Herbs, Breads, Elixirs and Poisons

[Kurt]

In the Chamber of Mazupial

Omg! I can't believe how long it took me to get that ... it sounded so "Lord of the Rings"-ish!

[Valarian]

For example, Cooking. It has one sentence that says the character can cook and prepare food from simple bread to special dishes. I could look at this two ways ...

• It's a relatively useless trait, most people can cook basic meals.
• Cooking a good meal using this trait can speed up recovery or have some other positive mechanical effect.

For this one, a good meal on the road could mean regaining a hope point for each character in the group. It'd be dependent on the player making an effort and carrying the pots like Sam (adds an encumbrance point to their inventory maybe for a few extra special pots), a few herbs to add taste, maybe a tater or two found by the road (Explore). Oh, and a nice brace of conies caught by the hunter (Hunting). The rolls could be suggested by the group during the journey stage / day.

[Kurt]

Hi Valarian,

For this one, a good meal on the road could mean regaining a hope point for each character in the group. It'd be dependent on the player making an effort and carrying the pots like Sam (adds an encumbrance point to their inventory maybe for a few extra special pots), a few herbs to add taste, maybe a tater or two found by the road (Explore). Oh, and a nice brace of conies caught by the hunter (Hunting). The rolls could be suggested by the group during the journey stage / day.

See, that my friend is what I am really going to enjoy about this game. All the little things, the interaction between the characters, the struggles that they face together and how they over come them. Excellent post! I can imagine that my hobbit is terrible at hunting and would be serving up vegetables all the time if it wasn't for another member of the party that was competent at it.

My first character will be a hobbit and his name will be Hugo Took.

[Glorelendil]

For example, Cooking. It has one sentence that says the character can cook and prepare food from simple bread to special dishes. I could look at this two ways ...

• It's a relatively useless trait, most people can cook basic meals.
• Cooking a good meal using this trait can speed up recovery or have some other positive mechanical effect.

Cooking isn't at all useless! It can be invoked in all kinds of situations. This is a great chance to illustrate how traits are used in TOR. Traits aren't meant to be mechanical advantages; they are meant to add color to the storytelling, by invoking them either before a skill roll for an auto-success, or after a skill roll for the AP.

- Travel: "My delicious cooking, unappreciated by those boorish Men and Dwarves, sustains me on the road."
- Encounters: "I offer the gate-guard one of the savory pork-'n-pickle sandwiches I packed away."
- Fiendish Plots (spoiler alert): "I make a rich stew for the goblins, but lace it with herbs that will give them terrible cramps and gas."
- Healing: "Chicken soup. Chicken soup cures everything."
And so on.

I understand where you're coming from: in most RPGs if you get something on your character sheet you want to know in what situations it gives you a relative advantage. The whole point of traits is that they're all equal mechanically, but it's up to the player to figure out how and when to use them.

Think of it this way: if you make up rules for Herb-lore and Cooking that translate to mechanical advantage, then either every player is going to choose them, or you're going to have to think up mechanical advantages for Bold, and Willful, and Cautious, and Curious, etc, etc. etc..

[Rich H]

Think of it this way: if you make up rules for Herb-lore and Cooking that translate to mechanical advantage, then either every player is going to choose them, or you're going to have to think up mechanical advantages for Bold, and Willful, and Cautious, and Curious, etc, etc. etc..

... That is actually a really good point that I hadn't considered.

[Kurt]

- Travel: "My delicious cooking, unappreciated by those boorish Men and Dwarves, sustains me on the road."
- Encounters: "I offer the gate-guard one of the savory pork-'n-pickle sandwiches I packed away."
- Fiendish Plots (spoiler alert): "I make a rich stew for the goblins, but lace it with herbs that will give them terrible cramps and gas."
- Healing: "Chicken soup. Chicken soup cures everything."
And so on.

I understand where you're coming from: in most RPGs if you get something on your character sheet you want to know in what situations it gives you a relative advantage. The whole point of traits is that they're all equal mechanically, but it's up to the player to figure out how and when to use them.

Think of it this way: if you make up rules for Herb-lore and Cooking that translate to mechanical advantage, then either every player is going to choose them, or you're going to have to think up mechanical advantages for Bold, and Willful, and Cautious, and Curious, etc, etc. etc..

Wow! What an enlightening post, thank you! This is starting to make a lot more sense. The more I read, the better this game gets.

I needed to make sense of the traits because a large portion of roleplaying for me is in the teamwork. I feel that members having different traits than others encourages teamwork where players get to contribute to the party as a whole in a unique and meaningful way. This leads to the adventure truely becoming a shared experience. So it's less about how does a character have an advantage, but how can he contribute to the groups success. "My friend can't do this so I will help him achieve it" ... or "I am so happy that we have him in the party, otherwise we might have really been stuck". I feel that it's important that each player in a game gets to do this. All of the characters in the fellowship (Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, Pippin etc) were vastly different but equally valuable and all of them contributed. I was trying to work out the mechanics because I value the roleplaying effect that it produces, if that makes sense.

I was always *#$@'ed off that in D&D for the most part the only skills used were Spot, Listen and Search. I bought this game a) because I love Lord of the Rings and b) it's like a breath of fresh air ... something for the real role-players.

I loved your example of

Encounters: "I offer the gate-guard one of the savory pork-'n-pickle sandwiches I packed away."

That makes a lot of sense now and is essentially are good example of a wonderful non-combat roleplaying solution to a difficult problem. Brilliant! I assume that would be an automatic success (the guard is pleased and lets you through the gate) or for someone that doesn't have that trait (or the initiative to pull something like that off) they may have to roll a Persuasion check. What an awesome system!!

Regarding the last paragraph, that does make sense but I feel that some traits are more self-explanatory than others. There was a good example in the book on Cautious, but I am still curious about Smoking.

Thank you so much for the post ... it's making a LOT more sense to me now.

Cheers,
Kurt

[Glorelendil]

Smoking:

Lore: "Hmm...I sit back and have a long smoke and think about this. Ah, of course, I remember now..."
Courtesy: "I notice that the merchant has an old pipe poking out of his jacket pocket, and offer to sweeten the deal with some Longbottom Leaf."
Travel: "Ahhh...nothing like a nice smoke after a day of hiking."
Awe: "I blow smoke out of my nostrils."

This is not RAW, but some of us play that on a Sauron fail you can invoke a trait to get an AP ("there's no lesson like failure" and all that). Smoking is awesome with that house rule. It can be invoked to explain all kinds of mishaps.

[Valarian]

This is not RAW, but some of us play that on a Sauron fail you can invoke a trait to get an AP ("there's no lesson like failure" and all that). Smoking is awesome with that house rule. It can be invoked to explain all kinds of mishaps.

I think there's actually a Lakeman virtue or even, possibly, the cultural blessing that has this mechanic. Allowing it for everyone may dilute the usefulness of choosing that culture.

@Kurt, there's a Guide to Trait Usage in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62
11) A Guide to Trait Usage

[Glorelendil]

I think there's actually a Lakeman virtue or even, possibly, the cultural blessing that has this mechanic.

Conceptually similar, but different and far more potent:

When a Man of the lake is wounded, or fails at a roll with seriously negative consequences, he may spend a point of Hope to earn an Experience point. Eligible rolls are, for example, all Fear tests made during combat, all Corruption tests, or any failed roll deemed suitable by the Loremaster.

[Kurt]

@Kurt, there's a Guide to Trait Usage in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62 11) A Guide to Trait Usage

Thanks Valarian, I'm seeing how this all works a lot cleared now. I appreciate the help.

Nice document Rich, thanks.

Cheers,
Kurt