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If all goes well (which not always does...), I'll be running a TOR campaign weekly. Last friday the group met for the first time and we had time to create the characters, explain the rules and play an example Encounter, Travel and Combat. I also happened to test Elfcrusher's Journeyometer to very good results.

If I'm able to get enough time, I plan to describe not what the player's did in every session, but the previous ideas and plans that I had for each adventure. Players are players, but I sometimes find helpful to know how other LMs prepared their games and what plots did they encourage in their games.

I hope this thread might help someone.

Let's begin with the character creation.
I'll copy here the modifications I did to the RAW cultures, and try to expose the reasons behind them.
Not to say you should try this at home, but I felt some things were not exactly how I imagined the cultures. At least, you can critize me to death about not playing first with RAW!
**************
Woodmen
+1 Body and -1 Wits

[The Body of a Hobbit and the Wits of an Elf? I can’t agree with that… even if I don’t play with the +2 / -2 that I would consider more realistic. No Virtue nor any Reward from the Woodmen relies on their Body or Wits, so I don’t think there should be any unbalance, except for breaking the nice symmetry of the starting cultures.]

Mirkwood Elves
*Starting skills scores:

“…for Elves (even more than Hobbits) could walk when they wished without sound or footfall.”
“They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise.”

Stealth 3
Lore 2

[Hobbits have Stealth 3. With their higher Wits if a Hope point is spent, Mirkwood elves should now be equal or better than Hobbits when stalking.
Rivendell elves have Lore 3. All other cultures have either Lore 0 or 1, except Rangers of the North who have Lore 2. I think Lore 2 is more adequate to Mirkwood elves.]

*Cultural blessings:
Folk of the Dusk doesn’t apply underground.

“I also will come -said Legolas-, for I do not fear the Dead.”
“The company halted, and there was not a heart among them that did not quail, unless it were the heart of Legolas of the Elves, for whom the ghosts of Men have no terror.”

Add Against the Unseen with the following modification: immunity against Fear tests provoked by Undeads with an Attribute level equal or less than the Valour or Wisdom (whichever is higher) score of the Elf.

Hobbits

“Bilbo, too, claimed a blade: merely a dagger by the standards of Men or its original Elvish makers, and but a tiny pocket-knife for the trolls whose hoard it was found in, but it made an excellent short sword for a Hobbit.”
“For each of the Hobbits he chose a dagger… 'Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,…'”

Hobbit-sized weapons have a -2 to Damage. Edge and Injury remain unchanged.

Hobbits gain automatically the Trait “Small”, in addition to all other Traits selected during character creation.

The Virtue “Small Folk” changes the gaining of the Trait “Small” for:

“So many dreadful things have happened in the City, Merry, that one poor Hobbit coming in from battle is easily overlooked.’
‘It’s not always a misfortune being overlooked,’ said Merry. ‘I was overlooked just now by—no, no, I can’t speak of it.”

When assigning the engagements in combat, if a medium or higher sized enemy can engage another target, it won’t choose a Hobbit. If a Hobbit character chooses to engage an enemy, it can attack the Hobbit normally.

Rangers of the North
*Basic Attributes:
16 points to distribute within the following ranges:
Body 5-7 / Heart 4-6 / Wits 4-6

*Endurance: 24 +Heart (or Body if using the optional house rule)
Hope: 8 + Heart

*Their Previous Experience points are 10 instead of 14, like any other culture, but Rangers of the North begin with higher Starting Skill Scores:

Insight 2 / Search 2 (equivalent to 4 more points among Starting Skill Scores)

[I consider that, with an adventure age starting at 18, they shouldn't have more starting points than other human cultures that start at 16. After all, they are "full time adventurers", but their training is not for them to choose. Therefore, higher Starting Skill Scores but the same Previous Experience points. Intimidate could also gain 1 point, but I prefered to leave it like that.]

*Weapons:
Long Sword 2, Spear 2, Dagger 1
(Bows) 2, Sword 2, Dagger 1

Additonal:
Allegiance of the Dúnedain applies as normal.

Additionally, Rangers of the North have the following limitations:

“What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dúnedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave? And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. […]Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown.”
“In Bree, I am only a Ranger who comes and goes as he pleases and is not known to be safe company…”
“Say a captain of the Rangers, who are unused to cities and houses of stone.”

-A Ranger of the North cannot choose the Fellowship Undertakings “Open Sanctuary” nor “Receive Title” from any culture except elven ones (Halls of Thranduil, Rivendell, Grey Havens, Lórien). For the “Open Sanctuary” undertaking, the Ranger of the North character is not necessary for the rest of the Fellowship to choose it.

Optional Starting Endurance
Use Body instead of Heart:
Bardings, Beornings, Mirkwood Elves, Woodmen: 22 + Body Attribute
Dwarves, Rangers of the North , High Elves: 24 + Body Attribute
Hobbits: 18 + Body Attribute

For Woodmen, use also:
Hope = 8 + Heart

And a Foreword to Blood in the Waters, the first adventure to be run next friday:

When: 2944, when the rebuilding of Laketown is finished (or almost) and the first Dragontide is made. The characters are young and adventurous people coming to Laketown for the festival.

The dwarven map that is stolen is from the Greydelve. Theustal can read the name of the dwarven fortress (let's say it was written in Sindarin), but the rest of what it says is in Khuzdul, and he can't understand a thing. The name Greydelve will be important later, when the players meet Frár the Beardless.

At the end of the adventure, the players and the rescued people will be taken to Laketown. There will be the meeting with the Master, but Theustal will also ask for a representative of the Lonely Mountain, so that he can ask for the use of the former dwarven mines in his town. Glóin will be the representative and he will meet the players there. That will be the link to the Marsh Bell.

In the Fellowship Phase I plan to include the Dragontide festivities, with a shooting contest, a battle contest (with some people disguised as goblins and wargs) and a drinking contest (Athletics rolls).

Laketown will be automatically be opened as a Sanctuary and the players will still have one more undertaking before spring and the Marsh Bell.

For the next adventures, I plan not to include Orcs nor goblins, to justify their decreased numbers and the sensation of "good years". In fact, in Blood in the Waters, I'll convert the half-orc into an orc (Ghor from TfW) with the red eye symbol, that no one during the adventure is able to identify. This way, the players will know that some orc "not from the misty nor the grey mountains" is around doing mischief.

Blood in the Waters went well for the heroes. They rescued everyone and my Chase rules worked perfectly: they lost some Endurance before the combats, but managed to capture the goblins. Not too fast and without effort, but not too late, as the rules intended.
The dwarf in the group grew very interested in knowing something else about this "Greydelve" and decided to take Glóin as a Patron during his Fellowship Phase, with the intention of convincing him to investigate the ancient dwarven hold further. In two adventures they will meet Frár the Beardless, and I forsee an interesting talk between them two.

The group was rewarded with free accomodation for the Dragon Tide and were invited to stay until spring, when they could travel home again. Esgaroth was opened as a Sanctuary and I gave them the chance for another Fellowhip Undertaking, thus introducing the rules to the Fellowship Phase.

With Glóin as a Patron, and their renown as rescuers in Lake-Town, the Marsh Bell kicked in when the group was preparing to leave the city.

It's been a nice adventure, where the heroes accumulated some Shadow Points (blighted place every day + resisting the bell's magic ) and begin to fear spending Hope points.

As an addendum, I've prepared an extension to the Marsh Bell where Balin and Oin's wounds get infected and diseased, and the players are asked for help to find some herbs in the Grey Mountain Narrows.

This adventure is based in a few premises:
1) After the Marsh Bell, the heroes have 1d6 days until they're called back by Glóin with the news of his relative's complications. That's the time they'll have to recover from the Travel Fatigue accumulated in the Marsh Bell and they won't get a Fellowship Phase. I'll let them replenish just their Fellowship Hope Pool. It hasn't been the case in my group, but someone could even be Wounded at the start of the adventure.

2) It will be an adventure without any combat. I want them to be concerned because their Endurance is not full, their Travel Fatigue hasn't still disappeared, they haven't had the time to Heal Corruption,... but I want the adventure to be interesting without battles. The Travel rules and some predefined Hazards (rain that forces Athletic test to avoid losing more Endurance, and wolve's howls that scare the horses) should do the trick. Heart of the Wild, with the NPCs Frár the Beardless and Farmann should allow for very interesting encounters.
In fact, I plan for the PCs to take shelter with Frár the Beardless, who will ask for some stories after supper before deciding if the heroes can sleep overnight with him. I'll introduce a Hobbit Tales game there, just for the fun of storytelling!

When the search for the herb starts, they'll get to encounter Farmann during a night's rest, as described in HotW. Farmann will also be looking for a rare herb for his sick daughter (Leechcraft or Heal reveals it's the same herb the company is looking for), and will guide the heroes to a watchtower where an old hag grows it. When they reach together the hill, Farmann will gallop with his horse to the summit. If the player's override him and take the herb first, they'll gain some Shadow Points. If they let Farmann get the herb, he'll disappear in the morning sunlight, along with the illusion of the watchtower, and the players will see more herbs growing among a circle of old and mossy stones. They will lose 1 Shadow Point, as if they received good news from someone whom they were concerned about.

Thanks for sharing, other LM:s thoughts and ideas are really valuable, at least to me. I love your take on Farmann and the herb, will try to use something simliar in my campaign in the future.

I had Frar assist a company with badly beaten members. Having noticed that Frar as described in HotW matched the background Bitter Exile in the core rules I was able to use favoured Healing from that Background to patch up the companion who had been mauled by a Snow Troll.

Dunkelbrink wrote:Thanks for sharing, other LM:s thoughts and ideas are really valuable, at least to me. I love your take on Farmann and the herb, will try to use something simliar in my campaign in the future.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

I also forgot to mention that I plan on giving the players 12 days until Balin and Oin die from their wounds.
A Hazard where their horses might be scared by wolves becomes suddenly more than just a few rolls. They need horses to return in time to Lake-town!
In our campaign, the dwarf (again!) decided to spend some of his Fellowship Phase in Grenedun (the mining town from Blood in the Waters), which I've located somewhere in the Grey Mountains, north of Dale and Erebor. If the players lose their horses, they might go there to ask for help getting new mounts. It shouldn't be difficult, the company being the rescuers of the Major just a year ago, but suddenly NPCs and places that seem to be secondary in one adventure become important and alive in another one. Being nice to someone is not just a way or roleplaying or avoiding getting Shadow Points, it can be useful in the future and the world begins to form connections and fell alive.

Regarding the potential death of Balin and Oin, I normally try to stick to the canon, and neither Balin nor Oin should die before retaking Moria... but in this case, it would be a very interesting turn of events for the players. They know Tolkien's works quite well, and during the Marsh Bell adventure one of them said "Don't worry too much, Balin can't die. He still has to retake Moria!". We all laughed, but that pushed me to accept the possibility of changing the official story. Glóin could be the one that leads the quest for Moria, or any of the 8 remaining dwarves (13 minus Thorin, Fili, Kili, and now Balin and Oin). That could be a very frightful moment for my players: "Glups, the canon doesn't miraculosly save the main characters! We really have to do our part, as our actions bear consequences!"
On the other hand, I think they will manage to save both dwarves on time ...I guess.

Falenthal wrote:Regarding the potential death of Balin and Oin, I normally try to stick to the canon, and neither Balin nor Oin should die before retaking Moria... but in this case, it would be a very interesting turn of events for the players.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. And, I love this! My players aren't overly well-versed in the lore, but I really love the fact that you are using your players' prior knowledge as dramatic leverage. This is really cool -- I keep thinking about how I would feel, as a Tolkien nerd, playing in this game: 'Is...is he really going to kill Balin?! '

Yep, I think that approach is great. Let Balin die... Gloin goes to Moria instead, so no Gloin (and possible no Gimli) at the council of Elrond. This means the Council plays out differently... another number of heroes are chosen or perhaps people never "meant" to go. Of course, Erú Iluvitar will make sure that anyone who does go has the opportunity to Do The Right Thing™, but it will be different from the Red Book.

zedturtle wrote:Yep, I think that approach is great. Let Balin die... Gloin goes to Moria instead, so no Gloin (and possible no Gimli) at the council of Elrond. This means the Council plays out differently... another number of heroes are chosen or perhaps people never "meant" to go. Of course, Erú Iluvitar will make sure that anyone who does go has the opportunity to Do The Right Thing™, but it will be different from the Red Book.

I wasn't thinking so far ahead!
First of all, I think the characters have enough time to complete the mission should they not make many bad decissions. And in case they fail, well, they'll only know that Balin and Oin died because of their incompetence. Whatever happens later is not for them to know. Maybe there will be no quest for Moria at all.