Hey guys! i have just finished my first TOR session.
I was loremastering a group consisting of an Elf, A beorning, a barding and a dwarf.

We ran "Blood in the waters" by Eclipse, which is a pretty good introductory adventure.
But i could not help feeling that the gameplay was focused almost exclusively on combat.
So, i was wondering, how do i put more flavor to gameplay?
How do i find interesting things for the fellowship to do, other than combat?

I had my adventurers track a party of Orcs, and felt like i needed more things to happen during the journey (aside from fatigue rolls).

Any help on spicing it up? perhaps with lore, dialogue, dilemmas, or different events?
Also, how do i really draw them into the story, and not just have them roll tests, but actually think of what to say and do, and act in-character.

Cheers

well I'm big on something I call wilderness challenges. small rivers that while fording hide sudden drop offs, collapsed mountain paths, seeing or hearing strange things in the night across marshy or broken ground, things that will make the players unsure how to proceed so they have to talk about it and come up with solutions.

I'm also really big into running the occasional extremely emersive role-playing scene. I have the luxury of having a large living room, and have used empty class rooms in the past, to run "stand up" role-play scenes. When running a "stand up" role play scene the players need to cut back on asking the LM questions and narrating things, the focus really has to be in what is being said. It's essentially improv acting.... I also have the luxury of having medieval costumes, and friends with costumes, and we do play in costume which adds a bit.... it can be nice when playing at night with candle light too.... (just leave the candles going through the game and turn off the extra lighting when you run the RP scene) this will make the television and bookcase meld into the background, and is especially useful if running a scene that happens in the dark, like underground, in Mirkwood, at night, in a dark hall or castle, etc.... they don't always have to be run standing up, some of them will be in settings where the characters are sitting at a table or around a camp fire.... these you should do sitting down, but the player talk and act like their characters and only "break character" when they really need to narrate something that goes beyond the natural boundaries of a social scene. You'd have to leave the dice behind for the most part doing this as too much dice rolling bring you out of character.

I've Done this sort of scene for encounters on the road, both friendly and unfriendly, but not for the immediately hostile. I've done it for longer dialogues in lulls of battles, I've done it for characters entering the hall of a chieftain, or sitting at feast, or at a tavern. Situations where you build atmosphere and when important things will be said.

i try to keep combat short actually and totally house rule minor opponents dead much easier. I only run big battles occasionally, but when I do I try to make sure they are scary, or at least very tense!

Thanks for the tips! though i doubt my players will be into costumes and stand-up conversations, both wilderness challenges and playing by candlelight really seem quite nice.

As for battles- how could i go about playing a really large battle? like army vs army or such?

James R Brown made a nice document for large battles which I liked though was sorta loose with it , here's a link I also believe that the book of house rules compiled by Rich H has some rules for battles but I could to find the link immediately. Useful diverse document though, I highly recommend it in general even if I did not use the battle rules in it yet.

Watch out for candle light though, it's good for setting the mood but not good for reading notes or character sheets so use it strategically.

Another suggestion which may seem basic to some LM but could be overlooked by some beginner LMs is to keep the characters in your role play encounters diverse.... We all have our own personality which tends to naturally get projected onto every character we portray. As a player that is really no problem at all, but for a LM it kinda makes all the people the characters interact with seem similar. One way to keep things varied is to plan out some character traits ahead of time for the various characters the heroes will meet. Try your best to invent interesting characters with diverse personalities as opposed to always trying to focus on other factors. Players can have a lot of fun interacting with the characters you envision, as opposed to always thinking about how they will complete the quest. Some characters might be a little odd or even ridiculous to add comic relief, others can be very regal and proud others grim and brooding, some soft and sympathy evoking, others can be slimy or brutal and cruel... A great thing to try playing with is accents, and another things which I've heard suggested and think would work well is if you want to do an elf have them quote some of the diverse poetry that exists built around middle earth. All these things will not only challenge you and broaden your own role playing abilities it will also keep the players engaged as they feel they are meeting new people. Of course it Is a lot of work and preparation.

oh one other thing: sometimes letting the heroes get the drop on the bad guys can provoke a problem solving phase where they work out exactly how they will pull off the raid or ambush...

This can add decision making and even role play to an otherwise straight forward battle.