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Hi folks,

Like it says in the title - starting my first campaign, 4 players, some of whom have little gaming experience.

I have all the books and supplements - so I am looking for suggestions on which would be the best for a light-medium campaign?

Also, any thoughts as to 'must use' house rules or additions would be welcome.

cheers!

Hi cegorach,

As a Loremaster, I started with the adventure that was in the core rulebook "The Marsh Bell". It is well written and provides good exposure to all of the rules that you will need moving forward, I certainly recommend it. I was introduced to the game as a player with the excellent adventure "Theft of the Moon" by Zedturtle which works well as an introductory adventure for new players.

Regarding house rules - I would suggest running the game as it is. There is a plethora of house rules in these forums, however try the rules as written (RAW) first. If you find something is not working for you, then do a search for a solution here in the forums. Although I have written up some house rules of my own on healing I haven't really used them yet, my players have not encountered witchcraft nor have any of them been infected with a disease. I'll likely be using it more as a player in Winterwolf's campaign as I am playing a hobbit with Herb Lore and Gardening.

My first session involved no gameplay at all - we ordered a pizza, had dinner together and spent the first night going through the rules. We discussed how traits are used, how a character progresses with skills, traits and experience, we talked about journeys, encounters, combat and healing. We discussed some of the themes that run through the game and hope/shadow. I also explained my approach to running roleplaying games. After that we all made characters together. If your players haven't played TOR before I would recommend doing an introductory night like this.

Cheers,
Kurt

I Strongly Concur. We had an introduction and chargen session much like this, and it is an excellent idea. Also, if you have time, I ran two mock combats for them to see how the system worked. (One troll, and then twice as many orcs and goblins as the number of players). This helped people get a feel for combat tasks, and how the different types of bad guys work.

A character creation session is probably your first step. Sit them all down together and have them talk about the types of characters they had in mind, background, who if anyone is related to anyone else. Talk to them about the Fellowship, focus, pool and how a Fellowship are a unit and everyone needs to work together, especially with 4 players.

In advance if at all possible, send them the different cultures to have a read through. Tell them when it is set. The standard is 2946 with the fifth anniversary of Smaug's death and the founding of Dale etc. Personally I started in 2941 so they could see some of the desolation, the trust issues and give them the opportunity to witness Smaug's death and participate in the Battle of Five Armies. But most of all find a time that is comfortable for you and interesting and get them talking to each other about the games. There is nothing wrong with same culture parties say a party of dwarfs - some Lonely Mountain, some Iron Hills etc, or Bardings, Men of the Lake. Maybe there is a bit of competition between the Barding and the Man of the Lake as to who is the better archer. This sort of friendly rivalry could make for an interesting fellowship focus. Or maybe a party of hobbits have made it all the way to Wilderland after hearing all about Bilbo's adventures. Assuming your players have either watched the films or read Lotr a band of Brandybucks or Tooks off on an awfully big adventure could be legendary.

cegorach wrote:Hi folks,

Like it says in the title - starting my first campaign, 4 players, some of whom have little gaming experience.

I have all the books and supplements - so I am looking for suggestions on which would be the best for a light-medium campaign?

Also, any thoughts as to 'must use' house rules or additions would be welcome.

cheers!

Ooh! Exciting!

I think that if you're looking to get stuck in as fast as possible and want as much support from the adventures as possible, that Tales From Wilderland is the way to go. You could start with Don't Leave the Path, or start already on the west side of Mirkwood with Theft of the Moon and then go on to the second or third adventure from the series, perhaps running Don't Leave the Path in reverse orientation when needed. (We had a recent thread about that, let me know if you want me to dig it up.)

The Marsh Bell is another good start, though the things that it sets up tie more into Darkening of Mirkwood than anything else. For a change of pace, you could start in Eriador and use Ruins of the North. It's an anthology, so it is more about vignettes of Eriador than an overriding story.

Despite a large and active House Rule subforum, there's actually very little need for any house rules... you can add on various things (like my magic, or GE's delving, or various rules for staves, etc.) but there's very little that has to be fixed (just don't ask anyone about Deadly Archery). We just really like the game system and love playing around with new ways to use it to do fun things.

Zed mentioned "Don't Leave the Path", but I would advise against it as first adventure: crossing the whole of Mirkwood is a pretty epic trek. New players can get the impression that this game is all about Travel rolls.

The Marsh Bell can be pretty brutal at times, but it's good for a starting group: it set the theme and the danger level of the game (there are enemies you cannot overcame, for example). My only reservation is the initial social encounter exercise: it feel a bit contrived having to "persuade" Gloin to have you help him saving his brother (it was built this way to teach new players the encounter rule, but I don't like it).

If you care about this, you can use a different beginning. I started my game in medias res, with the players at the village on the Stairs of Girion meeting a group of secretive Dwarves. This is the search party, lead from Gloin himself. Initially they wonder if the PCs are bandits that robbed their friends, but once they are convinced of the Heroes good faith (social encounter), they reveal their mission: if the PCs offer their help, they say thanks, but refuse, citing their young ages or such. The day after, the dwarves leave the village, bent on exploring the EASTERN shore of the river, sure that Balin & co would have kept on the safer shore.
One day later, a fisherman reach the village bringing a feverish, wounded, Oin: he found him on the western shore. The PCs realize that the dwarves are searching on the wrong side of the river, and they are the only ones that can save Balin.

Btw, I had the two Dwarves being on the western shore 'cause they were investigating the rumors of a lost city full of gold, and the old Ranulf forbidding the villagers to go in that "mad endeavour" to not anger the "swamp dwellers"... But that is me, and my adventure was set in '38, when the Dwarves were poor and desperate for gold :p

I also skipped out of the marsh bell and went for the eastern adventures first, I also started the adventure somewhat earlier. For our troupe that meant that Don't leave the path was their trek to lake town and the marsh bell, the previous year, and that we used inviting the eagles to the party as our return to the anduin vales. In our story, the Anduin vales have been the centre of our stuff, since the characters tend to be woodmen and elves with some beorningsand hobbits here and there. Erebor, Dale and lake town have played a smaller role for us.

Theft of the moon is a great starting adventure. I loremastered it for a solo character and it worked very well in the ongoing viglund - beorning conflict.

Cheers,
Xavi

That's awesome guys, thanks so much!

I'll run a chargen session first and then will see whether Marsh Bell or Theft of the moon is the way to go

Seems on subject so...

Did anyone ever make a reference sheet, for new players, with:

- Checklist for which rules to explain (traits, hope etc...), so you as a LM knows which rules parts are missing to be explained?

- Events most characters would know about, ex. Smaug dead.

- Summary of cultures to play.

A summary sheet like this would be super helpful.