Eluadin wrote:[...]Take a lesson from Frodo when something good is called for that doesn't necessarily appear in line with our character; and take a queue from Boromir when something bad is required out of synch with the character (the latter might even make sense if players tend to lean away from the Will of the West in their play style).
“At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.”
“He rose and passed his hand over his eyes, dashing away the tears. ‘What have I said?’ he cried. ‘What have I done? Frodo, Frodo!’ he called. ‘Come back! A madness took me, but it has passed. Come back!”
Nice.
This can work well for the tone of the game, in giving a nod back to the sources that inspired us to be playing TOR in the first place. There's less narration at the table in my group, but I do retrospectively add such things into my writeups of the game, and my players don't seem to mind having cool stuff invented on their behalf (though it begins to stretch the definition of a writeup of 'Actual Play'...)
But having examined those sorts of moments in the books very closely, I've concluded that there's a lot more to them, and it's a goal of mine to work those concepts into the game, and even game mechanics, as much as possible.
The intervention of a higher power giving the free will of the character a little nudge in the right direction (to interpret it charitably) is probably not a common event. Things that happen to that one particular small hobbit are pivotal to the whole of the Great Author's vision for the unfolding of the history of Middle-earth, and yer average PC probably wouldn't really get such benevolent steers.
The Phial of Galadriel seems to put chapter and verse into the subconscious mind of the bearer -- in Quenya, no less! But the Phial itself can be identified as the direct source there. Or if not the Phial itself, then some action of Galadriel's at the point of bestowing it.
There is also the example of Gandalf watching over Frodo from afar, and possibly sending hints via
ósanwë into his subconscious mind. When Frodo enters something approximating
ósanwë space on the seat of Amon Hen, Gandalf is able to make himself heard directly in Frodo's waking mind, with his "Take off the Ring!"
Beyond Galadriel and Gandalf, Elrond, Círdan, and Celeborn and a small supporting cast of mighty Noldor seem likely to be the only ones capable of such. And that's a potentially a proper tangible benefit of spending an Undertaking to have such a figure for a Patron!
But not all unexpected insights are necessarily beamed in from an external source. All the Children of Eru have a 'higher self', their
fëa, that is usually subconscious and best gets to express itself in dreams -- as is also true of
ósanwë, to which the
waking mind is not generally very receptive. So sometimes the will of the subconscious
fëa may manage to make itself felt, without the character being conscious of the source of the insight.
My personal favourite is when a player says something that's true, without him necessarily realising it at the time. I stop whatever else is going on and focus in on that player, telling them something like "You don't know how you know, but your heart tells you that what you just said is true."
My theories aren't as well-formed on the temptings of the Shadow, but obviously all sorts of wrong thought and wrong actions can be attributed to the pull of dark motives. This is Arda Marred, and there is a seed of Melkor-Morgoth in anyone whose body is made of the tainted fabric of Middle-earth -- even before they've officially gained the first Flaw on their Shadow-weakness track.
Cheers,
--Os.
