I guess I'll continue, even though we're still waiting for [MENTION=84680]treex[/MENTION] to weigh in. So far we have three dwarves, two hobbits, and an elf.
Your culture gets you 3 fixed things and opens up the next set of choices. The three are
Standard of Living,
Skills and
Cultural Blessing. However, before explaining how skills work, I'll need to explain
Dice Rolls and
Attributes.
Dice Rolls:
The One Ring uses two types of dice: the
Feat die is 12-sided die numbered 1 to 10, plus the Eye of Sauron and the Gandalf Rune. If the Eye of Sauron is rolled, the Feat die counts 0. If the Gandalf Rune is rolled, the roll is an automatic success. (We'll use either the forum's built in roller or
invisiblecastle.com, and roll a d12 with 11 as the Eye of Sauron and 12 as the Gandalf Rune.) As well as the Feat die, you roll a number of
Success dice, each of which is a d6 with an extra Tengwar (the Elvish writing system) rune on the 6.
When I call for a die roll, I'll give you a target number and the name of a skill. You'll roll the Feat die plus a number of Success dice equal to your rating in that skill, total them up, and try to beat the target number. If you succeed and roll any Tengwar runes, it counts as an extraordinary success; if you didn't roll any Tengwar runes, you only narrowly succeeded.
So if you have an Athletics skill of 3, and you're trying to move a heavy boulder, I might hall for a TN 14 Athletics roll. You'd roll d12+3d6, trying to beat a target of 14. If you roll an 11 on the d12, the d12 counts 0 (but if you rolled high enough on the 3d6 you could succeed anyway). If you roll a 12 on the d12, you succeed automatically. And the number of 6's you rolled on the d6's tells you how impressively you succeeded.
Normally you will roll on skills, but you might also roll on
Wisdom (which represents your experience and common sense) or
Valour (which represents your courage).
Attributes:
Everyone has 3 attributes which are rated from 1 to 12: 1-2 is poor, 3-4 is average, 5-6 is good, 7 and higher are superior. You don't roll on attributes: they only come into play after you make a skill roll. Each skill has an associated attribute; after you roll, you can spend a point of
Hope (more on that later) to add your attribute value to the roll.
Each attribute has a
base value and a
favoured value, which is 1 to 3 points higher. If you're spending Hope to add to one of your
favoured skills, you add the favoured value instead of the base value.
Body is your physical prowess.
Heart is your force of spirit.
Wits is your intelligence and cunning.
Attributes aren't set directly by your culture, so I won't explain how they're calculated yet: the important thing right now is the difference between base and favoured values, and how they add to skills.
Skills:
Everybody has the same set of
common skills, but different cultures focus on different skills. Skills are rated from 0 to 6, with 0 being unskilled, 1 being poor, 2 being average, 3 being good, and 4 or higher being superior.
As well as common skills, there are
weapon skills, each of which represents your skill with a single weapon or group of weapons. More on those later.
Common skills are arranged in a grid:
At the top of each column is the Attribute that's linked to that skill; its base value gets added to your skill roll if you spend Hope. If the skill is
favoured (noted by
underlining it) you add the favoured value instead.
To the right of each column is the skill group, which is just used to organize the skills into logically related sections.
Personality skills are for social interaction:
Awe is used to impress or intimidate someone with your sheer force of presence;
Inspire is used to encourage people with stirring words and actions; and
Persuade is used argue using truth or falsehood.
Movement skills are for physical exertion:
Athletics is used to run, jump, climb and swim;
Travel is used to withstand the hardships of long journeys; and
Stealth is used to hide and move silently.
Perception skills are for seeing and noticing things:
Awareness is used to keep track of your surroundings;
Insight is used to understand others' motives; and
Search is used to make a concentrated effort to find things.
Survival skills are for dealing with hardship:
Explore is used to find your bearings when lost and deal with natural hazards (in comparison, Travel is used to avoid fatigue even on known roads - in unexplored wilderness, I'll call for both Travel and Explore rolls);
Healing is used t o treat wounds; and
Hunting is used to track animals and find food in the wilderness.
Custom skills are for civilized behaviour:
Song is for singing, reciting poetry and knowing the words to epics;
Courtesy is for etiquette and respecting traditions (often very important when you need to impress a great lord!); and
Riddle is for deducing information and concealing it from others.
Vocation skills are for the tasks society calls on:
Craft is for making and mending things and creating art;
Battle is for knowledge of tactics and the ability to keep your head in combat; and
Lore is for knowledge and learning.
Beside each skill group is a space to record
Advancement Points. I'll sometimes (not always!) reward advancement points after you make a skill roll; at the end of the adventure, you cash these in to improve your skills. More on this later.
So, your culture determines your basic ranks for common skills, and sets a few to be
favoured. Later you'll have a chance to raise skills, and declare more of them to be favoured.
Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain start with Awe 0, Inspire 2, Persuade 0, Athletics 0, Travel 3, Stealth 0, Awareness 0, Insight 0, Search 3, Explore 2, Healing 0, Hunting 0, Song 1, Courtesy 0, Riddle 2,
Craft 3, Battle 1, and Lore 0. Note that Craft is favoured, so if you spend Hope after making a Craft roll, you add your favoured rating in Body.
Hobbits of the Shire start with Awe 0, Inspire 0, Persuade 2, Athletics 0, Travel 1,
Stealth 3, Awareness 2, Insight 1, Search 2, Explore 0, Healing 0, Hunting 0, Song 2, Courtesy 3, Riddle 2, Craft 0, Battle 0, Lore 0. Note that Stealth is favoured, so if you spend Hope after making a Stealth roll, you add your favoured rating in Wits.
Elves of Mirkwood start with Awe 2, Inspire 0, Persuade 0, Athletics 3, Travel 0, Stealth 2,
Awareness 2, Insight 0, Search 0, Explore 0, Healing 1, Hunting 1, Song 2, Courtesy 0, Riddle 0, Craft 0, Battle 2, Lore 3. Note that Awareness is favoured, so if you spend Hope after making an Awareness roll, you add your favoured rating in Body.
It's a good idea to have all the skills covered between your party, so keep an eye on which skills everybody has.
Standard of Living:
This shows how prosperous your culture is. At the beginning, all your equipment comes from this culture, although as you adventure and find treasure you can move beyond your culture's standard of living.
Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and
Hobbits of the Shire are
Prosperous: almost all of them live in great comfort, and they spend a lot of effort on decorating their items and making them artistic. Your weapons may not be more effective than others, but they're prettier.
Elves of Mirkwood are
Martial: living among the dangers of Mirkwood, their culture is organized for war - their equipment (and especially weapons) are well made, but of plain appearance since they don't have much leisure to embellish them, and while they have plenty of food so no one goes hungry, much of it is hoarded against bad times so except at special feasts, nobody eats lavishly.
Cultural Blessing:
This is a special ability that's so ingrained in your culture, every member, from the lowest farmer to the greatest warrior, has access to it. They're each a unique ability with their own rules.
Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain are
Redoubtable: most people work out their
Fatigue rating (the higher, the closer you are to becoming
Weary, which is bad) by adding up the weight of all their gear; dwarves do the same, but then they subtract their favoured Heart score from the total.
Hobbits of the Shirt have
Hobbit-sense: each hobbit in your group raises your
Fellowship rating by 1 point (Fellowship is a pool of points that everyone in the group can draw on; you spend Fellowship to regain Hope), and when making a
Wisdom roll (similar to a skill roll; your Wisdom represents your common sense - more on that later) you can roll the d12 twice and keep the best result.
Elves of Mirkwood are
Folk of the Dusk: when they are inside a forest or under the earth, or it is night, elves use their favoured attribute rating every time they spend Hope, not just when they spend it for favoured skills.
Any questions on the above? If not, I'll move on to describing your next choices: weapon skills and specialties.
