Those Who Tarry: Fights

[qwercus]

An option for the fight in the village could be to give the players the opportunity of saving some inhabitants by heroically covering their retreat at the very high risk of getting captured themselves. If they are succesful, this could help them keeping up hope later.

Another option would be to have the players fight against a nazgul as the attacking forces leader, the (short) fun to encounter and fight such a VIP-creature could outweigh the disappointment about a railroaded an potentially unwinnable fight. This would especially make sense in my campaign where I am thinking of replacing the gibbet king by a nazgul in disguise (non-corporal form) and therefore of setting up the adventures in TOW a few years later than originally intended.

Greetings, q.

[Heilemann]

This would especially make sense in my campaign where I am thinking of replacing the gibbet king by a nazgul in disguise (non-corporal form) and therefore of setting up the adventures in TOW a few years later than originally intended.

Interesting. You have any more thoughts on this?

[qwercus]

Interesting. You have any more thoughts on this?

Thank you. I only have sketched some ideas so far. I only play twice or thrice a year with my group of old friends (all veteran roll-players, playing for about 24 years now), usually on holidays when we meet again in our home-town. Therefore we don't have the time for a differentiated and complicated campaign. Instead, I stage "scenarious" which are loosely connected. We just started in Bree (the region my players are most familiar with), playing an alternative "marsh bell" (a mission to rescue some dwarwen treasure hunters in the muckross marshes). Next time the group will go "far over the misty mountains" as caravan guards for some certain Brandybuck-brothers (of...stewed hobbitt). From there on I plan to more ore less follow the line of scenarios from ToW:

- kinstrive
- those who tarry
- darkness in the marshes
- crossings of Celduin (not sure about that one yet, an attack on Dale seems to be a bit overdone, I'd prefer a scenario more closely connected to the transport of the chain to the withered heath)
- watch on the heath (the Nazgul revealed and maybe weakened by the dragon)
- report to bard/Gandalf/Radagast and then maybe a mission to Dol Guldur (does the Nazgul hide there or did he retreat to Mordor?)

I like the "dragon-plot" with the chain and all that, but I think that a mission like that is much too important for Sauron to leave it in the hands of some minor servant. Especially if I imagine that Saurons original plan might have been to use the chain on Smaug. That's why I am thinking of a Nazgul. It's real identity should become clear in the last adventure and be somehow unclear before. I think that this also reflects the lore in a good way since even the wise weren't really sure about the real nature of the dark forces roaming mirkwood and Dol Guldur at certain times in middle-earths history.
Another reason for the Nazgul ist is that since we do not play very often I don't want to waste too much time with minor adversaries.

To come back to the topic:
- to hide the opponents true identity it will be important that the Nazgul who ist attacking the elve-lady in the real world does so in his invisible form. The appearance of the Nazgul in the dream might be taken as a hint, but since my players are pretty much influencend by the picture of Nazgul in the PJ movies and won't expect a Nazgul to show up without black robes that shouldn't be a problem.

I am aware of the fact that some of the Nazguls abilities (casting the black breath and so on) with effects like shadow-accumulation (corruption) and unconsciousness might create a problem. During the dream, unconsciousness will be treated with orc draughts, after the adventure the characters will get the opportunity to heal some corruption as guests of the elves (in mirkwood or rivendell).

Greetings
q.

[Elmoth]

An option for the fight in the village could be to give the players the opportunity of saving some inhabitants by heroically covering their retreat at the very high risk of getting captured themselves. If they are succesful, this could help them keeping up hope later.

When playing in ME, I have always found my players remember as epic moments (even if they are not epic, jsut conversations) the moment that a named character from the books interacts with them. I have not run the adventure yet, and I like this idea, so I am likely to implement them: they will save a pre-teen named Eorl the Young. Thanks for the idea. And linking it with another thread, a great moment for a character with Elven-lore or ancient lore of some kind to remember the founding legend of Rohan.

[qwercus]

they will save a pre-teen named Eorl the Young

great idea! Even if it's only a dream (but who knows???)

[Woodclaw]

they will save a pre-teen named Eorl the Young

great idea! Even if it's only a dream (but who knows???)

In one of my early demo games the players had to travel several miles south along the Anduin to the borders of Gondor. The final moments had them pulling a desperate resistance against a orc warband so that one of them could carry on the mission, only for them to be saved by a bunch of Gondorian knights lead by a very young Boromir.

[Elmoth]

Yup. Young grimma + throden have been around in my recent games, along with the captain of the PCs (Aragorn, since theya re a bunch of dunedain) and they have also interacted with quite a few other named characters like Elrond (to get info) and the young Merry and Pippin, that threw stones at them along with a few other hobbit kids.

[Celebril]

I railroaded the Fellowship (that I am the LM for) when they went to rescue Dinodas by not letting them figure out a way to get him free from the chain. The dwarf in the fellowship wasn't happy about that and I didn't blame him. So from that point on I let them figure out ways to get out of the places in the Tales of the Wilderland that railroad you. They never had to be rescued by the Eagles because they used Irime's flash to confuse the enemy just enough to make a run for it on their horses. Then it became a cinematic chase, hide, chase scene where we did opposing rolls to see if they were caught. For the town battle in "Those that tarry no longer" I devised a way that gave them a choice but also made it likely they were captured. They probably could have held the tavern and/or made a run for it. But what I did was have the Alderman give them an ultimatum after they cut down a bunch of undead. Either they surrender or he kills every last man, women and child. TOR is a heroic game where the players are supposed to be heroic. So now the fellowship had a choice they could take all the shadow points that fleeing would incur or surrender. It is still their choice. They chose the heroic option which in the end turned out to be fun for them.