[The One Ring] Anyone playing/running and other thoughts/questions...

[Rich H]

Hi All,

New poster here and I've checked a few pages back and couldn't see anything so thought I'd post and see if there was anyone playing/running this game or if anyone wanted to discuss it at all.

Been running my campaign for a while now so if people are interested I can link to a 'Tale of Years' thread over on RPGGeek or repost here and I have a big resources thread there too - link in my signature.

So, if you're playing then I'd be interested in hearing about your games along with other stuff like thoughts on the 2nd edition coming out and books in the serious etc.



Cheers,
Rich

 

[Skywalker]

It feels like there has been a lull since 2e was announced. I am sure it will pick up again once its released.

 

[robertsconley]

I use and play Adventures in Middle Earth so I while I don't have any insights on the rules, both use the same adventures and setting supplement. And both have the broad ideas like shadow and journeys

 

[Smith]

Used to play with a local group and I adored the game, as a big Tolkein fan. Our GM was posting online about our adventures until the board he used shutdown (and not long after he moved away so we never did manage to restore my dwarf's ancestral home). I would love to hear your tale of years!

 

[Stan]

I use and play Adventures in Middle Earth so I while I don't have any insights on the rules, both use the same adventures and setting supplement. And both have the broad ideas like shadow and journeys

Same here.
I was pleasantly surprised that they took the rules translation seriously, unlike many D20 conversions a decade ago. One rule I like is that long rests are not automatic; they're downright hard to come by on the road. This affects healing and abilities a great deal.

 

[robertsconley]

Same here.
I was pleasantly surprised that they took the rules translation seriously, unlike many D20 conversions a decade ago. One rule I like is that long rests are not automatic; they're downright hard to come by on the road. This affects healing and abilities a great deal.

Indeed and alters the 5e rules for the better in regards to Middle Earth.

The inability to take a long rest was an important point in one session when a pair of journey events literally became the adventure that day.

The first event was a test to see if the party got lost. The second event was an encounter with the enemy. The party was journeying from Rhosgobel to the Crossing. The last session dealt with the folkmoot at Rhosgobel and the party's roleplaying twarted Mogdred's, the bad guy, plans.

The party consisted of a human scholar, and a dwarven warrior.

So I decided that Mogdred sent out some of his men to kidnap the PCs and bring them back to him for revenge.

So I decided that the first event was the outlaws forcing the PCs to alternative route that would get them bogged down. Which would lead after a day to the second event the encounter with the outlaws.

The PCs failed the test and gained levels of exhaustion. As a consequence when the Mogdred's men showed up they had no recourse to surrender.

So another journey started when their captors started to head back to Tyrant's Hill. On the second day, the Scholar waited up and started talking to the night guard. He told the guard that the dwarves are known for their treasure and hiding caches to pick up later. He convinced the guard that one of those cache was nearby. That he should look for it. Cleverly playing on his greed to get him to take them out alone. His deception roll was quite good and the guard took them out to get the "cache".

When they were out of earshot of the camp, the PC attacked the guard. The fight was hilarious as both characters were so exhausted that they were rolling disadvantage for everything. The scholar tried to do a "Captain Kirk" with his tied hands. While the Dwarf grabbed the torch and was beating the guard with it.

They managed not to go down and wound up flanking the guard so now they had a normal to hit roll. The damage was low because of the improvised weapons. The Scholar was down to 2 hit points but they manage to bring the guard down.

They were free but had no supplies, no weapons, and none of their equipment except for the clothing and armor they were wearing.

The nearest settlement was Woodland Hall about 40 miles away. So I rolled one journey event, which they botch and suffered even more exhaustion. But they manage to stagger into Woodland Hall and were rescued.

All this a result of keeping consistent with past choices and random rolls on the journey table.

 

[Ghost Whistler]

Any word on the release of 2e?

 

[Moonglum]

I've used the setting materials from ToR, but used The Fantasy Trip as the system. I think ToR is the best available material for written descriptions of regional-scale settings and adventure hooks in the era of greatest interest to most players. It is less strong when it comes to local scale maps, and I consider their 'dungeon scale' maps to be something of a train wreck. (e.g., check out the map of Erebor). So, I tend to liberally fold in materials from my extensive collection of ICE modules. I have considered using AiME as the system for my next foray into middle earth, but I'm so used to using TFT, and the experiences using it have been so positive, that I likely will leave that idea on the drawing table.

 

[Stan]

Indeed and alters the 5e rules for the better in regards to Middle Earth.

Definitely.
I'm considering adding it to my regular 5e campaign. In the default rules, travelling around is weird. You either have to throw an unrealistic number of encounters per day or the players wind up with a long rest between encounters and are fully rested and prepped. It would even make dungeon crawls more interesting. The players have to decide whether to just spike a door, get a short rest and enough sleep to avoid new exhaustion levels or travel back to the inn 10 miles away.

 

[TristramEvans]

A little whgile ago I picked up several of the books and spent about a month of very enjoyable reading. The art was just wonderful, an absolute breath of fresh air, especially after over ten years of everything Tolkien filtered through the design of the Peter Jackson films (which I like quite a lot, but I grew up with multiple artistic interpretations of Middle Earth, and I prefer that over a "definitive" version). The system is very clever and drips with the author's love for the source material.

But, I ultimately realized it was a game I'd never run. It just didn't fit the temperament of my longtime gaming circle or my style iof GMing. I would leap at the chance to be a player in a game, but that's true of many RPGs over the years, as I am stuck in the role pf GM for most systems I'm interested in (read: just about anything but D&D).

I still own all the PDFs, and I really appreciate the game - would go so far as to say I'm a "fan". But sadly it was not to be at this late stage in my gaming career.

 

[Voros]

Big fan of TOR but haven't had much chance to play it. Like AiME as well but think I'd rather stick with TOR which feels richer yet more streamlined.

 

[Rich H]

I would love to hear your tale of years!

You may regret asking that!

I've attached a link to its location in my dropbox account here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ifc1sxhqhpqtpm1/Tale of Years - Book One Fellowship of the Free.pdf?dl=0

Warning: its fairly long!