[Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

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Dedicemancometh
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[Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by Dedicemancometh » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:22 am

Since presenting in person, orally, is very different than presenting rules comprehensively in a written format, I thought I'd ask if there's a good way to explain the game at an in-store demo. What order? What topics do you gloss over in a first pass, but flesh out when the game gets to that point, etc. ??

Anybody have experience in getting a quick game going?

zedturtle
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Re: [Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by zedturtle » Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:04 am

I would absolutely start with the Common Skills and the basic dice mechanic. "When I ask you to roll a skill, you'll roll this funky d12 and a number of funky d6s equal to your skill. When the funky d12 comes up with something funky, I'll tell you about it then. When the funky d6s are special, we'll talk about that too."

Then I'd go straight into Hope and Attribute bonuses (aka "what you can do when you fail."). Talk about Traits and automatic success/unforeseen actions. Don't get into APs yet.

Then do Journeys and Encounters in super-brief. "You're gonna use these skills in special things called Encounters and Journeys. There's a couple more rules for those, we'll talk about them when it comes up."

Then do combat. Rules are basically the same, except the TN is coming from your Stance (do a minute on Stances and hand out some Stance Cards). Talk very briefly about Endurance, Fatigue and Wounds.

Don't talk up Shadow or Miserable or Bouts of Madness unless it's going to be a long game. I know some folks believe that they absolutely have to have someone go mad in an introductory game, but I just don't see it. Just say "doing bad things earns you Shadow and if your Hope meets your Shadow, really bad stuff happens."

Don't worry about APs, XPs or Fellowship Phase until it becomes relevant in the game. Players will earn APs just by playing and the other two are even more automatic.

And then, because it's me, I'd run them through
Jacob Rodgers, occasional nitwit.

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Majestic
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Re: [Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by Majestic » Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:06 am

What zed said (as he did so excellently).

And thanks for the link to those new stance cards, zedturtle, as the old ones I've been using were out of date (i.e., before the Clarifications document), and have some other wrong info.

The only thing I'd add to the above is the possibility of giving a quick overview (before getting into any of the details or mechanics of the game). I tell new players that there's basically three 'systems' that the game explores: Journeys (travel is really big in this game), Encounters, and Combat. From there you could go into the dice and how the various systems work.
Tale of Years for a second, lower-level group (in the same campaign).

jamesrbrown
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Re: [Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by jamesrbrown » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:56 pm

Everyone has given such great advice! Here's another outline you could use for demos:

1. The One Ring Introduction
  • Here is the Loremaster's map showing Wilderland (turn to page 151); it is the game's starting region of Middle-earth; but the game has recently expanded into Eriador as well.
  • The default starting year is 2946 in the Third Age, five years after the Battle of Five Armies, but games can be played any time after that.
  • Player-heroes will go on adventures that involve hazardous Journeys, Combats with dangerous adversaries such as Orcs and Spiders, and Encounters with important Loremaster characters such as Radagast the Brown, Glóin, or even Beorn!
  • A full game has an Adventuring phase where player-heroes go on an adventure and earn Advancement points and Experience points, and a Fellowship phase where they spend points to improve their character and tell the story of what they do between adventures.
2. Characters
  • There are six playable cultures in the basic game (show them the table on page 36), but other options to play Men of the Lake, High Elves of Rivendell and Rangers of the North have been opened up with the Lake-town and Rivendell books.
  • Here is what a character sheet looks like (show them pages 21-22; turn to the Appendix page 301 and pick a pre-generated character sheet; walk through the character sheet, explain the basics such as Cultural blessing, Calling, Traits, Attributes, Common Skills, Weapons Skills, Parry, Armour, Endurance, Fatigue, and Hope; use pages 23-26 for a Glossary of Terms).
3. Dice Mechanic/Action Resolution
  • Actions are resolved using a Feat die and a number of Success dice determined by skill rating (show them the dice and explain how they work; talk about the Gandalf, the Eye, and Tengwar).
  • The default difficulty for all Common skill rolls is TN 14; this is a moderate difficulty.
  • A character's statistics will affect action resolution (explain how spending Hope and adding Attribute bonuses work; explain how invoking a Trait can mean an automatic success).
  • Before engaging in a Journey, Combat, or Encounter, player-heroes will have a chance to earn advantages in the form of bonus Success dice to use during the venture (explain how Preliminary rolls work, page 151).
4. Combat
  • Attack tests will always use a Weapon skill against a Target Number (show chart on page 175 to explain).
  • When Close combat begins, all players choose a Combat stance (use chart on page 172) and this determines the turn order and the TN for attacks and defense (note that during Close combat all characters on the side with initiative go first, then everyone on the other side).
  • Each weapon has three main statistics (explain Damage, Edge, and Injury; this will also explain Armour).
  • When a player-hero's Endurance is equal to or below his Fatigue score, he becomes Weary. This means all 1s, 2s, and 3s on his Success dice do not count.)
  • Adversaries become Weary when their Hate score is reduced to zero. This can happen when they spend points to activate Special abilities or a player-hero uses the Intimidate Foe combat task to reduce their Hate.
  • A Combat task is a special option a player-hero can choose when it is his turn to attack. There are four to choose from, one for each Stance (see pages 179-180 and briefly explain each one).
  • Death occurs when your character is Wounded and has zero Endurance and is not treated successfully with a Healing roll within 12 hours. He is killed outright when he is Wounded a second time and is reduced to zero Endurance at the same time. Most adversaries die when they take a single Wound and most fall unconscious when they are reduced to zero Endurance as well.
  • Questions about combat?
5. Common Questions (people will have a variety of questions concerning character creation and development; use the questions below to prepare for this; if you have time, walk them through character creation; a great online tool is The One Ring - Online Character Sheet; it is by far the fastest way to show them how to make a character and lets them see a variety of choices).
  • Are there character levels?
  • What is the difference between Advancement points and Experience points? How do heroes earn them?
  • How do Journeys and Encounters work?
  • What are Rewards and Virtues?
  • What are Wisdom and Valour used for?
  • Can characters become corrupt or fall to the Shadow?
  • What is Shadow Weakness?
  • Can I use The One Ring to play in other ages of Middle-earth?
  • How does Hobbit Tales work with The One Ring?
  • What current books does the game offer and what future books are planned?
Additionally, feel free to give them a copy of my document: The One Ring Review. It has a story called "Wargs in the Realm" that explains how the game works. Just use that portion; I need to update the rest for the new hardback edition.
Last edited by jamesrbrown on Thu Dec 18, 2014 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Please visit my blog, Advancement Points: The One Ring Files, for my TOR Resources

Rich H
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Re: [Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by Rich H » Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:14 pm

... Really like that James, nicely laid out and informative. Very useful! :)
TOR resources thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62
TOR miniatures thread: viewtopic.php?t=885

Fellowship of the Free Tale of Years: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8318

Dedicemancometh
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Re: [Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by Dedicemancometh » Thu Dec 18, 2014 2:16 am

Thanks, zedturtle and JamesRBrown! Good stuff.

I've been following the Theft of the Moon thread over at rpg.net, so I am at least as familiar with that as The Marsh Bell.

How are the stance cards used? In place of voidstate's mat? In addition to it?

zedturtle
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Re: [Demoing]What order to explain the rules in?

Post by zedturtle » Thu Dec 18, 2014 2:39 am

Dedicemancometh wrote:Thanks, zedturtle and JamesRBrown! Good stuff.

I've been following the Theft of the Moon thread over at rpg.net, so I am at least as familiar with that as The Marsh Bell.

How are the stance cards used? In place of voidstate's mat? In addition to it?
Cool. Feedback is welcome, running the adventure has been a learning experience (as always).

Yeah, they're more or less a different option that allows everyone to have a quick reference to their options and allows the LM a colour-coded way of knowing what everyone's doing.
Jacob Rodgers, occasional nitwit.

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