Hey thanks for joining the discussion Swampkatt.
I am glad we can discuss it here. Your thoughts and replies are appreciated. You have valid concerns. These things did not come out at the table and I am glad to be able to address them.
I agree about not being intentionally evil, I think it was done simply to stop Baldor from fleeing into the dark of Mirkwood in the most efficient method available by using Aerindir’s most potentially successful capabilities. That is min/maxing, and not so good role play.I am going to chime in. I am one of the players in this group, Glourn the dwarven slayer. My thoughts are as such: I too don't believe Arandir's shot was done with evil intent, but I highly believe it was impulsive and most definitely in acting against the groups desire. Several of us asked him not to make the shot but he did it anyway.
A more role play oriented approach would have been to try and tackle Baldor, or better yet in this game system, allow the Narrative to play itself out.
There is stealing from the Fellowship's hope pool, but it didn't apply here.Aren't there some pretty clear guidelines about acting against the group's wishes?
The only option I am aware of is to assign Shadow gain to any character who’s actions call for it. That’s why I posted here to get more experienced LM’s feedback.
Perhaps we could look at having the Fellowship assess the situation and make known what is expected of its members, Perhaps the Fellowship could put pressure on a wayward member to bring them in line with what is expected and to achieve goals.
More fundamentally, how are we going to role play?
But my friend, I will never tell you guys how to play your characters. You can trust me on that.
I agree with your comment about Elves. They might not be readily helpful in some circumstances, they are sometimes reluctant to get involved, because I think their long lives have taught them restraint due to the sort of “the pebble causing an avalanche” effect, but when they take action they are decisive.I would not think an Elf of Middle Earth would intentionally hurt another being, when he could easily run him down and have tackled him.
I apologize if It seemed I had ignored your requests to pursue Baldor. That was a failure to communicate on my part during the heat of the moment.It should be noted that two of us called for our characters to start running after him, this was apparently ignored in favor of letting Arandir take his shot.
Please let me explain my viewpoint in that moment.
It was night. The book did not specify the amount of light was available in the clearing, but it could have been anything between pitch dark and full moon. I assumed there was enough light for Baldor to make his way to the stream unassisted after he woke.
Aerindir was on watch, and alert with the company resting.
Baldor’s scenario begins. At the end of the Narrative presented in the book, Baldor says his dialogue before attempting to flee into the woods, and Aerindir has quick of hearing if I am not mistaken.
Aerindir also has Folk of the Dusk, Wild at Heart, Deadly Archery and Mirkwood Lore, and he was prepared. This took place at the edge of a clearing and with those assets Aeridir has uncanny archery precision even in intervening trees. Virtually a clear shot.
He had not informed me of rousing the company. No mention was made by players to rouse their characters which would have taken place after opening volleys, which take place before all other actions.
Aerindir was at range and had taken his stance, was not surprised, which allowed him an opening volley.
Finally, an arrow would outfly even the swiftest of feet. The player rolled excellently, an Extraordinary Success roll.
As an LM I was in a tight spot, I had to role play it, and felt I could not overrule the player's action. Believe me, I was looking for a way to wiggle out of it within the rules. If he had tried ATHLETICS I might have been able to pull a LM trick to allow Baldor to escape.
Heck, even if he had rolled a low success I could have pulled an LM trick like a startled deer running by and taking the arrow (oh and Aerindir gets two shots now). But an Extraordinary Success?
In retrospect, perhaps I should have just pulled an LM call and said he got away, with no opportunity to shoot, but it wasn't logical from my perspective. Plus I felt I might possibly lose credibility as a fair LM.
Those are the thought processes that lead me to allow the shot. The shot was fired before any other actions could have taken place. I didn't intend to limit your actions. I should have communicated better. I will improve that.
From my perspective Baldor stood little chance of fleeing, given the might and determination of The Fellowship to stop him. All players voiced the option of doing something to stop Baldor, and likely would have succeeded because I have the feeling I could only pull so many LM tricks out of the bag at once before you would all call me out as unfair.
But, Baldor being restrained by tackling and binding would have the same result. He was meant to flee into the woods as per the Narrative.
Danny and I discussed a more bullet proof hook might have prevented this, like one minute Baldor is there, next he is gone. But I didn’t even think of that while I was reading the Narrative.
I am faulting no-one for trying to save Baldor from fleeing into the dark peril of Mirkwood, it seems a logical desire for the company since they hired on to protect him in the first place.
But there is a lesson here for all of us.
I could have yanked Baldor away from the Fellowship in that critical moment, but I decided it might be better to let this play out so we all could learn something.
I am thinking we as a group should consider this game system from a new perspective and allow the role play aspect of the Narrative to play out before pouncing and snuffing it.
It is new for all of us, and despite the consequences, I think we have all learned something new about TOR with this situation.
Thank you, you are a good role player and I ask your patience as we muddle through this.After the action was played most of us then just went with the flow and agreed with the LM decision because the LM made it clear the campaign was done. So what reason was there to make any more of the situation? It became an issue between the LM and Arandir, the rest of us were just left in the wake of that. I was not happy with it, but I'll live with it for the sake of the Fellowship.
Yeah, It was a tough call. I too was disappointed by not being able to continue with "Don't Leave the Path" adventure.
The campaign as a whole is not over though. I am I trying to figure out a way to play "Don't Leave the path" later.
Logically I didn't see how this first adventure in the campaign could continue with Baldor out of action at the first step of it. My intention is to play the material presented, and as presented, Baldor must flee into the woods to lead to the next episode, and all the episodes follow on the heels of that in a chain that was broken at the first link.
I guess I might have tried to pick it apart, but it was getting late, and didn't really want to do that, as I didn't read through them all in detail since I like surprises too... and didn't know how it all fit together.
And one more thing, the adventures can be played separately, can be dropped into a campaign at any point, So I made the call to close the book on “Don’t leave the Path” for the time being but not the other adventures.
The rest of the adventures in Tales from the Wilderland are still playable.
I simply didn't know how to fix that. It crossed my mind that If someone else had drunk from the tainted stream and lost all their memories of the last five years maybe we could have made it work, but I don't think I would have gotten any volunteers for that, so I didn't even ask.
I didn't know how to go about kickstarting this one without a major re-write of the opening so I just thought it best to leave off and continue on to Forest Gate.
That’s exactly the point of this discussion, Well Said, I am on board with you on this!!But we do need to lay some guidelines down for the group, as a group, so that we all have an idea of boundaries, expectations, and shared vision of our direction. I assume, ideally, this is supposed to be a collaborative effort?
This is why I often ask you guy's input about things, like when The Hound was pressing me for a light source that wouldn't attract moths in Mirkwood, I turned to the elves of the group and asked them if they were willing to help The Hound with this. They declined and the issue was settled.
The Hound was role playing well, and accepted their decision courteously so I awarded him with a jar in case the opportunity to capture fireflies presented itself. This didn’t go against the elves’ decision, and provides a possible adventure hook.
I did this because of the precedent I had set with their scenario when The Fox and The Hound rested the first night they entered Mirkwood and Gandalf had disappeared.
After awakening to find him gone, they experienced what lighting a fire brought and after dousing the fire were alone in the pitch dark, with things creeping about in Mirkwood, a fearful situation.
Orinduil, sent by Gandalf, then appeared to them with the fireflies for some little light and strong wine to keep them company. I thought it was only fair so I provided the jar as a sign of good faith.
Thanks for giving me the permission to alter things. I didn’t really want to change anything because I wanted to see how TOR was meant to be played.One thing I do want to not, Venger you spend alot of time distancing yourself from the material, saying things like "I would not have written it this way." or "This isn't the direction I would have taken." The message I am getting from you is "I think this stuff is utter crap, but we'll play it anyway because it has training wheels on it" If you aren't happy with something then please, feel free the change it to suit your style. I personally, don't want to play material a LM doesn't like because it if isn't liked or embranced then logic dictates it wont be played out very well or to it's potential. Just my thoughts.
Yes, I did say that for the Marsh Bell adventure. And true, I wouldn't have written it quite like that.
To say that I thought it was utter crap though are rather strong words and I never said such a thing.
I thought the Marsh Bell adventure was good for what it was, to introduce basic TOR concepts.
In my defense here are my thoughts,
The encounter in the treasury with an unknown number of Mewlips was something I am not accustomed to. I am used to running games where finite numbers can be ascertained and the challenge estimated by the company to choose whether to tackle it or not.
True, I did not like the abstract concept of throwing infinite numbers of them at the fellowship until the fellowship was either defeated or routed as the book called for, and true, I said this is not how I would write a scenario. It was like the Kobiashi Maru scenario in Star Trek, unwinnable.
Next is the mystical and abstract nature of the Bell itself, the lack of information about it, its properties, and lack of access to it by the fellowship. These kinds of things Danny and my old game group would not let me get away with. Our 12 some-odd years of campaigning in MERP together had taught me to make things as solid and real as possible.
That’s the major difference between this system and MERP by a long shot. Perhaps I need to rethink the possibility of keeping such things vague and abstract though if my new players are used to playing like that. Maybe it is Danny and I who may need to adapt. We will talk about that at the next session.
With Tales from the Wilderland, which in my opinion seem very good by the way, it's my intention to experience more of the system in play in order to guide my thinking for future home-brew scenarios.
Again, I apologize for upsetting anyone, and forgive my inexperience with TOR. It’s my intention that we have fun with this new system.
