First things first: long time lurker here, first time poster - I really enjoy both the community and The One Ring. I stumbled upon Cubicle 7 (and, TOR) through EN World over the summer and have been hooked ever since.

In any event, I've been trying to get my head around the topic of starting characters with more experience than say, a freshly created "Level 1", even if only one or two, simply to serve as that battle-scarred veteran or the seasoned ranger to a batch of fresh recruits.

The setting is, obviously, so rich and I've struggled with suspending disbelief during character creation with the idea of - presto, 5 new inexperienced player characters "walk into town" and are suddenly deemed worthy enough of being sent on missions. Clearly, I realize beginning PCs have some accumulated experience but, I think you understand what I mean. In addition, since we have age guidelines, it seems odd to think of a 27 year old Woodman having the same basic stats as a beardless 16 year old in a starting group . . . know what I'm saying?

I have a work around for creating their accumulated experience and advancement points that works well for me, and it's easy enough from there to buy their values up and choose virtues and rewards. However, I'm struggling a bit with finding a system for projecting their current hope score (at less than maximum), their current shadow points (including any permanent), in addition to any flaws they may have developed over the course of their adventuring career.

I realize I can just set these levels to any number I want to reflect whatever back-story I'd like, however, I am trying to develop something with a bit more randomness. So, I was just wondering if any others out there have run across this in your own games and/or have any suggestions.

Thoughts?

A culture's age of majority is based on generation after generation recognizing that anyone younger than <whatever age> is just not sufficiently capable of making wise decisions as affects themselves, their property, their culture and their community.

Additionally, older characters are not automatically infused with more knowledge or wisdom simply because they're older. An extra decade to watch paint dry (for example) isn't going to make the character a more capable adventurer. What makes them more capable is a decade spent experiencing and participating in life. So it is completely possible for a 16 year old and a 27 year old to start adventuring with equivalent skill sets.

I agree that TOR isn't perfect in each and every respect, but sometimes that is because you as a LM have to step up and fill the missing gap as it pertains to your specific campaign. Now, obviously you are doing that. Your attempt to create a unified system reflects that you're willing to put in that extra effort.

I cannot make further suggestions because I haven't tried to advance characters prior to the start of play. You are already doing most of what I could have suggested. You might find asking the characters to narrate a dark period in their lives and build off of that to determine flaws and just how much shadow they've accrued. But that is as much as I can offer.

I am not sure if this is what the original question was asking about experience wise. But, I find that beginning characters int TOR are little under powered as far as skills are concerned. According to the skill levels in the book a character starts off with 2 mybe 3 skills at average ability level and the below average. It seems to me that the majority of the skills should be at the average level with a few lower level skills to fill in the holes. My groups first game could be considered a comedy of errors because of all the failed rolls because of the skill levels. It just seems to me that someone who is going to be setting out on perillous adventures would (or should) be better trained.

As you say it is not a perfect system, and by no means does it ruin the game. It is just one of those things that got me thinking.

Beran,
Don't forget that Bilbo was a bungling burglar until the entrance to Goblintown (he's the only one that notices the door opening). So it does make sense that characters start a bit underpowered resulting in some goofy escapades.

This is also represented within LotR, mostly by Merry and Pippin's antics. It takes the War of the Ring itself to make these two characters finally mature (post Isengard). Sam also on rare occasions shows signs of being a bit of a bumbler, at least until the breaking of the Fellowship.

Well, you do have to consider that Bilbo, Sam, Merry and Pippen would be characters that were rolled up with not much planning on adventuring really. To use D&D parlance they would be the common person class. However, in TOR the characters (for the most part) are supposed to represent characters who have seen some action...the Elves of Mirkwood as pretty much stated in the book are on a constant war footing against the Shadow that lurks in the Wood. To lesser extent so are the Woodmen of the Vale. It is just my opinon that characters like these should have more skills at around level 3 (average), maybe 1 above average, and a few at 1-2. But, it is the reverse in TOR (the majority are at 1-2), and to be quite honest most players don't intend on creating bumblers when they roll up characters. As I have stated one wounded troll just about wiped out my entire party (and your expensive ship) in our first adventure.

This speaks exactly to my point, Beran.

The characters I'm describing are Woodmen, which are serving as a seasonal patrol, running a circuit from Rhosgobel, across the Gladden to Mountain Hall, then north, nearly to the High Pass, and east along the road to the eaves of Mirkwood and, from there, home again.

Under this scenario, it only seems internally consistent to me to have, at the very least, one experienced leader (if not two or more) bolstered by a couple of younglings. The Woodmen would hardly (and, Radagast, certainly) would not suggest sending a patrol of inexperienced scouts for this task. Besides, given their position and their nearly constant watch for servants of the Enemy, there should be no lack of semi-skilled manpower. My problem is trying to forecast the hope levels of more experienced PCs and, more importantly, assess the probability of shadow points, bouts of madness, and/or flaws.

We're given the age ranges for the several races and cultures and we have also been given guidelines for how many experience points most PCs are expected to have in any given year so, it's fairly easy to estimate experience levels (allowing, of course, for the fact that not everyone in these age ranges is always adventuring). What I don't know is how common it is expected that PCs run low on Hope and/or rack up shadow points due to circumstances. And, in many cases it's difficult to estimate since use of Hope really is a game feature, i.e. some players will be profligate in their use of Hope, whereas others will not. Plus, given the setting, age is no real determinant of levels of anguish, misdeeds, and/or exposure to blighted lands. One would expect that the younger you are, the less chance you have to have run across the shadow but, I think we can all visualize a Woodman child having direct experience of high levels of anguish and/or being driven into blighted lands only to suffer from the Shadow.

My default assumption has been to say that an experienced PC approaching late adventuring age has the, obvious, best chance to have experienced 3-4 bouts of madness and developed flaws that could lead to their succumbing to the Shadow. But, my math for determining this is, shall we say, inelegant.

Has anyone run a PC through a full adventuring career? And, if so, what has been your experience with shadow points and bouts of madness? Just how common are they?

I tried to work around this by modifying the character creation process. As others have noted already in this forum, it's quite easy to figure out the math behind background skills and whatnot. I halved the points committed by the Cultures so that everyone starts with a much lower baseline. Players then spend the difference to improve skills of their choice. Technically, the characters aren't any stronger, since the end result is the same in terms of points spent, but in practical terms, they are quite a bit more capable since they can ensure they're good at certain important skills and, as a fellowship, more easily cover their bases. It also allows folks quite a bit more variety between characters of the same Culture (critical in my campaign, since everyone is playing a Dúnadan of the North).

So far, my only complaint is that by freeing up character creation quite a bit in terms of allowing more player choice, the heroes are rather overpowered for starter adventures as written. I've had to toughen up some the challenges to maintain tension (and force them to make hard decisions about using Hope).

As an aside, is Dúnadan of the North something of a contradiction? A Man of the West of the North...

"As an aside, is Dúnadan of the North something of a contradiction? A Man of the West of the North..."

Not sure if it is less a contradiction and more a redundancy. The Dunadan are from the North at this point in the overall world story arc, correct?

" ...the heroes are rather overpowered for starter adventures as written."

And herein lies the other part of the equation. When you toughen up the characters a bit, you then have to do the same to the opponents in the printed adventures that are written to handle less experienced PCs. Though that troll we ran into certainly didn't need to be any tougher.

Almost. The southern Dúnedain constitute the ruling class in Gondor. Denethor II, Boromir, Faramir, Imrahil etc. are all representatives of them.

Cheers
Tolwen

"Dunadan of the" is more of a shorthand. It should more properly by Dunadan of the northern Numenorean Kingdom in Exile, Arnor. As opposed to a Dunadan of the southern Numenorean Kingdom in Exile, Gondor.

I cannot swear to the capitalization, but the concept is correct.

Remember the Dunedain is a different name for "the Faithful Numenoreans" and both of these kingdoms were established by Faithful survivors after the Fall of Numenor. I'm sure there are several changes between the Numenoreans and the Dunedain, but barring prayers atop Menaltarma, no other specific change immediately springs to mind.

Heh. It's dangerous to be a smart-aleck here: it's liable to start an erudite discussion!

With the game being somewhat new, I'm kind of assuming not many (if any) groups have experienced much "high level" play. At these higher XP levels is where, again, I assume higher incidents of chronic low Hope, bouts of madness, and/or character flaws will come into play (although, just as obvious, one could create a beginning PC with 4 flaws and low Hope - would be curious to know if anyone has, just as an experiment).

For the sake of the discussion, I'll sort of detail the kludge that represents my attempt at randomizing current shadow points, including permanent:

1.) Given a PCs base Hope score (from character generation) I roll the next closest die, generally a 12-sided (or, obviously, our feat die) to generate a number under the given base. So, the PC could be close to Miserable starting out.

2.) Given the character's age, I then determine how many campaigning seasons they've experienced. For example, my default is to assume an 18-year old has had 3 years of potential to rack up shadow points (again, this is just a default and, as I indicated earlier, age is not entirely indicative of opportunities for Anguish and/or exposure to the Enemy). Then, based on possible campaigns, I determine what the PC might have done with any Fellowship Phases, including the possibility of reducing Shadow Points by a Healing Corruption undertaking.

3.) To determine permanent, I take the character's age and divide by 15 (which is the number of average cultural "good" campaigning years, from 16 to 30, to give me a percentage of progress through that continuum, e.g and 18-year old Woodman is 20% through his possible adventuring career (3/15 = 0.20).

4.) Now comes the really arbitrary part - I guesstimated a scale, from 1-100 to represent the probability of permanent shadow points, from 0-4, which represents the number of flaws they have developed due to Bouts of Madness. The scale is as follows:

0 points - 15% (2d10, 1-15)
1 point - 25% (2d10, 16-40)
2 points -30% (2d10, 41-70)
3 points - 20% (2d10, 71-90)
4 points - 10% (2d10, 91-00)

So, I then roll a d10 to give a percentage, which backs into its corresponding permanent shadow point, e.g. a 2d10 gives a 50, equating to 2 permanent shadow points.

5.) I take this number (e.g. 2, from #4 above) and multiply it by percentage of adventuring career given in #3 above. For this example, 2*0.2 = 0.4, which I round down to give the character no permanent shadow points. My thought here is that, since 5 Bouts of Madness result in a Human character Succumbing to the Shadow, the potential for this should only come with much more experienced PCs, i.e. characters that are further along in their adventuring careers and have had more exposure to the Shadow.

Again, I readily admit it is kludgy, and probably could be simplified and/or needs refinement, which is why I'm here, ha!

Thoughts?

True, but it's better than having your comments ignored.


Evocatus,
No, none of the games I've participated in have had advanced characters.

I do recall someone posting something about Hope being used more while characters are new to the game. The character's are somewhat less capable and tend to use Hope frequently to cover failures. However the players soon discover if they're profligate in it's usage, the pool is empty at a more critical point. So after the first adventure or two the players begin to limit usage, accepting a few extra bumps and bruises. Increasing skill capabilities also helped to limit catastrophe. Sorry cannot site a thread for you as I don't recall the rest of the discussion in context; it was in these forums though.

This formula illustrates what you're doing for Men based on the example. Are you using this for Elves and Dwarfs as well?

How many Shadow Points have you bestowed on advanced characters using this technique? Roughly at what point does a character receive their first Shadow Point this way?

Sorry to just ask questions, but I'm hoping they bring to light issues or concerns that help you further develop the idea. For instance, knowing when you first bestow a shadow point might allow LM's to give you some feedback on what happened within their campaigns.

Good questions, Garn!

I remember the thread you are citing (I think it was ultimately about sources for replenishing Hope) and, yes, I believe (and, can also say, from my early games) the consensus is that early characters tend to burn through Hope for somewhat simple tasks early mainly because, as Beran indicates, they are somewhat underpowered, and, with 14-15 Hope and no shadow points, a bout of madness looks like a very distant threat.

This also somewhat dovetails into the discussion on fellowship points and their proper usage (that is, whether as a source to replenish Hope loss toward the end of every Adventuring Phase or as a reserve to be used only under dire circumstances), since the two viewpoints will tend to have very different consequences on longer-term gameplay. However, that's probably a thread for a different day!

With respect to your question regarding Elves and Dwarves, no, I haven't used the formula with either of those races, although, (and, I haven't thought this through) I don't imagine it would change much for me, since the only thing that is different would be the range of adventuring years - say, 75-100 years for Dwarves, and, relatively infinite for Elves vs. the 15 for Men. I guess I would justify that by, given their special cultural backgrounds, they would be more resistant to sources of Anguish and exposure to the Shadow (although, from a game perspective, I guess they gain shadow points the same as Men).

I currently have 5 characters, all Woodmen, ranging in ages from 27 - 18. The permanent shadow point breakout is as follows:

1.) Beckham, 27, 2 points
2.) Kjartan, 24, 1 point
3.) Hazen, 19, 1 point
4.) Andrik, 19, 0 points
5.) Brondolf, 18, 0 points

I think the only real outlier there is the PC, Hazen - I believe he rolled a high percentage dice for the weighting (80-90%).

The PC, Beckham, rolled a cumulative 86 XP to build from based upon a hypothetical 12 years since effectively starting his adventuring career. Using the given average of 13 XP gain per adventuring year this gives him, I think, 55% of his total possible cumulative XP. This would make his rate of permanent shadow point gain every 43 XP (every 3 adventuring years, by the book) or, in his case, 1 per 6 years.

Again, my default assumption is that it would take nearly all 15 years to gain a full compliment of 5 bouts of madness and Succumb to the Shadow. That's probably not accurate, since shadow point accrual is really subjective, i.e. down to the individual gamer and the circumstances of their campaign. Also, I really doubt Francesco viewed permanent shadow point gain to be that linear (or else your average PC will always succumb and, I think in canon, it wasn't all that common).

However, it does seem to me to be about right - a 27 year old Woodman who has devoted about half his time to adventuring would probably have picked-up at least a couple of flaws due to the harshness of his culture's conditions. Living that close to Mirkwood can't be easy, even though Radagast is nearby, and sandwiched between Dol Guldur, The Gladden Fields, and The High Pass should carry a pretty heavy exposure to the Shadow.

So that seems clear enough.

Now the question to our community is how often anyone has seen a permanent Shadow Point gained, if any?

I finally did. One of my players finally gained one last session (at the end of Those who Tarry No Longer).

My last character had a permanent shadow point.

Thanks for the input, Doc and Beran!

One further question: how many cumulative XP had each of your characters received before gaining that point?

Or, put another way, how many campaigning "years" (or, sessions, perhaps) had they been active before gaining that point?

I note that Those Who Tarry No Longer is the 4th adventure in TfW, did you run the paths consecutively and, if so, were the PCs starting characters from Don't Leave the Path?

This is one place my LM went off the reservation for a bit. My group can only get together 1 day a month (if that) so he fudged the system a bit so we would advance quicker, as of the last game we have switched back to the RAW for the most part.

We've been playing TOR since last Nov. with a coulple months off here and there(we currently are on hiatus) so I guess we have done 8 sessions and I would say we have gone through 3, maybe 4 years of game time.

We are currently in the midst of "Don't Leave the path", but I think it is the intention of the LM to run the series as a campaign, yes. And, "no" we were not beginning PC when we started DLtP. Actually, I started my new chapracter (the Woodman) at that time. What I did with him was I gave him experience and skills, and other stats comparable to my Dwarf that I retired. That was the last gaming session before the TOR hiatus 2 months or so ago.

The characters are at 23 XP at the end of that adventure (I think they got 5-6xp for it). We ran the Marsh Bell before starting Don't Leave the Path. I can't remember how many "years" it's been, since the group does 1-2 stories a year (it's not consistent).

Great feedback! Thanks for sharing the information. So, from your firsthand reports, it sounds like I'm about on target with potential shadow point gain from the model.

Obviously, if others have experience with permanent shadow point gain, I'd love to hear it.

In the meantime, I imagine I'll be eyeing that Fellowship Pool and adding a plethora of Fellowship Foci to assist with Hope regen!

Another thing you could do is to add an LM character in as an experienced soldier that is in charge of the mission but the PCs are allowed input on how the mission is carried out.