New Loremaster looking for some tips

[Havinor]

Damn n blast!!! I ordered it through Amazon. Not to worry, to be honest I'm looking forward to the actual hardback originals anyway. Everyone on these forums raves about the artwork and the quality of the books' construction, so I am happy to wait.

[aramis]

Hi folks,

I'm an old RPGer, just about to sink my teeth into TOR. I haven't bought the book(s) yet, but I've been reading the forums and you guys make the game sound incredible!! I'm going to get my hands on the game and have a campaign idea already fairly well plotted, but I have a few questions which I'm sure you can help me with.

1) Are the adventure supplements good? From experience in other RPG's in the past, some are a bit ropey.

If by ropey, you mean "follow this rope here or else", they are not as linear as the average 1980's D&D module.

2) Other than the core rulebook, which supplements are recommended for a campaign in and around Mirkwood.

You WILL want Heart of the Wild. That gazetteer has more than just descriptions - it's also got some additional bits and pieces of mechanics for fellowship phase activities, and some excellent detail maps. And, it's a damned fine read just by itself.

Tales from Wilderland has some excellent, if a bit linear at times, adventures. They leave room for players to take multiple approaches, too.

You may want the Laketown Sourcebook (bundled with the GM screen). It is a excellent location book, and adds the Lakemen culture.

Rivendell has some very useful thematic rules - songs and magic items. And adds the Elves of Rivendell and the Dunedain.

3) Obv from the books and from what I've read on here, journeying is an important part of the game which I think is simply brilliant!! But how good is the system dealing with difficult terrain, manouever tests, combat on/in terrain etc during the adventuring phase?[/q]
The system doesn't make much coverage of combat in/on terrain; tactical movement is abstracted out of existence. (not that combat isn't tactical - it is. Every decision matters. Tactical positioning — minis-using on a grid, such as one might see in D&D — is absent, abstracted out.

Travel is part of the adventuring phase; for travel, terrain is well covered.

[q]Thanks in advance for your advice folks.

No problem.

[SirGalrim]

I see you already have ordered HoW. I strongly recommended it too. Especially when you are making you own campaign and adventures. I really liked the adventures in Tales from Wilderland. They are of excellent quality, but are more linear.You could rib them of ideas or use a few hours adapting them tp your campaign. Darkening og Mirkwood is a similar capaign idea to that you have envisioned. But an important thing to note is that ot by deafult follows woodmoon and their survival against the darkening. If you want to focus more on other groups/places as Bardings/Dale you might have to do quite some adapting. Eventually you want Rivendell further down the road as it introduces the mechanisms the Eye of Sauron, magic items and tougher opponents. (Though in my opinion the rest of Rivendell book is a bit weak and doesn't hold up to the standards of the rest of the line.) Both DoM and Rivendell has write ups on the Nazgul.

[Rich H]

If by ropey, you mean "follow this rope here or else", they are not as linear as the average 1980's D&D module.

Ropey is a polite way of saying poor/not great. It's used a lot in the UK.

[Havinor]

hahaha sorry, yes ropey means not great.
In other games I've played, some preprepared adventures have been a bit linear, or where they are not linear, they lack any kind of supporting background. Of course in Middle Earth, that isn't an issue but I was keen to see what you guys liked/disliked about TOR adventures.
My books arrive around April 1st, so I'm looking forward to diving into them.
One question I have though is obviously Elves are meant to be superior in EVERY way to the mortal races. How does TOR handle this balance? I know I'll see it when the books arrive, but I'm intrigued. Is having an Elf in the fellowship a bad plan?

[zedturtle]

The Elves of Mirkwood are less wise than other Elves, it is true, though they are still Good People.

In other words, the Elves in the core rulebook have some fairly awesome abilities but will work within the framework of the other cultures. High Elves (in Rivendell) are more powerful, but have restrictions when it comes to Shadow and XP that make up for those abilities and better starting scores.

To be more clear, each of the cultures in the core rulebook bring certain things to the party, and the game is balanced such that each of these abilities is relevant. Hobbits and Beornings are strong in the Hope; Dwarves and Bardings are good with the Fighty; Woodmen are the best healers; Lake-towners (along with Hobbits) are great at Encounters. Elves have magic and good archery skills (very long arguments about Deadly Archery aside).

So, yeah, in the fluff they might be superior to the mortal races. But in the game, they can be part of a Fellowship and not dominate.

[Deadmanwalking]

To be more clear, each of the cultures in the core rulebook bring certain things to the party, and the game is balanced such that each of these abilities is relevant. Hobbits and Beornings are strong in the Hope; Dwarves and Bardings are good with the Fighty; Woodmen are the best healers; Lake-towners (along with Hobbits) are great at Encounters. Elves have magic and good archery skills (very long arguments about Deadly Archery aside).

Just to be pedantic, this is a bit overly simplistic. Beornings can also be excellent fighters and good in encounters (and can make Travel easier for everyone), Dwarves can get progressively better at everything non-combat related the angrier and more miserable they are, Woodmen and Hobbits make very good archers (and some of the most defensive PCs in the game), Wood Elves are excellent spearmen, and so on.

Really, most Cultures can do most categories of actions, and be pretty good at them, they just do them in different ways. Not all individual characters will be good at everything, but a socially skilled Elf or Dwarf (while slightly unusual) isn't hard to make, and Hobbits can be deadly warriors if you choose to make them so (much more easily with a bow than a sword, though).

But yeah, Elves of Mirkwood work fine alongside everyone else. The Cultures all feel very different and appropriate while remaining balanced.

[aramis]

hahaha sorry, yes ropey means not great.
In other games I've played, some preprepared adventures have been a bit linear, or where they are not linear, they lack any kind of supporting background. Of course in Middle Earth, that isn't an issue but I was keen to see what you guys liked/disliked about TOR adventures.
My books arrive around April 1st, so I'm looking forward to diving into them.
One question I have though is obviously Elves are meant to be superior in EVERY way to the mortal races. How does TOR handle this balance? I know I'll see it when the books arrive, but I'm intrigued. Is having an Elf in the fellowship a bad plan?

THey are NOT better in all things.
Rivendell's elves (and presumably also those of the Lorien) cannot regain hope easily, and shadow hangs on them even more heavily than on "mortal races." Their long backhistories are abstracted into higher attribute and skill totals, but the drawbacks show why they are not "large and in charge" across the 3rd age.

For that matter, Elves of Mirkwood are completely on par with mortal men, dwarves, and hobbits. But those are presumed not to be firstborn, either. Their potential power gain is slightly higher if the player makes good use of the magic, but it's not a de facto superiority.

[bluejay]

Havinor, I absolutely understand what you mean about how the books portray characters such as Glorfindel, Elrond or Legolas. These are very much Elven heroes and much of their power comes from experience as from their Elven nature (similarly Aragorn isn't just another ranger). Put another way, High Elves of Rivendell definitely do have qualities that set them apart however these are not enough to dominate in play and C7 have done a great job of giving them thematically appropriate limitations and restrictions to balance this.

To clarify, the Elves of Mirkwood are firstborn (which just means they are Elves). It even says as much on pages 53 and 54 of the core rulebook. They are woodland folk descended from the Elves who turned away from the journey to the West and they do not posses the high lineage of the Elves in Rivendell or Lindon (which the exception of their ruling nobility).

[Glorelendil]

I think it's fair to say that Mirkwood Elves are "superior" to Men in most ways, but that designing that into an RPG where both are playable races would be problematic. So in TOR they are more equal. Noldor and Dunedainhave also been toned down correspondingly.