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Hello, I'm preparing to GM my first One Ring session in a week, running the Marsh Bell. I’m a bit nervous because this first time my players and I will be playing the One Ring, and also it's my first time GM'ing in general. For those that can remember the first time they GM'd a One Ring session, would you be open sharing your lessons learned?

Specifically:
What went well?
What went poorly?
If you could do it again, what would you do different?

Thanks in advance!

Have you played before? When I started LMing, it was the first that any one of us had played. Even though I had read through the books several times, and did mock battles and travels to try to learn the system, there were rules that came up during play that I didn't understand. That was the biggest problem for me. Other than that, make sure you know the adventure well.

Take it slow and take it easy. Don't be afraid to call a "time-out" to puzzle out the rules. TOR is more crunchy than it looks on the outside and there's lots of little subsystems (get the extended index so you can actually find stuff).

Be aware that odd stuff will come up. Try to roll with it, if you can. If you can't, call a time-out and explain to the players that you didn't anticipate this and need a few minutes to hash it out. Set clear expectations before the game... "We're going to work together to make a story in Middle Earth. This is generic high-fantasy 101, things work differently in this game." I guess if you're all new to RPGs then you have less "bad" stuff to unlearn in that regard.

Thanks for the thoughts. While I am new to GM'ing, and everyone (including myself) are new to the One Ring - we've all role-played before. I've suggested we run Marsh Bell with the (throw away) pre-gen characters with a goal of learning the system - so I'll see how it goes.

In general, say "no" to a player's attempt only if it is non-sensical or disruptive. To borrow a concept from Vincent Baker, when confronted with a player narration that makes any sense at all in the scene and isn't patently impossible, either say “Yes”, ask for a relevant trait, or have them roll the dice.

Rather than saying “No”, it's fine to set absurd TN's (such as 30-40), and to count a gandalf as a 12 instead of autosuccess for such high TN's.

Grab the Loremaster's Screen too - it has so many handy reference tables on the back of it I don't know where I'd be without it.

Oh, also, take it slow, make sure everyone knows you don't have all the answers and that, this time, it might be a bit rough around the edges. They can help out too, in a fix! Chuck 'em a book and get them to figure something out if you've got too much going on.

Right some suggestions:

The interaction in Laketown. You are probably going to find this problematic. In fact the adventure has some advice on how to deal with this.

What I'd suggest is breaking it down as follows.
1) The company seem or hear about the need for a group to go after the missing dwarfs.
2) They go and see Balin (explain how Encounters work - spokesman or everyone speaks and advise them that if they make an Insight test they can find out how Balin feels about interviewing people. If anyone passes then give them the information about Valour and Wisdom, ignore Standing for now, they don't have any)
3) Either have the spokesman talk and then roll with modifiers depending on what they said (if it made sense and was good reduce the TN from 14) OR roll the dice and have them roleplay the result (probably not that suitable for a first time game).

Run the journey down to the Long Marsh as written - you might want to make some notes or bullet points about what happens to avoid having to flick through the book all the time.

The meeting with the Elves can be run as a full Encounter but is probably better handled with some roleplay with the attitude of the Elves being suspicious - What's a Dwarf doing in our woods sort of thing. Why are Dwarves wanting to travel the Old Forest Road?

The atmosphere should be played up, the quiet countryside and sounds of the lake and marsh, the eeriness of the woods, the oppressive atmosphere, lack of light and feeling of being watched. the croaking of frogs and the splash of things entering the water, the gorecrows watching and their ugly calls echoing across the trees. The hoot of owls and seeing bats flit across the evening sky, occasional marsh-lights appearing and disappearing, flickering in the gloom of the Autumn dusk.

If they fail a Travel/Fatigue test have the person fall into the marsh and get pulled out wet and stinking until they get to halt for the day and they can change or dry themselves. The advice on p130 about navigating the marshes gives a great feel for the difficulty of the journey.

HTH

Consider if this is successful, where you want to go after it. If you've read stuff like Tales of Wilderland, the answer may well be The Anduin Vales, in which case I recommend appending the post-Marsh Bell portions of Rich H's To Journey's End and Eagles Eyrie, rather than having the company return to Esgaroth (it recommends you don't run The Marsh Bell through, but skip it; I recommend you do run it through, and then have Balin offer the company to join him on his journey if you feel like continuing the campaign). That'll make for a relatively lengthy first adventure, but it'll put you through the paces, and it's a great way to get acquainted with Mirkwood.

Don't run Glóin as an Encounter. What I did, was give each of the characters a reason to be sent on the mission, rather than having it be a mercenary-like setup. One is a Barding who was sent by way of Bard himself, one from the Lonely Mountain and so forth. This also makes them representative for their respective cultures if you choose to go to the Eyrie (and if you do it right, it doesn't have to mean that they're best buddies with Bard of Dáin).

There are a surprising number of moving parts in Marsh Bell, and remembering all the queues at the right time with the right details can be hard. Index card it out, or whatever works best for you.

If you continue into Mirkwood, remember Galion; he can be very helpful.

Straighten out your geography re. Balins camp, the troll and the ruins before you play. I accidentally put the camp on the wrong side of the Rotting River, and it caused some logistical problems re. the troll attack and how I had intended to run it. It worked out alright, but nevertheless.

Remember to focus on the Tolkien-esque subtle magic-like moments of the story.

We left Lake-town fast, but spent a little time at Girion's Stair defining the characters and interacting with the Lake folk. Find Tolkien's Mewlips poem, and consider using it there.

I suppose you don't read Danish, but if you do: https://ringen.squarespace.com/journal/ ... -udsending

Good luck; we had fun running through it. Spend more time reading the travel and combat rules than the encounter rules; you don't need them as much. And remember, travel encumbrance is 1 for spring, and every time someone gains fatigue it's based on that (so 1), not the equipment or total encumbrance.

The One Ring is more player-driven than many other games. There should be relatively few tests; most actions should be tasks, and should be dreamed up by the players, not suggested by the Loremaster. And while the Loremaster has veto-power over proposed tasks, he should reserve this for when players try something abusive; remember that the players themselves decide whether a proposed task is reasonable. Players get to decide the task's goal, the skill to use, what happens if successful, the use of any special abilities, and whether an attribute bonus is invoked. The Loremaster only decides on the difficulty and what happens if the task is failed.

The example on page 149 of the Adventurer's Guide illustrates this: when Trotter's player says he wants Trotter to leave unnoticed, the Loremaster doesn't tell him to roll Stealth; he asks the player HOW he's going to do it. Get your players used to the idea of being the ones to decide on objectives, skills, and outcomes. And also get them used to being the ones to narrate their successes. When Trotter succeeds at his roll, the Loremaster doesn't say, "You slip outside without being noticed." The PLAYER gets to describe the action.