New to TOR: what do I need to get started?

[Captain Curmudgeon]

I just discovered TOR and it looks great from everything I'm reading. I'm returning to rpg's after about 10 years away and this seems a good place to start. I would like to eventually get everything printed for the game but I'm currently limited on funds, so I need to focus on just what I need to get started with making characters and doing some basic LM'ing.

Also, I am currently living in an area (small town) that doesn't have much in the way of roleplaying activity, and what activity there IS in my area tends to be more along the lines of Rifts and World of Darkness. As well, I have a pretty crazy work schedule at the moment and making it to scheduled real life game sessions would be very difficult. That should change after the first of the year though, so this is likely temporary. However, for the time being I'm thinking of trying to find an online avenue for playing TOR--one in which somebody new to the game would be welcomed.

Any advice regarding the aforementioned concerns is much appreciated.

...(edited to add): I have about $100(us) of discretionary funds to get started with.

Thanks!
Captain Curmudgeon

[Otaku-sempai]

Hi there! The absolute minimum that you need for TOR:
1. The core book, The One Ring Roleplaying Game.
2. Dice: either the official TOR dice set or 6d6 and 1d12.
3. a. For pre-generated adventures: Tales from Wilderland.
...b. A region guide you can use for your own adventures: The Heart of the Wild

HotW also works well with TfW and with the 30-year The Darkening of Mirkwood campaign. The Lake-town Sourcebook comes bundled with the Loremaster's Screen.

[HunterGreen]

I'd add to the excellent summary above that if you just want to be a player, not a loremaster, you can get by with the dice and a copy of the Adventurer's Companion book.

For online places to play, I know of some play-by-post games but I don't know which ones have openings, so I will leave it to the people who run those to post them if they like. The link in my signature will bring you to a Discord voice and text chat where there are other possibilities for online play. We did a game by voice a few weeks ago and a few people, including me, are planning to do others. You'll also have a chance to meet a lot of other players who might be able to direct you to still more online play options. We also have a dice roller bot there that does The One Ring rolls (thanks to our amazing contributor Zed).

I have been trying to get a game together to be played via Discord chat specifically for beginners, but most of the beginners I've found have been pretty shy about it. Hopefully a few people ready to jump in and learn will help get a few more people off the shelf.

[Vuriche]

I'll quote myself from another thread regarding the books since I'm rather happy about my write-up. I'll add that the tables on the back of the Loremaster's Screen are somewhat outdated.

I'll throw my suggestions into the ring as well and I'll try to motivate my choices out of my experience of collecting all of the books released thus far. My apologies if I happen to repeat what others already may have stated, I read the thread itself last night.

Your first option after The Core Rulebook is one of preference I would say. If you want a collection of ready-to-play adventures, go with Tales from Wilderland. If you want a campaign-supplement that really fills out the world with more inhabitants and features and enables you to build your own campaign more readily, I'd recommend Heart of the Wild. I found the campaign description in the core rules, though thoroughly captivating, a bit devoid of people actually residing in the world described and that is something the campaign supplements work wonders to amend.

A pertinent bit of information here is that Heart of the Wild, while an excellent supplement, does not cover the entirety of Wilderland. It covers the western and central part of Wilderland, but not the eastern regions surrounding Dale, Lake-Town and Erebor. This means that if your players express interest in creating a group mostly consisting of these heroic cultures, or you wish to play in these areas, you might find that the Erebor supplement becomes a higher priority for you, as it details the lands of eastern Wilderland, as well as some regions to the east, as far away as the Iron Hills. The Lake-Town Sourcebook, is on the other hand very short and really only necessary if either you want to centre your campaign in and around Lake-Town, or your group absolutely demands to play Men of that culture and have access to rules distinguishing them from Men of Dale. The kick-ass screen might steal your cash out from under you regardless of course.

The Darkening of Mirkwood then is your grand campaign supplement spanning decades of in-game time and which is infinitely expandable, either with adventures and twists of your own, or by weaving in the ones from the Tales supplement.

The supplements listed above offers up a complete campaign description of Wilderland and the cultures therein. From this point, your choices become a matter of which region you might desire to expand your campaign into, or specific rules and cultures you might desire to add to your play, most of which is information easy to discern from reading the product descriptions.

I would however specifically recommend Rivendell for its rules, not its regional description, since I found that area to be mostly devoid of inhabitants even after reading the book and that made me lose interest for the region. However, the magical items, powerful adversaries, rules for the Eye and fascinating heroic cultures make it a very good book to acquire as I think it enriches any campaign it is added to.

[Stormcrow]

The absolute minimum that you need for TOR:
1. The core book, The One Ring Roleplaying Game.
2. Dice: either the official TOR dice set or 6d6 and 1d12.
3. a. For pre-generated adventures: Tales from Wilderland.
...b. A region guide you can use for your own adventures: The Heart of the Wild

The absolute minimum you need is (1) and (2). There are lots of sourcebooks available, including region guides, adventure books, and rule books, but they're all completely optional.

[Otaku-sempai]

The absolute minimum you need is (1) and (2). There are lots of sourcebooks available, including region guides, adventure books, and rule books, but they're all completely optional.

I limited myself to TwF or HotW because the core book is focused on starting in Wilderland. And I included those because the OP mentioned wanting to be a Loremaster. As a player alone, I agree that only #1 & 2 are needed.

[Stormcrow]

Those sourcebooks are not required for Loremasters, either.

Mind you, they're very good books. But they're not the absolute minimum required. You can play The One Ring perfectly fine with nothing but the main rule book, some dice, and your own imagination.

[Otaku-sempai]

Okay, fair enough.

[Glorelendil]

Well, you do need some adventures to play, and there's only one short one in the core rule book. If you're the sort of gamer who prefers brewing your own adventures to using ones written by others then, yes, all you "need" is the core rule book.

But if you don't feel comfortable creating your own, or simply don't have the time to do it well, you'll need more than just the starting adventure in the book. Our own zedturtle has published a free adventure called "Theft of the Moon" which is a great starter adventure, and the latest issue of "Other Minds" has a couple adventures as well.

With your $100 budget you could get both the core rules and "Tales from Wilderland", which contains six adventures designed to be run in a sequence, but don't have to be. You could save a little bit of money by buying just the PDF of Tales.

[Captain Curmudgeon]

Ok, so I made the plunge and purchased the TOR core rule book from C7. I figure I'll get the pdf on Monday and the hardcopy later this month in the mail.

I'm really looking forward to digging into it!