One Ring Encounters?

[bert1000]

I’ve had the One Ring for a while but picked up Tales from the Wilderland and might actually get to play some soon.

I love what the system had done for emulating the genre, in particular:

* Dividing things into adventuring phase and fellowship phase to mark the passage of time
* Creating subsystems for the areas of conflict they thought were most important – combat, travel, and social Encounters

I’m not sure how Encounters are suppose to actually work though. The rules seem scattered throughout the books and new rules were added in Tales of the Wilderland for graduated success.

The gist of it seems to be similar to 4e Skill Challenges – X Successes before Y failures. With Y called the Threshold set by either the highest Valour or Wisdom (plus minus mods). X being set by the DM but in general with a 2+ meaning success, X-2 being a Yes But success and X+ being a Yes And success (levels of success inferred from Tales of The Wilderland). A great success on a skill check nets you 2 successes and an extraordinary success nets you 3 successes.

Then there is the division between Introduction and Interaction. I think this is a cool, very much in-genre addition but the text doesn’t do a good job of how this is suppose to work either. In general, an NPC will favor either a spokesperson or individual introductions. And an NPC might a favor a particular skill (e.g., courtesy, awe). What happens if you ‘fail’ to introduce yourself? TNs go up for the subsequent interaction?

Also the math is very obscured so it’s hard to figure out. What is a hard Encounter vs. medium vs. easy? How does this change when all PCs can contribute vs. only one? What are general expected values for skills for new characters (3 as highest?), medium experienced characters?

I know the One Ring is a little more free flowing than d20 but if you are going to include a structured subsystem for major social interaction (which I think is a good thing) then seems like they could have organized it better and detailed the underlying math a little better for the GM.

Anyone have any ideas on how to clarify Encounters? Anyone done the math? How does it run in play?

 

[Bradge]

The revised edition of the core book handles social encounters a little better, but you can download the "Clarifications and Amendments" PDF for that, albeit without the reorganization of the rules. The PDF clarifies the roles a character may take if they don't introduce themselves.

"This is the main part of most social challenges, from a birthday party to a formal council. Usually, only characters who introduced themselves properly during the introduction may take an active role in the following interaction. On the other hand, characters who didn't introduce themselves may take a more passive role, for example proposing actions using Insight or Riddle."

An introduction allows an active role in social encounters, and the lack of one still allows a passive role.

As for expected values for skills of new characters, I'm not sure I understand your question fully, but off the top of my head I'd think they'd range from 1 to 4 skill levels.

If it helps, these are guidelines for non-player characters I found in a player-made "cheat sheet" called "Loremaster Characters & Adversaries": a skill with a rating of 1 is "poor" and of 2 is "average." Such a rating means the ability is partially related to the NPC's trade. A rating of 3 is "good" and of 4 is "superior" -- and those are directly tied to the NPC's trade. Naturally, a rating of 0 is "unskilled" and unrelated to the NPC's trade.