There really aren't many uses for Treasure in THe One Ring RPG. Yes, you can raise your standing in your culture, but that's about it. Sure, a character can spend Treasure Points (TPs)to buy things but most of that is already covered under the standard of living, so TPs don't really do much. I have heard that the Lake-Town supplement adds some rules for purchasing better equipment, and that got me thinking about coming up with ideas for new uses for TPs. Note that these are still just rough ideas. I'm hoping that with some discussion we could hammer these into some new rules.


1) Hiring Servants;\ This would be like the servants that come with the Merchant Prince virtue. The difference here is that hired servants require pay (Treasure Points) and have no special tie to the character, nor are they protected the way virtues and rewards are. I think a good price might be around 1 TP per season for typical servants. Perhaps more for the Physician.

Training: The characters could hire teachers to train them with their skills during the Fellowship Phase. Training for a Fellowship Phase nets the character 1 experience point or advancement point towards the desired skill.
THe teacher must have a skill rating higher than the student(s) in the desired skill, and the cost in TPs is equal to the teacher's skill rating.

Strengthening Sanctuaries: It would be nice if the players could use thier treasure to help bolster the sanctuaries and other places of support in their fight against the Enemy. Maybe build better defenses, provide better gear to the fold there, arrange for skilled people to be on site. I was thinking that such would not only give the PCs a new use for treasure points, but also help to create new adventure ideas with eh players working towards building up a sanctuary in some fashion. In fact a keeping a sanctuary going could become the central theme of a campaign.

I had a couple of ideas that might help with this. The first is to allow the characters to spend treasure points to buy bonus dice for the sanctuary. These dice could be spent by the people of the sanctuary to aid in future actions much the same way characters can spend bonus dice in combat. The bonus dice could be bought in different areas, such as defenses (used in combat), Reconnaissance (used to be aware of activity near the sanctuary) and so on. The skill proficiency groups (Personality, Movement, Perception, Survival, Custom, and Vocation) might be a good way to classify the bonus dice, as well as combat, and resources.

I was thinking that 1 treasure point could buy 1 bonus die. Characters would still be limited to using 1 bonus dice at a time, although the sanctuary itself might be allowed to spend up to 6 dice on an activity, to represent the actions of multiple people. One the deice are spent, they are gone. Sanctuaries would probably use up some bonus dice each year based on their proximity to the forces of the Enemy.


Any of this sound good?

I did something somewhat similar to your strengthen sanctuary ideas n my first game.

The exectution was different (a lot more like raise standing) but the idea was similar.

We called the game "Castle Hill" and the first few sessions was the heroes claiming the castle from bandits. After that we had our first fellowship phase; The thing we did was that we could raise our standing of castle hill by spending treasure there, but instead of gifts, it was hiring builders and building it up or attracting laborers, be them farmers, blacksmiths, horse breeders, or masters at arms to train a militia.

We didn't have a lot of explicit rules, but building up the settlement had definite in game consequences. Having a blacksmith meant we had access to weapon and armor repairs, or even new weapons. Developing stable meant that we could have horses, also when we moved in on the first fellowship phase the LM changed all of our standards of living to Frugal, but as we developed the settlement it changed to Martial.... anyway it was definitely "outside the box" but it was a lot of fun.

I certainly open to other ways of handling sanctuaries. I went with bonus dice because I was originally thinking of fornications, and then thought of expanding it to other things, and the proficiency groups seemed expedient.

I was also thinking of using the advantaged/hindered rules with a cost of 1 TP per plus per person who got the bonus (i.e. a fort that gives a +2 bonus to 10 defenders would cost 20 TP).

I'd just like to see more uses for trasure. As the rules are now, players will be encouraged to just max out thier commuity standing with it.

I really hope you meant 'fortifications' there, otherwise it's a little too much information.

That's hilarious! Spending Treasure on fornications

Oops! I got to pay closer attention to spell-check. That was not the word I had intended! I thouight I had typed fortifications. but I must have clicked on that other word.

I do hope nobody's been playtesting it the other way.

Spell-check aside, it's a very interesting idea.
Reminds me of Ars Magica's Covenant rules: my players would love something similar.
Did Pendragon have some such rules? Maybe in the fief supplement? Used to have it, till the river swept my library...

If we ever got the Conan license and used the One Ring rules...

Substitute Hope with "Guts" or "Primeval Strength"...

Hi,

We earned a very large amount of treasure going into our second Fellowship Phase (we took on a dragon in a crazy suicide mission and not only survived but killed the dragon and earned a small share of the hoard).

I have established that my character (a woodman) wants to become the leader of his people, thus his goal is to increase his standing with his people. Because you can't eat gold, my character used his share of the loot to buy wagons, draft horses, weapons and armor, useful household items (cauldrons, ladles, needles), iron plows, extra food and to also hire soldiers. Then, he traveled back to his home village.

He made a large show of telling the story of his travels and victory over the dragon and then gifted items to every member of the village, including the wagons and draft horses. My character brought enough food so that he could keep the soldiers in the village over the winter. During that time, he led the soldiers and villagers on raids to clear out nearby orc nests.

Although this all happened off stage (we didn't role play it, I just wrote up what happened), the idea was that instead of just "spending" treasure to gain status, it was what the character did with those treasure points that mattered.

Treasure points didn't buy him the standing of "captain", showing up with gifts for the clan and leading expeditions against the orcs with professional soldiers and the village militia (freshly armed with new weapons and armor) EARNED him the title.

Personally, I enjoyed figuring out what he would do with the treasure. Writing it up was as much fun as some of our role playing sessions.

- Sageryne

Bravo! And this, children, is what the Fellowship Phase is all about.

Ars MAgica had rules for Covenets, and Pendragon did (and still does) have rules for building and maintaining fortifications. Decipher's LotR RPG also had something along those lines. But, if we stick closer to home, C7's Primeveral and Doctor Who RPgs both have rules for bases that could be used for inspiration.

Pendragon has oodles of options for spending your wealth:

... Manor enhancements ranging from fortifications, to men-at-arms, to apiaries, falconries, herb gardens, and gazebo.

... Conspicuous consumption for (just) raising Glory.

... Spending money on your retinue for expanding and increasing those people and their skills that serve your knight.

... Extra equipment.

... Presents to woo a courtly lady.

... To supplement a particularly bad harvest in a given year.

... Improving the survival rate of children by raising health levels.

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The list goes on and on. The game's designed to get your knight PCs blowing their wealth all the time on numerous and varied things.

I'm sure if TOR develops to include dominion rules for characters that gain such Standing as to be one of the leaders of their people then such elements would all be of import but some have some usage, perhaps, even in the current state of the campaign setting - eg, equipment, courting favour, and aiding others due to poor harvests (although this is more attributed to surplus foodstuff from previous years in Pendragon).

In your opinion, it's easy to convert all this stuff in TOR?

Used to have Pendragon 4th edition: I think that at the time the prices were set in librae (£). Wondering if there can be an easy conversion tresure/£

Yes, I think it could be.

Long Winded Working Out
It takes £6 to maintain a Knight, his squire, horses, and equipment in good repair, well fed, and at an Ordinary standard of living for one year. The knight has a manor that gives him a roof over his head and food for the year which isn't factored into the £6.

As a comparison a peasant family can be kept for £1 in the Pendragon rules, which I reckon equates to Poor in TOR's standard of living descriptions/levels.

So, what do we set a knight at? I think Martial in TOR is the obvious one. Obviously knights in Pendragon can live at higher levels but it feels right that Martial in TOR equates to Ordinary in Pendragon.

It takes £6 to maintain a knight in Pendragon AND his squire, etc. Lets knock a bit off for those extra things but also add a bit as his food and lodgings aren't included in the £6. Feels about right that maintaining one person at Ordinary level would be about £4 in Pendragon. So 66% of the full amount relates to one individual and nothing else.

I think Rich in Pendragon relates to Prosperous in TOR and amusingly Rich in TOR relates to Superlative in Pendragon.

To maintain a Rich standard of living in Pendragon costs £9 to £12, so at 66% that's between £6 and £8.

It takes 12 Treasure in TOR to maintain an individual at Prosperous level for a year.

If Prosperous in TOR equals Rich in Pendragon then that means 12 Treasure is equal to £6 to £8. So 1 Treasure equals £0.5 or £0.66r. Lets just go with the £0.5. So...

Too Long, Didn't Read
£1 in Pendragon equals 2 Treasure in TOR.

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Or just, sod all that, and say £1 in Pendragon equals 1 Treasure in TOR, keeping it straightforward! Not entirely accurate by my working out but still okay.

EDIT: Things do break down a little though on closer examination with Pendragon's price lists. For instance, a Gold Goblet costs £12 whereas a Goblin Hoard is 10 Treasure in TOR. Whatever conversion you go with, then that still feels wonky - I think those kind of things are just going to be problems when converting an explicit set of prices (Pendragon price lists) with an abstract system (TOR's treasure system).

Thank you, RichH

And screw equipment price list: these never have any sense, in any game. The only thing that matter here is standard of living/building strongholds/raising troops/etc.

There are some other things you can spend libra on in Pendragon:

- You can hire teachers in various skills. This gives you a chance for a skill check or in some cases an automatic skill check (in Pendragon a skill check lets a player roll to improve his skill at the end of the year.)

-You can add improvements to the land, which can improve the land's income (vastly important in Pendragon, where a PCs income is based off his fief. Not really applicable in a TOR game unless the LM wants to make PCs landholders of some sort.)

-You can improve your relations with your peasants. In Pendragon this is tracked as a Love (liege) or Hate (Liege) passion that can affect how well the peasants perform their duties and build projects.


I think the £1 per Treasure Point conversion makes the most sense. £1 in Pendragon iis the value of 1 pound of silver, or about 240 pennies, which if what I've read about the Lake-Town supplement is correct, is almost identical.

I'm almost sure in 4th ed. there was the price for hiring troops for a month. Maybe this can be used for comparison with the "standard of living" found in Lake Town booklet (knights are assumed to have lots of retainers and horses to maintain). Does it make sense?

By the way, which Pendragon's edition are you talking about?
(Yes. I'm looking for an excuse to re-buy Pendragon )

Yeah thesre was price for hiring troops. There was a price for yearly service and a monthly charge for hiring mercenaries. The actual prices varied by the type of soldiers. It also wasn't payment in money, either, butin goods and food- that's fine as it probably matches up better with treasure points!

THe latest, and most detailed edition in 5.1 , and the Book of the Manor is supplement that covers running a knight's estates. The book is full of things to suck down a PCs treasure. But it does detract somewhat from the adventuring. In my last campaign the PCs would spend half the session working on their estates and working on the spreadsheets. That is probably too much time wasted in a TOR game.

I could kinda see some land management being used for Knight of Gondor but I think Pendragon's focus on knights goes a bit too far for TOR.

One idea I've been playing around with is for the players to have the option to "spend" Treasure Points when they receive them. I'll explain shortly, but I must stress that this isn't an option every time they get Treasure Points.

I really like to have Treasure Points translate into gold and silver, as in the optional rule in the Lake Town booklet. The player's will decide what the Treasure Points really are, and choose from a list: Here are some examples:

-The heroes arrive in Lake Town after having saved a couple of dwarves from a swamp. Gloin gives the heroes 5 Treasure points. Being a dwarf, Gloin will reward in gold (1 TP for each gold coin), silver (1 TP for 20 coins) and maybe gems (5 TP per gem). The players decide.

-The heroes discover a troll cave full of loot. The GM decides that the cave has 15 Treasure Points, and gives the players a list of what might be found in the cave and how many Treasure Points each is worth. One player might find some gold pieces (1 TP each), another a gem (5 TP) and another might find an old but high quality set of armor (8 TP).

-Escaping a prison cell, the heroes find themselves in the armoury of the villain's castle. Orcs are on their heels, but the heroes might have time to grab some gear. They only have time to take 5 TP worth of weapons and armour, and the GM has a list for what might be in the room and how many TPs they are worth. One grabs a sword and a shield for 5 TP, another a bow and good armor. The dwarf spots a shiny jewel, and grabs that instead.

-The elven archer in the group wins an archery contest. The reward is 3 TPs, which in this case, the player decides, is a nice golden medal forged by dwarves.

The idea is to let the players come up with some creative ideas on what "Treasure Points" actually means. The idea really came from the troll cave scene in the Hobbit. What the players choose to let the Treasure Points represent really tells the group a lot about the character.

A generic list of possible items might be made, or the GM could have a specific list for each situation where Treasure Points are obtained.

-Eirik

Ferretz, that's wonderful! I've done something like that before, but nothing so deliberate. Now I'm aching to try.

The PCs in my game totally surprised me our first session by deciding they wanted to spend the treasure they got on building a longhouse in Woodsman Hall. I was so proud!

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but I don't see the upside to the picking your own treasure thing.

First off, I think it requires a very good scale of benchmarks if you put useful items such as weapons and armor in the mix. While we can just accept that a 2 TP gemstone is more valuable than a 1TP gemstone, it gets much hard to explain why a sword costs 2 TP, 5TP or whatever.

Secondly, the pick your own treasure thing can easily result in a glut of previously rare item items (look at how many gems that dwarf is collecting). Some PCs might start finding matched sets. THe PCs can really go dragging around bags full of treasure (too much encumbrance), so that kind of limits how far you can really go with the neat items approach. The nature of TOR is going to force the PCs to leave the majority of their treasure behind while adventuring or spend it.

Lastly, and most importantly the problem with treasure points isn't so much in describing what players get, but in what use the treasure points actually are to the characters. It doesn't really matter if that 1TP is a gemstone, coin, a nice drinking goblet, or a strand of Galadriel's hair. It's what you can do with that 1 TP that is the problem. Right now, not much. A PC can buy standing in his own community, raise his standard of living for a few months, take advantage of the new rules in the Lake-town book, or buy it somewhere to dig up later.

Considering that TOR makes things like equipment and special items free or part of a PCs culture and virtues, treasure is almost a non item. Yet it gets used as a reward in the adventures.

I delved a bit into Pendragon's excellent Book of Manors (here), and "translated" something for TOR. I estimated that 1£ in Pendragon = 4 treasure points in TOR
(same reasoning as Rich H, really, just I think that Pendragon's Knights got a very expensive lifestyle compared to the rugged heroes from the Wilderland... and they got some damn precious horses to care of, and squires, etc.).

Object /Cost / Maintenance / Income / Notes
Wooden House 6 / 0 / 0
Mill 60 / 2 / d4
New village 180 / 0 / 4 / 20 families, 100 inhabitants

Herd of horses 40 / 10 / d6x4 / 5 horses, sells one every 1-2 years
Herd of cows 15 / 3 / d6 / 30 cows
Herd 5 / 2 / d4 / 80 sheep
Fish pond 5 / 1 / 1d2
Apiary 2 / 1 / 1d2
Orchard 10 / 1 / 0 for the first 4 years ;1d2 +1 for the next 6; 1d4+1 after 10 years
New plots d10 / 0 / 1

Bridge, small 8 / 1 / 0 / wooden
Bridge, medium 16 / 2 / 0 / wooden
Bridge, big 32 / 4 / 0 / wooden
...if stone x5 / x1 .../

Road, x mile 4 / ? / 0 / through a forest: x2


Longhouse, wood 60 / 1 / 0 / thatched roof
Longhouse, stone 90 / 1 / 0 / thatched roof
Manor, wood 120 / 2 / 0 / wooden roof. Two floors.
Manor, stone 180 / 2 / 0 / tiled roof. Two floors.

Moat 8 / 2 / 0 / protects a longhouse or manor
Ditch&Rampart 20 / 2 / 0 / protects a longhouse or manor
Palisade 60 / 4 / 0 / protects a longhouse or manor
Wooden tower 100 / 4 / 0 / protects a longhouse or manor
Stone tower 200 / 4 / 0 / protects a longhouse or manor

Note 1: I was unable to reconcile the sample prices in the Laketown booklet with the cost of living, nor with Pendragon's economics, sorry.
Note 2: coming from Pendragon, the horse herd here is damn expensive. This can be used to explain to the players why horses are so rare here

Thanks for the hard work!





RE Note 1: Don't apologize, it's not your fault. It is almost impossible to reconcile price lists from two different RPGs. Different authors will tend to come up with different relative values for things. It's hard to do it with historical prices lists too.

RE Note 2: If I recall correctly the horse heard in Pendragon also produce horses that can be suitable warhorses. Riding and Pack horses are much cheaper in Pendragon, and a heard of "lesser quality" horses would probably be cheaper.

I've been playing a bit more with the idea. Let's say that each Patron has a list of things that Treasure Points can be spent on (so using this rule is only when the heroes have a Patron). The list is divided up into categories (Treasure, Precious Item, Virtue, Warrior and Secret). Each category has an effect.

1TP Treasure: regular Treasure Points that can be used as normal
2 TP Precious Item: worth Treasure, but can be traded with a specific culture for a bit more.
3 TP Virtue: Access one of the Patron's virtues the next Adventure Phase.
4 TP Warrior: A warrior from the Patron's culture joins the hero to protect him and fight the Shadow. For the next Adventure Phase, the player has the option of rerolling the Feat Die for attacks and Protection rolls and pick the best result. However, if the reroll results in a Sauron's Eye, the warrior is wounded and out of the current fight.
5 TP Secret: This is a catch-all for very potent advantages that the Patron can provide.

For instance, the list for Beorn could look something like this:

Treasure from Beorn:

1TP Treasure: 20 Pieces of Silver
Beorn doesn't have the same access to gold as the dwarves and rich traders around Lake-Town, so he rewards the heroes in silver coins (these are just normal, unspent Treasure Points)

2TP Precious Item: Piece of Polished Amber from the Banks of the Anduin
Amber can sometimes be found in the banks of the Anduin, polished down by the water currents. This smooth piece of amber can be traded with the Men of the Lake for 3TP each.

3TP Virtue: Twice-baked Honey Cakes
Beorn gifts the hero with Twice-baked Honey Cakes, giving him access to that virtue for the next Adventure Phase.

4TP Beorning Warrior
A Beorning Warrior joins the hero to fight the servants of the Shadow and to guard him in battle for the next Adventure Phase (roll the Feat Die twice protection rolls, and pick the best result - if The Eye of Sauron is rolled on a protection roll, the Bodyguard is wounded, and out for the rest of the fight).

5TP Secret: Brown Bear
For some mysterious reason only Beorn knows, one of the great Brown Bears in service of Beorn joins the hero for the next Adventure Phase. The effect of this is the same as for having a Beorning Warrior fighting with the hero, but in addition, when fighting in Forward Stance, the hero can use the Intimidate Foe action in addition to making regular attacks.


So there you go. If you want Treasure for your Standing, you'd go for the first or second option. The options are alternatives to Treasure Points.

-Eirik

Oooh, I like this better. IMO it is more in keeping with the books. I could see expanding it to allow for several options at each TP level. FOr example in The Hobbit Beon not only provides Thorin & Company with Honey Cakes, but he also provides them with other supplies and even loans them some pack animals.

I could see things like maps, access to libraries, ketter of introductions, and more all be treated as treasure.

I could see a map gibe an advantage to travel and explore tasks.

Maybe some items could be of a temporary nature and used up. For instance, honey cakes, elvish waybread, medical supplies. etc. 1 TP could buy so many days, weeks or whatever of the item. So eventually you run out of honey cakes.

The warrior concept could be expanded to cover other types of retainers. WE could simply apply the same game mechanic to different skills. I could see allowing the fellowship to get multiple warriors/hirelings. The mechanics would be the same except that:
-More PCs could get the benefit
-If a warrior is wounded another one can take his place
-A wounded warrior should probably be out of the adventure until the next fellowship phase, like a Mirkwood Hound. Or possibly even killed, since they aren't protected the way a PC's virtues and rewards are.



Perhaps if a PC has a good relationship with a culture he could spend Treasure Points to be eligible to acquire rewards and virtues from that culture. In the books, the heroes seem to get rewards from other cultures.

This is wonderful and totally in line with the narrative and flavorful spirit of the game.

The only downside is it would require a modicum of intimate knowledge of certain regions/cultures etc.

For instance, - I have no idea that amber was commonly found along the Anduin.


Granted - we could 'make stuff up'. But in order to have some level of consistency i would need to rely on scholars and sages in the Tolkien canon (which I am no novice - but I certainly don't espouse to have that level of detail in my repertoire) to come up with possible rewards for a give locale/culture.


Regardless - this is VERY well done.


For the record - I have already allowed players to add a little freedom of creativity when they "find TPs" to give an idea of what they snatched from the pile.

"You find the equivalent of 3TPs"
"Oh well my Barding is a sucker for nice clothing - so I would make sure that out of this some of my gains would be a fine cloak or fancy gloves or boots or something."


"Well my hobbit would envy a decorative nice looking scabbard to keep my shortsword in......"

I'm not sure about the amber, but I read somewhere that it was historically found on the shores of the Baltic sea. But I'm not "amber expert".

I might just write up some lists for the different Patrons and see what I can come up with. I'll post them here when I get to it.

Eirik

Oh LOL - I thought your amber/anduin thing was something you knew from some Middle-earth source somewhere.

I would assume it's popular wherever there are sap-trees.

LOL! THe first thing that went through my mind when I saw this was how it could be customized by area. Dorwinion Wine, Shire tobacco, etc.

We might be able to raid the old MERP supplements for some ideas. We probably wouldn't want to use everything, as ICE had a tendacny to sneak in stuff from RoleMaster or made up thier own stuff, but we could probably cross check anything we find with Tolkien's works.

I suppose we could do up tables of "treasures" for each region/culture with TP costs. Something like:

Treasures of Erebor
Dwarven Toys (assortment): 1 TP
Weapon or Armor: TP cost = half the encumbrance
Jewelry: TP cost variable

Yes, that's a great idea. Instead of having Treasure Points tied to Patrons, it should be tied to each Culture. A Hobbit reward would be very different from a Beorning one.

However, I suggest that some rewards are alternatives to Treasure Points, but they would be measured in their value in TPs anyway (for instance, I hero could have a supply of Twice-Baked Honey Cakes for one Adventuring Phase).

I'll see if I can type up some rewards over the weekend.



-Eirik

These are just some quick thoughts off the top of my head - that definitely would require some fine tuning, and expanded upon for better understanding.


Beornings
____________
Honey Cakes
Warrior NPC
Mead



Hobbits
____________
Pipeweed




Elves
____________
Wine
Healing salves
lembas bread
Guide NPC


Dwarves
____________
Gems
Warrior NPC



Woodmen
_____________
Healing salves
Guide/Scout/Tracker/Hunter NPC

I really like this idea! Having it tied to cultures makes more sense in the world of Tolkien, well done indeed.

I was wondering about upkeep in standard of living. Is this something that is mentioned somewhere in the core rules at all? I have tried to find information on this point but have found none. Anyway me and the people i play with think that it might be a good idea to spend treasure, that you have to spend TP to upkeep your standard of living as it gives the PCs some benefits and so on. This tied to the culture TP idea might work well.

My question stands however. Is it so that you have to pay upkeep in order to stay at a certain standard of living and if so, where can i find information on how much TP for each standard?

Thank you

-M

Standing upkeep: a-book, page 169

Raise standard of living: a-book, page 173

Raise standing: a-book, page 173

...and Long Lake supplement, page 11


Many thanks to James R. Brown for the index

Thank you! Been trying to find that for quite some time now.

The Lake-town book inspired me to go back and look at the monetary system from the old MERP game. It is both more complex and simpler than the new one in TOR. Simpler in that the MERP system is decinal-based, with each denomination (generally) valued at 10X the coin below it (there are mithril coins which are worth up to 100 gold coins. Mithril pieces are rare; being more common in early to mid-Third Age. Their value can vary widely, dropping to half or even to 1/10 of their standard value). The MERP monetary system is more complex in the sense that there is a wider range of coinage:

1 mithril piece (mp) = 100 gold pieces (gp)
1 gold piece (gp) = 10 silver pieces (sp)
1 silver piece (sp) = 10 bronze pieces (bp)
1 bronze piece (bp) = 10 copper pieces (cp)
1 copper piece (cp) = 10 tin pieces (tp)

I always felt that there was at least one denomination too many. Given the option, I would have probably dropped the tin pieces.

I do like the Lake-town option of equating 1 Treasure to 1 gold piece and plan to use this when appropriate. I do wish, though, that the market prices had included a greater range of goods and services. I assmue that 1 serving of cheap ale would be around 1c while a good meal would be more like 5c or more, and a night at an average inn would be something like 1s and up (less for poor lodging).