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Hope and Loot
Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 7:55 pm
by Glorelendil
I've been reading (and re-reading) the rules, and also digging through these forums figuring other people would have the same questions that I do. But there are a couple things I'd love to get some philosophical clarity on.
1) Hope. If I understand it right, your Hope pool is a lifetime resource that is very hard to replenish. (Mostly from the Fellowship pool, maybe a few other rare circumstances.) But it seems like an awful lot of abilities and mechanics require spending a point of Hope, either directly or indirectly, and in a lot of the rule examples the characters are shown spending Hope, as if that's what you're supposed to do. If it's a lifetime resource, and on average each party member can only spend one replaceable point, I'd be terrified of ever spending mine. "I'll probably be in even deeper hot water later; better save it."
In practice, how often do characters actually use their Hope?
2) Loot. I realize that this game is very different from, say, D&D, and it's not all about slaying monsters and finding magic items, but "found items" seem to be entirely absent. Somebody in a post or elsewhere suggested that the Loremaster could make Rewards be found objects, rather than gifts, but that means that you don't actually get your reward until the next Adventuring phase, and even then if you want it to be the extra special loot you get for the climax of the adventure you have to forego having it for most of the phase. Alternatively, if you use RAW, I find it narratively awkward to stack multiple rewards on the same item (that dingy short sword you inherited keeps coming back from the blacksmith with finer attributes...?).
The chance discovery of "magic items" may have occurred very rarely in the Hobbit and LoTR (Troll cave, the Ring, daggers from the Barrow Downs), but they...not even counting the Ring...were important moments in the stories. Robert E. Howard's Conan stories were almost completely devoid of "magic" (Conan seemed to have a new, mundane weapon every other page), but the whole saga starts off with him finding a well-made sword in a crypt. Plus it's just fun to kill that bad guy and loot an amazing sword. Is that aspect of gaming truly absent in TOR? Is part of the goal to avoid situations where only one member of the party gets an amazing reward? Or is the whole thing just too slippery of a slope and it becomes unbalancing? I.e., as soon as you allow players to find glowing elf-blades in troll caves suddenly they're all running around with them?
***SPOILER***
There seems to be a hint of such a reward in Darkening, but after reading it several times it's still not clear if the players are supposed to end up with the item, and if they do it's only by being bad.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 8:11 pm
by Glorelendil
Just to elaborate on my comment about "narratively awkward": imagine a player who wants to spend 3 reward points making his sword Keen, Grievous, and Fell. (And maybe a 4th point making it a cultural weapon.)
Sure, as Loremaster I can think of ways that this could happen over 4 fellowship phases. But it's clearly just me inventing ways to narrate player choices.
Conversely, getting all those attributes at once, in a sword with a history and a name, by finding it in a dark and dangerous place after overcoming frightening challenges, is just a fun experience. And there's also something about "finding" it in the course of adventuring, rather than "buying" (even if it's with XP rather than gold), that's compelling.
Even if the player told me,"Hey, at the next fellowship phase I'm going to spend my point on X..." and I worked it into the final step of the current adventure phase, there's still something missing. Like buying yourself a Christmas present and asking your wife to wrap it for you.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:01 pm
by Valarian
Elfcrusher wrote:1) Hope. If I understand it right, your Hope pool is a lifetime resource that is very hard to replenish. (Mostly from the Fellowship pool, maybe a few other rare circumstances.) But it seems like an awful lot of abilities and mechanics require spending a point of Hope, either directly or indirectly, and in a lot of the rule examples the characters are shown spending Hope, as if that's what you're supposed to do. If it's a lifetime resource, and on average each party member can only spend one replaceable point, I'd be terrified of ever spending mine. "I'll probably be in even deeper hot water later; better save it."
Players shouldn't be afraid to spend hope. The loss of hope is a major theme in LotR, and is part of the game. Characters become more grim and bear their troubles. A bout of madness or two is not to be feared. The third and fourth need to be considered more deeply.
Elfcrusher wrote:2) Loot. I realize that this game is very different from, say, D&D, and it's not all about slaying monsters and finding magic items, but "found items" seem to be entirely absent. Somebody in a post or elsewhere suggested that the Loremaster could make Rewards be found objects, rather than gifts, but that means that you don't actually get your reward until the next Adventuring phase, and even then if you want it to be the extra special loot you get for the climax of the adventure you have to forego having it for most of the phase. Alternatively, if you use RAW, I find it narratively awkward to stack multiple rewards on the same item (that dingy short sword you inherited keeps coming back from the blacksmith with finer attributes...?).
The chance discovery of "magic items" may have occurred very rarely in the Hobbit and LoTR (Troll cave, the Ring, daggers from the Barrow Downs), but they...not even counting the Ring...were important moments in the stories. Robert E. Howard's Conan stories were almost completely devoid of "magic" (Conan seemed to have a new, mundane weapon every other page), but the whole saga starts off with him finding a well-made sword in a crypt. Plus it's just fun to kill that bad guy and loot an amazing sword. Is that aspect of gaming truly absent in TOR? Is part of the goal to avoid situations where only one member of the party gets an amazing reward? Or is the whole thing just too slippery of a slope and it becomes unbalancing? I.e., as soon as you allow players to find glowing elf-blades in troll caves suddenly they're all running around with them?
With Conan, he was a spender. He gambled and lost his money and goods, frequently. That's when they weren't taken from him when he was captured.
In the Lord of the Rings, the gift-culture can explain decent weapons in the Fellowship Phase. The characters are gifted weapons that match the spend of rewards, replacing their existing weapon. If their weapon is an heirloom, they "unlock" abilities hidden in the weapon as they gain experience in its use - making better use of what they already have. The glowing blades would only come from a gift from the Elves (probably only of Rivendell).
Loot (Treasure) should come in hoards found in the Adventuring phase, rather than through looting bodies.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 2:48 pm
by Glorelendil
Completely understand/agree about looting from hoards, not from bodies, but still there's no example of it anywhere in the official materials.
I can imagine the following: the adventurers vanquish the huge spider that has been guarding the mountain pass, and deep in the web-filled caves, below the monster's central web, they find centuries' worth of skeletons in a pit, along with anything that didn't decompose to time and spider secretions. Along with a fair amount of coin, they find a curiously unblemished spear head.
During the Fellowship phase one of the adventurers has a skilled woodcrafter make a new haft for the spear head, and also spends xp on Valor, choosing an attribute for his new spear.
Then on another Fellowship phase he winters with somebody who tells him something about the make of the spear head, "unlocking" the power that he spend another Valor point on.
And again the next year he winters with yet somebody else who knows how to reveal the secret writing on the spear head, unlocking yet another power.
Etc.
It's a little bit of a stretch narratively, but I could make that work.
Still, I wish the concept of "finding powerful items in the monster's hoard" had been more explicitly addressed. Maybe the Rivendell book will go into this.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 3:43 pm
by Valarian
I like the spear head idea, but it doesn't have to all be "unlocking".
The way I see it is that someone has a sword. Spending the time with a skilled smith, the character is shown a method to sharpen the sword to provide a keen edge. They spend time training to sharpen their skills or strengthen their blows, giving fell and grevious bonuses. They get used to the balance of the weapon, allowing them to weild it better.
Alternatively: A keen weapon is replaced by a keen, fell weapon during an exchange of gifts.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:00 pm
by Glorelendil
Valarian wrote:I like the spear head idea, but it doesn't have to all be "unlocking".
The way I see it is that someone has a sword. Spending the time with a skilled smith, the character is shown a method to sharpen the sword to provide a keen edge. They spend time training to sharpen their skills or strengthen their blows, giving fell and grevious bonuses. They get used to the balance of the weapon, allowing them to weild it better.
That approach works with the rules just fine, but doesn't satisfy my (and assume others') urge to include weapons that are innately powerful. E.g. Orcrist, Glamdring, etc. If you learn how to sharpen the sword, it's not the sword itself that is Keen, is your sharpening talents. (And leaves open the question of why you don't also sharpen your friends' swords the same way...)
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:21 pm
by Shieldmaiden
How about giving out loot as a kind of temporary reward that can be made permanent with a reward choice? Thorin finds Orcrist and uses it for the rest of the adventure. During the subsequent Fellowship phase in Rivendell, he decides to keep the blade and takes it as his reward for increasing his valour. If he didn't want the sword, he may have chosen to return the sword the elves and take a different reward instead.
Another thing to consider is that loot can be cool while being outside the scope of the game's reward system. A sword doesn't need special powers to be of value to a player. If one of the PCs has a bog-standard sword and he comes across "a fine sword of Numenorean manufacture, its hilt inlaid with silver and set with amethysts" he's going to dump his old notched blade and take the shiny one.
On the other end of the scale, the Ring is going to be too powerful to be a mere reward. Introducing something like that into a TOR campaign should be a major plot element, rather than another piece of treasure.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:36 pm
by Woodclaw
Elfcrusher wrote:Valarian wrote:I like the spear head idea, but it doesn't have to all be "unlocking".
The way I see it is that someone has a sword. Spending the time with a skilled smith, the character is shown a method to sharpen the sword to provide a keen edge. They spend time training to sharpen their skills or strengthen their blows, giving fell and grevious bonuses. They get used to the balance of the weapon, allowing them to weild it better.
That approach works with the rules just fine, but doesn't satisfy my (and assume others') urge to include weapons that are innately powerful. E.g. Orcrist, Glamdring, etc. If you learn how to sharpen the sword, it's not the sword itself that is Keen, is your sharpening talents. (And leaves open the question of why you don't also sharpen your friends' swords the same way...)
Are you one of my players, by any chance? Because one of them put forward the same point a few days ago.
I think that there are some elements to consider when adding a "innately magical" object to the story.
First of all you have to consider how this element might impact on the story. Is it a consumable object that will provide a time limited bonus (like Lembas, which might reduce the difficulty of fatigue checks for one journey only)? Or is it a more permanent thing? If it's permanent then the biggest problem is that it might unbalance the situation in the long run.
Thorin got Orcrist, but rarely used it. In a sense it was more of a pplot device item than a real bonus for the character (Gandalf is already a walking plot device, so having Glamdring didn't change things much). But what if a character got a powerful object and use it in a continuous way? That will most likely shift the game balance a lot and, at the same time make the whole point of Rewards kind of insignificant.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:17 pm
by Glorelendil
I like the idea that a powerful item is kept as a Valor reward. You offer to return the item (or even do return it) but the rightful owners are grateful, think it would do more good in your hands, etc. Yeah, that's nice.
Thanks for feedback everybody.
Re: Hope and Loot
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:21 am
by Valarian
Elfcrusher wrote:If you learn how to sharpen the sword, it's not the sword itself that is Keen, is your sharpening talents. (And leaves open the question of why you don't also sharpen your friends' swords the same way...)
Perhaps their weapons won't take the edge, or that the smith is able to treat your blade so that it'll hold the keener edge. The effect doesn't have to be magical but the superior skill of a Dwarven/Elven smith, or even an especially skilled man of the west/north.