One Ring Encounters?

[Jon Hodgson]

Hi All,
This thread has generated multiple reports from multiple users, and I really don't appreciate being pulled away from work on Rivendell to mediate between people being so very childish.

The One Ring is a game. A game we all like very much and are all committed to. But a game nonetheless.
Please, anyone and everyone who is choosing to be acerbic, tease people, or be sarcastic, and indeed those who are becoming upset by that teasing and sarcasm, take a step back and get some perspective.

If the thread can continue in the polite manner in line with sensible adult discussion about a game, which we more often see hereabouts, that would be great. Otherwise I'm just going to close it.

[Hermes Serpent]

Thanks Jon. It was getting a bit heated.

The issue at hand is how do you balance encounters according to the skills of the company.

Thing is you probably shouldn't think of it like that.
I might take a look at the personality of the target of an Encounter and get a strategy sorted out mentally.
If the company chooses to use a skill to obtain information upfront I might ask for some RP to set the stage and then call for a roll. This could result in getting some insight into how to approach said target.

Then, based on that I, as the NPC target, ask the company what they're seeking.
Their responses and the flattery, etc, if appropriate and particularly flavourful, might earn them some level of respect and I would respond appropriately.
This give and take might continue until I think they have enough information or I've got bored and terminate the discussion, in character.

By doing the Encounter like this it would throw some players for a loop as they can't game it. It might also throw some LM's as they can't deal with something not structured and laid down in hard and fast rules.

I suspect that something like this is how the designers play and it works for them but not for everyone hence we get the structure deployed in Wilderland to help those who need that structure and find it hard to function without it.

I find that having some boxed text telling me about the major NPC and their motivations and knowing what the company wants from an Encounter works better than having a chart of fixed results YM-eMV

[bert1000]

I'm not talking about tailoring challenges to a particular party. I'm talking about for example having a sense for the basic odds of success when a party that heavily invested in social skills goes up against a challenge I think is suppose to be moderately hard.

For an Encounter/Prolonged Action knowing the TN is not enough. The difficultly is also influenced by X Successes before Y Failures and the values of X and Y.

I think this is going to be very difficult to get at Bert as, like you say, the math is difficult to get at and there are so many moving parts that can affect it - eg, great/extraordinary successes on one roll, use of Hope, invocation of traits, etc.

Just some thoughts, not trying to make any real point with the following but taking a look through TfW, we have the following Encounters along with Tolerance (and potential variances)...

Rich,

Thanks for actually engaging in the original intent of this thread! Thanks for the thoughts based on Tales. This looks like a good place to start but it does assume the Tales people actually understood the math and were basing their scenarios on this understanding. Based on other games, not a 100% certainty.

Just to be clear, I was never asking for a model that tries to somehow take into account every possible modifier and creative thing that might come up. I agree that this is an impossible effort without much reward.

What I do think is possible, is to model out the probabilities of say TN14 checks with 3 skill for 4 successes before 2 failures INCLUDING the effects of Tengwar extra successes. And various variations of this to understand how much the probabilities change when you mess with the assumptions. If I was an active math/stat guy I think I could do it but it’s been a while.

Once you do the math, for instance, you might learn that moving the Tolerance above 5 leads to almost automatic success for all Encounters even at TN16 and TN18. I think this is helpful guidance for a LM.

Well, we’ve probably gotten as far as we can without actually doing the math. Thanks for the civil engagement!

[bert1000]

Hi All,
This thread has generated multiple reports from multiple users, and I really don't appreciate being pulled away from work on Rivendell to mediate between people being so very childish.

The One Ring is a game. A game we all like very much and are all committed to. But a game nonetheless.
Please, anyone and everyone who is choosing to be acerbic, tease people, or be sarcastic, and indeed those who are becoming upset by that teasing and sarcasm, take a step back and get some perspective.

If the thread can continue in the polite manner in line with sensible adult discussion about a game, which we more often see hereabouts, that would be great. Otherwise I'm just going to close it.

Jon,

First, thanks for helping make a great game!

Second, any chance on getting some revised and clarified Encounter/Prolonged Action material in the revision?

Third, as someone new to TOR and this forum, it’s pretty unwelcoming to post a legitimate inquiry and get the kind of snark from long time posters. I don’t see any Moderation of this thread? At forums like RPGnet these kind of posts would get a warning and the poster banned fairly quickly. We should be adults and not need this, but this thread seems to prove otherwise…

[bert1000]

Thanks Jon. It was getting a bit heated.

The issue at hand is how do you balance encounters according to the skills of the company.

Thing is you probably shouldn't think of it like that.
I might take a look at the personality of the target of an Encounter and get a strategy sorted out mentally.
If the company chooses to use a skill to obtain information upfront I might ask for some RP to set the stage and then call for a roll. This could result in getting some insight into how to approach said target.

Then, based on that I, as the NPC target, ask the company what they're seeking.
Their responses and the flattery, etc, if appropriate and particularly flavourful, might earn them some level of respect and I would respond appropriately.
This give and take might continue until I think they have enough information or I've got bored and terminate the discussion, in character.

By doing the Encounter like this it would throw some players for a loop as they can't game it. It might also throw some LM's as they can't deal with something not structured and laid down in hard and fast rules.

I suspect that something like this is how the designers play and it works for them but not for everyone hence we get the structure deployed in Wilderland to help those who need that structure and find it hard to function without it.

I find that having some boxed text telling me about the major NPC and their motivations and knowing what the company wants from an Encounter works better than having a chart of fixed results YM-eMV

Wow, this is almost as insulting at the train whistling comments.

Are you familiar with other modern RPGs that include extended challenge structures (e.g., D&D4e, FATE)? Do you really think the only reason a group might want to use the Encounter structure is that they are unable to wing it and can’t be creative?

Your take on designer use might be right (who knows?) but it’s basically saying “the designers don’t think the Encounter set up is any good so they just ignore it and use traditional single check resolution with LM fiat”. If this is true, it’s pretty strange that the designers would call out Encounters as one of three important resolution
subsystems (Combat, Travel, Encounters).

I am personally not offended by any of this (as Jon said it is just a game), but I also won’t waste more time discussing this topic with such close minded people.

[Rich H]

What I do think is possible, is to model out the probabilities of say TN14 checks with 3 skill for 4 successes before 2 failures INCLUDING the effects of Tengwar extra successes. And various variations of this to understand how much the probabilities change when you mess with the assumptions. If I was an active math/stat guy I think I could do it but it’s been a while.

Once you do the math, for instance, you might learn that moving the Tolerance above 5 leads to almost automatic success for all Encounters even at TN16 and TN18. I think this is helpful guidance for a LM.

Well, we’ve probably gotten as far as we can without actually doing the math. Thanks for the civil engagement!

Very probably and no problem.

Here are some further probabilities around TN14.

Default Rolls Comparison

Roll Type ≥TN SL 0 SL 1 SL 2 SL 3 SL 4 SL 5 SL 6
Normal Bonus 14 15.972 28.356 62.153 85.629 95.944 99.138 99.860
Normal 14 8.333 16.667 41.898 69.483 88.567 96.932 99.396
Normal Penalty 14 0.694 0.116 0.019 16.207 55.634 84.800 96.412
Exhausted Bonus 14 15.972 28.356 47.415 63.657 76.005 84.694 90.493
Exhausted 14 8.333 16.667 31.250 47.724 62.635 74.518 83.242
Exhausted Penalty 14 0.694 0.116 0.019 10.651 27.547 45.370 60.995

I believe...

Bonus = reroll d12 and keep highest
Penalty = reroll d12 and keep lowest
Exhausted = wearied

... but not 100% sure as I dug the above out of some old notes I have.

On skills of rating 3 though, and assuming your TN14 action is successful (approx. 70%) then you only need one of the skill dice to roll a 6 in order to get a great success and two or more to get an extraordinary success. This is where it gets a bit tricky though because rolling a 1x 6 doesn't mean the TN14 will necessarily be met. However I think these probabilities are correct:

For getting 1 six on 3d6 its 35%
For getting 2+ sixes of 3d6 its 7.5%

If you ignore the fact that part of the above 35%, where a 6 is rolled, won't get a TN of 14 then it means then you can apply these percentage probabilities to TNs of 14. So, let's say round about 50% of those TN 14 successes are going to result in a great success but extraordinary ones are going to be around 10% of the time.

I think.

... Does this help?!?!

[helghast]

Sorry for bringing up the topic being discussed on page 2 of this thread:

IMO the question, if an encounter is over when the number of failed checks equals or exceeds the tolerance rating, is nothing which should be interpreted or even discussed.

It`s a core aspect of the encounter rules. It`s like we would discuss about, if a skill check is successful reaching the TN.

So again, I kindly call on the authors, designers and officials of C7 to clarify this. C´mon guys, please. Bring an end to this wearing (nevertheless important) discussion about tolerance rating. (before closing down this thread )

PS: Your work, in designing this superb game and your constant support in these forums (especially Jon, Gareth and Francesco) is very much appreciated.

[Evening]

RPGnet

Invoking RPGnet as some sort of a shining light on the hill is.... laughable. And we'll leave it that.

...post a legitimate inquiry and get the kind of snark...

As everyone has experienced, on the internet the tone of someone's remarks can sometimes be confusing. Earnest remarks may appear to be insulting or sarcastic when absolutely neither were intended. Hopefully you will come to see that the commenters here on The One Ring forums are probably the nicest people in real life you will meet online.

[Jon Hodgson]

Hi All,
This thread has generated multiple reports from multiple users, and I really don't appreciate being pulled away from work on Rivendell to mediate between people being so very childish.

The One Ring is a game. A game we all like very much and are all committed to. But a game nonetheless.
Please, anyone and everyone who is choosing to be acerbic, tease people, or be sarcastic, and indeed those who are becoming upset by that teasing and sarcasm, take a step back and get some perspective.

If the thread can continue in the polite manner in line with sensible adult discussion about a game, which we more often see hereabouts, that would be great. Otherwise I'm just going to close it.

Jon,

First, thanks for helping make a great game!

Second, any chance on getting some revised and clarified Encounter/Prolonged Action material in the revision?

Third, as someone new to TOR and this forum, it’s pretty unwelcoming to post a legitimate inquiry and get the kind of snark from long time posters. I don’t see any Moderation of this thread? At forums like RPGnet these kind of posts would get a warning and the poster banned fairly quickly. We should be adults and not need this, but this thread seems to prove otherwise…

Hi Bert,
We'll have more news on the revised edition soon, so stay tuned for that - it wouldn't make sense to start answering questions piecemeal, tucked away in various threads, so we'll keep all communications about that in their own announcements, just so everyone gets to see them.

With regard to moderation, in general we have a far lighter touch than many forums out there, and usually that's all that's needed. Until very recently this has been an extremely well mannered forum and believe me, it will be staying that way. I'm genuinely sorry you've had a negative experience as a new poster. I hope the people who elect the path of snark are reading and think about that.

We expect people to act as adults, treat others as they would wish to be treated, remember the limitations of the medium we're using - we're all taking turns to shout through a keyhole here - and to remember they are discussing games, with the healthy perspective that comes with that.

Glad you're enjoying The One Ring!

[Hermes Serpent]

Thanks Jon. It was getting a bit heated.

The issue at hand is how do you balance encounters according to the skills of the company.
snip
This give and take might continue until I think they have enough information or I've got bored and terminate the discussion, in character.

By doing the Encounter like this it would throw some players for a loop as they can't game it. It might also throw some LM's as they can't deal with something not structured and laid down in hard and fast rules.

I suspect that something like this is how the designers play and it works for them but not for everyone hence we get the structure deployed in Wilderland to help those who need that structure and find it hard to function without it.

I find that having some boxed text telling me about the major NPC and their motivations and knowing what the company wants from an Encounter works better than having a chart of fixed results YM-eMV

Wow, this is almost as insulting at the train whistling comments.

Are you familiar with other modern RPGs that include extended challenge structures (e.g., D&D4e, FATE)? Do you really think the only reason a group might want to use the Encounter structure is that they are unable to wing it and can’t be creative?

Your take on designer use might be right (who knows?) but it’s basically saying “the designers don’t think the Encounter set up is any good so they just ignore it and use traditional single check resolution with LM fiat”. If this is true, it’s pretty strange that the designers would call out Encounters as one of three important resolution
subsystems (Combat, Travel, Encounters).

I am personally not offended by any of this (as Jon said it is just a game), but I also won’t waste more time discussing this topic with such close minded people.

I don't know if English is your first language or you don't understand the point.
I gave an example of how to roleplay the game in a different style to the number crunching direction some people were pushing the discussion. I pointed out that some people may have a mental block about not having hard and fast rules for everything. This is something I see a lot with gamers who may have some degree of social anxiety or another issue. It was not directed at you so why get annoyed when someone offers up an alternative viewpoint about style of gameplay.

You are new here and possibly haven't read the discussions about play style that have been going on for at least a couple of years. It's generally accepted that the rules are ambiguous in places and from posts by the authors it seems that their style of play is not about sticking to the rules in every situation and for them role play is the way they choose to move the game along.

The designers have a style that allows for flexibility in play (that's obvious from posts made here) but the changes made in Tales show that they listen to feedback and that feedback was that people wanted more concrete structure in the Encounter subsystem. Gareth and Francesco then made some alterations or offered guidance in Tales to give these players something to use in a more structured system.

As for your ill-informed comment about my knowledge of 'modern' game systems, as a someone who has design credits going back nearly thirty years and runs games regularly on-line, at conventions and for FTF groups I find that an ad-hominem attack and would like you to retract it.