House Rules, Armor and such...

[Arinbor]

hey guys,
been playing One Ring for a while now, GMing two separate groups through DoM alongside tales. I also use the extra called shots, Patron benefits, combat manoeuvres and weapons out of Richard Harrison's compiled rules.

First thing: How do people handle being "knocked down" in combat. I use it the same as tripped (suffer effects of knock back) but I allow the players to make an athletics check at TN 10+ highest attribute level of enemies hes engaged with to stand back up and resume his turn as normal. If he fails he gets up next turn for free, but the enemy does its attribute level in dmg to the character as it kicks/knocks them back down. I do the same for dropped weapons.

Second: Ive been finding it hard to incorporate standing into the game. None of my players seem interested in increasing it, and as there doesn't seem to be any mechanical effects to it I'm not really sure what to do about it. Am I missing something? I feel it should be fairly important, especially in DoM.

Third: My players hate the fact that armour "is useless unless we get a wound, and even then nothing seems to happen." I have started making combat encounters much more dangerous (more/bigger/tougher) enemies, and I am THINKING about allowing armour to reduce dmg equal to the dice value of the armour -1. respectively, it will increase the fatigue gained on travel checks by the dice value. (Mail hauberk will be -4 dmg (5d armour -1) and 5 extra fatigue on failed travel tests). I've also made a Crit table for when party member become wounded (similar to the FFG Star wars crit system), where they roll a d100 to determine what effect they suffer. Do any GMs do anything like this/have advice for me?

Fourth: Ok this is my MAJOR issue. My group likes being handheld through social encounters. They will rarely take it upon themselves to speak to NPCs or find out things. I usually just have to go here is your info, do this, bye. I am not sure how to encourage them to interact more with NPCs, especially in the Tales adventures that have certain NPCs offering more aid the more successes they get while speaking with them. They frequently fail social encounters as barely any of them take social skills (they just wanna roflpwn Orcs), and get annoyed when they don't get much aid or information from whomever they speak.

I appreciate how helpful and patient everyone is on these forums, and apologise for the excessive TLDR. Its a great community for a fantastic RPG. my group usually bores of systems and we chopped and changed every few weeks. Been playing this regularly for about 6 months now.

[Corvo]

Hi Arinbor,

I can ansewer about point 3, even if it's not the right forum to speak about it.
I use an house rule about armour reducing damage:
every 1d of armour= -1 to damage taken (to a minimum of 1),
and every 1d of armour= +1 to the target number for Fatigue rolls.

It works. My players love it, and Francesco hasn't (yet) knocked at my door for scolding me

[Glorelendil]

Discussions about house rules should really be in the House Rules sub-forum. But in general it sounds like you and your players want a more cinematic game, so house rules sound like the way to go.

Second: Ive been finding it hard to incorporate standing into the game. None of my players seem interested in increasing it, and as there doesn't seem to be any mechanical effects to it I'm not really sure what to do about it. Am I missing something? I feel it should be fairly important, especially in DoM.

Standing is kind of like gold in a lot of games: it's supposed to be the resource you care about accumulating. And yet if a player just isn't interested there isn't much mechanically to impel him/her.

One thing you could try is introducing more scenarios where Standing would matter. "Oh, you want to be in on the council? Sorry, your Standing is too low, which means they don't think you're important enough." So the council meets, and then comes out and says, "Ok, we need some Adventurers for a task...but we can't really give you the Big Picture because it's above your pay grade." Do things like that a few times and they'll start thinking about Standing.

Fourth: Ok this is my MAJOR issue. My group likes being handheld through social encounters. They will rarely take it upon themselves to speak to NPCs or find out things. I usually just have to go here is your info, do this, bye. I am not sure how to encourage them to interact more with NPCs, especially in the Tales adventures that have certain NPCs offering more aid the more successes they get while speaking with them. They frequently fail social encounters as barely any of them take social skills (they just wanna roflpwn Orcs), and get annoyed when they don't get much aid or information from whomever they speak.

Well, I'd give the same advice I did on Standing...make it clear that they're making things harder on themselves and they'll start getting more into the social encounters. But, reading the above, maybe your players are going to be especially resistant. Perhaps you need some social encounters that feel like more than just getting information out of an NPC; maybe you need something that feels more like combat, but with words instead of swords. Something high-stakes and suspenseful.

[Falenthal]

and every 1d of armour= +1 to the target number for Fatigue rolls.[/i]

It's better to increase the difficulty of Fatigue rolls (as Corvo says) than to increase the Fatigue gained. The superior weight of armor is already included in the Encumbrance.

Another option is to add to the difficulty of all Movement skills, which include Travel but also Stealth.
Of course, this requires some common sense: A hero can use his Travel skill, for example, to explain to a stranger how to go from point A to point B in Wilderland. Creative use of skills shouldn't be punished when it doesn't make sense.

[Arinbor]

Yea, my players do like a cinematic game. Thanks for all the input. Ill make sure to work some more things in that require them to have standing higher.
Appreciate the input again.
CHeers,
Arinbor

[Corvo]

Now that I think about it...
It was suggested on this forum to use Standing like a skill in the (appropriate) social situations:
have standing in a 1-6 range, roll as many d6 as your standing.
Not unlike Armour, that isn't really a skill but works this way nonetheless.

On a hope expenditure add... Wits?
So we have Body that adds to Armour rolls, Heart that adds to Valour and Wisdom rolls, Wits that add to Standing rolls.