gweinel
Explorer
Well, the most glaring feature is the bipole Hope - Shadow which is tied with the Fellowship mechanic. The corruption of the Enemy is a very big danger in the game. Almost the same as big as a goblin poisoned arrow. The characters start with a number of Hope points and represent the "pureness" of their soul. On the other hand the Enemy tries to corrupt every aspect of Middle-Earth in direct (orcs, raids, wars, destruction of land) or subtle ways (the corruption of Boromir or Saruman, the dwarven rings of power etc). The characters in their course of their adventures are exposed to the direct and indirect influence of Sauron. When that happens there is a possibility to gain shadow points. If for any reason the shadow points exceeds the hope points then the character is "miserable" and there is a good posibilty to have "a bout of madness" (as an example the attack of Boromir to Frodo). If a character has 5 "bout of madness" then the Enemy has totally corrupt him.
By spending hope points you can enhance you rolls in order to achieve some great things (boost to skills and attacks) or avoid some misfortune (the calling of a wight or the damage of an attack). Although the bonus is significant you really cannot replentish your hope points except from two sources. The first is story based and it has to do with the adventure that the Loremaster has prepared (for example after a win of a fight against all odds or the gift of vial with the light of the West from Galadriel). The second comes from the Fellowship.
Fellowship is the term of the party. A party forms a Fellowship and as the party roams and battle the Enemy in Middle-Earth. In order to succeed one party member must rely to another and have to work together. In the depths of Moria or under the dark leaves of Mirkwood the only source of hope that a character have is a fellow party member. As it happened in the books, also some charcters have a favorite party member or a party member they want to protect (at the formation of the Fellowship all the heroes pledged to protect Frodo, or later in the books there had been a special bond between Legolas and Gimli). These two aspect have been "translated" in game mechanics: a) There is the Fellowship Pool which has Hope points with number equal the party members. So a Fellowship of 4 adventures have a Fellowship Pool of 4 Hope points. Every party member can take from this pool in order to succeed something difficult (most of the party must aggree to the action). This pool is replentished in each session. b) The second feature is the Fellowship Focus: Every character has as "favorited" (the Fellowship Focus) in the party. If you want to help your Fellowship Focus and spent a Hope point then you take that point back. So, when Sam attacking Shelob in order to save Frodo in Mordor the Hope point he spent took it back
.Another very important mechanic of the game and also very Tolkien -driven is the journey rules. If you have read the books you know that Tolkien describes great part of the journeys. The increased important of the journeys are implemented in the game mechanics. Each journey takes much time in the adventures of The One Ring and it is the source of many adventures, social encounters and of course dangers.
I hope i helped a bit.
