Hello! and advice for new Loremaster?

[jamesrbrown]

If you could find a copy of it on the web somewhere, I highly recommend Words of the Wise as a starting adventure, especially if you have any Woodmen in the company.

[Glorelendil]

Based on my own experience, I would do extra research on Journeys and Encounters before starting. Although Combat has some tricky rules, you are probably used to other RPG combat systems so you at least get the general idea. But Encounters and Journeys are different. The first time I ran a game I thought I understood the rules, but in practice I had to stop and re-read so many times that it really broke the flow.

[Majestic]

I think your adjustments sound solid.

My group had a little bit of trouble with the Troll (but not so much with the Marsh-dwellers) but as things got to a critical point in the battle I made the Troll Weary, and they were able to finish it off. And this was the second adventure for our party, too, as we'd done Word of the Wise first.

I'd brush up on all three 'core' concepts of the game: Combat, Journeys, and Encounters. I'd highly recommend reading over the FAQ thread, too, as there are a number of things that tripped up lots of us (even very experienced) GMs.

Best of luck with your game, Earendil!

[Falenthal]

My group had a little bit of trouble with the Troll (but not so much with the Marsh-dwellers) but as things got to a critical point in the battle I made the Troll Weary,

Just to clarify, the adventure states that the troll has already one Wound (probably inflicted by Balin). That makes him already Weary from the start. See the Great Size ability description for this:

The creature is so resilient and tough that it is not knocked
out or killed when reduced to 0 Endurance or if wounded
once. The creature instead becomes Weary but keeps
fighting at 0 Endurance or when wounded once, until
wounded twice, or reduced to 0 Endurance AND wounded.

[Majestic]

My group had a little bit of trouble with the Troll (but not so much with the Marsh-dwellers) but as things got to a critical point in the battle I made the Troll Weary,

Just to clarify, the adventure states that the troll has already one Wound (probably inflicted by Balin). That makes him already Weary from the start. See the Great Size ability description for this:

The creature is so resilient and tough that it is not knocked
out or killed when reduced to 0 Endurance or if wounded
once. The creature instead becomes Weary but keeps
fighting at 0 Endurance or when wounded once, until
wounded twice, or reduced to 0 Endurance AND wounded.

It doesn't actually say that he is Wounded, though, it only suggests it as a possibility:

The Loremaster may further reduce his effectiveness by considering him to be already wounded.

So I started out with him not Wounded, but with the reduced Endurance. Perhaps he was nearly Wounded (by Balin) in my game, and it finally caught up to him during the fight with the PCs.

[Falenthal]

You're right, Majestic! Then I must say that I made him Wounded from the beginning.

[Earendil]

Thanks for all the advice, everyone! We had our first session last night, and it ended with them just about to fight the marsh-ogre (my replacement for the troll in the scenario). On the whole it went well. I made some mistakes -- I forgot to give them preliminary rolls before meeting Gloin! -- but no real harm done.

They failed to notice the elves following them, and I didn't include the forest goblins that zedturtle suggested, although I was ready to do so, because I reckoned the elves wouldn't sit back and do nothing during the fight. I don't know what i was thinking: the elves will certainly not sit back when they're fighting an ogre!

I should have had the goblins attack, and the elves come to help just as the fight ended. Oh well, I'll just do that with the marsh-ogre now.

It's a weird system compared to what we're used to. Even though i tried to ensure I was familiar with it, I was having some trouble wrapping my head around the various subsystems. And the players are struggling slightly with the way the dice generate great and extraordinary successes -- at least one of them keeps thinking a Gandalf rune counts for those! And the game encourages the players to be more proactive than they're used to in terms of calling for rolls; I had to prompt them quite a lot.

But I think once we get used to it it'll be fine!

[Earendil]

If you could find a copy of it on the web somewhere, I highly recommend Words of the Wise as a starting adventure, especially if you have any Woodmen in the company.

Yes, I downloaded it ages ago when it was still on the official site, and I considered it, but to be honest it didn't impress me all that much (although The Marsh-Bell has its own issues), and none of them are woodmen (we have one Barding, one dwarf, one elf and one hobbit).

Besides, my plan was always to start in Lake-Town before using Don't Leave the Path to move the action west of the forest for the following scenarios in Tales From Wilderland. (Obviously that depends on what the players want, though!) We may do WotW later, once they've spent some time around the Woodmen.

But thanks anyway! I hope I don't sound ungrateful. I do appreciate the advice.

[zedturtle]

Glad to hear that things went well. TOR can be a tricky game to run, it doesn't quite fit established "mental models" of RPGs and keeping track of all the moving parts can be tricky. But it's worth the effort, for sure.

[barefoottourguide]

Rich H from this forum spends a lot of time on the Threats From Gallifrey Podcast, providing insights and tips for running the One Ring. It can be found at misdirectedmark.com

Garrett