First, as always, I think TOR is an exceptionally well done game. The best of the commercial games by far. With that being said, the thing I did like about Decipher version was that the races where not mechanically balanced.

I was wondering IF one were to "unbalance" the races what are some ways you would suggest doing so that would be rather easy to implement in the TOR system.

Thanks,

HN

Off the top of my head, the inclusion of more racial traits and calling dependent rewards (virtues?) [Sorry, my mind isn't really working tonight.]

Mostly as a means of adding missing racial abilities. Or to make the combination of race & calling produce a kind of variant calling (specialization?). So, instead of Treasure Hunters, we have:

Hobbit Burglars
Dwarven Safe Crackers
Elven Jewelry Acquisitionists
Dunedain Escape Artists
Barding Hoard Scavengers
Woodmen Contortionists (to avoid webs)
Gondorian Real Estate Agents
Rohirrum Horse Thieves
Umbaran Corsairs
Haradrim Mumakil Valet Parking

[Can't think of the word. Parking attendants at ritzy s. $20+ bucks to have someone take a joyride in your vehicle.] Aha! I remembered finally!
I'm sure I could think of a few more with a bit of time.

LOL - I love the Gondorian Real Estate Agents. Can just imagine the pitch: "Now this is a nice 2nd age property, some work needed but an airy and light filled aspect. Good views." (interpretation : 2nd age ruin).

I would suggest bonuses to the attribute arrays or additional points to spend on starting skills.

Yeah, well that and the fact that Aragorn effectively owns nearly all of northwestern Middle-earth as we know it (per Tolkien's writings and cartography).

The races aren't balanced in the One Ring. Some have abilities which are straight up better than others.

Yeah... Elves shouldn't be balanced with the other peoples for Body/Heart/Wits total.
And beyond starting skills, most of them should have plenty of Wisdom and elf-only Virtues that are what other folk would call magic.

To judge by several of the AP accounts I've found out there* I'd personally want to see hobbits' combat abilities nerfed to bring them back to Tolkien's vision. Having a Body rating of only 2, 3 or 4 doesn't seem to hinder them much -- or their correspondingly large Wits gives them enough Parry to make them (IMHO too) fearless.
But this would be unpopular with a lot of great players, and even curmudgeonly me wouldn't want the 'plucky little chaps' to disappear altogether.

Cheers,
--Os.

* Jon Hodgson, do you want us to submit more links for these to include in the TOR Resources post. I'd think Actual Play of the C7 material was clearly a useful resource to LMs planning to run something themselves. And other LMs' own adventure material could be an inspiration to others too.

I actually like how this game handles the "elves are just better" issue (and dwarves, to a degree). They have great Body and Wits scores, making them superior in the majority of fields. Where they are lacking is where humanity (and hobbit ... um ... ity) both shine: Heart.

If I am correct the body,heart, and wits scores ( save basic parry) need you to spend hope points. I am thinking traits and virtues that don't require a hope point.

I want to clarify that I am simply looking for races/culture to be aligned with the literature not I am not into power gaming. There ARE power levels in the literature but even with all the gifts of the Noldor it was hobbits who saved the day.


Speaking of and Elves and Hobbits:

The virtues listed for TOR are great. IIRC the following are can be made a case for Elves:

Animal rapport: Elves get a bonus to communicate, sense emotion and thoughts, and call on then for service at need.
Resist Elements: Suffer no discomfort in hot or cold weather. ( no penalties)
Fair Form: Attractive trait
Sense Power: Can sense the presence of power, evil, and tragedies,
Elven Sleep: Already a virtue
Elven senses: Keen of Eye and Hearing traits
Fear No Ghost of Man
Gift of Dexterity move silently, light step move swiftly
Great Health: swift healing, immune to disease and sickness

Noldor:

Inner Light bonus to resist powers of the Shadow/ cow servants of the Shadow

Sindar: Musical gifts

Silvan: Wood sense
about the same as the cultural boon that exists

Concerning Hobbits I think TOR did well with the virtues, but I am in alignment with Osric about Hobbit combat.

Maybe an easy fix would be that for Cultural Blessings no hope points were needed and for non-combat virtues the same and maybe a few free traits.

Anyway, this is just a thought exercise for the moment.

So do I!
Do take my response in the spirit of the big "IF" of hoplitenomad's original question.

An aside on "Humanity"
Tolkien the philologist so consistently avoided the use of "human" -- always using the good old English "Men" or "Mannish" instead. I have a pet theory that this was precisely because the other Free Peoples were equal in "humanity": just as "humane" as Men (and "human" is a more high-falutin' word, carrying its Latin/Greek origins more openly).

Balancing Elves
Over years of MERPing I've mostly thought that it would be best if Elves weren't balanced with the other peoples right down at the detailed level. But they should be tangibly different. Casually better at most simple stuff, but perhaps less given to bursts of vibrant heroism than the most notable individuals amongst the other peoples.

Giving Men, Hobbits and probably Dwarves (more) 'Fate Points' has been a neat approach to addressing this, but is rather a blunt instrument.

TOR's Hope Points address the same area, but far better! And I suspect the system's greatest sophistication will only come out when you take the full generational campaign-length view of characters and their 'Hope Point Economy'.
A Man or a Hobbit -- with only a few decades in their adventuring prime years -- might expect to have a few adventures, burn through their lifetime allowance of Hope and retire into graceful old age. An Elf has to last forever!

In a short game where longevity doesn't matter, a properly power-levelled Elf could be abusively imbalancing -- unless the Elf were held back by being roleplayed in an enlightened fashion.

Maybe there'd be mileage in inviting or encouraging the players of Elves to trade in a portion of their Hope Points to buy Attributes or Skills...?

Cheers,
--Nev.

Osric hit the nail on the head: Elves are better at stuff that TOR doesn't actually have mechanics for and aren't all that exceptional at the two things most of its gameplay actually consists of: Battles and journies. I don't think he actually meant that, but that's the obvious conclusion of what he's actually said. And the proof is the one Elf that we actually spend a whole lot of time getting to know: Legolas. Legolas goes on journies and fights orcs. I'm not actually positive about Tolkien never mentioning Legolas being way less tired than everyone else, but I don't think he ever mentions as much. In combat, Tolkien makes it very explicitly clear that Legolas and Gimli are roughly equally competent combatants. He's got super telescope vision and his step is so light I can only assume he's comprised of pure energy and not matter at all, but none of these directly benefits battles or journies. So maybe he gets a trait or two that says he can see for a hundred miles and step lightly enough to leave no tracks on snow, but that doesn't mean he auto-succeeds at finding hidden things (Awareness checks) or that his stealth must always be perfect (stepping on a twig is the most cliche way of being spotted, but far from the only one). Legolas isn't a bog-standard Mirkwood Elf like the ones from TOR, either. He's a Sindar prince and still no better than Gimli, who is a Dwarf of Erebor (although also pretty much royalty).

There's no way Legolas was holding back when the lives of his friends and the fate of Middle-Earth was on the line (or if he was, he's a wanderer with at least three permanent Shadow points who's really good at hiding it). He was present at the battle where Borimor died, so if he could've been fighting three times harder than he bothered to, Borimor's death is at least partially his fault, something which you'd think Tolkien would've mentioned. Noldor might need some crazy-awesome bonuses, but Noldor aren't currently playable anyway, so that's kind of moot. The superiority of Elves is subtle and it isn't even consistent with the source material to represent it with overt mechanical benefits (with possibly the exception of journies, if there's something about the Elves I'm forgetting with regards to that). Even with the Noldor, just because Elrond and Galadriel were Noldor doesn't mean all Noldor can be Elrond or Galadriel. They also had rings of power.

Hobbits, on the other hand...Also require no balancing tweaks to properly represent the spirit of Tolkien. The four Hobbits who join the Fellowship as well as Bilbo all regularly get into battles with servants of the Enemy, and yet precisely none of them die. In fact, I don't think a single one of them is ever even significantly injured, although Frodo cheats by absorbing the orc chieftain's spear with his mithril shirt in Moria. Hobbits absolutely do not need to be represented by lower defensive capabilities because they're never shown to be especially vulnerable. They aren't very effective, but that's weapon skills, not parry. Of course, Hobbits get just as much weapon proficiency as everyone else, but the Hobbits in TOR are the result of an incredible sampling bias. You aren't just playing any old Hobbit of the Shire, you're playing a Hobbit who's found himself in Esgaroth. One way or another, that Hobbit is already exceptional among his people (though not in a good way, in their opinion). Explaining how a Hobbit of the Shire got out here in the first place is tricky, but once you have, it makes perfect sense that they're way more combat capable than the norm. If you wanted to play a Hobbit of the Shire who is actually in the Shire when play begins, that's a trivially easy fix: Just strip his weapon skills.

Chamomile you mentioned this:

" I'm not actually positive about Tolkien never mentioning Legolas being way less tired than everyone else, ...He's got super telescope vision and his step is so light I can only assume he's comprised of pure energy and not matter at all....

The latter part first. Legolas is not comprised of pure energy. He has both fea AND hroa. Sorry, but I could not add the diacritics. It is their superior fea and hroa that give even the Avari an edge to other races.

As for the former, I believe this the quote most often referenced:

"The storm had troubled him little, and he alone of the Company remained still light of heart."

Also, IIRC during the "Three Hunters" sections Aragorn and Gimli are the ones who say they need to rest while Legolas can still go on.



Concerning my posts, making a quick glance at the rule book TOR as already addressed some of the thoughts I listed as virtues. e.g Elvish Dreams, and Speakers.

To me it would seem, using TOR as the basis itself with the minimal mechanical benefits would be to just add the following traits to all Elves:

Fair
Keen-Eyed
Keen-Hearing
Hardy ( to reflect being unaffected my the extremes of nature)
Robust ( for being immune to sickness and disease)

I am pressed for time at the moment, so I will try to respond with more later.

Additionally, some things that may need to be taken into account for describing racial advantages for TOR, should one limit oneself to one solely to the Hobbit and LOTR. Distinguishing differences between a singular character in the books vs. the culture/race he/she is from. And finally, can HoME be used as a resource also.

Yes, that was a joke.

The problem is that as far as I know, Tolkien never went much in depth to the Late Third Age outside of the Hobbit and LotR. Not to mention, as mentioned in TOR, outside of those two and the Silmarillion, Tolkien's works are mostly just a bunch of idle world-building, filled with retcons and revisions. Nothing else which Tolkien wrote can really even be considered canon by most definitions of the word. He didn't publish them, they were just a bunch of notes that his estate published later on.

Also, I thought I was forgetting something about Elves and getting weary. If you were really attached to keeping TOR unaltered, you could just say that this is a trait of Sindar specifically (and presumably Noldor as well), but there's not really any evidence to support that. We never really spend a whole lot of time with a Sylvan Elf at all, which is unfortunate.

See 'The Speakers'

Are there penalties for hot or cold weather? I don't believe there are. What you could say is that Elves only ever wear light Adventuring Gear, never heavy.

This only works if its another race looking at an Elf. Elves, after all, do not consider every other member of their race super attractive. So, with the caveat that it doesn't work on Elves, sure.

Hm, perhaps with a strong Awareness roll, similar to 'The Speakers.'

Do we know if this is true even of Silvan Elves? Yeah, make it a Virtue, so that some are, but Silvan Elves don't have near the amount of Light from Valinor which Noldor or even Sindar do.

Sounds like just a Trait

Is there disease and/or sickness in this game? Do Elves recover faster than others canonically?

Hoplitenomad,
Those are the most appropriate matches for what you were looking to do. Glad you found them. I do have one concern though...

Sense Power: Ultimately this is too powerful and potentially game unbalancing. Effectively you limit mystery / intrigue type encounters; you can instantly tell who is evil and whom they're tormenting. Now combine it with The Speakers and it becomes a constantly on, area of effect (aura), detect evil with tracking capabilities.

Recall for a moment Aragorn's task to track down Gollum. All he would have had to do is find an Elf with both abilities and nothing short of a major body of water would have stopped Gollum's immediate capture.


Stubbbazubba
Resist Elements: I don't recall any specific penalties at the moment. I would however change the wording:

Temperature Regulation
Elves do not feel certain temperature and weather related affects, allowing them to wear any type of clothing at any time of the year. Encumbrance remains unchanged, unless the Elven character changes their wardrobe, producing logical results if they do. Heavy clothing is more fatiguing regardless of the season.

Otherwise it almost reads as though Elves cannot wear heavier forms of clothing or armor.

In this way an Elf could wear a 20 pound fur coat in the middle of the Harad desert during a heat wave without breaking a sweat. But they would still die of dehydration after a couple of days without water. In the mean time, carrying all that extra weight, they are getting fatigued per winter rate (due to heavy clothing), even if it is summer.

Fear No Ghost of Man: Actually, I think Tolwen said something about this being true. Cannot remember exactly what or where though. It had to do with the Elves knowing exactly what will happen to them upon dying.

Great Health: I don't think their is, yet. Poison is similar and that is currently present in the game. I imagine, considering how much healing and herbs pertained to Tolkien's work, that it will also have a greater impact on TOR. Keep in mind that there were supposed to be three core sets and this might have been meant for later publication - assuming the audience demanded more detail.

To Garn and Stubbazubba,

Thank you for your responses they made some things clearer for me.


Concerning Stubbazubba's question about Elves healing more quickly that maybe from the HoME where there is discussion about fea and hroa. (spirit and body). However, Inwill attempt to see if there is anything in LOTR.

In regards to Garn's concerns, yes taken that way I agree that it could be a game breaker. The examples that I were thinking of:

During the hunt for Merry and Pippin, Legolas says, " They are far far away....I know in my heart they have not rested this night"

He (Legolas) replies to Aragorn that he has known for awhile about the will of Saruman hampering their pursuit.

Then he summons Aragorn and Gimli awake saying that strange things await them and they are being " called"

For a moment it seemed to Legolas that a white flame flickered on the brows of Aragorn like a shining crown.

I do not think that the forest feels evil....but there is a watchfulness and anger....there is something happening inside, or going to happen. Do you not feel the tenseness? It takes my breath... It is old and full of memory..

...turned his ...eyes...way to the north and east and his fair face was troubled...I do not think they would come..war is already on their door step.

I will stop here with the examples. These are not game breakers IMO...but more along the lines of
" I sense a disturbance in the Force"

Seems basically like the Woeful Foresight virtue, with slightly different fluff.

If toned down a bit and taken alone it would probably be fine. Except players are going to min/max and look for synergies anywhere they can get them - just like in any other RPG.

Chamomile's suggestion of using a Woeful Foresight variant is in some ways more palatable. It places things more in the LM's control on what the character can and cannot perceive, avoiding some of the potential for abuse.


As to the various quotes you provide... Some of this comes down to perception. For instance, I see your first quote as being a logical conclusion based on Legolas inability to see the hobbits; thus, the orcs are traveling at speed, unlikely to rest, placing the hobbits some distance away from the Hunters. It's not magic at all.

I agree that Chamomile's suggestion of using a Woeful Foresight variant would work rather well. As for the quotes, I was beyond the shadow a doubt twisting any quote I could quickly find to fit my aim.