No I'm not Trolling, I really want to know. I got burned on deciphers pretty game and I'm not wanting to be burned by another game company producing a LoTR game just to make a LoTR game because they know us imps will buy it if it says LoTR JRR Tolkien and what not on the cover and is all pretty and smells good, but give use a cover filled with horse dung. Thats all. Someone mentioned its like playing Burning Wheel and if it is, thats a deal breaker for me already, I never could stand that game system.
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The One Ring RPG: slipcase cover
- Thread starter vivsavage
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Who said it was like Burning Wheel? I doubt it was from a playtester. And, for the record, I thought Decipher's game was pretty damn good.
To avoid burn out, you might try actually finding out information first rather than starting by calling the thing a turd. In fact, I think that pretty much is the definition of trolling, even if you are genuinely interested in the product in question.
From what we have seen so far, the thing that the game seems to most closely tied to is Tolkien's work, and not an existing RPG
The closest RPG analogy seems to be Pendragon but even then its loose. There is more specific structural support for emulating Tolkien's work than in MERP or CODA and this is reminsicient of how the MouseGuard RPG approached its source material. But that's as close to any Burning X game we have seen unless you count that it uses dice with 6 sides.
FWIW there have also been comments of WFRP3e inspirations used too which immediately got some people up in arms, though under analysis this comparison seems to be limited to a very superficial use of unorthodox dice, it comes in a box and that there will be three slipcover sets over the next 2 years.
Also, just to preempt the next other obvious reaction, TOR is not MERP. For one, it will not be able to produce the sheer quantity of MERP material out of the gate. Neither did MERP to be honest
TOR also takes a different approach by focussing more Tolkien's work, rather than providing open green fields of play. If you want MERP, its still available and as good as it ever was, regardless of TOR.
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EDIT: Apparently, what we saw was a draft, so take everything said here with a pinch of salt, please!
So, a bit of infodump, now. A couple of friends and I were able to peruse the books for a bit, and this is what we remember after putting things in common. It will be a bit jumbled (I’m writing what we remember), please forgive me about that. I’ll try to add to Skywalker’s summary:
Other than Hale, the characters can be in various states of being: Weary, Miserable, Wounded and… Poisoned, I think. As stated above, a Weary character counts any 1, 2 or 3 in the skill dice as a zero. A Miserable character fails automatically if the Fate dice rolls an Eye of Sauron (11) and loses a point of Hope.
Virtues are the special abilities granted by Wisdom, while Rewards are the ones granted by Valour. There are both generic and origin-specific ones.
Of all the options offered to players, the choice of Virtues is probably the one that allows for the easiest individualisation of a hero. They represent the special qualities of a people, or talents practised until they become second nature.
- Relationships: each character selects one other member of the company as his character's Fellowship Focus, for whom the character feels a strong bond. A Fellowship Focus lets a character recover Hope without spending Fellowship, but at the risk of gaining Shadow if the focus is harmed or killed.
- Fellowship Rating: Every company shares communal goals and a mutual respect, and this is recreated with a shared pool of Fellowship. The size of the pool is determined looking at the Characteristics and Callings of the heroes, and during play the heroes can use these Fellowship pool of points to recover spent Hope.
The other only hint regarding this is in the elves and dwarves, actually, and I thought it parses quite good. It is related with the Shadow and Corruption rules.
Hobbits and Men, in In comparison to the Fair Folk or even the Dwarves, are short-lived, but also quick to forget their grief, which means that during the Fellowship phase they can attempt a Craft or Song roll to reduce their Shadow score. A roll of Craft would represent the therapeutic or cathartic effects of indulging in a beloved activity, like gardening, painting or writing a diary, and a roll of Song would represent the emotional release experienced in creating poems and songs.
Dwarves are unable to ever heal completely from the taint of the Shadow as Men and Hobbits do and they turn to the forge to release their frustration smiting the red iron on the anvil: During a Fellowship phase, a dwarf can attempt a Craft roll to turn some Shadow points into one permanent Shadow point (called a ‘grudge’). Mechanically, grudges worsen the attitude of a Dwarf hero: When calculating the tolerance rating of an encounter, a Dwarf’s Wisdom or Valour rating is reduced by an amount equal to his permanent Shadow score.
Elves cannot ever truly forget the taint of the Shadow once it has left its mark on their spirit, and thus cannot heal from corruption. The only way they know to endure its burden and remain in Middle-earth is to slowly ‘distance’ themselves from the world.
An elf character may reduce his Shadow points marking one of his skills (he loses as many Shadow points as the rank of the skill). Whenever an Elf hero uses a marked skill, all rolls producing an Eye of Sauron result are considered to fail automatically (while he feels an overpowering sadness, as if the hero was Miserable), unless the Elf is inside the borders of an Elven sanctuary.
EDIT: It seems like this rules are not included in the final version.
Some Bardings have a sort of foresight after Smaug's destruction of Vale. Sometimes they feel a sense of foreboding that warns them of an impending catastrophe or dark event.
Beornings can get uncanny sight and hearing when the moon rises, or the ability to enter a dreamlike state and part the body in spirit form; the spirit takes the form of a great bear visible to onlookers that leaves tracks on the ground.
Dwarves can learn Broken Spells (some long-remembered fragments of old spells that retain power to this day, there are three types: spells of Opening and Shutting, Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion and Spells of Secrecy) and speak to Ravens.
The Elves can get Elvish Dreams (they're able to recover from their exertion while engaging in a repetitive task like walking or rowing in a boat), the ability to communicate with almost everything, be it living beings or stone, grass or water, or the ability to use Wood-elf magic (magical arrows that fly true, elf-lights that attract every mortal who sees it and enchanted sleep)
The Hobbits have an uncanny knack for dissapearing.
Lastly, the Woodmen of Wilderland can get a Hound of Mirkwood (a freakin' big hound!!) and can learn songs that echoes elven songs from a time of war and weapons, and that by singing it over a wound can reduce the loss of a warrior's life-blood to a trickle, letting it flow back to the heart
All weapons have also an Edge Rating (usually 9, 10 or the Gandalf rune), that is the value needed on the Fate die to force the defender to make a protection roll to resist taking a Wound. A weapon will also have an Injury value (the TN for the defender's Protection test).
A character becomes Weary when his current Endurance is equal or lower his Fatigue rating. When his Endurance drops to 0, he is exhausted and drops unconscious.
A character becomes Miserable when his Hope gets equal or lower his Shadow (other sources can make him Miserable). While Miserable, a character fails automatically any roll when the Fate dice gets an Eye of Sauron, and he also loses 1 Hope. A character with 0 Hope is spiritually drained and will flee from any source of stress or danger.
A Wounded character has received a life-threatening wound. Although it does not hae any immediate effect, it puts the character at risk of being knocked out. If a Wounded character is Wounded again, he immediately becomes unconscious. A Wounded character reduced to 0 Endurance is dying, and will die if doesn't get help soon. Also, a Wounded character that is Wounded again AND is reduced to 0 Endurance from the same blow is killed.
Also, regarding questions of balance between origins:
Mechanically speaking, all origins are more or less the same. They get a number of Common Skills (one Focused), a choice between two sets of Weapon skills, 2 Traits to choose from a list and a Cultural Blessing. The Background gives the Attributes, another Favored Skill and 2 additional Traits. Calling, gear and everything else works the same for all characters.
What I'd say make elves different from other races are the Virtues, that are usually more magical than the ones of the other races', and the Cultural Blessing. The Elves of Mirkwood's Cultural Blessing is called "Folk of the Dusk", and I'd say it is the most powerful of all: When an Elf of Mirkwood is inside a forest or under the earth, or it is night, all his Attribute bonuses are based on his favoured rating.
In contrast, Bardings are Stout-Hearted (Can roll the Feat die twice when making a Fear test), Beornings are Furious (when Wounded in battle they ignore the effects of being Weary), the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain are Redoubtable (they calculate their Fatigue threshold by adding up the Encumbrance ratings of all the items they are carrying, and then subtracting their favoured Heart score from the total), the Hobbits of the Shire have Hobbit-Sense (When making a Wisdom roll, including Corruption tests, they can roll the Feat die twice) and the Woodmen of Wilderland are Woodcrafty (when fighting in the woods, they use their favoured Wits score as their basic Parry rating).
Also, Journeys. I’d say that's the reason for the player's map and the Loremaster's map.
For a journey, first the players must select the general route they're going to try on the player's map, and the loremaster would tell them how long it will take them to complete and how many travel rolls would be required. The hardships and difficulties encountered by them when traversing the wild are represented by the travel tests. The number of tests is based on the length of the journey, the area traversed, and the season (journeys in the cold months of the year require more rolls than the warm ones).
Once the loremaster has determined the lenght of the journey in days and the number of tests required to complete it, the players can check to see if their characters know something about the route, being able to reduce the lenght of the travel, or making easier the travel tests for some characters.
Players assign their characters a role for the journey, basically stating what their characters will be doing during the trip. This comes into play if when a failed Travel roll triggers a Hazard sequence. With the exception of the company’s guide, more than one player-hero may be assigned the same role (i.e. there may be more than one character acting as look-outs, or more heroes going hunting regularly), but normally no character may assume more than one role at the same time.
The duties for a journey are: Guide, Scouts, Huntsmen and Look-out men.
All players resolve their rolls individually. Every time a player-hero fails a Travel test, he loses 3 Endurance points. If at least one player fails the test and the Feat die gets an Eye of Sauron icon, the group falls in a Hazard sequence. Hazards range from simple problems such as crossing a swollen stream, to diff icult and potentially deadly challenges such as escaping from a pack of wargs.
So far, I must say that I liked what we were able to see, and I want to see more. Only two things that really irked me were: the image of the pregenerated elf character, which creeps me out (that leg!!! ^_^), and the fact that I saw a lot of "see page XX" in the Loremaster's book while perusing it (but this might be due to it being an older version).
So, a bit of infodump, now. A couple of friends and I were able to peruse the books for a bit, and this is what we remember after putting things in common. It will be a bit jumbled (I’m writing what we remember), please forgive me about that. I’ll try to add to Skywalker’s summary:
Also, Attributes have favoured scores and a character has favoured skills. Whenever you make a roll, you can spend a point of Hope to add the relevant Attribute to the roll. If you are using a favoured skill, you get to add your favoured Attribute rating.
Other than Hale, the characters can be in various states of being: Weary, Miserable, Wounded and… Poisoned, I think. As stated above, a Weary character counts any 1, 2 or 3 in the skill dice as a zero. A Miserable character fails automatically if the Fate dice rolls an Eye of Sauron (11) and loses a point of Hope.
As stated, Traits look more or less like Aspects, and you can invoke them in three ways: to automatically pass a roll if the Loremaster considers the Trait relevant for the roll, to be able to make a roll when otherwise not allowed to, and to ask for an Advancement Point i fan action reflects strongly one of the character’s Traits.
Virtues are the special abilities granted by Wisdom, while Rewards are the ones granted by Valour. There are both generic and origin-specific ones.
Of all the options offered to players, the choice of Virtues is probably the one that allows for the easiest individualisation of a hero. They represent the special qualities of a people, or talents practised until they become second nature.
There certainly is. The process is mainly for “fluff” reasons (what circunstances brought the group together and forged them into a company of adventurers, where did they had the first meeting, where did they form, etc.), but it has (that I have seen at least) two mechanical benefits:
- Relationships: each character selects one other member of the company as his character's Fellowship Focus, for whom the character feels a strong bond. A Fellowship Focus lets a character recover Hope without spending Fellowship, but at the risk of gaining Shadow if the focus is harmed or killed.
- Fellowship Rating: Every company shares communal goals and a mutual respect, and this is recreated with a shared pool of Fellowship. The size of the pool is determined looking at the Characteristics and Callings of the heroes, and during play the heroes can use these Fellowship pool of points to recover spent Hope.
Regarding the generational aspect... well, I have to say that I haven't seen much about it except as foundations with the Fellowship phase (I think that it would be a bit soon for this case, anyways), as the default pace for adventures is around one each year. During the Fellowship phase the characters can pursue personal objectives and the like. The only real aspect dedicated to generational play I saw was one Barding Virtue: Birthright. The character is the rightful heir of a illustrious household. When the character receives a wound that would normally kill him, he can choose between dying and letting the Birthright Virtue pass on his direct descendant, or to be saved by some miraculous circunstance, wounded but alive. He would reset his standing to zero as he would be presumed dead by his own folk, and can be done only one and never again.
The other only hint regarding this is in the elves and dwarves, actually, and I thought it parses quite good. It is related with the Shadow and Corruption rules.
Hobbits and Men, in In comparison to the Fair Folk or even the Dwarves, are short-lived, but also quick to forget their grief, which means that during the Fellowship phase they can attempt a Craft or Song roll to reduce their Shadow score. A roll of Craft would represent the therapeutic or cathartic effects of indulging in a beloved activity, like gardening, painting or writing a diary, and a roll of Song would represent the emotional release experienced in creating poems and songs.
Dwarves are unable to ever heal completely from the taint of the Shadow as Men and Hobbits do and they turn to the forge to release their frustration smiting the red iron on the anvil: During a Fellowship phase, a dwarf can attempt a Craft roll to turn some Shadow points into one permanent Shadow point (called a ‘grudge’). Mechanically, grudges worsen the attitude of a Dwarf hero: When calculating the tolerance rating of an encounter, a Dwarf’s Wisdom or Valour rating is reduced by an amount equal to his permanent Shadow score.
Elves cannot ever truly forget the taint of the Shadow once it has left its mark on their spirit, and thus cannot heal from corruption. The only way they know to endure its burden and remain in Middle-earth is to slowly ‘distance’ themselves from the world.
An elf character may reduce his Shadow points marking one of his skills (he loses as many Shadow points as the rank of the skill). Whenever an Elf hero uses a marked skill, all rolls producing an Eye of Sauron result are considered to fail automatically (while he feels an overpowering sadness, as if the hero was Miserable), unless the Elf is inside the borders of an Elven sanctuary.
EDIT: It seems like this rules are not included in the final version.
From what we saw:
Some Bardings have a sort of foresight after Smaug's destruction of Vale. Sometimes they feel a sense of foreboding that warns them of an impending catastrophe or dark event.
Beornings can get uncanny sight and hearing when the moon rises, or the ability to enter a dreamlike state and part the body in spirit form; the spirit takes the form of a great bear visible to onlookers that leaves tracks on the ground.
Dwarves can learn Broken Spells (some long-remembered fragments of old spells that retain power to this day, there are three types: spells of Opening and Shutting, Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion and Spells of Secrecy) and speak to Ravens.
The Elves can get Elvish Dreams (they're able to recover from their exertion while engaging in a repetitive task like walking or rowing in a boat), the ability to communicate with almost everything, be it living beings or stone, grass or water, or the ability to use Wood-elf magic (magical arrows that fly true, elf-lights that attract every mortal who sees it and enchanted sleep)
The Hobbits have an uncanny knack for dissapearing.
Lastly, the Woodmen of Wilderland can get a Hound of Mirkwood (a freakin' big hound!!) and can learn songs that echoes elven songs from a time of war and weapons, and that by singing it over a wound can reduce the loss of a warrior's life-blood to a trickle, letting it flow back to the heart
From what we saw, damage comes in two types: Endurance and Wounds. When a character hits his opponent in combat, he makes his opponent lose as many Endurance as his weapon’s Damage rating. If he achieves a great success, he adds his character’s Damage rating as a bonus to his weapon’s Damage rating. If he scores an extraordinary success, he adds double his Damage rating to that of his weapon. Usually, a character’s Damage rating is equal to his basic Body score, both for attacks made with a close combat weapon or a ranged weapon.
All weapons have also an Edge Rating (usually 9, 10 or the Gandalf rune), that is the value needed on the Fate die to force the defender to make a protection roll to resist taking a Wound. A weapon will also have an Injury value (the TN for the defender's Protection test).
A character becomes Weary when his current Endurance is equal or lower his Fatigue rating. When his Endurance drops to 0, he is exhausted and drops unconscious.
A character becomes Miserable when his Hope gets equal or lower his Shadow (other sources can make him Miserable). While Miserable, a character fails automatically any roll when the Fate dice gets an Eye of Sauron, and he also loses 1 Hope. A character with 0 Hope is spiritually drained and will flee from any source of stress or danger.
A Wounded character has received a life-threatening wound. Although it does not hae any immediate effect, it puts the character at risk of being knocked out. If a Wounded character is Wounded again, he immediately becomes unconscious. A Wounded character reduced to 0 Endurance is dying, and will die if doesn't get help soon. Also, a Wounded character that is Wounded again AND is reduced to 0 Endurance from the same blow is killed.
Also, regarding questions of balance between origins:
Mechanically speaking, all origins are more or less the same. They get a number of Common Skills (one Focused), a choice between two sets of Weapon skills, 2 Traits to choose from a list and a Cultural Blessing. The Background gives the Attributes, another Favored Skill and 2 additional Traits. Calling, gear and everything else works the same for all characters.
What I'd say make elves different from other races are the Virtues, that are usually more magical than the ones of the other races', and the Cultural Blessing. The Elves of Mirkwood's Cultural Blessing is called "Folk of the Dusk", and I'd say it is the most powerful of all: When an Elf of Mirkwood is inside a forest or under the earth, or it is night, all his Attribute bonuses are based on his favoured rating.
In contrast, Bardings are Stout-Hearted (Can roll the Feat die twice when making a Fear test), Beornings are Furious (when Wounded in battle they ignore the effects of being Weary), the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain are Redoubtable (they calculate their Fatigue threshold by adding up the Encumbrance ratings of all the items they are carrying, and then subtracting their favoured Heart score from the total), the Hobbits of the Shire have Hobbit-Sense (When making a Wisdom roll, including Corruption tests, they can roll the Feat die twice) and the Woodmen of Wilderland are Woodcrafty (when fighting in the woods, they use their favoured Wits score as their basic Parry rating).
Also, Journeys. I’d say that's the reason for the player's map and the Loremaster's map.
For a journey, first the players must select the general route they're going to try on the player's map, and the loremaster would tell them how long it will take them to complete and how many travel rolls would be required. The hardships and difficulties encountered by them when traversing the wild are represented by the travel tests. The number of tests is based on the length of the journey, the area traversed, and the season (journeys in the cold months of the year require more rolls than the warm ones).
Once the loremaster has determined the lenght of the journey in days and the number of tests required to complete it, the players can check to see if their characters know something about the route, being able to reduce the lenght of the travel, or making easier the travel tests for some characters.
Players assign their characters a role for the journey, basically stating what their characters will be doing during the trip. This comes into play if when a failed Travel roll triggers a Hazard sequence. With the exception of the company’s guide, more than one player-hero may be assigned the same role (i.e. there may be more than one character acting as look-outs, or more heroes going hunting regularly), but normally no character may assume more than one role at the same time.
The duties for a journey are: Guide, Scouts, Huntsmen and Look-out men.
All players resolve their rolls individually. Every time a player-hero fails a Travel test, he loses 3 Endurance points. If at least one player fails the test and the Feat die gets an Eye of Sauron icon, the group falls in a Hazard sequence. Hazards range from simple problems such as crossing a swollen stream, to diff icult and potentially deadly challenges such as escaping from a pack of wargs.
So far, I must say that I liked what we were able to see, and I want to see more. Only two things that really irked me were: the image of the pregenerated elf character, which creeps me out (that leg!!! ^_^), and the fact that I saw a lot of "see page XX" in the Loremaster's book while perusing it (but this might be due to it being an older version).
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That should be in the TOR Bestiary sectionThe elfleg! It's coming to get you!
Thanks Albertorius. That should keep us going till next week when the RPG is released.
KingOfPain
Registered User
@Albertorius: Thanks for that informative wall of text.
While I was interested in the game since it has been announced, I still have been somewhat skeptical. But I think after your overview I'll certainly check it out.
While I was interested in the game since it has been announced, I still have been somewhat skeptical. But I think after your overview I'll certainly check it out.