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As well as launching the new pre-order next week, we'll also be putting up a PDF listing the major clarifications and changes to the previous edition, so you can see just what we've changed in its entirety!

If you’re already a fan of The One Ring, you’ll no doubt already have many of these supplements and be eagerly awaiting the next release: Rivendell. Well, keep your eyes on the Cubicle 7 website, as we’ll be peeking beneath the covers of Rivendell in the coming weeks.

As a central part of The One Ring, the rules for the Fellowship phase have received a number of important changes and clarifications, most notably where Advancement and Experience points are explained. We’ve thoroughly revised and reworded these sections, giving Loremasters far more advice as to how many Advancement and Experience points to hand out. We’ve also reduced the cost for advancing a skill if it is Favoured.

We’ve added an option for Loremasters to allow two undertakings in a suitably long Fellowship phase (such as that at the year’s end). We’ve also tweaked a couple of Fellowship undertakings too, adding the aforementioned Receive Title undertaking, which builds on the option seen in a couple of the supplements, and expanding the Gain New Distinctive Feature undertaking to allow a player to change their Specialities too.

If you already own The One Ring, then you’ll already have poster-sized versions of these maps – the versions incorporated into the endpapers of the new edition feature the same maps. But, for those of you looking for additional copies of these posters or, say, wondering whether you’ll be able to get similar maps of the rest of Middle-earth, stay tuned…

While Loremasters of The One Ring will doubtlessly benefit from the clarifications made elsewhere in the rules, they’ll also find that we’ve made a few adjustments to the rules for Shadow too, including adding a new section on Tainted Treasure as a source of corruption.

We’ve also tinkered a little with the rules for adversaries, including Great Size, so that a monster with such a rule becomes Weary when reduced to 0 Endurance but keeps fighting, as well as spelling out exactly how a victim escapes a monster that has seized him.

Finally, we’ve brought the rules for how an adversary applies damage in line with heroes, so they now apply an attribute as a damage bonus on a great success, or twice on an extraordinary success. Be warned, heroes!

Perhaps the most immediate change you’ll notice to the rules for the Adventuring phase is that they can now all be found in one place, so you won’t need to flip between the two guides to find what you need to play through an encounter or a journey.

Once again, we’ve made a multitude of tweaks and changes to improve the clarity of the rules, but we’ve also made a number of revisions too. Most notable of these are a completely new set of rules for Hazards. Now, a Hazard episode is triggered whenever an Eye of Sauron is rolled on a Travel test, its target and effects determined by a couple of rolls on a new pair of tables. It makes for much faster play, and is far more intuitive too.

This was the change Francesco was most pleased with:

“The old system was well and good, but to my eyes it felt incomplete. You had the rules to trigger dangerous episodes during travel, but eventually were left to your own devices to determine what the consequences were in game terms. The fans liked the old system, and filled the gap providing lots of pre-generated Hazard episodes, but the system was not truly complete.

Now, we have integrated a mechanic tested in our Hobbit Tales storytelling card game, giving the Loremaster a quick way to set up Hazard episodes from start to finish, leaving him free to improvise the storytelling details without worrying about the minutiae.”

While the rules for combat haven’t changed substantially, they’ve benefited the most from being consolidated in one place, especially with the addition of a plethora of handy reference charts. We’ve also tweaked some of the combat actions too, so Intimidate Foe now causes more Hate loss (and Rally Comrades more Endurance gain), and we’ve clarified exactly how Escape Combat and Protect Companion work too.

Finally, we’ve not only added rules for preliminary rolls for encounters (as mentioned last week), but we’ve also incorporated the optional rules for assessing the outcome of an encounter that were first published in Tales from Wilderland. Many players – including us! – used these rules as standard, so it made sense to bring them into the core rules too.

The most immediate change you’ll find when you come to the revised edition is that all the rules concerning the Adventuring phase are now found in one chapter, aptly titled Adventuring Phase. This chapter contains the core rules used for most actions, detailing tasks and tests and the various mechanics associated with them.

We’ve clarified loads of things here too, such as whether a character with no Shadow points still becomes miserable when he runs out of Hope (he doesn’t) and exactly what ‘harming a Fellowship focus’ means.

We’ve also introduced something called ‘Preliminary Rolls’, which existed before in different guises in both the combat and journey mechanics, but they’ve now been consolidated into one place and joined by similar rules for use with encounters too.

One of the biggest changes we’ve made to the new edition is its physical format – where once there was a slipcase containing two paperback guides, now there is a single, hardback volume. Not only is this format far more durable to wear and tear, but it’s allowed us to put all the various rules in one place.

We’ve taken the opportunity of a revised edition to thoroughly re-edit the text, incorporating our own feedback as well as the feedback from dozens of playtesters and countless gaming sessions over the past 3 years. Francesco Nepitello, the game’s designer, and Andrew Kenrick, Cubicle 7’s managing editor, pored over every line, clarifying and changing text where necessary, and reformatting it into a seamless whole.

The One Ring designer Francesco Nepitello, on what we changed and why: “When we started to work on the revision, we thought that the major change would involve the presentation. Two guides had to be merged into one, and the main criticism the game received since its publication concerned its usability as a rules manual. So, this responsibility fell squarely on the shoulders of Andrew Kenrick, who did a marvelous job of cutting, pasting and polishing.

Then, I was asked if I wanted to take this chance to fix anything, and I embarked on the task of bringing into focus the things that the fans already flagged as 'broken' or unwieldy in the past. As soon as I got back into the mood of considering the basic mechanics of the game, I could not help myself, and with the help of Andrew, Marco Maggi and Amado Angulo I tried to modify everything that we felt was perfectible always keeping in mind that we had a limited time and that this was not going to be a second edition. So, you might see it as a supplementary round of development of the basic mechanics, made after a good number of years of 'field testing'. “

TORAdventuring PhaseThe One Ring Roleplaying Game now comprises nine parts, each logically arranged for ease of use in play. By far the biggest change in this regard is Part Four: The Adventuring Phase. This is where all the core mechanics to the game are found, as well as the various sub-sets of mechanics used in play: rules for combat, journeys and encounters.

As well as reformatting the text, countless tables and charts have been added into the game too, many of them taken from the Loremaster’s Screen. These allow readers to easily find information when they’re in a hurry, such as when a question crops up around the gaming table. By taking this information from the Loremaster’s Screen and putting it in the game itself, it allows every player to have the necessary rules within easy reach, not just the Loremaster.

Together with the index, which is more thorough and exhaustive than ever before, The One Ring Roleplaying Game is easy to navigate and simple to use at the gaming table.