You anons ever try out TOR? If so, what did you think about it and what was your specific experience like?
Seen people talk about it a tiny bit here on Veeky Forums and it's almost always good things being said, but I rarely see proper threads about it.
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You know what, I'm just going to drop some Ted Nasmith for good measure.
>ywn live in the Shire
Just ship me off to Valinor, family.
Gonna help you bump it. No, I have never played it, just looked at its rules in Da Archive. Sadly the combat rules are killing it for me, everything else looks kinda neat.
>Sadly the combat rules are killing it for me,
How so?
It's one of the aspects I haven't had an extensive look at. How all the different mechanics primarily exist to facilitate roleplay and further a Tolkien-esque narrative (like the Shadow stuff which is tight as shit).
I prefer more traditional RPG combat, I think. We used to play a lot a MERP and Rolemaster back in the days, which is a bit over-the-top crunchwise, but just a bit. Good times nonetheless.
It's pretty great... then again, I've only played one game at a local con, and it was an all-Hobbit party soooo. y'know.
>an all-Hobbit party
Middle-Earth is just about the only setting I'll tolerate halflings in. Seems like in every other derivative they're awful.
Just use the 5e version "Adventures in Middle Earth" if you want traditional combat it keeps almost all of the unique mechanics from TOR including the archetypes and lack of magic
Just bumping the thread for later since l'll have to leave for work now, but I'm currently engaged in two parallel campaigns of TOR, one as a player, one as a DM, both are between 20 and 30 sessions in
Seconded. I'm playing in a AiME game at the moment and it is a very nice little system
I wish someone kept a TOR actual play blog
That sounds pretty great, user. You got any stories, and on the DM side; tips?
Yeah. What occurred to me about TOR is that every time I hear people mention it, it's very positive. But does it get any buzz? Not really. Is the game not actually that engrossing, or is it a case of other people not bothering too much because it's "Tolkien", which non-readers or those who gave it a go in their teens might see as boring, proto-fantasy (when in reality it's the tightest shit and if you don't agree, get out of my face).
yeah played it once
shit in a bear mans tent was LOL worthy
pretty dully game though , I think being some random chumps who will make no difference to anything because the epic story has already been written makes the entire experience a bit pointless.
i think id much prefer it if you could play an 'alternate history' as a different fellowship and see how things would play out than playing some random NPC nobody actually cares about.
I suspect combat in TOR doesn't do it for others as well.
>pretty dully game though , I think being some random chumps
I think you have to enter it with an old school mentality, so to speak. More about exploration and survival.
If you want an epic role you need to shift the focus on a different part of the War of the Ring I guess.
How was the "The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game" instead? The one with the CODA system?
Haven't played it yet but I finished my character for a upcoming campaign a friend of me has planed, also reading the simarillion currently, I'm looking forward to it.
I'm reading through a PDF of the corebook right now. It's pretty good so far. It does a really good job of building the atmosphere that Tolkien had made in Middle Earth. I really appreciate that it has a lot of emphasis on the travel itselt. D&D has a joke that "travel is near instantaneous while 5 minutes of combat takes hours." I think this game is doing a really good job of showing how long and dangerous journeys are.
I could just be speaking out of my ass though as I've never "played" it yet. Still just getting ready.
Yeah I'm not sure where that mentality is coming from. Sure, you're not the main fellowship, but the supplements have some pretty important stories. Might be dull to someone who doesn't care for Tolkien, but if you do you'd appreciate how fucking hardcore a campaign set in northern Eriador/Angmar would be, or how nasty of a place Mirkwood is.
Overall, Tolkien's writing doesn't lend itself to power-trips at all. For something that often called the father of modern fantasy, it's considerably more grounded than most of it.
Sounds good, user. Good luck.
That's what got me interested too. The rules exist to facilitate the fellowship narrative and promote a very Tolkien kind of storytelling. Even the combat system (criticism aside) is geared towards cooperation and protecting eachother.
I think one of my concerns is that I'm a HUGE Tolkien fan, and have read the various books multiple times. But I'm worried about if my players will enjoy the atmosphere/travel aspect when seeing the movies is about as much experience they have.
I'm also a little worried that it'll end up like this lol. pic related
I think you could embrace that. Especially considering that The One Ring is based on both LotR and The Hobbit, with the latter having a more light-hearted fellowship than the former. Do some adventures in Bree-land with moderately high stakes.
As for DMing tips it's bit tricky because I feel like DM of the other game where I'm the player is far better in this than me, but our styles are so different that I can't even emulate it without turning everything around too much for it to be comfortable.
There is one big tip that needs to be adressed and its - get the right players. This isn't a game for everyone, and a person who just doesn't get the feel of this game will ruin it for everyone else.
Another one is not to treat the provided structure too rigidly. Provided mechanisms, like Travels, Encounters, Fellowship Phase can be great, but they can be limiting often, don't be afraid to step outside those bounds.
Outside of that, game is quite straightforward.'
I for one prefer what TOR tries to do with combat over traditional RPG combat but... it's still one of the more flawed aspects of the system. I mean, the idea is great, though execution could be better.
>For something that often called the father of modern fantasy, it's considerably more grounded than most of it
No, not really. Well, it is grounded for sure, but that's hardly exceptional. It's just GAMES. Classic fantasy books are grounded, it was "gaming fantasy" style, stemming from D&D, that twisted it all unrecognizably.
That's not really a problem. I'm the ony real Tolkien fanboy in the group I'm DMing for. Out of the rest, only one did read more than LoTR and Hobbit, and one did only watch the movies.
What's important is not liking Tolkien in particular, it is liking grounded fantasy that is not all about power fantasy, funny gimmicks and flashy magicks.
>don't be afraid to step outside those bounds.
That makes sense. The sourcebooks did a good job of emphasising that they're mainly a framework for gameplay, and that the Loremaster should refer to his own judgement as often as possible if it's in service of the story.
Good advice, user. Thanks.