Someone on rpg.net asked this question recently:

I always assumed it was the former, but another poster said the latter. I went back and checked the text and it's ambiguous:

AB p.155 says, "If at least one player fails the test and the Feat die ends up showing the Eye icon, a Hazard sequence is triggered" and on p.156: "When a player fails a Fatigue test and the Feat die ends up showing the Eye icon, the result triggers a Hazard."

This seems to support my reading, but:

LMB p.35 says, "A Hazard episode is triggered when the players fail at one or more Fatigue tests and produce at least one Eye icon."

That supports the latter one.

What's the official ruling? Apologies if this has been asked and answered before.

The text being slightly ambiguous, simply due to the fact that an EYE result IMPLIES a failure. So it's not needed to indicate both an EYE and failure is necessary criteria. The fact is - A result of an EYE on the feat dice is always a failure; thus the text only needs to say that "The result of an EYE creates a Hazard Sequence."

So therefore, when attempting a Fatigue Test (via Travel skill check) a result of an EYE by any player creates a hazard; because this would then be a failure - thus meeting both stated criteria needed to trigger a Hazard Sequence: 1) Failure, 2) EYE.


It's worth noting that simply failing a Fatigue Test without an EYE result would NOT trigger a Hazard.


At least this is the way that I and anyone else I've gamed with has read and understood this, and is how we've been using it.

An EYE is not always a failure. It is a 0 with some additional bad effects. I've seen plenty of successful rolls with the EYE.

As to the OP, I read both rules as supporting the former (a failed roll that also has an EYE). It seems strange and convoluted the other way (I succeeded with an EYE, but you failed so there is a hazard).

The best way I've ever heard of giving an example of success with a bad thing was in West End Games' Star Wars RPG. In Star Wars (the first movie, aka Star Wars IV: A New Hope), Luke and Leia are on the Death Star being chased by stormtroopers. They come to a chasm. Luke blasts the controls to the blast door so that the door closes behind them, BUT the same controls that would've extended the bridge across the chasm are now destroyed. He succeeded in cutting off pursuit (which was his stated goal), but hindered his progress!

Hope that helps in explaining a "strange and convoluted" situation.

I sit corrected. I just went back and re-read the basic intro info on the dice management. I guess we have been going with the age-old D&D style that is a 20 (in this case a staff) is always a success then the opposite is true with a 1 (or EYE). I apologize for stating misinformation.

This will change things slightly. Thanks for providing this info.



With that in mind - I'm guessing Thorsgold's scario description is quite succinct. So one person rolls and EYE and someone else fails, it means that something hazardous did occur - due to a combination of factors between multiple people which creates a sum that is more dangerous than the individual parts.

This is how I see it. We have:

A. Player rolls both a failure and an EYE

B. Any player rolls a failure and any player rolls an EYE

So one source (the Adventurer's book) clearly supports A while the other (the Loremaster's book) is ambiguous because of poor wording.

I think it's pretty clearly A.

I think it's A as well, but I'd like an official clarification. It's not completely beyond the realm of possibility that the other interpretation is correct. It certainly has an equivalent in the rules: bouts of madness happen on an Eye, irrespective of whether the roll in question is a success or failure.

Nice summation. Ulitmately, now I'm not sure.

I've assumed until now a hazard was indicated when a single player rolled a Failure & Eye during a single test (option A on doc's previous post). That the actions of a single character resulted in a horrible mistake of some kind which embroiled the whole Company in a difficult endeavor. (The well room in Moria being the perfect example.)

As for any Failure and any Eye, spread amongst the Company during a single test resulting in a Hazard: This might explain why, once a Hazard is indicated, that any character could be the focus of the Hazard. The fact that everyone rolls and then someone at random is the focus of a Hazard has always struck me as odd because all of the other game mechanics are specific to the character that fails a test.

Normally if Bob rolls a test of any kind and fails, Bob suffers the consequence; for hazards, if Bob fails, somebody is the focus of the hazard, although everyone suffers the consequence. I just assumed this was a storytelling gambit (so to speak), and otherwise ignored it.

So at the moment, I am not sure.

FWIW Garn, I do indeed believe that you're right here - the reason that anyone can be affected by someone making a mistake is part of the storytelling.

The party that plays together - pays together.


It's well-within logical reason that among a group out in the wild, one's mistake can and does often times lead to someone else fitting the bill. Think of a military unit - if one person on the team screws the pooch and blows their cover - another soldier could definitely be the one getting the short end.

Or if the Offensive Tackle on an NFL team stumbles when the play starts, his Running Back or Quarterback could be paying the price on that one when they're getting mauled in the next moment because of a missed block.


In TOR - it's just another way for the Fellowship to really bond together - because they do become dependent and reliant on each person around them - as each others actions do impact each other. Which is something I like. Afterall, offering to use pool hope points, or extra d6s in combat to give to anothers' character to help them out. The good affects others; the bad affects others.

Will Amado Angulo's say-so be sufficient?
I was sure I remembered it to be the counter-intuitive one (doctheweasel's B ) so I used the Google link in the TOR Resources thread to search really hard for this. It was confirmed as A in this post back on 1 September.

I don't have any qualms with having gone B when I ran The Marsh Bell, as otherwise there would have been no Hazard in the journey at all, and that wouldn't have been showcasing the system sufficiently...

Cheers,
--Os

Thanks for finding that link Osric! It brought back a lot of memories. As I was reading this thread, I was getting a strong sense that I had been down this road before.