Compiling a TOR FAQ

[Jon Hodgson]

Let's start creating a list of frequently discussed topics relevant and useful to our newer community members!

Crowd sourcing this seems like the fastest and most efficient way to put it together. Since it can be one long post I'm not too choosy about this. A nice thorough list of anything that has come up more than once, or even if it came up once and was useful, would be good.

Some topics that spring to mind:

•Dual Wielding,
•Magic in Middle-earth/The One Ring,
•Clarifications to Journeys for Slipcase owners
•Denizen of the Dark clarification (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3261)


There are XP/eternal gratitudes on offer for forum members providing links for these headings, as well as suggesting further topics and providing links.

Let's do this!

[zedturtle]

Some Frequent (or Useful) Questions:

CHARACTER CREATION

• How do I make a character?
  Well, of course, the rule book is fairly necessary. But you can use Azrapse's online generator to really help out.
  Caul produced an Excel file helper as well.
• Where do I find the various cultures?
  Bardings, Beornings, Dwarves of Erebor, Elves of Mirkwood, Hobbits of the Shire and Woodmen of Wilderland are in the main rulebook.
  Men of the Lake are in Lake-town (Loremaster's Screen package).
  Wild Hobbits and Woodmen of Mountain Hall are in Heart of the Wild.
  Dúnedain and High Elves of Rivendell are in Rivendell.
• What do people think of various virtues and rewards?
  This subject generates a lot of discussion. Glorelendil's Character Optimisation Guide might be one place to look.
• What's the best Armour? What's a good amount of Endurance versus Fatigue?
  Here is a thread about the gap between Endurance and Fatigue.
• Why is there no magic-user class?
  While there is no magic user "class"; there are magical abilities in The One Ring, see the rules in Rivendell for more information.
  Robin Smallburrow's system are available for those who wish to add more magic to their Middle Earth.

COMMON SKILLS AND PROCEDURES

• How do Traits work?
  Players can use Traits to automatically succeed at a common skill use. Automatic successes count as ordinary successes (i.e. only rolling can get you Great or Extraordinary successes).
  After a successful roll, traits can get you Advancement Points.
  You can use a Trait to make a roll, even if the LM said 'no' originally.
  Rich H's Guide to Trait Usage
• How do you get Advancement points?
  First Advancement Point: Any success.
  Second Advancement Point: (A Great or Extraordinary Success) OR (a normal success and a trait invocation)
  Third Advancement Point: (A Great or Extraordinary Success) AND (a trait invocation)
  (Courtesy of Stormcrow in this post.)
• How do you get Hope back?
  Hope can come from both the other sources.
  An older discussion with some insight from Francesco on the Hope refresh mechanics.

JOURNEYS:

• Do you roll Fatigue Tests for the whole Journey at once or break it up into sections?
  This is a matter for debate, see opinions here
• Can you use Hardy (or another Trait) to pass every Fatigue Test?
  Another debate for the ages, see here and {here} for options on how to rule this.

ENCOUNTERS:

• What does Tolerance represent?
  Chris Gardiner said "Tolerance isn't about failure. It's about when the players have to stop calling for tasks in that scene." in this thread.
• How do Encounters and Traits work?
  Here is an older thread asking about this. {newer thread with breakdown}

COMBAT:

• How does Surprise and Initiative work?
  This thread has a guide to these questions.
• What are the requirements for missile wielding heroes to be in Rearward Stance?
  See this thread for a lively discussion.

FELLOWSHIP PHASE:

• Does anyone have a list of Undertakings?
  Stormcrow shared a comprehensive file.
• How does improving cultural weapon skills into individual weapon skills work?
  Here's a recent thread about the process.

ADVERSARIES:

• Can adversaries Escape Combat?
  Here are some thoughts on that.
• How does Great Leap interact with Rearward stance?
  Angelalex242 answers this here.

SHADOW:

• How much Shadow should be gained due to the death of a companion?
  This thread discusses this, as well as {my thread on Bergmál}.

MAGICAL ITEMS:

• How does rolling for Magical Treasure work?
  You only pay XP if you find an item (by rolling a Gandalf or a Sauron on your Hoard check and then one or more Tengwars). See this thread for more info.

LOREMASTERING:

• Has anyone made a guide for how a session is supposed to play out?
  Stormcrow has fairly thorough one here.
• Is The One Ring a good fit for my group?
  Only you know, but this thread has information on a lot of different approaches to the game.
• What adventure should a new group/Loremaster start with?
  Check this thread out.
• What non-game reference material should I check out?
  There is a handy list here

OFFICIAL ADVENTURES:

• What official adventures are out there?
  Focusing on things that are available (i.e. No Words of the Wise), there is The Marsh Bell in the main rulebook, seven full adventures in Tales from Wilderland, six full adventures in Ruins of the North, over thirty adventure seeds in Darkening of Mirkwood and many more hooks in both Heart of the Wild and Rivendell. The Hare and the Hill-Giant is in Gygax Magazine, Issue #2.

FAN ADVENTURES:
There are a number of fan-made adventures for The One Ring:

• Eclipse's Blood in the Waters and Of Ghosts and Goblins.
• Trouble at Eel Tarn seems to have gone missing.
• A List of Generic Adventure Seeds, tweaked for use in The One Ring.
• A List of Adventure Ideas
• Theft of the Moon, my introductory adventure.

FAN RULES AND SOURCE MATERIAL:

• Do people allow players to spend XP as AP? How about AP as XP?
  Check out this thread. I allow my players to spend XP as AP, but it's one way (i.e. no using APs to pay XP costs).
• What Fan-produced source material is available?
  Rich H made a Guide to Dale.
• Are there Fan-made monsters?
  Yes. Poosticks7 made some in Rich's resource document. {include Shambling Troll and Fell Beast?}
• Are templates or other resources available for fan works?
  Yes! See Rich's template for Microsoft Word.
• What do people think about Two Weapon Fighting / Dual Wielding?
  They think quite a bit about it. The official answer is that we're unlikely to see any rules for it. But it's been discussed here. {link to Rocco's list right below me}.
• How about Deadly Archery (and other bow-related things for Elves of Mirkwood)?
  Here's a thread full of ideas.

PLAYING THE GAME:

• Do people play The One Ring online?
  Absolutely! Here is Here is relatively recent list of games that are active.

[Rocmistro]

Dual Wielding Compiled Discussions (these discussions comprise proposed house-rules, possible implementations, historical examples of two-weapon fighting, and lengthy arguments over their proper place, if any, in a Middle-earth themed role-playing game.)

"Dual wielding?" (Master Smithwise, 2-2-2015)

"Dual Wielding again, comments and playtesting needed!" (Pipesmoker, 11-20-2013)

"Dual Wielding" (Epic117, 9-2-2014)

"Have you found the Dead Sea Scrolls of Middle Earth?" (JoeArcher, 9-2-2014)

"Expanded weapons charts." (Beran, 6-11-2014)

"Multiple attacks?" (Ferretz, 12-13-2013)

"Two weapon fighting" (bencoulthard, 6-6-2013)

EDIT: To be continued

[shipwreck]

Advancement Points always seem to get some attention:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3213&p=27042
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2647

[Jon Hodgson]

Cool. Did you want anything along the lines of GE's optimization thread?

If you think it's worth putting in here, put it in.

[Glorelendil]

Discussions about when and how Shadow Points should be awarded are a popular theme.

[Majestic]

Great idea, Jon! I'd recommend making it a sticky (or whatever they're called here) that shows up at the top of the forum, just like the 'TOR Resources' thread, for example, and when anyone asks any of these questions, we can all refer them to the FAQ Thread.

[Jon Hodgson]

Great idea, Jon! I'd recommend making it a sticky (or whatever they're called here) that shows up at the top of the forum, just like the 'TOR Resources' thread, for example, and when anyone asks any of these questions, we can all refer them to the FAQ Thread.

Yes, this is exactly what we're going to do.

[Rocmistro]

Guys am I "special" or is there no way to embed the hyperlink into the sentence itself, in order to make it nice and pretty?

[Majestic]

Guys am I "special" or is there no way to embed the hyperlink into the sentence itself, in order to make it nice and pretty?

The way to do that, Roc, is to put the hyperlink as follows:

then type the words you want here