Hi everyone! New guy here. Me and my group played TOR for a while and we're really happy about it. I'm not used to big fantasy games with strong settings, but this one really conquered my heart. However, there was one night (about 3-4 weeks ago) we could not believe our eyes:

we ventured in the dark lands in Mirkwood for 2-3 hexes and boy each of us had to roll more than 15 corruption tests in a row just for the travel. I, being a very wise hobbit, managed to survive well; the barding had lots of luck with the dice; the dwarf, with his stiff neck of dwarves, accepted almost joyfully his +8 shadow points, but the elf was really devasted and ended up with a total of 17 shadow points. However, I'm not complaining about the result, I find it really appropriate to became weary if you enter the dark lands, and of us only the elf had more shadow than hope.

However, did we do something wrong? Or no one during the playtest noticed how boring and dull is entering dark lands? I mean, 2 rolls per day of travel, for a total of 15+ rolls in a row for each player really sucks. Really. This thing stole a lot of time from our game, just to roll and keep record of the results. It also broke the flow of the story and ruined our immersion in the setting. And we ventured for just 3 hexes. If you have to travel for say, 6 hexes, do you also have to roll 30+ times for corruption?!

Maybe, instead of having to roll 1/week for wild lands, 1/day for shadow lands and 2/day for dark lands, it would be better to always have to roll once per week, but earning more shadow points in shadow or dark lands?

Thank you for your attention.

I think your GM is doing it wrong... to me, Blighted Places are specific locales, not the entirety of a hex. The Barrow Downs in the Fellowship of the Ring or Dol Goldur would be a good example of Blighted Places... if the Fellowship lingers in such places, then those Corruption checks are required. It's not just required for moving through a hex. No one would make it through Mirkwood if you had to make a check twice a day for every day you're in the Mirkwood. The Elves would have all succumbed to the Shadow long ago if that were the case.

Blighted Places are exactly that specific Places. I can understand the confusion from the wording and chart in the book, but

Ashley's Expanded Journey rules address this among a few other things.

THIS THREAD by Francesco speaks precisely to that concern.

Suffice to say that your LM is not 'wrong' but didn't have to use that many either.

A Shadowed land doesn't mean the whole area is "blighted". Blighted areas are why you need Corruption tests. Blighted areas are more prevalent in Shadowed Lands; but it's possible to never encounter a Blighted area when traveling into a Shadowed Land - just that the odds are not in your favor.

Denoting an entire area as Shadowed Lands merely points out the increase in difficulty (TN) on some checks and gives LM some guidance to increase the likelihood of encountering a Blighted .

this makes much more sense. It's not him, we as a group interpreted the rules as we played. Now, it will be difficult to explain this to the others...

Thank you very much!

SirKicley's link to the Concerning Blighted Places topic is the most relevant as it gives you the TOR author's clarification of the game mechanics directly.

The only thing I would add is that as Francesco says, do not assume that Wild, Shadow and Dark lands are or must contain a blighted somewhere inside it's environs. They may not have one. It is theoretically possible to move through any of these lands and not encounter any blighted . Alternately, you could constantly trip over them, like they were blades of grass in the lawn.

When you do encounter a blighted , it can be almost anything. From a very specific as in the Return of the King, the spot where the carcass of the Witch-king's flying mount is left, where plants never grow again. (Admittedly this is pushing the concept a bit - but it shows a bit of the randomness involved.)

Or it can be a general area, something like the Dead Marshes, where the threat can be spread over a large area. Yet despite this Frodo got through with minimal trouble (two hazards - nearly succumbing to the corpses & drowning and the Ringwaith's flyby).

Someone mentioned the Barrow-downs, I would not call that entire area of terrain blighted. Instead I would consider that terrain as being Shadow Lands, with getting close to, or entering, a haunted barrow as being a blighted area. Barrows that are not occupied by a wight would just be Shadow Land. A map of the terrain would basically look like a randomly dotted piece of fabric with each haunted barrow represented by a dot.

But, as always, you and your fellow players can decide exactly how the rules and environment work within your personal campaign.

Perhaps, being a bit 'green behind the ears' the Party was 'jumping at shadows' as they entered the forest for the first time due to the stories they had been told of its danger. But they got lucky and made it through with little difficulty. The Party won't be so jumpy the next time around. Of course the Elf would be the worse affected - he has never seen the forest looking so cruel and dark. He would mourn the passing of time and the fading of the forests' once vibrant life force. (The LM might want to run a one-off Shadow reduction event to correct things, or continue as is with player consent. Elf should be the deciding vote, IMO, as he's most affected.)

I hope this has been of some help.

PS: Explaining... Assuming a computer at the gaming , either load the necessary page once everyone is together, save it for offline display, or print a copy of relevant messages. Or, write down the webpage address and they can read it for themselves.

On a related note, I believe traveling the Elf Path in "Don't Leave the Path" requires Corruption checks.