Those special moments...

[Gweinel]

I wanted to share with you my experience of my previous session but i decided to hold a bit. It was a session after the fabulous story that Rich H (thank you for the great adventure you made) has crafted where the heroes alongside with Balin (and Oin in my version) managed and invited the lord of Eagles. It was an eight hour session of a single fellowship phase. There was nothing rushed. Everyone seemed to be happy to induldge their experience living happilly in Middle Earth. There was the celebration - anniversary of the victorious Battle of Five Armies where the Eagles made a guest appearance and the Wise and Man-Elf-Dwarf lords held a council. There was the invitation of the dwarf character in Erebor where every body marvelled the dwarven crafts and grandeur and after the our elf character invited the rest of the fellowship to celebrate alongside with the host of elves in the table of the king Thranduil while in the meantime the heroes roamed the buzzing Lake Market for rare items and ingrendiends. It was a happy role playing session.

*spoilers below*
Then (today) we played "Those who Tarry no Longer". Before that session I was worried about because of the many things I had read in the forums. In any way this story rolled more smoothly than i expected. I left out the encounter with the Eagles since they had already met them Eagles in their previous quest and i put a nasty but manageble encounter with wolves/wargs. However the real magic of the adventure was in the dream scenes. My characters played the best of their abilites and in the end... they failed. Irime's soul was traped in the labyrinths of the dark spirit sorceries (this "2" on feat die...). However my players loved the adventure and the session. It was one of those special moments that the characters lose and the players win (my two girl players were crying with the loss of Irime in the end). Noone thought this was unfair. The Eye was on them down in the dungeons of Dol Guldur in their attempt to heal Aldor and to inspire poor Haleth. They knew at the same time that they could rescue Irime and they didn't manage it in the end. It was a tragic moment for the characters but so rewarding for the players. A great thank to the writers of that adventure
(At least I gave em the slight hope that if they manage to win the spirit they might have a chance Elrond could bring back the lost soul of Irime)

Just wanted to share this special moment of the Loremaster and the players that experienced today.
Thanks

ps. please excuse my bad english

[Rich H]

Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing this with us Gweinel.

While you've posted, how did "Journey's End..." go for you?

[Gweinel]

Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing this with us Gweinel.

While you've posted, how did "Journey's End..." go for you?

It went very good. The whole journey was very challenging and memorable for my players. However i think the main battle in the dwarven ruins in the forest and the subsequent encounter with the Huorn was a bit too hard for them. They were quite lucky in the rolls (as unlucky were in Those who Tarry no longer) and even then two of them got a wound and everybody spent many hope points. In any way it was really an epic battle that brag about in their errands in the Wildreness. The end was quite cinematic where Balin and the Orc Chief battled.

[Rich H]

Excellent. I was concerned about the balance of that battle for the 'standard' 4 PCs. I think it's important for LMs to tweak it for their specific Fellowship or it could easily be too deadly.

And you're English is fine, by the way. ... There are a few people that post here where English isn't their first language (including Francesco!) and it amazes and impresses me no end how easily they communicate their ideas and help others. I'm not sure I'd be able to do the same for something so specialised and complex as an RPG. I find you all pretty incredible, to be honest.

[farinal]

Perhaps we can also talk about the most special moments we had with the game here?

[Gweinel]

Thank you for your kind words Rich. Have in mind that our fellowship had 0 XPs so maybe that was a reason of their difficulties in the battle in Mirkwood.

Farinal, isn't a bad idea. I always find pleasure in reading the colorfull rpg moments.

[Rich H]

The first 'special moment' I had when running TOR was right at the end of the first session... I was GMing my "To Journey's End..." adventure and the PCs had arrived at the Lakeman camp that serviced merchants travelling south beyond the falls by porting their boats down the Stair of Girion. While spending the night there, the PCs exchanged news with the lakemen and Nerulf recited the old piece of lore about the gallows-weed. This, in turn, prompted Balin to recite the poem of the Mewlips; it's then that I simply played the following...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/795 ... ewlips.mp3

... Describing Balin sat, smoking on his long pipe, while speaking the rhyme; his eyes glinting in the fire's embers. The atmosphere at the gaming table was electric and we wrapped it up there for the game session as the old dwarf reminisced further about his adventures with his "... hobbit friend, Bilbo". I pretty much knew then that we'd got the makings of a special game and I wasn't wrong.

[Mim]

Gweinel, I want you to know that I've had reservations about running Those who Tarry no Longer, because it seems a bit linear (IMHO).

Reading your post, however, encourages me to give it a shot at some point.

[Gweinel]

Mim, I had the same reservations with you however if my players felt that were railroaded they didn't mind in the end. That had to do with two things in my opinion.

i)Those Who Tarry No Longer is based most on the atmosphere of the adventure and the originilaty of the writer's idea (you don't see many adventures that are based on your skills, your decisions and your ability to manage the defeat) and not in your combat prowess. For these reasons i wanted to play the adventure in one session. In order to succeed that i had to shortened a bit so i removed the encounter with the King of Eagles (the had visited him in their previous adventure in any way).

ii) Having read (and liked) the adventure before we start our campaign i had decided to have Irime as a silent patron of two of my characters: the elven and the woodman with fairy heritage. So, these characters knew Irime and session by session they bacame fond of her. They learn (not from Irime) that she had supported and praised the elf character to Thranduil in order to start her adventures. Also later our woodman girl learnt from Irime about her heritage (a far descedant of Gilmith) and how she had pledge to protect her line. So, when the adventure begins Irime is a beloved npc for the characters.

These two factors i think helped so that the characters to be immersed in the rich atmosphere of this adventure and make em to do not care if the story was too linear.

[Mim]

The more I think about it, these two points seem to be the reasons behind your success. In particular, writing Irimë as a patron is inspired, & I'll do that myself if I ever run this one.