One Ring 2E - Who's Doing What With It?

[John R Davis]

I know a several who have their physical copies but mine hasn't arrived yet
Very sad face

 

[Lidgar]

I know a several who have their physical copies but mine hasn't arrived yet
Very sad face

You are not alone!

 

[John R Davis]

You are not alone!

To be a ring bearer is to be alone!

 

[Bill Zebub]

You missed a huge thread in FL's forums during the playtest, then. About 15 of us.

One of the most prolific fans of 1E has decided, like me, to walk away. Rich. I know he's on RPGGeek these days.

It has ONE improvement: the travel rules.

Everything else is not as good. At least, not in beta. I've not gotten my books nor my final PDFs, the latter despite complaining to them.

• Difficulty as adjusting number of dice means having to reveal difficulty to players before they roll,
  • and prevents them from having correct dice pool in hand/dice-cup before their turn
  • And the TN being fixed by doesn't speed up things when they can't be ready to roll without GM attention
• Song rules turned from multi-task to monotask
• too easy to regain hope in 2E. Overshoot.
• Weapons lose one stat, "Edge" - which was "What does my natural roll need to be to threaten a wound."
• No cultural weapons. Those added flavor
• Didn't fix the problems with the Rivendell treasure system, and made it standard rather than optional, this...
  • upped the number of magic items in the party
  • upped the treasure gained by the party
• Made the Eye of Sauron core... but didn't fix it. My party, after 3 adventures, was having revelations EVERY TIME THEY LEFT RIVENDELL!
  • It's still per party, no correction for how many members.
  • It's pretty steep due to the much increased amount of magical treasure.
• Monsters have trouble hitting PCs.
• PCs have little difficulty hitting anything short of the toughest monsters.

If you find that better, enjoy. They lost me at the beta. And already have my money. Still, I know the dead tree will appreciate in value.

There are some other complaints, too:

• Hope, which was a signature element of 1e, is now watered-down and generic and roughly equal to Inspiration in D&D 5e. Not that 1e Hope was perfect, but they threw out the baby with the bathwater by making it similar to all the other mechanics that give you bonus dice.
• Fixed TNs, in addition to the things you mentioned, lead unnecessarily to Adversaries using asymmetric rules (and wonky stat blocs)
• Council rules are basically a random generator of roleplaying cues; there's no real decisions to make. (Again, 1e rules were not ideal, either.)

If I continue playing TOR it's going to be with heavily house-ruled mechanics. The adventure sites seem cool, though. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they fill in Eriador.

And Moria.

 

[damiller]

That's very true too, Material gains in organisation continue: the 1e hardcover was an improvement on the initial 1e material, and 2e is a further improvement.

I would agree with this, though I have found 2e to be a VAST improvement in streamlining the rules AND making them more enjoyable to implement. The changes to the Skill Endeavour rules have been fantastic.

 

[Fenris-77]

Maybe I should have started a second thread called Let's kvetch about 2E TOR. Ah well...

 

[Bill Zebub]

Maybe I should have started a second thread called Let's kvetch about 2E TOR. Ah well...

Would make it hard to decide where to post for people who have both praise and criticisms.

 

[Harlath]

Maybe I should have started a second thread called Let's kvetch about 2E TOR. Ah well...

As one of the many big fans of 2e TOR, I'll note that I'm finding having Dunedain and High Elves mixed in with other characters much easier in 2e.

So far this has taken in the below, starting a bit before 1e's time period (I'd like to give PCs the chance to fight in the battle of five armies):

• A scouting mission to Mount Gram that became a rescue mission after some good results on a skill endeavour, with grim news taken back to Elrond. It was determined that the Great Orc (Gorbag the Great) planning the kidnappings was not concerned at the rescues, as part of his plan was to maim and torture elves to break their spirits and put fear in to their friends/allies.
• A long journey to Lindon to discuss the first adventure's results with Cirdan. Journeys are much easier to plan on the fly now, so a long, multi-part journey was fun and interactive with a few combats along the way (more of Gorbag the Great's raiding parties), some Stealth past an occupied Troll-hole and a stop at Bree along the way. The +1d bonus on event resolution for travelling along a round is simple but helps PCs make flavourful choices on routes, or weigh the risks of visiting other locations. Some more Skill Endeavour use at the White Towers to inspect/repair these, plus defending them from some Wolves. Then a Council with Cirdan to convince him
• Final adventure of the year: ranging out to slay the troll from the previous story, as it was a threat to travelers along a common route. Took in some more skirmishing against Gorbag's minions along the way to keep that thread going.

Need to do some more Magical Treasure Index fleshing out/thinking to aid planning/foreshadowing. Plan is to wrap things up in Eriador for a period along with natural ways of getting PCs over the mountains so they're placed for the Battle of Five Armies - marriages, trade, alliances and visiting family should help get people over and in some cases with reason to stay.

 

[aramis erak]

I despised the changes to hope so much I blocked the switch to just adding dice. That alone is a dealbreaker for several of my players.

And the complaints? The basic response was a polite version of "STFU and Go Away"

 

[Harlath]

Linked a little to the Rings of Power trailer from Amazon yesterday, here's a document with some house rules/tweaks I'm kicking around based on my experience with 2e so far. Includes a Council/Skill Endeavour tweak and rules for those that want to play more powerful High Elves (closer to 1e attributes, perhaps to represent 1st/2nd Age Elves or those that are old/of potent lineage in the Third Age. But with an appropriate downside too!).

Thoughout I've tried to stick to 2e principles/mechanisms so that existing virtues still work and not to bog the game down in extra mechanics.

TOR 2E ideas

TOR 2E House Rule ideas Councils/Skill Endeavours In both cases, shift from Resistance and Time Limit being the same to Resistance increasing faster than Time Limit. So 4 successes needed in 4 attempts as standard, and then 5 or 6 (or more!) successes in 4 attempts for harder challenges. You can...

docs.google.com

 

[Beleriphon]

I was considering buying it until I realized I have the same problem with LotR that I do with Dragonlance in that I'm not really sure what I'd want to do with a setting that has a definitive and specific tale it revolves around. Weirdly, I don't have this problem with Star Wars, probably because I've read so many books and played so many games that aren't Skywalker focused. And I guess that's really my answer to the dilemma. I've been thinking of trying out Lord of the Rings Online, so maybe I'll immerse myself in the world that way and see if anything sticks.

LotRO isn't a bad choice. If nothing else the game if free to play and lose nothing but time.

Do keep in mind that game runs more or less concurrently with Lord of the Rings. You will for example run through areas right before or right after the Fellowship does. The quest line that takes place in Bree for example expands on what Aragorn is doing before Frodo leaves The Shire, and you have some fun with Aragorn as an NPC and some ranger allies.

 

[Ilgiallomondadori]

Have my set. Love it. It's all incredibly beautiful, gorgeous stuff.
Excited to roll it out.
Starter Set very much focuses on early Hobbit/low level adventuring, which isn't a bad thing. Leads into the adventure hooks in the main book, so i'll probably work on penning that up.

 

[Harlath]

Have my set. Love it. It's all incredibly beautiful, gorgeous stuff.
Excited to roll it out.
Starter Set very much focuses on early Hobbit/low level adventuring, which isn't a bad thing. Leads into the adventure hooks in the main book, so i'll probably work on penning that up.

Ruins of the Lost Realm should be out fairly soon too, offering some campaign guidance and plenty more Landmarks. Looking forward to this, as while the Shire serves a good role in the narrative (place of safety to contrast with dangers etc), I'm less interested in it from an RPG point of view. Excited about exploring the rest of Eriador however.

 

[John R Davis]

My box has arrived.
Really like the map style and the change of artists ( did not like the green-style).

Better read it I guess!!

 

[Crusadius]

Very jealous of those who have it already. Mine is in the city but won’t be delivered until 2 Feb.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I would agree with this, though I have found 2e to be a VAST improvement in streamlining the rules AND making them more enjoyable to implement. The changes to the Skill Endeavour rules have been fantastic.

Skill Endeavour / Council rules have broken math in that with higher dice pools it is actually easier to do supposedly harder (longer) challenges.

Also the sweet spot of these challenges is fairly narrow so you can easily end up with very small odds or virtually automatic odds depending on the swing of d6 modifiers. This is true for 2e in general with using d6 as modifiers but is exaggerated in Skill Endeavours and Councils because they count extra Tengwars.

 

[J.Quondam]

Those who have received yours: Do you receive a notice and tracking number when it's been sent? I've still heard nothing about mine.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I despised the changes to hope so much I blocked the switch to just adding dice. That alone is a dealbreaker for several of my players.

It's not just Hope. Most modifiers are now adding / subtracting d6. d6 is just such a chunky mechanism. It can be a ~20-25 percentage change in success per die! Or at the high ends, it ends up mattering much less/ not at all.

The dice pool probability curve in 1e has the same step wise progression and issues but you mostly modified TN which is more granular and knew the dice pool you were dealing with.

I think there are some cool things in 2e -- favored skills, travel, codifing an extended skill system (although the execution is horrible) -- but the dice pool modifier issue might be a deal breaker for me as well. I probably will try some TN modifer house rules.

On the no caveats praise side -- the physical items are gorgeous!

 

[Froderik]

Those who have received yours: Do you receive a notice and tracking number when it's been sent? I've still heard nothing about mine.

I haven't received mine, yet; but I got a tracking number yesterday. Hopefully it will actually ship soon. I saw a snippet of a YouTube video that Free League did earlier today and they said that they expect shipments to continue for the next two weeks.

 

[J.Quondam]

I haven't received mine, yet; but I got a tracking number yesterday. Hopefully it will actually ship soon. I saw a snippet of a YouTube video that Free League did earlier today and they said that they expect shipments to continue for the next two weeks.

Ah, that's good news! Thanks for the heads up.