D&D 5E Anyone Using Adventures in Middle Earth Journey/Rest Rules in Regular 5e Game?

[Horwath]

"No Long Rests in the Wilderness"

And thus the barbarian hordes lost the war.

"I dunno, chief, I was filled with battlelust before we marched, but after a couple skirmishes, I really feel like I need some peace and tranquility to get my rage back. I can't get a good night's sleep with all these guards around, and my tent is soooo uncomfortable."

This!

Some designers realy overestimate importance of a 5 star hotel as essential to get a good night sleep.

bedroll and blanket is all you need in a temperate climate. And not to be bothered for 6-8hrs

 

[fjw70]

I haven't used them but plan to use a modified version of them eventually.

 

[BookBarbarian]

This!

Some designers realy overestimate importance of a 5 star hotel as essential to get a good night sleep.

bedroll and blanket is all you need in a temperate climate. And not to be bothered for 6-8hrs

Is a long rest a good nights sleep? Or is it a game mechanic that recharges abilities for some classes but not others? Both? Neither? Something in between?

In this Journey system, you may get a few encounters over the course of days or weeks. Long resting each night could very easily trivialize those encounters.

Also, in Adventures in Middle-Earth specifically lands are plagued by the forces of Shadow, and that wears on the player characters. Having Sanctuaries where they are physically safe is of less importance than having their Hope recharged.

 

[BookBarbarian]

The journey system is one of my favorite parts of AiME, but I must admit I have a hard time wrapping my head around the crunch. I'm just not used to that in 5e. I do like that longer journeys that pass through more perilous lands result in more encounters. This presents the Players with the decision of breaking up their Journey to get a rest and risk the party being late, or pushing onward to get there on time, and risk being exhausted.

I did like that in Wilderland Adventures they have Journey Tables specific to the Adventure, tying the encounters more closely looks like it will work well.

I think the main benefit of the Journey is it determines what state the adventurers are in when they arrive at their destination. With a couple of levels of exhaustion? Or with advantage on social checks because of being inspired and filled with hope on the road.

As long as that is kept in mind I think a lot of the granularity could be cut out.

 

[Majestic]

By coincidence I just wrote a post on this topic yesterday. ( http://the-gneech.dreamwidth.org/2662914.html for those interested.) My main problem with the Journey rules as written is how crunchy they are... rolls to modify rolls on top of other rolls.

-The Gneech

Excellent blog post, overall. The one thing I've found different in play from what you wrote was where you said "A long journey with a lot of encounters will certainly take several sessions, and you'll have to keep track of the Peril Rating, Embarkation Result, and rest resources along the way."

I've only done one session where we played through an AME Journey, but it was a long one. In addition, it was across Mirkwood, so it also was a Peril Rating of 5. We ended up getting 5 encounters, and I think the whole Journey ended up taking less than an hour, total.

I'm currently re-reading the Lord of The Rings (man, this takes me back. I was 14 years old when I first read that scene where Gandalf faced the Balrog. Blew me away!) and well... has anyone used the game itself to run a Middle-Earth game? Does the 5e version work?

I have, twice. The first one was mostly a test of how combat worked (a large battle), and the second was more of a complete session, where we did a long Journey, a number of Encounters (though not using the actual Encounter rules, as they were NPCs the characters had met before and weren't trying to really get anything out of) and also some fighting.

For each of those sessions, it was for my Middle-earth campaign, which began (and ran for many years) using The One Ring RPG, an excellent system that very much evokes Tolkien's books and world. We're in the midst of moving the entire campaign over to Adventures in Middle-earth.

 

[fjw70]

A while ago I picked up a set of Hobbit Tales cards and would like to use those for journeys as well.

 

[The_Gneech]

Excellent blog post, overall. The one thing I've found different in play from what you wrote was where you said "A long journey with a lot of encounters will certainly take several sessions, and you'll have to keep track of the Peril Rating, Embarkation Result, and rest resources along the way."

I've only done one session where we played through an AME Journey, but it was a long one. In addition, it was across Mirkwood, so it also was a Peril Rating of 5. We ended up getting 5 encounters, and I think the whole Journey ended up taking less than an hour, total.

Interesting! The "several sessions" comment was based largely on comparing an overland journey to a dungeon, which typically take my group two sessions per "five-room-ish" dungeon level. But I also have a large group and we move at a fairly easy-going pace. YMMV, obviously.

-The Gneech

 

[zedturtle]

Yeah, some of the Journey Events can be resolved fairly quickly... the Hunter(s) see a chance to bag a big one... you can set that up quickly and then it's resolved with a roll and either good stuff happens (big meal with leftovers for later) or bad stuff (wasted time and effort and you've got to eat cram again). Then you zoom back out until the next event or whatever. Same thing with some of the group checks... if you've got the wonders of Middle-earth result, then you can summarize the scene and then have everyone make their checks.

Of course, others can lead into longer chunks... roleplaying with folks met along the way, or a combat if you found an enemy in the Wild.

 

[Majestic]

Yeah, some of the Journey Events can be resolved fairly quickly... the Hunter(s) see a chance to bag a big one... you can set that up quickly and then it's resolved with a roll and either good stuff happens (big meal with leftovers for later) or bad stuff (wasted time and effort and you've got to eat cram again). Then you zoom back out until the next event or whatever. Same thing with some of the group checks... if you've got the wonders of Middle-earth result, then you can summarize the scene and then have everyone make their checks.

Of course, others can lead into longer chunks... roleplaying with folks met along the way, or a combat if you found an enemy in the Wild.

Exactly. Like one of mine was that they meet somebody of importance, and so I had King Thranduil show up hunting for the white stag. He invited the PCs to join him, but they declined. They shared some info with him, and he with them, and the scene was over.

Obviously if you get into a fight with something you meet along the way, things could then go much slower.

 

[Ancalagon]

I have, twice. The first one was mostly a test of how combat worked (a large battle), and the second was more of a complete session, where we did a long Journey, a number of Encounters (though not using the actual Encounter rules, as they were NPCs the characters had met before and weren't trying to really get anything out of) and also some fighting.

For each of those sessions, it was for my Middle-earth campaign, which began (and ran for many years) using The One Ring RPG, an excellent system that very much evokes Tolkien's books and world. We're in the midst of moving the entire campaign over to Adventures in Middle-earth.

Thank you for your reply. I hope you won't mind a few follow up questions...

1: In a review I read, one reviewer commented that a significant weakness was that he felt that the classes were poorly balanced in combat - classes that in classic 5e had significant magical power now had said magical powers curtailed but without an increase in combat potential. As a result, the more martial classes dominate combat. Is this true?

2: Why are you switching from The One Ring system to the quasi-5e version?

3: How does the One Ring system work anyway? I know next to nothing about it...