Captives, Shadow Points, and You

[Rich H]

I say hand out the Shadow, not as a punishment, but as an acknowledgment of the toll of making these hard choices has on the character.

Exactly!!

Shadow is not a way for saying "you, the player, are playing the game the wrong way", but of saying "you, the hero, have done something that feels wrong."

I was just about to post the exact same thing. Shadow Points are a pretty natural accumulation for heroic adventurers and they should be embraced by players, although not by the characters, as something that *just* happens because of the difficult situations and events that such individuals find themselves in. There should be no doubting that they can lead to a character's doom but they are not the same as Dark Side points and the correlation often gets quoted in discussions which I think is misleading.

[Majestic]

Yeah, good point. Dark Side Points are only issued when a character makes bad/evil choices. Shadow Points, OTOH, are often accumulated through no fault at all of the player, simply by the character being in the wrong place at the wrong time (in addition to many other ways).

[Blubbo Baggins]

Yeah, good point. Dark Side Points are only issued when a character makes bad/evil choices. Shadow Points, OTOH, are often accumulated through no fault at all of the player, simply by the character being in the wrong place at the wrong time (in addition to many other ways).

And if character's aren't being put in the wrong places at the wrong times... why don't you just pull out Rich H's Hobbit Cricket rules and play a nice game in the Shire?
Adventurers should be struggling with some level of Shadow and Hope... this is part of the fun and challenge!

EC/Glorelendil - I don't know how that idea came to me, and it didn't exactly work as planned...but at least the Orc was gotten rid of and we didn't have to worry about it!

[Glorelendil]

The orc cheated, basically.

Next time we form a circle around the combatants.

[PST]

It does make for an interesting choice for the characters (as long as it's not being deliberately set up as a gotcha by the GM).

What do they do when the cowardly goblin begs for mercy?
Or the human who's trafficked with agents of the shadow?
Or human bandits?

Miles from anywhere in the wilderness, they can't readily hand them over to an external authority, and in Eriador there isn't really anywhere they could (Bree doesn't seem like the place you bring prisoners, and you're definitely not bringing them to Imladris).

[Rich H]

And if character's aren't being put in the wrong places at the wrong times... why don't you just pull out Rich H's Hobbit Cricket rules and play a nice game in the Shire?

... Don't underestimate how nassssssssty cricket can get.

[zedturtle]

The orc cheated, basically.

Next time we form a circle around the combatants.

Hey! He asked for a specific set of arrangements and then honoured those arrangements.







By running away.




As fast as he could.






All the way to Mordor.

[doctheweasel]

(as long as it's not being deliberately set up as a gotcha by the GM).

What do you mean? The GM's job is basically to string together a set of gotcha moments that force the PCs to make hard choices.

[Blubbo Baggins]

Next time we form a circle around the combatants.

This.

All the way to Mordor.

into Shelob's web...

[PST]

(as long as it's not being deliberately set up as a gotcha by the GM).

What do you mean? The GM's job is basically to string together a set of gotcha moments that force the PCs to make hard choices.

A) You let the orcs live, they went on and killed a lot of people, take 3 shadow points.
B) You killed the orcs, take 3 shadow points

While there are games and groups and genres where a damned if you do, damned if you don't setup can make for an interesting narrative, it's something which is easy to handle in a clumsy manner.