One player, One Loremaster?

[WARDUKE]

Hi all,

Does anyone have experience playing The One Ring with a Loremaster and a single player?
If so, how well does the game work for that?

Thanks.

[Morgoth]

I've done this with other systems before, but not with TOR. I think it would actually work pretty well though. Make sure you're not an archer, and make sure you have a good travel skill. You might want to start off with more XP/AP than normal. You also might consider playing two characters. One variant roll you might like is to be able to spend a point of hope to fill a vacant travel roll.

A Ranger with Ways of the Wild would seem cool because they would fill all the travel roles, but then you'd have a VERY hard time recovering hope. Hope's actually a big problem, since you wont have a fellowship focus. A Hobbit could be a good route. You'd get more hope, get Small Folk for a good parry, and Art of Disappearing to hide from what you can't fight. Beorning might not be a bad idea either. If you wanted more "party" interaction, you could be a Dwarf with a raven or a Woodman with a hound.

[Glorelendil]

I'd probably add an NPC companion; the player calls the shots but the LM rolls the dice.

I was thinking that if either of the two is a Woodman with a Hound that person could be the archer, but the Hound can't provide that benefit until a couple XP have been accumulated, which means there's basically no way to get Rearward stance for the first Adventure phase. If you want to go by RAW.

[shipwreck]

I feel as though I would really like to try this, but I'm apprehensive. If you do end up doing a game (or just a session) this way, please report and let us know how it went! I'm curious.

[Rocmistro]

Warduke, that actually sounds like a lot of fun. I'd agree with some of the other suggestions here:

1. Let the player have two characters.

2. If he (or you) doesn't want to do that, let him start off with more XP/AP. I'd say 4-6 XP and 6-8 AP.

3. If you/he goes the solo route (1 character only), I'd switch up the way Hope works, as this is a core feature of the game. I'd probably do something basic like increase his Hope Pool by 5 points. Another thing you could do is every time he rolls a Gandalf Rune on the Feat Die (for any test), he recovers 1 point of Hope. A more high-maintenance way to do this is seed your adventure with about 8-12 "way points". (save points, if you will). Every time he reaches a "way point", he recovers a point of hope.

[Sprigg]

When I ran a one player scenario, the player just played his character and I played a caravan he joined. He led most of the interactions and I reacted, often using die rolls to determine (nom critical) npc actions. It worked surprisingly well. When trouble befell them, if he was doing well, the group was also. If he did badly, so did the others. It works very well in TOR but it takes a player with a lot of initiative.

[NIÑO]

Hello!

What happened when the PC left the group (& their safety/company), or hasn't this happened yet?


Thanks
Ñ

[Rue]

I'm also interested in how it goes as I plan to run a one on one adventure with my husband eventually.

[zedturtle]

I like Roc's suggestions above, but I feel like it might lead to spamming... trying to make inconsequential rolls in order to gain Hope points back. What I might do in that situation is remove the Fellowship Pool and give the character +3 Hope points. Then, whenever the player rolls a Great or Extraordinary success, they have a choice. For a Great success they can keep the Great result (with its benefits) or turn it into a regular success and get one Hope back. For an Extraordinary success, if they turn it into a regular success, they get two Hope points back.

That way, the player has to make interesting choices... better success now or greater chance of success later... and it shouldn't be spammed too much, since it's a choice between success conditions.

[Glorelendil]

And also only allow it when the roll has real consequences. "I may as well Search the area" doesn't count. But "I Search for the Key before the orcs get back" does.