The Stiff neck of Dwafs

[Cawdorthane]

seeing cradles rocking in the wind in a plague struck village, finding a once fair Elven glade defiled by greedy evil men, stumbling accross victims tortured by Orcs or devoured alive by Wargs etc etc.

In Tolkien's works, you rarely see anything too gory, so I try to keep the same style in most of my games. This leaves plenty of opportunities for corruption tests, but not at the rate you'd find in a Call of Cthulhu game.

On the other hand, I've house-ruled that it's harder to get rid of shadow points.

I certainly agree that as LM you do not need to verbally spray your companions with faux blood in your descriptions!

But it ought to be remembered that much of Tolkein's writing was quite bleak for his time, and had strong elements of horror and despair riddled throughout. Whilst I also agree that as LM you do not have to go into graphic detail like some description of a chainsword attack in a Warhammer 40K 'penny dreadful', you need to remember that the rpg community of the early 21st Century is a lot more exposed to such imagery than Tolkein's readers were at the time of first publication, and as a result is somewhat anaesthetised.

Frankly, I think appropriately exploiting Tolkein's inherent themes of horror and despair can only add to the experience of both LM and companion alike without making it 'Call of C'thulhu'! The TOR system is quite inspirational in that regard. Otherwise, imho, a companion's Hope score will be at risk of being treated like a bland pool of quasi magic points.

But naturally, if such use of Hope and Shadow in TOR, does not appeal to a particular LM and their group, well then, so be it.

cheers
Mark

[Etarnon]

The only time it's been really nasty was a recent adventure I ran where Orcs were taking an Elven relic to Dol Guldur in S. Mirkwood and the heroes decided to leave the path.

4 characters almost died, but via last second shots and swings saved each other from a pair of giant horse sized-spiders.

Other than the above the characters spend about as much hope as they get back from fellowship, with a few spending a little bit more.

[mogul76]

I also very much like this virtue and its long-term effects on the player characters' choices/behaviour. But I also believe that it's quite powerful. Therefore, I'd like to add the following house rule:

The Shadow score is not automatically added to the result of a roll. Instead, the Dwarf character gets to choose whether he wants to benefit from the bonus or not before making the roll. If he chooses to apply the bonus and rolls an Eye of Sauron with the Feat die he has been "tricked by the Shadow" and must spend a point of Hope or something really bad (at the Loremaster's discretion) happens.

What do you think about this house rule?

[Angelalex242]

Define 'really bad'

Does he suffer a bout of madness as if miserable? (Beware the POWER of the Dark Side...)
Does he simply gain yet another Shadow Point? (Using darkness leads to more darkness...)

Etc.

[mogul76]

That would up to the Loremaster to decide.

Examples:

- Eye of Sauron on an Inspire or Persuade roll during an Encounter: The true, self-centric and dark nature of the Dwarf character is exposed. The Encounter automatically fails for the entire group and/or they get themselves into trouble.

- Eye of Sauron during a Journey i.e. on a Travel roll: For reasons which are to be stated by the Loremaster the roll made during a Hazard episode automatically fails.

- The Dwarf character climbs down a cliff using a rope. For obscure reasons the rope breaks...

- Awareness test: The character sees/hears things which aren't there.

- The attention of the Enemy is drawn. This could occur in a wide range of situations (for instance, when making inquiries in Esgaroth the PCs are spotted by one of Sauron's spy).

- Etc.

[Angelalex242]

I'd be leery about the 'rope breaks' one.

Falls are extremely deadly in TOR, and there's practically no way to survive one.

[mogul76]

Yeah, but that was just an example.

What do you think about the suggested addition to the rule in general?

[Corvo]

I have no experience with this virtue, and I'm aware that such bonus can be pretty hefty.
On the other hand I'm wary of adding drawbacks to the virtue for some reasons:
1- the player paid some hefty xp for this virtue. It's meant to be powerful. King's man or Elven magic aren't powerful?
2- this virtue is powerful ONLY when the hero got some (3+?) shadow points. And Dwares got low maximum hope. So they risk being miserable really fast. And when got a bout of madness their shadow reset to 1 (1 permanent and 0 temporary), so their bonus is reduced -at a high price-

Just my thoughts, not sure what direction to take on the matter.

[mogul76]

In my opinion, King's Blade is far too powerful. I will house rule it (NPC's facing a Hobbit equipped with a King's Blade get to roll one D6 less when making an injury protection test or something along these lines).

Wood-elf Magic does not seem unbalanced to me, especially since the PC must spend Hope in order to benefit from it.

As to The Stiff Neck of Dwarves, you (and all other posters in this thread) are probably right. It's a double-edged sword restraining Dwarf player characters (who - as you've already mentioned - start with a rather low Hope score) from reducing their Shadow score in the Fellowship phase, which will eventually get them into trouble.

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

[Corvo]

Just two notes, Mogul:

I was refferring to King's Men (Barding Virtue) and not the the King's Blade (an hot topic indeed): I was trying to find two powerful virtues that got no negative side-effect/limitation (Barding Swordmaster got his own limitation, for example)
And I got many doubts myself about the Stiff Neck. But I cannot decide if it's overpowered or not!