King Arthur Pendraken/The One Ring [by TMG]

[Falenthal]

Anyone thought of using the flaws and virtues from King Arthur Pendraken in The One Ring? And the backstory generation system? I feel like both would fit pretty well, at least in my view of Middle Earth.

For those not familiar, the way it works is that characters have opposing character traits,like:

8 Lust / Chastity 12
13 Greed / Generosity 7
4 Cowardice / Valor 16
9 Ferocity / 11 Mercy

Whenever characters come upon a situation where they would be tempted to act one way but want to act another, the GM would have them roll (on a d20) equal to or less than their virtue. If they failed, then they succumbed to their flaw. An common example (I believe used in the rules, actually) is one of a knight who comes upon a beautiful young maiden bathing in a river. He knows, however, that the river is rumored to be home to harpies. He must make a check rolling equal to or less than his Chastity rating, or be drawn to join her.

In King Arthur Pendraken (KAP), your ratings (there are a lot more) are decided by your culture and modified by your religion. That would be pretty easy to convert to Culture and Calling in The One Ring (TOR). You could make the roll re-roll-able by spending Hope Points. Maybe even make it a balance between 6 success dice, so "2 success dice Lust, 4 success dice chaste." TN is 14 as usual.

-TMG

I guess that the "opposing traits" system is, somehow, simplified but adapted by the Traits/Flaws mechanic of TOR.

In a way, adding this rule from Pendrake could be redundant. See that Greedy, Cowardice, Ferocity,... are already Flaws gained by Bouts of Madness due to the Shadow Weakness of the different Callings.

Another option would be to substitute entirely the Tratis/Flaws from TOR for this mechanic.

That's a really good point. I might end up doing this, since my players pretty much constantly forget (as do I) to use their traits/flaws. I pointed them out this last session, and a few of them even forgot they had them!

I suppose the shadow weaknesses and such could be applied as modifiers to the traits?

I suppose the shadow weaknesses and such could be applied as modifiers to the traits?

Good idea!

To keep the rule in the frame of TOR, instead of giving points over 20 (15 vs. 5, 11 vs. 9, etc.), I think I'd do it over 10 and use just the Feat die:

An Eye makes the "bad" side win, a Gandalf the "good" side, even if the Opposing Traits are 0 vs. 10.

A Flaw from a Bout of Madness could give a permanent -2 to a certain bad Trait: Cruel for Slayers in opposite to Merciful, for example. Thus, the hypotethical fifth Bout of Madness, that takes a character out of the game, would mean that he is at 0 for the good side of a Trait and beyond hope of redemption (as much as anyone is "beyond redemption" in Middle-Earth).

Also, Cultures should have different beginning opposing Traits, like Beornings having 7 Ferocity/ 3 Mercy, Dwarves 7 Greed/ 3 Generosity, Hobbits 1 Ferocity/ 9 Mercy, Elves 9 Lust/ 1 Chastity , ... and so on.

[Seosaidh]

I suppose the shadow weaknesses and such could be applied as modifiers to the traits?

Good idea!

To keep the rule in the frame of TOR, instead of giving points over 20 (15 vs. 5, 11 vs. 9, etc.), I think I'd do it over 10 and use just the Feat die:

An Eye makes the "bad" side win, a Gandalf the "good" side, even if the Opposing Traits are 0 vs. 10.

A Flaw from a Bout of Madness could give a permanent -2 to a certain bad Trait: Cruel for Slayers in opposite to Merciful, for example. Thus, the hypotethical fifth Bout of Madness, that takes a character out of the game, would mean that he is at 0 for the good side of a Trait and beyond hope of redemption (as much as anyone is "beyond redemption" in Middle-Earth).

Also, Cultures should have different beginning opposing Traits, like Beornings having 7 Ferocity/ 3 Mercy, Dwarves 7 Greed/ 3 Generosity, Hobbits 1 Ferocity/ 9 Mercy, Elves 9 Lust/ 1 Chastity , ... and so on.

What would happen when a race/character has less than 10 on the virtue side of an opposing trait tied to his shadow weakness? For example, a Beorning 7 Ferocity / 3 Mercy with the Slayer calling has 2 bouts of madness giving his a -4 to his Mercy, already dropping him to 0.

Also, while this is a really cool idea, I assume (having never played Pendragon, nor read the rules) that it could add a substantial number of new rolls against the traits. Would some way of preventing the game from becoming too 'crunchy' would have to be introduced?

[Tolwen]

Anyone thought of using the flaws and virtues from King Arthur Pendraken in The One Ring? And the backstory generation system? I feel like both would fit pretty well, at least in my view of Middle Earth.

For those not familiar, the way it works is that characters have opposing character traits,like:

8 Lust / Chastity 12
13 Greed / Generosity 7
4 Cowardice / Valor 16
9 Ferocity / 11 Mercy
[...]

That sounds interesting and may indeed may help to get these things more "visible".

Do you have an idea which pairs of traits (and how many of them) might be appropriate? Pendragon gives already some good and useable ones IIRC (it's been long since I last looked at it), but the very strong christian-religious background makes not all of them perfect choices for Middle-earth IMO (with its lack of open religious/church traits like monasteries, churches/cathedrals, priests, sermons etc.).

Cheers
Tolwen

[farinal]

How will Lust work in Middle Earth? Maybe change it with something more of a Tolkien theme?

[Falenthal]

What would happen when a race/character has less than 10 on the virtue side of an opposing trait tied to his shadow weakness? For example, a Beorning 7 Ferocity / 3 Mercy with the Slayer calling has 2 bouts of madness giving his a -4 to his Mercy, already dropping him to 0.

I think there should be caps at 1 and 10, so that there could always be the chance of an Eye/Gandalf to save (or worsen) the day.

I'm just giving ideas that prompt out without lot of thinking, but I guess that there should be some way to allow/force modifications of the balance: actions during the Adventure phase (as happens with Shadow points) and others during the Fellowship phase (as with Heal Corruption or even Changing Trait).
But the "bad" points gained through Bouts of Madness should be Permanent: there should be no way to lose them.

[Tolwen]

I'm just giving ideas that prompt out without lot of thinking, but I guess that there should be some way to allow/force modifications of the balance: actions during the Adventure phase (as happens with Shadow points) and others during the Fellowship phase (as with Heal Corruption or even Changing Trait).
But the "bad" points gained through Bouts of Madness should be Permanent: there should be no way to lose them.

For a beginning, it might be an idea to look into the various traits and flaws from the RAW and see what it has in there regarding these characteristics.

Cheers
Tolwen

[TheMonarchGamer]

True; these are all really good points.
I rather like the idea of bouts of madness/shadow weaknesses dropping the scores by two, but allowing the scores to be healed points during the fellowship phase. I dunno, that was just my first thought, but maybe not in the spirit of the game/texts.

I dunno about lust, surely there are some examples in the Silmarillion? If nothing else, those could be changed to 'lust for power' and the opposite of that. It's been a long day, but I'll flesh the specific traits out more tomorrow, if I have time.

Thanks for the thoughts all, and more comments are welcome!
-TMG

[Francesco]

In my own homebrew from long ago, this was the traits list:

Compassionate...../.......... Cruel
Energetic ......../.......... Lazy
Fair............./....... Arbitrary
Forgiving ........./......... Vengeful
Generous........./......... Selfish
Honest ........../....... Deceitful
Modest........../......... Proud
Pious .........../....... ..Worldy
Prudent........../........ Reckless
Resolute ........./....... Indecisive
Restrained......../....... Indulgent
Trusting........../...... Suspicious
Valorous........./....... Cowardly

....basically the same from KAP, with some minor changes (mostly cosmetic), the removal of Chaste/Lustful and the addition of Resolute/Indecisive. The rules had more changes, especially as combat was concerned, and character creation of course.

Oh, and it was a Third Age game, same time frame used for TOR.

Francesco

[Falenthal]

As Blubbo Baggins said...

That would be pretty cool, and it I wonder if Francesco did not try something like this in his initial designs, given the big influence Pendragon has on TOR.

So here you go, Blubbo!

[Blubbo Baggins]

I knew it!

Thanks for sharing Francesco.