Newbie questions about the game

[Rich H]

Cheers Hermes, I'd certainly missed that and it's interesting to note as my previous statement regarding Ruins of the North holds - I wrote my adventure with this in mind and the fact that they were meant to be scaled to starting characters in their experience and difficulty level. Something may have changed though in the final edit as I know James ran his adventure at GenCon using pre-gen characters of a higher XP level. It is easier to increase difficulty levels in pre-published adventures than it is to reduce it though. It may be that, where necessary, they have been 'scaled up' by Francesco et al in a later edit. We shall see! Looking forward to when the supplement gets announced and previewed especially since an adventure from it was previewed at GenCon. Exciting times.

[Hermes Serpent]

Rich H certainly adjusting an adventure is a lot easier now we have some options in Rivendell for additional features/abilities for creatures. It's always been a matter of altering a skill level or maybe an Attribute Level to get a 'boss' or some slightly tougher adversaries, but throwing another set of spiders or wolves or orcs/goblins against the party smacks of being a little boring. Human or human-like adversaries are always better because they avoid the 'Ah bow armed goblins, got to be Snagas' situation. The toughness of a human adversary isn't obvious from their appearance making a company far more reluctant to make an aggressive move first. I find a bearded old man with a staff and a glint in his eye can be terrifying if you play them right.

[Rocmistro]

You can have Black Uruks with bows. Just sayin', it's not against the law

[Hermes Serpent]

It might not be against the law but canon is another matter

[Rocmistro]

Lurtz had a bow.

Nothin' but net.

[Glorelendil]

Yet another one of my temporarily-shelved projects was a "random orc generator". You'd tell it what attribute level you wanted, and it would create an orc with random weapons, abilities, and stats of appropriate levels. The hardest part was assigning point values for stats and abilities.

[jamesrbrown]

Cheers Hermes, I'd certainly missed that and it's interesting to note as my previous statement regarding Ruins of the North holds - I wrote my adventure with this in mind and the fact that they were meant to be scaled to starting characters in their experience and difficulty level. Something may have changed though in the final edit as I know James ran his adventure at GenCon using pre-gen characters of a higher XP level.

Nightmares of Angmar takes a company of player-heroes from Wilderland into Eriador, crossing many dangerous and hostile lands. Beefing up the pre-gens for GenCon was to give them a better chance of survival and to have an opportunity to play more advanced characters. I'm pleased to report that it worked out well!

To address the issue of scaling adventures, I could have easily chosen to lessen the Target numbers for tests, the number of adversaries and/or their Attribute levels, etc. I did allow them to assist one another on Fatigue tests during the journey (they made each roll together and I allowed a great success to cover another's failure and an extraordinary success to cover two failures). This helped some of them from becoming completely Weary (although they needed to find a safe place of rest to recover before the final leg. I believe it was the Dwarf that led the way in crafting a hidden shelter among the rocky outcroppings of the mountains where they stayed a fortnight; each prolonged rest only lowers travel Fatigue by 1).

To help new players understand the game, I posted a review nearly two years ago on rpg.net in which I explain how the game works by telling a story called, "Wargs in the Realm." You can find it here for your enjoyment.

[Arkat]

Hi Steelwind. Welcome to the forum and the game. As you can see I'm pretty new around here myself, and my campaign hasn't started yet (we will have our first session in a week).

Like you I have played a lot of D&D (from the Mentzer edition up to 3.5) and I think you are in for a ride with TOR. It is a very different approach to games. It is up to you to find out if you think it is good different or bad different, but I love it. But it is different, and it is different for a reason.

The main difference is that, unlike most D&D games it doesn't provide you with the races and rules that let you set your game anywhere in the setting. It is a much more focused game, in that it is centered on a particular region (wilderland) at a particular point in time (five years after The Hobbit). The disadvantage of this is, as you have pointed out, that some of the more iconic races and roles are not provided. The advantage is that you really get to explore this part of the setting. It choses depth over width, so to speak.

A lot of people have commented on how cultures work in char-gen, but I don't think anyone has talked about Callings yet. This is the closest analogue TOR has to classes, with one major difference. They don't measure what you are good at (like fighting or sneaking) but rather why you are adventuring. So a slayer doesn't have to be a better fighter than a scholar, but his reason for leaving his home and friends to go on adventure is to slay evil. In the same way the wardens' motivation is to protect people and treasure hunters are motivated by money. This also ties in with the corruption mechanic of the game. So slayers are in danger of being consumed by their bloodlust, wardens grow tyrannical and treasure hunters get the dragon sickness.

So good luck with your game. Your players will probably find the game very different from d&d, and they might just love it. My players certainly did.

[Valarian]

I'll be running a demo game (not sure what scenario yet) at the Fantasy Grounds online convention in October (17th to 19th October). Once I sort out the event (time and scenario), I'll post here. It may give you an opportunity to try the game out before running it yourself. All sessions are free, though you would need to install the software (as an unregistered/demo licence).

[Valarian]

I'll be running a cut-down version of The Marsh Bell at the Fantasy Grounds online convention in October (17th to 19th). Go to the events at www.fg-con.com to sign up.