I know I'm contradicting myself here as I suggested a rules tweak myself regarding hope, but...

There seems to be an awful lot of house ruling going on in a game that is barely two weeks into it's life!

It must be quite insulting to Francesco and everyone else involved in the creation of The One Ring that we think we know better than them!

After all, they have put years into the making of the game!

So, I'll be sticking with the rules for now (with any official errata) and, if after a few weeks or months of play feel the need to modify the rules, I will!

Sounds good to me also.

After years of playing ICE's MERP we still do not have house rules.

But to each his own.

On the contrary, I think houserules are a way of showing appreciation of the game and your willingness to play it. A few tweaks don't show you are not happy with the ruleset, just that you're adjusting it to your personal tastes.

It's like adjusting brightness to play a videogame, only a matter of taste.

No one here so far has tried to reinvent the wheel, just clear up some minor doubts and offer little contributions that are completely optional and not necessary at all.

The system is solid, innovative and perfectly portrays the mood of the books - you only have to consider that houseruling is an inherent part of the hobby and is part of the fun for rules junkies like me (and many others ).

I'm sure the designers aren't insulted. Most GMs will make tweaks to a system at some point, no matter what the game is - its not saying "Your game sucks", its saying "I think this will work better for my group in this instance." - and if you've been running games for some time, you tend to be able to spot the stuff that might not work out so well for your players, from the off.

We played MERP, back in the old days, for a good few years on the run - and while I didn't change the rules as such, I did chuck out some of those spell lists that I didn't think were particularly fitting to the setting before we'd even generated any characters!

I don't think they will be insulted at all. They probably enjoy watching other people make the same mistakes they did years ago

FWIW I also plan to stick to the rules as written (unless you count my Encounters additions as house rules). As we have seen, house rules can have consequences and I don't tend to make any until I can understand those in the rules as written.

I am in the "post-tinkerer" phase of my RPG-ing life these days, so I intend to play TOR as close to "as written" as I can.

John

House rules are good - every group is different and what works with one bunch of players falls flat with another. A GM's job is to keep it entertaining and fun - if they spot an issue then introduce a house ruling for it.

You REALLY are not going to be insulting anyone.

I think we're all just discovering the game right now. So, talking about the rules and even houserules helps to clarify the way things are intended to play out. This game is so different from other roleplaying games it falls under the custom group.

I agree with Skywalker that adding to the rules is a valid exercise. I just created a step-by-step list of the journey rules combining the material from the Adventurer's Book and the Loremaster's Book so that I could have everything in one place.

As I was making it, I realized that the suggested Hazards could be added to. Since I like random charts, I listed all the Hazards from the book and made it possible to roll for them, instead of choosing them. Then, I began thinking of other Hazards. One of them would be for All Companions called No Way Around, which would force everyone in the company to make an Athletics roll or suffer Endurance loss or worse (depending on the situation). This represents a rickety bridge, a chasm, or a steep embankment of some sort that everyone has to cross. Just a thought...

I would love to see a big list of Hazards. Maybe 20 for each Role. It would keep me going for years

Hmm, perhaps we should start by listing the Hazards encountered in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

- Trolls
- Goblins
- Enchanted Stream
- Wood Elves
- Shadow tainted lands
- Tom Bombadil
- Barrow Wights
- Marshes
- Avalanches
- Storms
- Waterfalls
- Dead Marshes
- Ongoing plains
- Naturally winding staircases

A lot of these seem covered by the nice broad Hazards we have.

Barrow Wights- I need a Barrow Wight

I would bet we see Barrow Wights in set 2 given the guessed geographical .

I read that could be a year away.

Actually the reason I would like to have a Barrow Wight at this time, in our MERP game I have a locale where one has taken residence.
If my players wanted to make simulacrums of their MERP characters the lack of a Barrow Wight might be an issue.

Otherwise if my game group adopts TOR we would more likely start a new party possibly in another area and play within the available material and I am sure it would provide plenty of adventuring possibilities until they would become available.

Yes. August 2012.

Can't you create the stats in the meantime? The TOR monsters section has a lot of special abilities to model all kinds of things and the rules for creating monsters seem pretty simple.

Can't you create the stats in the meantime? The TOR monsters section has a lot of special abilities to model all kinds of things and the rules for creating monsters seem pretty simple.


To be honest with you I haven't gotten that far along. I just started digesting the basics since I downloaded my copy this past weekend.

I am still in the hero creation learning phase.

So it is not a critical issue for me and my group at this time.
They still would need some convincing to even begin playing sessions much less me worried about LM'ing a scenario of the magnitude involving successful encounters with a Barrow Wight.

So I'm good for now!
Thanks

Just make the Barrow Wight a Vampire from the LM and watch your players do a double take

Hahah!

I can imagine that would be the quickest way to get drummed out of an LM job!!

There's something I'd really like to see. Instead of a full bestiary, just give us 30-40 new monster special abilities and I'd be happy to create my own monsters based on the books.

The initial list on the Loremaster book is amazing for a start and a great tool for the LMs.

Thought I had last night when retiring for the evening.

What if players could reinvest their Rewards? Virtues would be static, as they are not physical but rather learned or racial skills and abilities, but Rewards, would you allow a character to "lose" their trusty keen blade in a skirmish only to "find" a reinforced shield in a treasure horde? All set up through player and LM discussion of course...

Heh - totally posting as a civilian gamer, rather than someone that worked on the game:

Something that me and my good friend Steve, in who's game I hope to play soon, have been discussing is how great it is that the system is so flexible. It's very elastic, and can take a lot of tinkering specifically because the underlying design is so good.

I keep talking about how TOR slices the pie differently than other games - the way armour works, encumbrance affects combat, travelling affects combat and so on. This is great, as by keeping those underlying slices intact they can easily be reskinned quite liberally without breaking. Ew I totally mixed metaphors there - skin pie? Ew.

Very popular amongst orcs and goblins!

Tastes like chicken!