Explaining TOR to the uninitiated

[Glorelendil]

I want to LM a live TOR game, so I spoke with the owner of the local gaming store who is all in favor.

Since this will involve recruiting strangers, I want to ensure (to the extent possible) that they understand what they will be getting into.

Does anybody know of any resources (essays, forum threads, etc.) that do a good job of explaining how TOR is different from, say, D&D? Or anybody want to take a crack at writing a paragraph, or some bullet points?

[Dunheved]

I want to LM a live TOR game, so I spoke with the owner of the local gaming store who is all in favor... ..... anybody want to take a crack at writing a paragraph, or some bullet points?

How about some of these ideas?
1. DnD is often a matter of levelling up into a superlative fighting machine to take on the bigger & stronger adversaries you run into. TOR is a game where you are expected to make progress using a wide variety of different strategies/approaches. You will run into problems you cannot solve by killing. So how else can you out-think your opponents?
2. DnD has a very loose background. It has been influenced by many different sources and incorporates a huge variety of species and has a very direct and immediate culture for magic use. e.g. this style of magic is often used straight against muscle. TOR has one main source (The works of Tolkien) which allows all players to be much more in keeping with the genre. The magic is rarely of direct physical effect and so it cannot be used as a knock-out blow. In this game you stick to the realities of Tolkien's world. The way to role play well is with good tactics or behaviour instead of the searching for the best weaponry or specific magic spells.
3. The LM is more of an umpire, holding you to the spirit of the game; than a referee handing out penalties or enforcing the rules.
4. DnD is like being a soldier - trained in weapons and aiming to kill the enemy: TOR is more like being a hunter - using what skills you have to survive each day and to overcome or outwit any survival problems you meet.
5. In DnD you are really working up to be a God; in TOR you are saving (your part of) the world until you retire or die.

Hope these are of some use - I think you have set yourself a big task (TN = 18). How are your skill levels in Persuade; Inspire and Lore?

[Glorelendil]

5. In DnD you are really working up to be a God; in TOR you are saving (your part of) the world until you retire or die.

I love #5. That summarizes it as well as any one sentence I've seen.

[zedturtle]

Ok, here's an attempt at something that might help. People won't read long things, but they will read short things, sometimes out loud. People don't want to listen to you read off a long thing. So maybe we break this into chunks of data. Here goes:

1)

• The One Ring is a game about playing in the world of Tolkien. Your characters are ordinary people caught up into extraordinary events. But they are good people and have the capacity for great heroism within them. Characters have three Attributes: Body, Heart and Wits. Each attribute has two values: normal and Favoured. When you make a roll, you will roll a Feat die and some Success dice. The Feat die is a special d12, it has the numbers 1-10 on it and a Gandalf rune and an Eye of Sauron. Gandalfs are good for you: Saurons are bad. If you fail the roll, you can spend Hope to add your attribute value to the total. If the skill is underlined, you get to add the Favoured value. Spent Hope carefully... it's hard to get back and spending too much can make your character Miserable!

2)

• The One Ring is set in Wilderland, five years after Bilbo the Hobbit visited Beorn and fought the giant spiders of Mirkwood, hid in the Elven King's halls, partied in Laketown and then helped rescue Dale and the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug. Now Dale and the Mountain have been rebuilt but it's still a dangerous and wild place. When the heroes go on a long journey special rules come into play. Everyone has a job to do on a journey: you might be the Guide, a Hunter, a Look-Out or a Scout. We'll make special tests for the journey... failing means your hero will become fatigued and maybe even Weary. If we see an Eye of Sauron, we might have a Hazard... a random encounter that will be a challenge for our heroes.

3)

• Wilderland is a dangerous place but it is also home to powerful people. If we come to call at Beorn's house, the Elven King's halls, King Bard's palace or even to a chieftain of Woodmen then we will need to prove ourselves to these mighty lords. Formal Encounters have two parts: an Introduction and then Interaction. We might need a spokesperson or we might all talk. The important NPC has a Tolerance score; how many times we can fail to impress him or her. While the Battle of Five Armies helped to bring the Free Peoples together, there is still a lot of prejudice that might affect the lord's tolerance. If he do well, we might get special Boons from the lord.

4)

• Many dangerous foes wander the Wild. Some are servants of the Shadow, some are agents of their own. But in any case we will have to defend ourselves sooner or later. When the time for combat comes, we must be careful to array ourselves in a tactical manner: some of use should carry the fight to the enemy in order that those who are skilled with ranged weapons can stay back and put their skills to use. Before combat, we might have a chance to ambush the enemy (or we might be ambushed) or to fire an opening volley. When we do get into close combat we will need to choose a Stance, which will tell the Loremaster how aggressive we are being in the fight: Forward means it will be easiest for us to hit the enemy (but also for them to hit us). Defensive will be the hardest. Open is a middle ground between the two. Archers will take a Rearward stance, but only if enough of us can fight the enemy in order to protect them.

5)

• Adventuring in Middle Earth is dangerous but also rewarding. In time, we will learn how to better use our skills and our weapons. We will increase in both Valour and Wisdom... learning new abilities (some that would seem magical) and receiving rewards. When we use our common everyday skills, the Loremaster will talk to us about how to claim Advancement Points. When we complete this session, we'll get Experience Points. Then we will have a Fellowship Phase where we can spend these points and improve our characters

---

I did five cards: the typical LM + four players. I would advise you to make pregens that have enough AP/XP so that what you hand out in the session is enough for an interesting Fellowship Phase. Make enough pregens so that you have max players + 2 options, that way everyone (even the last guy) gets to make a choice.

I'd plan for three hours of adventure, and open in media res with the heroes all together and in the middle of the story... That way the FP at the end will be natural.

[aramis]

You may wish to make mention that the Rules do not seem influenced by the Peter Jackson movies, and the PJ movies take quite a few liberties with both story and dialogue.

[Evening]

Steal from WFRP. (not FFG's wait-I-have-a-card-for-that boardgame WFRP, but the 1st and 2nd edition Warhammer Roleplaying game.)

From the old WFRP forums:

One of my players summarised the difference between D&D and WFRP as follows:

"In D&D everybody casts spells, it doesn't matter -- good, bad, monster, friend, king, peasant, kolbold..whatever -- everybody knows some sort of magic and all you hear is the constant clinking of glassware from all the heal/haste/invis potions everybody is carrying around.

In Warhammer, almost nobody knows magic and those that do keep it secret or else they get their neck stretched or tied to some bonfire. If you've got a potion, it's probably some herbal crap that tastes worse than the bloody flux you have because you drank from the town well.

In D&D, you're surrounded by orcs.

In Warhammer, its raining, you haven't eaten in two days and you haven't had much sleep because the of the lice and fleas dining on your crotch, and you're surrounded by orcs. And then their boss shows up."

Just tell them its Warhammer in Middle-Earth, except the elves don't look creepy and are mostly good looking.

[Glorelendil]

All good stuff; thanks! (And thanks for writing a treatise, Zed!)

[Rôg]

Steal from WFRP. (not FFG's wait-I-have-a-card-for-that boardgame WFRP, but the 1st and 2nd edition Warhammer Roleplaying game.)

Holy Crap. Is that why I'm writing for this line? It all makes so much sense now...




T.S. Luikart
Game Designer - One Ring Writer
(Writer of many things WFRP 2nd Ed, too. )

[Hermes Serpent]

If it's designed as a one shot to gather interest in the game then I suggest that you start off with Hope set to about 50% of usual so they get the flavour of the effects of loss of Hope while in a single session. I'd also go for one PC from each of the cultures with a second just in case there is a squabble over one of the PC's.

If my adventure in Moria was better developed I'd offer it up as an example but it's been tested only once and needs more play to get it into a position where it works well as a demo game. If you need some pre gen PC's I can turn up a number that have been done for con games and have reduced Hope and some other slight adjustments from the base starting characters.

[Glorelendil]

Well, I should have said "campaign" not "game". But after reading some of the responses maybe I'll do a trial (not "trail") game with pre-gens first, and then gauge interest in a campaign.