My friends and I are going to work on character creation and a one shot tonight. So excited a friend of mine picked up a copy for me at Gencon. I have been reading the PDF zealously waiting for my books to be brought tonight. I am saving the included Adventure for later when we know the system a bit better. Tonight is just a time to get familiar, mess with character design, and test out the combat system.

Found a great cheat sheet for character creation:
http://www.towerhills.me/middle_earth/the-one-ring-game.html

Anyone have a good Loremaster cheat sheet worked up yet? Is there a Loremaster Screen in the works? I had hoped they would have a Loremaster Summary page with all the charts in the PDF that I could print but that does not appear to be the case.

First session went very well I felt. Being our first it was rough and we were still interpreting and understanding the new mechanics. As the Loremaster I need to learn the system better so it can become nearly invisible compared to the story I am trying to tell. We enjoyed our time and want to try again after reading the guides again and seeing what is happening here in the forums.

I would say we are looking forward to future books and more playing time.

Raw thoughts from my players:

"The system will need a good, creative person running it, who can think on their feet. For a full game, you'd want to explain the failures of the travel dice into interesting encounters, and not just mechanically results. ... It's different take on fantasy roleplaying, and could be interesting."

"I liked it. The system seems a little loose and rough around the edges, but that could be interpreted at room for creativity. I'm not sold on the combat mechanics though. Maybe it's because I've been playing more tactically minded games lately, but the combat system just felt a little too abstract. That may also have been just an inexperience with the system. ... I see some promise in it, but I'd need more exposure to it before I'm sure."

"Certainly more complicated to start, but I think that has more to do with it being such a shift in mechanics. ... The travel system is...different. It could be due to our leaving out elements, but it seems to be mostly rolling and more rolling, with no appreciable benefit to rolling well, and a significant detriment if you roll poorly. The verdict, for me, is still out on the combat system. I can see how it works, but I think I need more exposure to it before saying whether I like it or not. The other thing I can't judge is how well the system works when in social settings. Part of the allure of roleplaying is the story crafting and investigation that happens. ... Still this was a first exposure and I'm certain there's much more to it than what we did. So i'm interested to try it again. Character creation was fun. I think it's much more interesting to play Middle Earth without the big hitters, since it's less explored."

Nice reports. Sounds like a focus in the narrative over the mechanics in order. This will likely arise as you become more familiar with the system.

Still I understand the distraction. TOR has some interesting mechanics but ultimate it pays to realise that they don't make an awesome RPG experience by themselves. No system does.

We played our first session tonight too! We went through the entire introductory adventure. There was 6 players and me (the Loremaster). We had so much fun! The game has a good balance of elements. The players actually played their characters using Skills and Traits and backgrounds. In fact, it wasn't until the end of the 2nd part of the adventure that we even had a combat. We loved the encounter and journey rules and all the options given during travel. It really felt like we were exploring Middle-earth.

In addition to that, the combat system was awesome! Everyone contributed and worked together to defeat the Enemy. There are so many options even though it is abstract. It really left the details to our imaginations and descriptions. We all finished the battle against a stone troll saying that it was one of the most satisfying experiences we've had during our rpg history together. When the troll had taken arrows and blows with an axe, he swung his club at a Dwarf in the forward stance, causing 17 points of Endurance loss. The next round, the Dwarf remains in forward and succeeds at an Awe task to intimidate the troll, causing him to lose his last 2 remaining Hate points. It was epic! That set up a Woodman to wound the troll with a spear and for an Elf in the company to drop him with an arrow. The Woodman and the Dwarf split the kill, since the Woodman wounded the troll and the Dwarf was in forward position intimidating and then closest to deliver the killing blow after it fell unconscious.

We did have some concerns and questions, however. I will get to those later. For now, I need some sleep...

Awesome!

Out of curiosity, how does one intimidate a troll?

"Look! The sun is rising!" :-D

After being bashed by the troll's club, the Bold Dwarf remained in the forward stance (as a prime target) to utilize the Intimidate Foe combat task. He raised up his Grievous great axe, puffed out his chest, and bellowed out sharp and threatening words in his Dwarven tongue. His Awe roll indicated an extraordinary success! In that moment, it was if a master had rebuked a barking dog, and the troll froze, surprised by the command of his small opponent.

Truly awesome stuff. Similar to "thou shalt not pass!"

Now to the concerns and learning curves...

My players had a difficult time understanding how to earn Advancement points and therefore did not utilize Skill Tasks as much as they could have. It was our first time playing, so next time I am going to give them more opportunities and maybe coax them along with ideas.

They ended up spending too much Hope and accumulating too much Shadow (after having travelled through a blighted area). This was only their first adventure out and I'm afraid with no way to regain Hope quickly, they are in serious trouble on the next adventure. But, who knows...maybe that will teach them to pace themselves. The growing Shadow is an alluring and dangerous thing afterall.

As a Loremaster, I am going to have to get used to the journey rules. I want to strike just the right balance between rolling dice and describing the scenes. I think travelling into unknown areas should be done with detail and the return trip with quick rolls to see if the company becomes Weary or gains Shadow (if travelling through blighted areas).

We had a company of 6 characters and the two battles we had were not too dangerous (I will probably adjust this next time). The stone troll could have caused a serious problem, but the players rolled well and it was still pure fun!

As I think about all of this today, I really just think we need to play again soon. It was very satisfying and we just need to get used to the rules some more.

I have just run the Marsh Bell scenario from the Loremasters book. While I am sure I did some things wrong, for the most part it went well.

One issue we found was that the two characters who went for rearward stance were hitting only rarely, even during the opening volley they got when fighting the marsh dwellers.

Another point two of the players made was that the skills are not laid out alphabetically so it took them a little while to find them.

From the perspective of the Loremaster I have to say that a cheat sheet or Loremasters screen will make things great deal easier, especially if page references are given for certain rules as I found myself trying to find pages refering to a number of things.

E

Rearward Stance - yeah but that's the cost of barely being hit in return.

If you are a dedicated Archer you need 3 in your Skill. Otherwise, be prepared to leap into melee when the circumstances are in you favour. I think a flexible Melee/Ranged warrior could be fun. Rearward > Forward > Rearward etc picking soft targets.

I'm going to attempt to run what comes with the book, I'm glad to hear people have had success with that. I'm also planning to adapt old adventures from MERP, specifically all the Mirkwood ones. That should give my group plenty to do until more material hits. If it proves fruitful, I'll report on it, and possibly post my notes.

Notes would be cool!

I used to have loads of the ICE stuff when I ran MERP, but I sold them to support by gaming habit!

I do recall that Dol Guldur was a really nasty place, not one for rookie adventurers!

And the less said about the traps in Moria the better! They were gruesome!

Moria!
I've just went to a pit named Moria,
And suddenly that name
Will never be the same
To me.
Moria!

(Adapted from West Side Story...)

Ran the first session of TOR last night. Players wanted to role-play their meeting, so it was short prequel adventure to bring them together as a fellowship.

Stances confused them a bit at first, but by the end of the combat that had the basics.

We had one player roll an 'Eye' on his attack, but the called shot missed.

After resting, we tried the journey rules, following the Elf Path, like Bilbo in the Hobbit and that proved quite troublesome for them, as they rolled a lot of 'Eyes', which makes sense as with four characters rolling Travel, there's a good chance of an 'Eye' cropping up.

By the time they had crossed the marshes and reached Esgaroth there were in a right state!

I thought having to make four Corruption checks each as they passed through the marshes (Shadowlands) was a little harsh, so reduced it to two checks.

One thing did crop up, which I wasn't sure about.

The Healer rolled very well, getting a total of 15 (three ranks of Healing), but he also rolled an 'Eye'.

Couldn't remember if that was auto fail or just a zero under these circumstances. Fortunately, it was only a wound, so it was not potentially fatal if the roll was a fail.

I treated it as a fail then and next day he succeeded, but if the patient had been dying, it would have been an issue.

If the 'Eye' on a heal check is an auto fail, that means that no matter how good the healer, the patient always has a 1 in 12 chance of dying.

I'm tempted to treat the 'Eye' as a zero, rather than auto fail.

Opinions?

From the Adventurer's Book, p.25:

So an EYE result counts as zero in most cases, including the case you mentioned, which means that the Healing roll was successful.

Amado.

Thanks. I was just about to edit my post...

Searched the PDF's and did not find any reference to automatic fail, just minimal result... a zero.

Which I think is better. A lucky roll can still save an 'Eye' roll and if need be invoking an Attribute can do the same.

Thanks for the Character Gen cheat cheat link. I will post it by itself.
HN