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anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:15 am
by farinal
I know it is possible to use the card game but I wanted to know if there are people who actually do it and if possible to know about their experiences. I am looking for some examples of game play and reviews of this feature.

Thanks!

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 3:10 am
by PaulButler
I use it in every game.
It's a brilliant way to kickstart the imagination if you don't have a hazard in mind.

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 7:48 am
by panzerattack
I do use it, although not with the full rules. If I'm stuck for a hazard I'll just shuffle the deck, draw a card and see what pops up.

I'm writing up session reports for our games and there's an example of how I used the Hobbit Tale cards here:

http://www.rpggeek.com/thread/1396179/c ... ood-part-8

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 7:53 am
by Rich H
I don't use it. I tried it once and the random draw nature didn't appeal to me so I decided not to use it again. I have hazards pre-prepared for any journeys and have always had more than I need so don't need a tool to create stuff on-the-fly. However, I have used Hobbit Tales to pre-prepare Hazards but removing the random draw element (ie, sifting through the cards and using one that takes my fancy) which has been really useful for my game.

I would love to see Hazard Deck(s) produced for TOR though... I can just imagine production values on a par with Hobbit Tales; with amazing art on each one releasing sets based upon each region. Awesome.

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 9:31 pm
by Indur Dawndeath
I used them in one of our sessions (Always a 2 day event of aprox 20 hours play time). I gave the player who rolled an EoS and thereby triggered a Hazzard the deck to draw a card from.
I then gave the narration over to the player. He should come up with an entertaining event, that resulted in the test and effect described by the card.
It was fun, but I went back to my normal method of using pre arranged hazards. I can tailor it better to the story...
But if you are up for it and your players are as well, then it is fun to hand the narration over to the players :D

Cheers

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:33 pm
by Heilemann
Through our ten sessions (with extensive traveling), I think we had a hazard maybe once :|

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 11:34 pm
by zedturtle
Heilemann wrote:Through our ten sessions (with extensive traveling), I think we had a hazard maybe once :|
You are doing any Eye on a Fatigue test, right? Not Eye and failure? I ask, only because I was screwing that up for a little bit. How many heroes in the company?

For me, with nine heroes in one group and six in the other, at least one Hazard seems to happen on every Journey.

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:34 am
by Deadmanwalking
Yeah, if traveling any distance, Hazards are almost inevitable when they're coming up on every Eye rolled. Which, as zedturtle notes, is how they work.

Even for a group of four making only three Travel rolls per journey (a short journey) that averages one Hazard per Journey. Longer journeys and larger groups only up that (a group of five making five Travel checks averages more than two per Journey).

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 7:24 pm
by tomfish
A little bit off topic, but I have recently used Hobbit Tales cards not for a journey, but to design an entire adventure. It was one of those afternoons where my 11 years old daughter went "when can we play The One Ring again ?" and I just seized the opportunity right away for a 1-on-1 session .

Yet I had no adventure ready, so I decided to use Hobbit Tales and improvise the adventure on the spot. I drew 5 cards from the main deck, and a couple of times during the session, I drew from the Encounters deck (or however it is called, I play with the french version), revealing the cards one by one as the adventure progressed. It went superbly well and we had 3 excellent hours of play, one of the most enjoyable session I had with this game. It certainly worked well for a one-shot, with a relatively simple plot, all with no preparation at all.

So, this is only a one time experience (to be renewed as soon as possible), but I strongly recommend you try this at least once : the cards really help creating a strong, Tolkien-esque story, and as a Loremaster it is very satisfying to discover the adventure at the same time as the players.

What you should have at hand is a list of names (if, like me, you are not good at making ones on the spot), and a rough idea of where the adventure will start.

Re: anyone using hobbit tales for tor journeys?

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 5:05 am
by Throrsgold
I use them. Several inspirational bits, bits that we would have never before conceived, were introduced by the cards. For example, one pulled card, OLD SWORD, was implemented as an old sword that poked up out of the soil, identifying the site of an old battle...the Beorning failed the associated roll and gained one Shadow when reminded that his clan suffered great losses at this battle.