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I thought I'd share our group's experiences after a campaign that ran bi-weekley for most of 2012.

We started our campaign with the RAW (Rules As Written), but then introduced a number of house rules to overcome perceived deficiencies in the Journey rules and a few minor tweaks elsewhere. Once Francesco's "Journeys Revisited" and "Preliminary Rolls" updates were issued we went back to RAW plus these changes (and all the other "official" changes such as large creature wound / weariness).

By the end of our campaign (when everyone had a combat score of 6) only three house rules remained. They, and the issues they attempted to address, are listed here. They worked well for us, YMMV.

Spending Shadow

Sometimes hope is not enough and heroes must rely on darker urges to succeed. Instead of spending a point of Hope to add an attribute bonus a hero can incur a shadow point to add double an attribute bonus, but must rationalize such an expenditure.

Baldac, realizing he is about to lose an archery contest, decides to cheat by distracting the leading contestant as they fire. He wins the contest but gains a shadow point.

We felt this was a nice way to allow players to have some control / say over when and how they incurred shadow points, and there [rare] use in this manner added a twist to how each story unfolded.

Combat Allocation

All foes are allocated at the commencement of each round and if slain are not replaced until the beginning of the next round.

This rule was instigated to get around the feeling that when faced with a large number of foes it didn't matter how many you killed from round to round (i.e. if a party of 5 is faced by 20 Orcs then if each kills an Orc on the first round they will still be faced by 3 Orcs each).

Mighty Blow / Shot

A hero can split his attack among multiple foes by allocating at least two success dice to each, with each roll using its own feat die. Abilities that enable a player to re-roll the feat die must be pre-allocated to a particular roll.

When faced with a large number of considerably weaker foes there just has to be some way of attacking more than one in a round. The minimum of two success dice per attack means there is an added incentive to get to a combat score of 4 (allowing 2 attacks) and 6 (allowing 3).

All three of these house rules sound briliant, but the one that really stands out to me is the use of Shadow. I think it's absolutely brilliant, and definitely sounds like it opens up a lot of interesting opportunities.. if only my players weren't so scared of shadow

Beleg wrote:All three of these house rules sound briliant, but the one that really stands out to me is the use of Shadow. I think it's absolutely brilliant, and definitely sounds like it opens up a lot of interesting opportunities.

I'd go the other way. I think it's a pretty poor mechanic for The One Ring and not supportive within the literature. As far as I can recall, there's simply no evidence in the literature that the Shadow works in this way never mind it being twice as good as Hope as a resource. You're not tempted by the Shadow in this way, calling upon it in order to draw on it's power as some kind of battery. I'd say such use of Shadow is exactly like that already set out in the RAW - ie, the expenditure of Hate and tied to Servants of the Enemy and evil doers.

However... it's an excellent mechanic for Star Wars and the Dark Side which I'll definitely pinch if I ever finish my The One Force conversion.

Rich H wrote:However... it's an excellent mechanic for Star Wars and the Dark Side which I'll definitely pinch if I ever finish my The One Force conversion.

I agree with this sentiment perfectly. And, I would also like to give you a friendly nudge to finish The One Force. The new Edge of the Empire roleplaying game is cool, but I am still not thrilled about the dice mechanics, etc. Abstract range bands during combat are fantastic, however. Anything to get rid of grid maps.

@Ashley, I like what you've done with the other two rules & will use them as well. Thank you, these are very helpful!

For my two pence, however, I concur with the other comments concerning your Shadow rule. I'm glad it works for your game, though it seems to stray a bit from what the designers intend about the carefully crafted balance of Middle-earth.

Again, just my observation

I understand why you guys disagree, but I spoke to my friend about it today, and he thinks it sounds fun, and that it would make Shadow more of a common occurence. As it is, my players have never had more than 2 or 3 points of Shadow at one time, which I find a little bit boring tbh

jamesrbrown wrote:I agree with this sentiment perfectly. And, I would also like to give you a friendly nudge to finish The One Force. The new Edge of the Empire roleplaying game is cool, but I am still not thrilled about the dice mechanics, etc. Abstract range bands during combat are fantastic, however. Anything to get rid of grid maps.

Edge of the Empire is a good game although a bit too crunchy for my tastes. It's still light years ahead of the two WotC Star Wars RPGs though but I'm still not really completely happy with it.

The One Force is at a very rough stage of development at the moment, I'm afraid. I'd really like to get it written up and completed but so much of my spare time is spent on my (active) TOR game and the commitments around it. I think it'll be only something I go back to when I decide to run it or if I get a couple of weeks off work - which is rare as I'm a contractor and so when one job finishes I start looking straight away for another as I don't get paid annual leave.

here are the house rules we use in my campaigns:

A. Fading
Racial Shadow Weakness for all Elves (Later Third & Fourth Age only). Once you acquire the first of these traits (Forgetful below), you must also make a Healing or Insight TN 10 test once/month or lose either an Advancement Point or Experience Point (player's choice).
1. Forgetful
Lost in your own memories and/or the past, you tend to daydream and are absent-minded about present day things or concerns - to others you go into a trance for a number of minutes equal to 10 minus your Heart Rating - you can only be 'woken up' earlier with a successful TN 16 Awareness test.
B. Combat ideas
1. Optional 'Called Shot' - all characters can also nominate a location they are targeting, and then roll a Location die to attempt to target a specific body location (eye, head etc.) but at +2 TN.
2. Penalties for being Wounded - a character who is wounded is penalised as if Weary (ie ignores rolls of 1-3 on success dice). A character who is Weary and Wounded also ignores 1-3 on the Feat die. When a wound is caused, Location die is rolled to determine where (by whoever is doing the wounding), and this may result in additional penalties (eg a Head wound means -1 to Wits etc.).
3. If an archer rolls an Eye, must roll a d6: 1-3 has only one arrow left.
4. Any who successfully Ambush can also choose engagement as well as winning initiative. Extra successes when Ambushing allow for extra rounds of ranged weapons, or to Charge an opponent.
5. Extra combat dice can also be used to boost a Parry rating for one roll.
6. Reach - a target who has a weapon of greater reach than an opponent and is aware of the attack makes them harder to hit by adding to the TN the Reach difference b/w weapons: 0 Unarmed; 2 Dagger; 4 Short Sword, Axe; 6 Sword, Great Axe, Mattock; 8 Long Sword, Spear; 10 Great Spear, Lance, Pike



C. Encounter Stuff Ups
• Inspire triggers a Gaffe that Persuade can remedy. The hero comes across as insincere in his high sounding speech. The only way to fix this properly is to make some reasonable points with his audience.
• Persuade triggers a Gaffe that Courtesy can remedy. The hero gets his facts mixed up or mischaracterises the subject. Now, he must apologize and demonstrate humility to carry forward the conversation.
• Courtesy triggers a Gaffe that Awe can remedy. The hero unknowingly insults his subject with inappropriate hand gestures or words and the only way to gain respect now is to demonstrate confidence and power.
• Awe triggers a Gaffe that Insight can remedy. The hero exudes arrogance and pride instead of importance. To regain the consideration of his subject, he will need to be quiet and listen well.
• Insight triggers a Gaffe that Riddle can remedy. The hero does not listen well and comes across as disinterested. To straighten things out, he must ask good questions and prove his commitment to the subject.
• Riddle triggers a Gaffe that Song can remedy. The hero asks foolish, assuming, or drawn-out questions that the subject is bored with. Only a sweet melody or rousing recital can break the monotony and draw responses.
Song triggers a Gaffe that Inspire can remedy. The hero forgets his words and cannot find the right pitch, causing his subject to cringe and disapprove. He must now impress the crowd with a heartfelt speech to retain the subject's attention

D. The Subtle Magic of Middle Earth and Shadow Points
As the very world of Middle-earth tends to reward 'good' acts and punish 'bad' acts, I feel that there should be more of a penalty for having Shadow Points than there is currently. The way I see this working is as follows: Once a character has Shadow Points = Heart Rating, these points begin to affect his actions in the following ways:
1) As a modifier to relevant Skill Tests/Tasks, depending on the situation: eg as a negative modifier to the character's attempts to Persuade, but may actually add as a positive modifier if using Awe to intimidate.
2) Hazards will target characters with higher Shadow Points first
3) Likewise, any 'negative' roll that requires a random character to be chosen will target a character with higher Shadow.

Robin S.