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I'm actually having trouble trying to figure out which order to buy them in, as I'm going to be starting my campaign in a couple of weeks and I can only afford to get one or two books before then.

I'm sure many people will agree with me that Tales from Wilderland is probably the book you should get first. The adventures in it can keep your group occupied for a pretty long time, and it shows you great examples of how to structure adventures using the TOR rules (this was something I had a lot of difficulty with before I finally purchased Tales from Wilderland).

As you've no doubt noticed, pretty much everybody is blown away by Darkening of Mirkwood, but if you get this you sorta need the have Heart of the Wild as well. On the other hand, if you'd rather make your own adventures, Heart of the Wild has enough plot hooks to have you going for the next few years if you somehow incorporate them all.

Beleg wrote: I'm sure many people will agree with me that Tales from Wilderland is probably the book you should get first. The adventures in it can keep your group occupied for a pretty long time, and it shows you great examples of how to structure adventures using the TOR rules (this was something I had a lot of difficulty with before I finally purchased Tales from Wilderland).

I agree completely. Once you have truly understood TfW, and learn to incorporate many of the new nuances of mechanics, and had some time to practice alternate ways and new ideas for using them, the creation of your own adventures will become easier.

like Beleg, I struggled a little in the beginning on using the mechanics or thinking outside the box to use them in other situations. Since reading TfW, I now can see many other ways to use or tweak existing mechanics in the game across a wide spectrum of circumstances and scenarios that they may not have been originally written or intended for. This has helped me in developing great adventure concepts and encounter ideas throughout without having to continually reinvent the wheel.

The adventures within it also are fantastic, and easy to incorporate and will provide months of entertainment for you group until you can afford the other two fantastic books.

Robert

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll pick up Tales, then Heart, then Darkening. Hopefully my friends and family will notice that I have them all on my Amazon wishlist on high priority.

Shieldmaiden wrote:Thanks for the advice! I think I'll pick up Tales, then Heart, then Darkening. Hopefully my friends and family will notice that I have them all on my Amazon wishlist on high priority.

Just a head's up but if you get them from Amazon then they won't come as a book + pdf package. Although I love books I do find the pdf to be invaluable when wanting to look people, places, etc due to multiple entries throughout the books.

In the case of Darkening of Mirkwood, I've used the Amazon Wishlist Chrome extension to stick the bundle from the Cubicle 7 store on there. Generally speaking, I don't find PDFs much use. I don't own a tablet or a laptop, so they're not usable at the table and I'd rather save money by buying the cheapest copies I can find. Heart is about £8 cheaper and Tales £7, once postage is factored in.

I find PDFs very useful for printing maps and illustrations to show the players.

If you can only afford one supplement before your game starts, and you want one that can be digested in chunks, then I agree that Tales From Wilderland is the best choice. The adventures are solid, most of them stand alone but can also be interlinked to form a campaign.

Darkening of Mirkwood while awesome relies heavily on Heart of the Wild, and that is an information dense book.

As for PDFs, I am old enough to remember when games were only available in print copies. I still prefer physical books to electronic ones.

DavetheLost wrote:As for PDFs, I am old enough to remember when games were only available in print copies. I still prefer physical books to electronic ones.

I think most here are, you'd be surprised how many 40+ year olds post here. I'd hate to go back to the days before electronic media though; I find I need both hardcopy and pdf for my RPGs to run a game smoothly.

We play at my home, because of the amount of dead tree material that we would need to carry around if we played somewhere else. We also prefer paper. However, we have found digital formats invaluable when discussing stuff in a pub, for example, or (mnor eimportantly) to use the search function. The later is what has us all voting in favour of digital

Our games of The One Ring are always played with every resource available.

• All my players use digital devices, whether laptops or tablets to keep track of their characters using Azrapse's online character server. We don't have any paper character sheets anymore.

• I copy the text from the pdfs during game preparation into a document so that I can add my own notes or re-write parts and then read the adventure from my laptop during the game. I don't print it out.

• I keep the pdfs of the rulebooks open on my laptop.

• I take the Loremaster's screen and lay it down flat in front of me on the table.

• I have a bound copy of the expanded index, as well as hard copies of all the books at the table for the players to utilize.

• I use the Battle Mat I created to keep track of engagements, placing that in the center of the table with all the dice.

• I normally use a tablet of paper to keep track of the adversaries and their endurance.

• I don't have minis, but I have 1" round, flat, wooden pieces that I numbered. These are great because everyone just picks a number to represent their character and I do the same for the adversaries.