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I was going to go with "Drums in the Deep" but Angelalex242's is better.

Ok, here's a first pass at what I'm envisioning for "Delved Too Deep": one or some of the companions must pass an appropriate Body, Heart, or Wits test*; failure results in alerting an especially dangerous adversary to the presence of intruders, somewhere in its Delve. From that point all, all Revelation episodes relate to this adversary or its minions; and if a Revelation episode occurs while Plight equals 10, the company encounters the adversary itself.

*For example:
Body: while traversing a narrow balcony over a dark abyss, each character must make an Awareness roll to avoid kicking a rock that plunges into the darkness, the echo of it bouncing to and fro against rock walls fading into the distance.
Heart: each companion must make a Wisdom test; any character with the Curious trait must roll the Feat die twice and take the lower result, and the Hobbit cultural blessing does not apply. On any failure, the companion can't resist throwing a rock into a gaping hole in the floor.
Wits: a drawbridge-like walkway, currently raised, blocks progress. Several ropes dangle from the darkness, and it would appear that they are used to operate the mechanism. One companion rolls Riddle to figure out how to work the thing. On a failure, pulling on the wrong rope results in the deafening ring of what must be a massive bell, echoing in the blackness and taking what feels like minutes to fade away.

Sound good to me.

Indur Dawndeath wrote: Another point: Why are the heroes misserable when the torch value is below shadow. I don't think that will work, and what has shadow to do with being low on torches? It is more intuitive, if they are misserable when they run out of torches. Even then I'd let them roll Valour to hold it together.
You could easily start the delving adventure misserable if you are 2-3 companions and have a Little shadow from previous adventures...
If you want them to get misserable, then flood them with corruption tests, once per day as a minimum. Even one per hour as they explore the slave pits under Mount Gundabad...

Here's another option: when Torch rating (or "Torches"; I keep vacillating) is equal to or less than Plight, something bad happens. E.g., all Wisdom and Valour tests are made as if Weary, or at a higher TN, or with Disadvantage. That makes the Torch/Plight mechanic somewhat parallel to Endurance/Fatigue or Hope/Shadow. I'm trying to convey the sense that running low on torches is, psychologically, like running low on food in a journey, and that it gets magnified the further up the creek you are.

(As an aside, I've been using an online Old English Dictionary to look for options for Plight, Torches, etc. It's an illuminating exercise.)

I like this Glorelendil - well thought out.

(don't forget to factor in elven lights to the torch situation) I think illumination might be a better term for it, covers torches, lamps, lanterns, elven tricks....pet balrogs - just throwing that out there.

I was wondering if you could include more of the skills in the delving rolling - athletics (body) to represent climbing, jumping or squeezing through gaps, Inspire (heart) to keep spirits high in the dark places of the world, lore (wits) to remember an old tale of fact about the great halls. This would give the party a larger variations on the skills they use rather than relying on just three skills.
(there maybe a reason not to do that - that I haven't considered).

Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with.

poosticks7 wrote:I like this Glorelendil - well thought out.

(don't forget to factor in elven lights to the torch situation) I think illumination might be a better term for it, covers torches, lamps, lanterns, elven tricks....pet balrogs - just throwing that out there.

That's one of the words I considered, and in some ways it works better because it's a word...like Hope or Shadow or Endurance...that can refer to a variable amount, without needing a plural form. I decided against it because of too many syllables, and because etymologically it's French. I'm trying to be like J.R.R.T. and use words with roots in Old English.

I was wondering if you could include more of the skills in the delving rolling - athletics (body) to represent climbing, jumping or squeezing through gaps, Inspire (heart) to keep spirits high in the dark places of the world, lore (wits) to remember an old tale of fact about the great halls. This would give the party a larger variations on the skills they use rather than relying on just three skills.
(there maybe a reason not to do that - that I haven't considered).

100% agree, and earlier versions of this had rich tables of various forms of hazards, broken out by skills. I had all the things you suggest, and more. Where those specific skills will reappear is in the Hazard descriptions. The only difference is that the LM will pick a Hazard (for example, if he needs a Body Hazard he might pick a Hazard that uses Athletics) rather than having the specific Hazard be the result of a dice roll. I don't think basing the choice off of a random roll really contributes to fun. As long as the LM has a nice assortment of tantalizing Hazards to choose from for each of the Attribute categories, I believe it will work just fine.

When I get around to writing up and posting a sample of Hazards, I think this will be more clear.

Thanks for feedback!

Hi Glorelendil!

Finally got the time to read the thread.
I like what you are aiming to do. Old classic "dungeon crawls" usually failed at conveying the feel of such an hostile, taxing environment.
(btw: have you read Torchbearer? Too crunchy for me, but I was impressed at how the game is focused on "grinding down" the dungeon delvers with sheer ambient pressure).

Back to your system, in the first post you wrote:

It still feels like a lot of dice rolling, but this is as lean as I could get it while still incorporating all the factors that I think make for a great dungeon crawl, in (what I hope is) the TOR style.

I feel too that there are too much dice rolls, so I was thinking if it's possible trimming down some.
My impression (maybe wrong) is that you have some TWO mechanics one atop the other:
1-the general Delving rolls, where one PC rolls for the group and failure means increased Plight and group Hazards.
2-Fatigue rolls, where all PCs roll and failure means individual Fatigue and individual Hazards.
Add to that that, while on Travel your only "dwindling resource" is Fatigue, there you have Plight + Fatigue, AND you have to roll enough successes to end the leg.
I understand the rationale behind your choices, but I think that this is too granular for TOR, a game where backpack, rope and food are abstracted. A lot of possible problems of travels are simply summed up in Hazards ("you are short on provision, make Hunting roll or..." etc).

Another snag that I see (again, maybe I read it wrong) is that all these Hazards -group and individual- only arise if the Delving roll is failed. With only one PC rolling for the Delving test, it's all too easy to avoid any danger, making most of the mechanic moot (you choose the best PC for the task, and use Hope if needed. All too easy for experienced adventurers).

Third point, linked to the previous one, is that a lot of effects on your rules are triggered on "failure+S rune", like the old Travel mechanic for Hazards was "failure+S rune". There is a reason that in the revised rulebook even successfull rolls trigger hazards (my fellowships NEVER triggered one in 6-8 adventures).

Well, these are the possible issues that I see, sorry if I was long winded
I'll write another post with my proposal just to avoid tl;dr

Now, on with my proposal.

I like a lot the Torches/Plight mechanic. It resonates with Hope/Shadow mechanic, and t's very thematic.

My idea is to roll up in a single mechanic the Delving and Fatigue rolls, keeping just the Plight as "dwindling resource" and ditching the Fatigue.

I know that delving can be fatiguing, but in TOR a single Fatigue compound 3-6 days of travelling through mountains and woods, with huge backpacks and chainmail to boot, sleeping on the ground, often under rain or snow. Again, that is a SINGLE fatigue roll.
Rarely a dungeon delve is going to last more than a week, and if it's, probably you are in Moria, a place with paved roads, dry sleeping places and such commodities. Any fatiguing can be compounded in an Hazard roll ("you have to climb a mile-long, ruined stair. All companions make a Fatigue test" or such).

That said, have the Delving roll made by all companions. Because Bilbo can be the best at Riddle, but Thorin isn't persuaded they are doing the right thing, and Bombur is complaining: all that arguing and grifing is adding Plight. In Moria, Gandalf's cunning was useless at stopping Pippin from rousing the Goblins.

Have Hazards be triggered by EoS runes even on successfull rolls, like during regular Travels. Make a table of Hazards to see wich ones are Individuals or "All Companions", again, as during travels. As there are no the usual roles, have the individual Hazards fall on the PC that rolled the Eye.

I think that this way you can keep most of your ideas ditching only the Fatigue rolls.

Oh, that's an interesting idea, Corvo. Let me clarify a couple things, then I'll get back to it.

The point of the Fatigue rolls was...honestly...mostly to give individuals a chance to trigger personal Hazards.

The other reason for Fatigue rolls was to increase the risk of extending the delve by skipping optional hazards. To clarify: group Hazards are triggered not just on EoS, but also if the Feat die is equal or below Plight, but in that case the Hazards are optional. (By the way, I've been running a computer simulation and the current rule still triggers too few group Hazards: it works better if the optional hazards, still triggered when the Feat die <= Plight, on a failure or even on any delving roll.)

So, on your proposal:
1) Conceptually the thing I struggle with about everybody making delving rolls is that it's meant to represent navigation, not just movement. That is, somebody has got to find the path, and it's unlikely to be the whole party. If 3 people pass their roll, and 2 people fail it, does that mean they found the right path? What does 3 successes and 2 failures represent?
2) One thing I wanted to model is the idea of the "optional" hazard, meaning that the most direct path will require overcoming a challenge, but you can also choose the longer, unknown path. To me that feels like a very dungeon-y decision to make.
3) I think it's also important to distinguish between group and individual hazards, although there's no reason both sorts couldn't be in the same table.
4) One idea, somewhat similar to yours, that I tried to figure out (and failed) is a mechanic whereby everybody who wants to participate in a delving test may. So, if Riddle comes up, anybody with a decent Riddle score can roll, and all successes are counted. I didn't find a solution I liked that balanced risk & reward, so that if one guy has Riddle 4 the best strategy isn't to just let him do all the rolling. Maybe I need to try again to solve this.

Thanks for the feedback. I think you raise a couple excellent points, and I'm going to mull on it for a while.

Glorelendil wrote:(...)
1) Conceptually the thing I struggle with about everybody making delving rolls is that it's meant to represent navigation, not just movement. That is, somebody has got to find the path, and it's unlikely to be the whole party. If 3 people pass their roll, and 2 people fail it, does that mean they found the right path? What does 3 successes and 2 failures represent?

Argh! I knew that I was forgetting something really basic
The Delving roll dictate the speed of progress in the underground...

Let see if it's possible to salvage something of my proposal.
From a narrative point of view, following a leader isn't so simple. Often there is arguing, and doubting, and such. And we know that in such situation many leaders can doubt about their own capabilities (like Gandalf did, indeed), even when they are doing the right thing. I think most of us found themselves in such situation at least once in their live.

From a mechanical pov, a solution can be to use the average of the successes of the party, like in ambushing rules. Still, the problem is that it becomes very difficult to have an average of 2 successes, so the speed is pretty much fixed (well, unless you accept to take extra Hazards/Plight to have an extra success... well, maybe I'm going too far here , and I'm going near to your point 2).

About the other points... well, the kid is calling right now. I'm back in... a week, probably