D&D 5E Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

Wheaton's Law is, "Don't be a jerk." (Wording changed to work within EN World language rules.)

What you have there is a corollary: "Games do not survive people purposefully being jerks."
It's plausible that my "Take the game about as seriously as everyone else at the table" is another corollary--and it does seem to be related--but I think it's possible to violate it without being a total [jerk].
 

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It's plausible that my "Take the game about as seriously as everyone else at the table" is another corollary--and it does seem to be related--but I think it's possible to violate it without being a total [jerk].

Though its pretty easy for dissonance here to break things. You can have one player who's taking things a little casually while others aren't, but usually if most of the players are really serious and one is goofing off, it both stands out like a sore thumb, and potentially starts to bring up the question of why (other than PC Glow which is often the real answer) they're hanging out with this guy.
 


It's plausible that my "Take the game about as seriously as everyone else at the table" is another corollary--and it does seem to be related--but I think it's possible to violate it without being a total [jerk].
Yeah. Having one or two people at the table who take a game too seriously or too lightly compared to the rest of the group is such a buzzkill. Good rule.
 


Is funny how opinions can differ on these - my friends and I ran through the adventures and quite enjoyed it.

We found it worked well at introducing us to the rule set overall, albeit only saw two races and none of the journeying aspect, but got a good feel of the mechanics in it, as it gradually introduced us to different parts of it, including combat, as we had no experience with the One Ring previously.
I don’t want to invalidate your experience, but are you sure your players enjoyed it as much as you did?

If you asked our DM about the introductory adventure, he would probably say it went well. He was enthusiastically pushing for the adventure (since he is a massive Free League fan and really enjoyed the One Ring) and the players all recognize that as DM he put more work into the adventure than we did.

At the end of the adventure we weren’t about to point out the adventure’s shortcomings as an adventure, particularly since we weren’t starting a One Ring campaign.

We didn’t point out the adamantine rails we were on the entire time, nor that it kind of sucks that the Keeper can just decide when an enemy hit 0 hp that the enemy can just escape, come back to life or be killed by the sun coming up. Or the unnecessary dice rolls. Or that the adventure felt thin on content.
 

I don’t want to invalidate your experience, but are you sure your players enjoyed it as much as you did?

If you asked our DM about the introductory adventure, he would probably say it went well. He was enthusiastically pushing for the adventure (since he is a massive Free League fan and really enjoyed the One Ring) and the players all recognize that as DM he put more work into the adventure than we did.

At the end of the adventure we weren’t about to point out the adventure’s shortcomings as an adventure, particularly since we weren’t starting a One Ring campaign.

We didn’t point out the adamantine rails we were on the entire time, nor that it kind of sucks that the Keeper can just decide when an enemy hit 0 hp that the enemy can just escape, come back to life or be killed by the sun coming up. Or the unnecessary dice rolls. Or that the adventure felt thin on content.
I'm not sure how fair it is to make the assumption that someone's understanding of their player's reactions is probably false just because you don't happen to agree with it. No amount of saying that's not what you're doing here changes that IMO.
 

I'm not sure how fair it is to make the assumption that someone's understanding of their player's reactions is probably false just because you don't happen to agree with it. No amount of saying that's not what you're doing here changes that IMO.
Except they're not doing that. They're not even saying for certain their GM didn't twig to the players' disappointment/s. They're pointing out that it's not always easy to be certain how well a TRPG is going for everyone else at the table.
 

Except they're not doing that. They're not even saying for certain their GM didn't twig to the players' disappointment/s. They're pointing out that it's not always easy to be certain how well a TRPG is going for everyone else at the table.
That, and it's really hard to evaluate how much you're enjoying something relative to a hypothetical experience you didn't have. A player may quite truthfully claim they're having a great time, and still be having a less good time than they would under other conditions.
 

Part of what made it jarring was that most of the pregens weren’t young hobbits.

Paladin Took and Esmeralda Took are young: underage and just out of their tweenage years. Both of them are explicitly described as looking for adventure.

Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck are older. They are in their forties and currently engaged to be married. Drogo’s write-up is pretty ambiguous about why he’s involved (beyond Bilbo being his cousin) and Primula’s explicitly states she’s there to make sure the younger hobbits don’t get into trouble.

Lobelia Bracegirdle is even older. In the books, she’s a spiteful and greedy minor antagonist. Her character sheet suggests that this remains the case in this adventure. It’s pretty unclear why she would be involved with Bilbo (except to suck up to him to gain part of the inheritance).

Rorimac Brandybuck is almost 60. He is married, has 3 children, and will shortly become Master of Brandy Hall. None of his children appear in the adventure, and no real explanation is given why he is spending time hanging out with his son’s future wife rather than what would normally keep a married man with 3 children busy in a pre-industrial society.

The first adventure is Bilbo telling us that he wanted to buy a map from other hobbits but they refused. He wants the map because he thinks that he can decipher the inscriptions to go on an ADVENTURE! He wants us to break into their house and steal it. When we arrive, we realize that the house is actually a local museum.

Bilbo comes off really poorly from the exchange, particularly since he is explicitly sending other people to do his dirty work. It isn’t realistic for Drogo, Primula, Lobelia or Rorimac to go along with this, and even Paladin and Esmeralda should have serious reservations.

Bilbo also insisted on coming with us in the 2nd adventure, which really undermined the idea that “he’s pushing younger hobbits to live a little before settling down”.
Fair enough - I note we didn't use Lobelia or Rorimac, so didn't run into those issues there in play - I agree that those two do create a bit of a dissonance.

Re the map bit - it is clear in his opening spiel that it is the mathom house he wants it from - i.e. the local museum, and is enough grey in there I think for people to consider whether the hobbits would consider it stealing, plus it isn't a direct refusal as much as no reply - and with hobbits perhaps that's enough. (after all once Bilbo left the Shire in LoTR, people were quite happily trying to break down various parts of the house while Frodo is there to try and find the treasure, walk off with bits that aren't theirs). In addition it does have breakdown for loremaster if the characters consider taking other items - that it is one thing going for an item sponsored by Bilbo (And by implication, that he potentially has some right to) vs generic items being something the hobbits would find shameful.
 

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