We started our One Ring campaign last night, and I posted an Actual Play thread about it on RPGNet here:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?592009...e-Reeking-River

WARNING: It is chock full of spoilers for The Marsh Bell, so don't read it if you plan to play (rather than run) that adventure.

John

I ran a group through "Marsh Bell" last night as well and need to write up my AP report.

Nice write up! I liked how you blended the mechanics behind the narrative in your post. Very informative.

Thanks. I find that APs that show me how the mechanics impacted the story/playing experience are much more interesting than just "storytime" posts. As much as I'd like to think my RPG sessions produce good stories, they really aren't literature, and my eyes glaze over if an AP reads too much like just mediocre fiction (BTW- I include my own in the mediocre fiction category

John

Very well-written and interesting actual play text.I specially liked the bits concerning how the system rules are tied to the story.I have a question though:Will you write more actual play's from your next sessions?

Thanks, Longbeard. I do plan to continue the actual play thread. Our next session is tomorrow, and we're going to finish up the first fellowship phase with the gathering of the 5 armies, then skip ahead a few seasons and start an adventure that I've written.

John

The AP thread (linked to above) has been updated with our latest session of play. We're moving on to an adventure I wrote after playing The March Bell.

John

I'm enjoying reading the write-up, especially where you put in the details of where the rules applied. This will hopefully help when I get to run a game - which will probably be online, so I'll be able to post up some chat logs of those games.

Great write-up John

I haven't had a chance to run any TOR yet, but I'm beginning to wonder whether these Corruption tests might not be a bit excessive. What's your impression?

The path through Mirkwood along the Old Forest Road is probably the worst possible place to travel on the TOR map. Its 140 miles (7 days walking normally) through Daunting terrain (X5 modifier to time, for 35 days), and its a Darkland, requiring 2 Corruption tests per day, or 70 tests (the other 4 I mentioned were from the 4 days going through the Long Marshes, a Shadow Land, with 1 test per day).

I don't know if that number of tests is excessive (it certainly seems to be), but with more experienced characters, and the possibility of spending Hope on crucial rolls, it might be doable (although that might be 6 of one, half dozen of the other since Hope decreasing brings you just as close to being Miserable as Shadow increasing...)

I just think that there are some places beginning adventurers should probably avoid. And perhaps racking up shadow is not as bad as we think it is. Degenerating and developing 1 or 2 levels of Flaws could make for a flawed, but interesting and ultimately redeemable character, which might not be a bad thing.

All but one of the heroes in my game have gotten at least 1 (some up to 4) points of Shadow, and all have been able to lose all of their points during the Fellowship Phase, and have avoided any permanent points or madness so far.

John

I'm not sure I agree with the assessment of the Old Forest road. I count 10 hexes or 100 miles, which equates to 5 days walking (can't ride through the woodland even on the road I would think). I see the road as on the side of the shadow land above and would hence apply the x3 modifier to get 15 days. A Shadow land prompts 1 test per day for corruption at severe (18), so that would be up to 15 points. There would also be 3 fatigue rolls (assuming a spring or summer passing).

I don't think I entirely agree with either of you! Well I can't quite make sense of what Valarian is saying - what "shadow land above"?

Some of the Old Forest Road clearly lies within the Dark Lands area, but only 9 or possibly 10 hexes. Then there are 3-4 more in Shadow Lands and 8 in Wild Lands.

Most of the territory is shaded as Daunting on the map, but then again p32 of the LMB says under Severe "any road or path in Mirkwood", which would seem to imply that the road is not to be considered Daunting. This makes intuitive sense to me - what's the point in making a road if it doesn't speed up travel?

I agree you can't ride on this road, according to what the LMB says.

So I would rate the distance as about 20 hexes = 200 miles. Multiply by 3 for Severe = 600. That's 30 days walking.

6 days in Shadow Lands = 6 tests. About 13 days in Dark Lands = 26 tests. About 11 days in Wild Lands = 1 test. Making 33 tests total.

All a bit approximate. Let me know if I've gone wrong somewhere - I haven't tried to do this before.

I have to agree wight the last. In my campaign, the way I calculated the journey was using the Old Forest Road as Severe. The journey left Woodland Hall and cut straight to the road. From that point:

3 hexes in Severe Terrain = 30 actual miles and 90 equivalent miles for calculating journey duration, plus...

15 hexes in Daunting Terrain to reach the river = 150 actual miles and 450 equivalent miles for calculating journey duration.

Their entire journey should have covered 180 actual miles and required 27 days to accomplish. They then were challenged with 26 Corruption Tests (13 days of travel) while in Dark Lands, and 9 Corruption Tests while in Shadow Lands. I didn't require a Corruption Test while they were traveling through the Wild Lands; since it was not a full weeks worth of travel and they had a Woodman guide with Mirkwood Lore and Shadow Lore, that was a judgment call tied to how I narrated those 5 days of the journey and how the players narrated their actions during the journey. I considered the last 6 days on the Old Forest Road to be in Shadow Lands. Again this was a judgment call that followed from the back story. From Lake Town adventurers are beginning to recover the Old Forest Road and make it safe again for travel. These first attempts at recovery are a war of sorts to reclaim it from the Darkness that seems to seep out of the Mountains. This is part of the overall campaign back story. (As a side note, I eventually plan to change the travel modifier of the Old Forest Road should the efforts of the player-heroes and the parties of LM Characters prove successful as the road is reclaimed from the wild. Set against this is a dark intention that does not want to see the road opened and communication easily established between the Free Peoples. Here I laugh quietly with menacing undertones.) Another judgment call is the last two hexes on the eastern eaves of the woods where it opens up to the river. By rights this isn't part of the Shadow Lands, but for the purposes of their journey I considered it part of the Shadow Lands as a a Dark thought pursues them out of the woods. That was the way I wrote the journey into my campaign.

Now, I have to agree with the earlier post there are some places new player-heroes should not travel. The Old Forest Road and the deeps of the Wood are one of them without a serious draw on the Fellowships' spiritual reserves. At first I was concerned with expectations, so I used Radagast to set the stage for this challenging leg of their Adventure. The counsel he provided coupled with the Shadow Lore of their Woodman guide and the fellowship Hobbits peerless cooking worked wonders against the danger of flagging hope. Yet, the Fellowship ended up turning back!

I broke the journey into stages with episodes in between where we switched (using TOR terms) from narrative to episodic sequences. This also allowed a choice whether to go on or turn back. At one point they turned back. (From a dramatic point of view, it was almost like the episode in The Hobbit where they left the elven path.) But that leads to another tale...

Regards,
E

Doh! I was looking at the wrong part of the forest. I'd taken the dotted line through the narrows of the forest as the road. Serves me right for squinting at an A4 printout of the map. Looking at it on screen at full zoom, it is 2 hexes through shadow lands (bottom of the Long Marshes), then 14 hexes on road through dark lands (Mountains of Mirkwood), then 7 hexes through Wild Lands (Western Mirkwood).

The first part (2 hexes) is hard terrain (not reached the forest yet) = 2 days (2 corruption checks).
The second part (14 hexes) is daunting shaded but on-road, so severe = 21 days (42 corruption checks).
The last part (7 hexes) is severe, which is the same as the on-road value = 10.5 days (no corruption checks).

So, 44 corruption checks. Not quite as many as John had, but more than Thriddle.

There does seem to be an awful lot of rolling involved in travel. I suppose you can break this day by day by adding narrative along the journey, but still.

The narrows of the forest (through the brown shades shadow land region) would be as stated above. Could be a better route, even though it's closer to Dol Guldur?

Yeah, I had forgotten to lower the severity of the terrain due to the road, but as Valarian's last analysis shows, its still not a place for neophyte heroes to attempt, IMHO. Luckily, my guys took some good counsel and went the northern route. I think the final vote was from Kester, who voted for it because it was the route "Uncle Bilbo" and Gandalf took home after the Battle of the Five Armies, and if its good enough for Uncle Bilbo, it was good enough for them

John

Good logic, and makes you wonder a bit about Balin and Oin's thinking!

I would definitely go along with the comment about narrating one day at a time, but still I wonder about 2 rolls a day in Dark Lands. Might it not be better to reduce the number of rolls, and instead use the 12-20 difficulty chart for Fatigue on p34 (the rules sort of imply you could do this anyway)?

4th session is up, link in the first post.

John

Excellent!

It may not matter, but I really like these posts jahnmarron. Your writing is great and I love how you insert your thoughts about the game. Keep it up!

Matchstick,

Thanks for the kind words. Its a bit of an effort to write up the sessions (mostly just trying to remember what happened!), but I'm committed to keeping up the AP for the duration of the campaign, and we plan to play for at least a year.

John

Absolutely outstanding storytelling! I look forward to your next installment

Caught up on my reading this morning. Still a great thread and very informative to see how the game plays out for those of us still waiting to get our TOR game running.

Another very appreciative reader here! This is great stuff, especially when I haven't been able to run anything myself yet.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. Hope the AP is useful or entertaining.

Next installment (from last night's game) is up now.

John

Unless posters have made errors in calculation, I see tests ranging from 20 to 77 per journey.

Quite frankly, that's ridiculously insane and something I don't think I could tolerate as a GM or player.

Tell me this isn't so

Well, I certainly made a mistake in the first calculation post I made. I'd taken a dotted lines across the narrows of the forest as the road. For the Old Forest Road, it worked out as about 44 corruption checks.

I think we've got to get away from the usual game idea of "skipping" the journey, which will result in a tedious session of dice rolling. In this game, it looks as though the journey is very much part of the adventure, if not the adventure itself (with perhaps a climactic scene at the end). The narrative will be what happens to the characters day by day as they trudge through the wilds and darker places of the world. Encounters will affect the journey, but the journey itself will challenge the characters in terms of weariness and corruption.

I know what you mean, and it is true that the journey was a major part of Lord of the Rings novels. But some things do not port over well from novel to rpg.

I fear all that dice rolliing will eventually become tedious. Tedious to the characters? Fine, but tedious to the players? Not so good.

I'd say my cut off point would be 10 Fatigue rolls absolute maximum. So obviously I am going to have issues with the mechanics here. Not only that, but the dice rolling can only end up with one outcome, hinderances in one shape or another to the characters - i.e., there's little to no reward for all that dice rolling.

One of the things I hated, and dropped from our old d&d games was all that dice rolling and random encounter tables. I'd have set encounters already planned out. But to even do that in TOR means I'd be missing out on a major part of the game.

We haven't found the die rolling tedious at all. I break the journeys into smaller legs, and so far, we've only had 3 Fatigue rolls on any given leg of a journey. We do spend a good bit of actual playing time on the journeys, and its working for us so far.

John

Your AP thread has been very helpful to me, giving me a good feeling for how this game should run as well as inspiring a number of adventure ideas.

I wonder if you could tell us how you used the NPC Wulferd in combat? Did the Loremaster run him, or was he given to a player to control? How well did this work? (Personally, I hate making NPC vs NPC rolls.)

Kester's player ran Wulferd during the combat, since his character usually just hangs out in Rearward stance and shoots. It gave him a chance to get into close combat for once, and when Kester was wounded and being dragged off by the wolf, let him keep playing.

I also hate running NPC allies, and pretty much always make one of the players run them.

John

5th (and final for this adventure) session up here:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?592009...e-Reeking-River

One of the players is going to run a short adventure next, so I get to play!

John

I refreshed the board coincidentally just after you posted!

King's Man could be granted to Gismund after he gets promoted to be the emmisary to the Woodmen since they respect him so much. If there's not already someone acting in that capacity, he'd certainly be qualified!

Great idea! I'll talk to Gismund's player and see if he likes it. We're staying on this side of Mirkwood for the next tow adventures, but plan to do short fellowship phases and keep all three of these adventures in the same year. They've talked about going back to Dale/Esgaroth after that.

John

Wouldn't really even have to be emmisary if that's too high a promotion. It could be "preferred message carrier" or something like that. Maybe "troubleshooter" or "special investigator". And it wouldn't have to involve the Woodmen necessarily, if that might be too restrictive.

As long as he's working for the King, he's a King's Man.

Seventh session (with guest LM!) posted in the AP thread here:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?592009...e-Reeking-River

John

Latest (and last for a little while) installment of our heroes' adventures is up on RPGNet.

John

In your 11/15 post you wrote, "Shane had written up some quick and dirty mass combat rules that we playtested, and they worked out very well."

Any chance of getting you to post those here?

I'll talk to Shane, but I'll probably hold off on posting anything until he has a chance to tighten them up some more. They were modeled on the interpersonal combat rules, and were very intuitive to play with since we all understood normal combat very well, but gave a nice feel for the battle going on around the PCs.

John