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Hi foks,

I'm a german supporter for TOR.

And I want your experience which time it takes to play "The Marsh Bell"?

On last cons I lead "Blood in the Water" and this adventure takes 3-4 hours.

Regards,

ThoGri

Took my group 5-6 hours, but we were a large group (6 players + LM) and everyone was new to the system back then.

Were the loremaster also new ?

ThoGri wrote:Were the loremaster also new ?

Yep! But he had gone over the book in full to make sure he was ready in advance.
It's also worth noting that the entire group, all 7 of us, were new to tabletop games in general at the time. We split it into 2 sessions of about 2.5-3 hours each.

I've run the Marsh Bell twice, and in both cases it fitted in a single session of 4 to 6 hours. The most recent time was definitely 4 hours or so; I can't remember exactly for the first run-through but it would definitely have been 6 hours at most.

For me (as loremaster) it was for more longer : 7 sessions of about 2,5 hours.
Several reasons :
- it was our first scenario with a perilous travel and I wanted the players to really understand the high danger of travelling through wild and dark lands. Thus i have donc a strong focus on the travel and its perils. Moreover i have put one peril at the start of the Long Marshes and then the caracters were very very cautious in their move and actions.
- it was our first travel scenario for the players but also for me => more time to use the rules
- we are playing via roll20 and i have the feeling that the players are playing differently than around a table (less quickly decisions)
- i try to focus the players on roleplay during encounters and they are several in that scenario (Gloin, the village at the end of the lake, Balin in the underwater ruin, the conclusion at the end) and it takes time for us.
- there is video/audio issues with roll20 since several months and it has annoyed us a bit.

My conclusion : it depends on several parameters and way of play

I managed to run a focussed session of this for a Con in 3 hours. It can be run longer but you can hit all the beats in a relatively short time.

The Marsh Bell was the first adventure I ran as a Loremaster. The group had four players, all but one were new to TOR. Our group completed the adventure in 3 sessions, each with about 3 hours of gameplay. I imagine it could have been run at a faster pace but we were all learning and had a lot of fun slowing it down a bit. It's an excellent first adventure for both the LM and players.

I still find it amazing how the TOR designers turned a Tolkien poem into a Middle Earth adventure.