOR does support narration through mechanics, predominantly through the skills and traits. However, we must look past succeeding at the current encounter or obstacle. TOR rewards the players for tying in their traits to a successful roll by offering an Advancement Point for just offering the right color to the narration. This may mean using a refreshable resource, Hope, to gain a new resource, APs. But it also goes beyond that.

Perhaps one of the most confused mechanics of TOR is the auto-success for traits. There's been suggestions for hard rulings as to when to allow for it, but I recommend the "rulings not rules" angle. What I'm learning as I play is to push hard on the players and then allow for player creativity between the traits and skills to overcome. As suggested in the book, the auto-success is not one swooping solution, but it serves for smaller steps. I am noticing my players looking for creative solutions steeped in that Middle-Earth feel by tagging those traits and skill combinations. This is not unlike other trait/aspect driven games, except it does so with it's own Tolkien-esque resources. This is not a mathematical/tactical solution to their problems, but it is still a rewarding one. And by allowing that flexibility, the skills and traits open up the choices to anything the players can narrate, while still using the mechanics to support them.

Not having had the chance to play yet, limited solely to scheming towards the future and trolling forums, I wonder if the "trick" -- the leap to TOR from systems like DnD or MERP -- is in the expectation for more player _narration_. My experience, deep but narrow in terms of game systems, saw players and GMs share the responsibility for choices, but consistently defaulted to GMs for adjudication. Put another way, everyone at the table (real or virtual) had input in terms of what they wanted to happen, but the GM held all the cards in terms of interpreting the results of all the choices and dice rolls.

In contrast, TOR seems to expect players to help adjudicate, in a sense. Obviously, the LM has the final say, but players are expected not only to choose what their characters will try to do, but also to explain what actually happened after the dice are rolled. In truth, their narratives are proposals, but they are intended to carry more weight than the "gee, it would be neat if such-and-such resulted from that natural 20." Instead, the player is encouraged to suggest, "hey, Mordagnir spots the hidden Orc thanks to this ability and launches a surprise attack."

This may, in fact, be a misreading of the LM's book, but as I interpret it, interpreting the results is intended to be much more collaborative in TOR. Consequently, it benefits everyone to have a system light on detail, since it encourages flexibility when describing activity.

The learning curve will be steep with my old gaming group when we finally get to start playing TOR. But, I think once everyone becomes familiar -- and more importantly, comfortable -- with the ambiguity, we will discover far more potential than 3E, MERP, BattleTech, or any of the other games we've played over the years.

Just a theory based on admittedly limited data!

I think this is exactly the case. The players drive the adventure in The One Ring just as much as the judge does.

Regarding the original post:

The game mechanics of The One Ring are supposed to be only the starting points of game actions. You mention social encounters as an example of restrictive dice rolls. I suggest you look at the rules for social encounters not as limiting what player characters can do, but as reaction guidelines for NPCs for whom the judge hasn't predetermined their actions. If players pass the tolerance level, that doesn't mean the encounter is over; it just means the NPC's negative reaction to the party is now set and cannot be reversed. This isn't restrictive; it is no different than an NPC whom the GM decided could never be persuaded in the first place.

Combat choices are indeed limited, but I think this is a reflection of the style of the game: it's not all about combat. It's designed to produce a vivid picture of a fight, not a focused, tactical diagram of one. If you enjoy fighting more than talking and traveling in an RPG, if most of your games revolve around the circumstances leading to a climactic fight scene, this game may not be for you.

Given your background with games that require action to be mechanically implemented, I can see your issue in confusing TOR's lighter mechanics as being somehow more restrictive. However, that simply isn't the case. The mechanical framework in TOR is simply a base to support a flexible range of actions and approaches without needing every one embedded in rolls and rules.

TOR is old school in that regard and I recommend trying to make the most of GM rulings and group consensus extrapolated from the core rules to cover absolutely whatever options you as a group come up with. If you do embrace this, then you will find TOR is actually more open and flexible than the likes of D&D3e/4e and WFRP3e.

IMHO, what makes the game great is that it is a) light on mechanics, but the mechanics that it does have capture the feeling of the world magnificently.

For instance:
--the centrality of Hope as a mechanic captures perhaps the central theme of LoTR.
--the way in which Fatigue is central to the game, whereas in many games it's an overweight, captures the weariness that many of the travelers display in The Hobbit and especially LoTR.
--whilst in a certain other game which will go unnamed, class is generally more significant than race, such that one is, for instance, a ranger who happens to be an elf, things are much the opposite in Tolkien's world. Your heritage, or "Culture," as TOR puts it, is what defines you most of all. TOR captures that brilliantly, by making "Culture" more determinate of your character than "Calling" (which is the closest that the game has to "Class").
--everything's a constant trade-off in TOR. You can have a huge-arse sword and crazy great armour, but then you'll get tired that much quicker. That really feels very Tolkienesque, and captures his central theme that success and victory doesn't always go to the guy with the most power. The ability to just keep going is really the most important in Tolkien, and the fatigue mechanics, although quite simple, capture that brilliantly. After all, what do Frodo and Sam do, just as they are about to make their final push on to Mount Doom? Dump most of their gear, including their armour. Unlike other games, more gear is not necessarily a good thing.

Really, I don't remember the last time I was so impressed with a game.

Valvorik:

Two things that I noticed on a first read that may cripple the game...

1) failure to describe.
2) treating the mechanics as a world simulation rather than a story simulation

I'll elucidate.

Failure to describe: most rules light games without miniatures based combat require much more emphasis on description than on resolution. Mouse Guard was my eye opener for this - Mouse Guard combat is bloody simple, but requires that the players and GM all avoid mechanistic combats - no "I attack #3", but instead, "I'm making a diving attack at my opponent", and the GM, upon failure, not using "swish," but, "You swing, driving him back, but he's able to maintain his footing."

This does not always come easy to players used to mechanistic approaches using miniatures (often, D&D players). And even those used to it sometimes falter.

Moreover, the extant mechanics in both games are very generic action types. It's up to the Players to come up with nifty descriptions, and the GM to reward this with both nifty post roll descriptions and with adjusting the difficulties for those color texts.

To the point of, try it with the following house rule:
-2 TN for a cool and colorful description single sentence
+2 TN for a mechanistic one of the "I ____ #___ with my ___."


I had a player in session 1 use Riddle to investigate a situation. I knocked two points off the TN for him actually improvising the riddle. When a Dwarf goes making rhyme in the halls of Rivendell, I'm certain it's going to be treated as unusual... He got his answer, too... in metric poem.


World vs Story: The rules don't generate a simulation of the world. They aren't fair. NPC's are inherently better off - no endurance, broad skills instead of narrow, always add their attribute to favored skills - and the mechanics are not about "is this accurate?" but "Is this Dramatic?" and "Let's reduce the GM's workload."

In the case of the Dwarf and his Riddle... it was good DRAMA. It certainly wasn't good simulation... and it wasn't even his highest social skill... but it was a way to invoke the feel, so I let him.

I suspect it's mostly a matter of not understanding the needed descriptiveness, and the need to be very descriptive.

Wildo Took (BW) and Thorno Took (CR) are about to face a pair of uruk who jumped them...

The mechanistic approach is
CR: I pick forward. I'll attack #1
BW: I'm staying defensive. I've got #2
CR: Thorno attacks. 16. Crunch. Pen- uh, 1, no.
BW: 10. Nope.

The Narrative approach.
CR: I charge the leader, taking a forward stance.
BW: "Cousin, I'll take this other one!" I'm not advancing, and making it come to me.
CR: I'm wailing away at his legs, while running behind him.
GM: +1 to your total for that...
CR: and staying low, since I'm small
GM: Ok, make that +2.
CR: 16, plus 2, 18...
GM: as you run around his legs, you whack away at him...
CR: 1. But I seem to be pounding his armor, rather than his hamstrings...
BW: Meanwhile, I'm standing tall and attempting to have him run up on my sword... ouch - missed... I make a mighty swishing noise as I brandish my shortsword in his general direction...

I suspect that might be all the difference in approach needed to make it pop. I've certainly seen that very same complaint/issue pair with Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel, and even old school D&D.

Hi Aramis,
good points you mentioned there.

That's a good way to describe of what I had in mind with this thread as well: Is Hope/Shadow universal for Eru's Children, or is it a specialized mechanic for the select group of heroes who go on adventuring and fighting off the Enemy and his minions? Or in other words, is it meant to simulate the theme behind it for every man, elf and dwarf in Arda or not (regardless whether a score is actually given/noted for LM characters or not)?

Best
Tolwen

Miniature-based combat is actually quite recent in RPGs. I played my first RPG c. 1990, and whilst you had a few games that put out miniatures (Shadowrun is an excellent example), very few games assumed you were using minis. You could play Shadowrun quite well without minis, and in fact many of us back in those days found that minis just complicated things needlessly. It wasn't really until D&D 3E that minis really became central to RPGing.

Frankly, I've never liked minis in RPGs. I like having to actually think about what my character is doing, instead of just moving my mini a few squares. Minis take the ROLE-playing out of RPGs.

BTW, of course, you guys are right: the mechanics are designed to prompt story-telling, not world-building. I think, though, that they force players to pay attention to the sort of things to which the characters in The Hobbit and especially LoTR had to pay attention. The characters spent more time worrying about whether there was "Hope," or how much the "Shadow" had come to dominate themselves and their friends, or how tired they were getting, then they spent worrying about how large a bonus they got to weapon damage with their weapon of choice. I think that sets a certain tone to the game, that feels much Tolkien-esque than other game systems might.

As a friend of mine once said of DnD 3E, and it definitely applies to 4E: it's a combat engine, pure and simple. That doesn't feel Tolkien-esque. TOR is not a combat engine. It has combat rules, but it's not just, or even primarily, about dealing damage to the other guy. It's about Middle-Earth. And I like that.

Again, that's why I am so looking forward to how Cubicle 7 develops other aspects of Middle-Earth. They have handled Mirkwood ridiculously well, and I would trade all my well-worn MERP supplements for just one more TOR product.

No, miniature-based combat isn't recent - it dates back to 1967, with Dave Wesley's Braunstone games - the RP aspect was added to a minis game. Our of which evolved Dave Arnesson's Blackmoor games, and those lead to D&D.

And 1st ed D&D was built to use the chainmail miniatures rules as its combat system. It had a second combat system, less detailed, but still - pushing minis was normative.

FASAs 1885 STRPG used counters on maps; 1977 Traveller had supplemental boardgames whcih could use minis - Snapshot, AHL, and Striker - and of these, Striker was the only one that wasn't also counters-on-map.

Melee was the combat rules for The Fantasy Trip RPG - and a board game in its own right. Man-to-Man was to GURPS as Melee was to TFT.

Hero System (1985 on) uses tactical maps.

Both modes have been with us since the dawn of gaming.

When I started RPGing in 1981, every group I saw play was using tactical maps. It would be 1983 before I encountered groups NOT playing combat as a minis game or boardgame.

It would be more accurate to state that the overlap between miniature war-gaming and role playing tends to overlap in a cyclic manner. That at certain times, when this cycle is at it's peak, war-gaming picks up RPG aspects, and RPGs pick up more tactical and strategic features (not to mention the trend for prettier maps).

My semi-random guess is the current cycle is around 8-12 years. (However, nostalgia seems to run on a 20-ish year cycle, so unless you maintain an interest in gaming constantly for 20+ years, you might miss the two syncing up.)

I imagine that with the advent of better programming, computers have shortened the cycle as various types of software alleviate the GM's workload. With advances in graphic applications becoming primary contributors to shortening the cycle.

For example, compare the output from ProFantasy's Campaign Cartographer to Dundjinni (yes, I'm aware they target different markets) while both can be used to make a local, small-scale map of an area, the visual appeal of Dundjini's output makes it the 'better' program, and in the process, promotes the use of miniatures so that additional maps can be made.

Fair enough, Garn. What I was trying to get at was that I entered the gaming hobby in the late 80s/early 90s (played my first RPG in 1989, when my brother and I discovered Palladium's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and back in those days miniature-based play was quite rare, at least in the circles we moved. TOR feels more like the days I played as newbie gamer, although, of course, it plays much better than that horrid Frankensteinish thing which Palladium calls a system.

No, not really. There have been games with minis supporting grid-based combat systems in print constantly. Many people vacillate back and forth, but D&D has always supported miniatures mode - giving ranges and movement rates. The bare minimum needed for minis-on-map play being ranges and movement rates.

GURPS (1987 on), TFT (1980-1983), Hero (1982 as Champions, 1990 on as Hero System), WFRP (pre 3rd ed - 1985-2008), MegaTraveller (1987-1992), TNE (1992-1996), T4 (1996-1998) have all been full up gridded movement with minis envisioned...

Likewise, Abstraction of combat has been around since the early days, as have detailed combat mechanics. 1977's Runequest gave us detailed hit s... and 1974's D&D abstracted damage to hit points, while 1975's T&T abstracted combat even further, not even bothering with rolls to hit.

Now, D&D has emphasized gridded play more the last 20 years, since the release of Combat & Tactics for 2E... all the detail-crunch of 3E was in 2E C&T.

here's the thing: It's usually easier to run a grid-supporting game without one, than to put a game that doesn't support gridded play on the gridded table. I've run a lot of games that use grids without the grids.

I would still maintain that DnD 3E and 4E brought miniatures gaming more fully into the mainstream of gaming. A lot of the big games of the 90s had miniatures options, but weren't miniature-based in the same way that 3E and 4E became.

The point stands, though, that there a lot of us weaned on gaming without minis. I'm one of them. I would rather describe what my character is doing, then just move a piece across the table.

Aramis,
We appear to be arguing different points. You're basically saying products exist and therefore have relevance. I'm saying that unless the inclusion of miniatures support affects the number of units sold, its existence is not relevant.

Popularity is always about the consumer.

No, Garn, I'm saying that the products were in use. Doesn't matter if they sold or not, really... what matters is that, at no point in the history of RPGs has there been a time when miniatures-mode hasn't been a significant portion of both the major (2nd tier, since 1st tier was purely D&D until very recently) game systems, AND a major chunk of what's been played. For sale, and in use, in the biggest name systems in the market.

Likewise, there's never been a point where story-mode mapless hasn't been available and played since 1975.

D&D and minis have been linked tightly since the earliest days. There's no Cycle there... a large chunk of D&D's following expects minis to be part of the play of D&D.

And lots of non-D&D designers thought so, too, and many still do.

There is no shortage of people who won't play if there isn't minis support. I've had several players over the years who grouse incessantly if there's no minis on the map for combats. I've quit playing with them; there's no point in listening to them whinge.

Now, the lack of Minis Support in TOR is an interesting issue - it looks like there might have been a different combat system at one point that made more traditional use of range, distance, and positioning... I'm good with it being absent, but 10 years ago, I'd have been leery of it, and 25, wouldn't have been willing to play it for that lack, even tho' I'd not have been putting minis on map at the time. And I know some guys for whom that lack is, in fact, a reason to not play it now - perhaps, 20 years from now, they might give up the pushing lead, wait - whitemetal now, about in combat.

The stance mat for TOR is a nice hybrid... a way to use minis, but not get into the nasty business of checking ranges.

The first fantasy RPG ever published described itself on the box as "Rlues for fantastic medieval wargames campaigns playable with paper and pencil and miniature figures". The second fantasy RPG published had no references or rules for miniatures play.

And it has gone on from there.

In the late eighties and early nineties miniatures were at a low ebb in RPG gaming. Then D&D3e brought them back with a vengance.

I remember well in the early eighties using dice, bottle caps, erasers and what ever else was handy to substitute for miniatures, even in games that didn't require them. It was we showed what was where.

We had a love/hate relationship with the range band combat system in Traveller. It plotted all ranges on a single axis. Not so good if you had attackers coming from more than one side...

Mouse Guard has really shaken up RPG combat for me. No more "you do 5 hit points to #3". Instead both sides set their goals for the conflict "Drive off the weasels. Kill the mice. Steal the mail bag. Find shelter from the storm." Then resolution is one side wins and the other loses, or one one side wins but the other side gets to force a compromise. "The weasels flee into the night in the face of your determined resistance." "The mice fight valiantly but are no match for the beak and gallons of the owl." "You find shelter from the storm in a hollow log, but now suffer from the condition of Tired.". It forces you to think about what the conflict is really about.

Consider the confrontation on Weathertop. The Ringwraiths have a goal of kill Frodo and recover the Ring. Aragon and the hobbits have a goal of drive off the Nazgul and survive. The result is victory for the Fellowship with a compromise forced by the Nazgul. Frodo has been wounded by a Morgul knife and will begin to fade. No minis required.

TOR seems to have elements of minis based combat still present in the game system. Whether they were dropped due to the difficulties of licensingnandproducing a line of miniatures for the game or due to a change in the design goals of the game is an interesting question. The Stance map feels like a miniatures convention to me, even if it isn't.

I will be using miniatures in TOR, for the simple reason that my son won't play it otherwise! He's unfortunately been spoilt, as I have played a long running "Aces & Eights" RPG campaign with him using Black Scorpion figures and lots of scenery props like buildings, crates, barrels and cacti.

I have already bought a few Red Box Games miniatures for TOR and started painting them, and have also seen some amazing plastic viking-age buildings for a reasonable price which would be nice as background props for social encounters in villages.

Even if you don't NEED miniatures to play TOR, they can still serve a useful purpose from an immersion point of view (especially if your players like them on the table).

[EDIT]

The viking-age buildings are actually resin (see link below):

Gripping Beast Dark Age Buildings

After painting my first miniature for TOR tonight, I got to thinking about how to employ miniatures in the game and yet retain the gridless nature of combat. Here's one possible way.

Forward Stance - place miniature in base-to-base contact with the adversaries he is engaged with.

Open Stance - place miniature about half a base width away from the adversaries he is engaged with.

Defensive Stance - place miniature in base-to-base contact with the friendly miniature he is defending. If the miniature being defended is in Open Stance, the one in Defensive Stance should be slightly to the rear of that miniature to distinguish between those stances. Can you defend someone in Rearward? I don't think so - in which case this will work fine.

Rearward Stance - as it sounds, i.e at least a couple of base widths behind the rest of the company.

You could also use scenery such as boulders to record damage, by placing them close to the affected miniature (e.g., large boulder = 10 dmg, medium boulder = 5 dmg, small = 1 dmg).

No, it wasn't. While D&D was inspired by Chainmail and contained references to it, Gary Gygax and his playtesters never used Chainmail for the combat system. They used the alternate combat system from the start. Gary kept the links to Chainmail intact in part because he assumed that his primary audience would be miniatures enthusiasts, and in part because it doesn't really matter exactly what system you use to decide combat.

The early campaigns didn't use miniatures for D&D, either. At most they were used to indicate marching order. Gygax's players didn't use them.

Not only is D&D not a miniatures game; it's not even a combat game. It's a problem-solving game, where one of the solutions could be combat. However, combat is a dangerous solution; more clever tactics are usually more rewarding.

To be honest, it is easier to take a rules light system, like Barbarians of Lemuria and TOR-ize it. I wrote out generic (Tolkienesque) fantasy races for BoL some time ago and mash them with elements of TOR for a hybrid Middle-Earth game. BoL is very simple, TOR is a bit over complicated to teach, but tacking on bits from TOR to BoL works fine for the group. Nobody loses, I will buy the Cubicle 7 TOR books for inspiration, but will play with blended rules.

Stormcrow: Go look at the photos in the early Dragon issues or in SR. Minis in all of them. Including Gygax's games.

SR v1#4, winter 1975, p1, editorial

Dragon issue 4, p.28 discusses upcoming figures in the D&D line.
Same issue, page 33, shows MAR Barker's dungeon levels laid out for miniatures play, and miniatures on the maps.

The documentary evidence shows that minis were in D&D use. Not exclusively (and I've never claimed such), but D&D was still being called a wargame in 1976 by TSR and even Gygax.

And then, even in 1979, there's advice in the AD&D books about using miniatures.

Heck, even page B4 of Moldvay D&D Basic shows a mini; b19 discusses use of miniatures for play. B26 encourages use of minis in combat.

And every photo of a Gygax-run game from his TSR days that I've seen has maps on the table with minis on them.

The evidence just isn't in your favor...

Yeah, all I've got is the word of the man himself: http://www.enworld.org/forum/1263669-post6.html

Great link, Stormcrow. I've always enjoy Gary's tone in his writing, although I understand there are some who don't. Anyhow, I really dig those moments of how one of the originals referees played the game.

You should check out OldGeezer's posts on the rpg.net forums for some really interesting perspective on how Gygax ran his games.

I stood back after posting in part to let others fully weigh in and I admit because life pulled me all sorts of ways.

Thanks for the thoughts.

I think it does come down to (ooh ooh, I did link to this thread for my players but okay, I'll be honest) that old Ron Edwards trope about brain damage. Years of tactical RPGing have left people treating RPG as "mechanics first, roleplay 2nd" if they see much in the way of mechanics.

I think that is the nub of the issue - at least at our table (we're all guys who started roleplaying in the 80's).

The points that the system could have put "narrative first, what is your character doing in your mind's eye" more clearly is a good one. I have found that all the players bar one (who hasn't tried it so is unknown on this front but I think would pass test) CAN roleplay and create story themselves wonderfully in a rules light system narrating stuff etc etc.. One of the best nights of gaming of my life was some of these guys doing exactly that. Alas some of the worst have been people lost in mechanics.

One Ring's product line is indeed soooo seductive (I will be getting Tales from the Wilderland) and I will be thinking about how to re-introduce the system or reskin something else.

Thanks again for the time taken to respond.

Using the mechanics of an RPG to serve the narrative, rather than bending the narrative to serve the mechanics is a learned art and skill.

It doesn't matter if the game system is rules lite or extremely detailed and crunchy. I have seen groups play all night in some of the crunchiness systems with out a single die roll. I have also seen sessions of rules light narativist games filled with near constant die rolling.

It is a matter of play style.

As for miniatures, it is the same thing. I do think one of the best arguments for using minis was the old "A troll is that much bigger than my Ranger?" ad for one version or other of official D&D minis. They can very quickly show exactly what the monster looks like, where everyone is, etc. This of course assume that you have a mini that looks like what you think the monster looks like.