Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
[Actual Play] The One Ring 2e
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Old Fezziwig" data-source="post: 9315893" data-attributes="member: 59"><p>We finally picked this game up again last night and got a short session in. When we left off with Baldr and Arn, they were packing up their horses in the morning and exchanging goodbyes with Beli, Borin, and Burin. This is the morning of 1 Nénimë in game. </p><p></p><p>Before play started in earnest, we did chat a little bit about Black Arrow Mercantile Co. and their position on selling weapons to the Easterlings. My buddy's explanation was that Sigmarr <em>mainly</em> sold "implements" to the Easterlings, but, occasionally, a sword might fall off the wagon. (Which I can only assume is what their pamphlets say: <em>Black Arrow Mercantile Co., Shovels, Rakes, Hoes, <u>and</u> Other Implements of Destruction</em>.)</p><p></p><p>Clarification made, we picked up the journey to the Iron Hills again. In a broad sense, the end result of the journey was that it took, all told, about five days from Dale to the Iron Hills. (Two failed <em>Travel</em> rolls, and three successful ones got them into the gates of the Iron Hills in the late afternoon of the last day.) I forewent harsh consequences for the failed rolls, leaning into more atmospheric consequences. The first day, after the drunken revelry of the night before, was a bit of a slog and kind of just a miserable day of travel with everyone a bit hungover. Baldr attempted to liven things up with a funny story, but he failed, getting a couple courtesy chuckles from Nari and Nefstan. The next day was better in terms of travel, but the sounds of wolves in the distance at night put a bit of a damper on everyone's mood. The group has the sense of the wild closing in on them as they go to sleep. From here, things turn up. They make excellent time the next two days, catching a great view of the aurora over the Iron Hills the next night at they eat some potato and herb stew, which carries over into their last day of travel, with them reaching the gates on 4 Nénimë in the afternoon.</p><p></p><p><em>(I'm not entirely pleased with how the Journey rules work. Three rolls to figure out what's happening (one for distance traveled before an event, one for the target of the event, and one for the type of the event) kind of stopped play dead in their tracks. I feel like I have a better read on the process now, so I'm willing to keep on going with the RAW, but it's a lot of rolls to establish one thing. My Rolemaster and WFRP 2e books are looking askance at me right now, and their disappointment is palpable, but I said what I said.)</em></p><p></p><p>At the gates, Baldr and Arn notice that there's a token guard presence. Mostly older dwarves, all lightly armed and not at all the elite of whatever military arrangements Dáin has made. Baldr greets the dwarves most politely, sending Grór greetings from his father, and explaining his mission. He makes a point to bring up his brother and explain Black Arrow's aims here. Also, he asks to be directed to Nár. I feel like this is kind of a critical moment, so I call for a <em>Courtesy</em> roll. Determining what success would look like was easy: you'll be brought right to Nár. But describing failure was tricky. My initial thought was that Arn blows it by saying something rude or overly direct or haughty, but I wasn't convinced about that, so I asked my buddy, "Hey, is Arn good at his job? Or is in over his head?" Turns out Arn is good at his job. So we pivoted and set the stakes differently — Nár would be less accessible on a failure; basically, he'd be imprisoned. Getting his help would be much harder.</p><p></p><p>We didn't have to deal with that, though, as my buddy rolled well, getting a great success and having one Success die to spend on effect. He spent it on widening the impact of his greeting. I narrated a crowd of dwarves hearing his pitch to the castellan and it having a favorable impact on them. Mechanically, I told him that when he makes his pitch to ask Nár or Grór for help and men, he'd be favoured on the roll. </p><p></p><p>He and Arn are assigned an "attaché" from the dwarven military to assist them while they visit. His name is <strong>Frór</strong>, and he's lean with a red-plaited beard and wears light leather armor with ornamental metalwork. He's been assigned to them for the length of their stay and brings them to quarters appointed in the style of the Bardings over the gates, with a view into the valley. Arn, as the senior brother, gives Baldr leave to go find Nár and heads off into the halls of the Iron Hills to seek craftsdwarves and ale. It's an uneasy parting, but not an unwelcome one. Arn's here for business and grateful not to go chasing after "feral" dwarves.</p><p></p><p>Frór does know where Nár is and brings Baldr deep into the halls of the dwarves, past the mines and forges, and to a large cavern. At the edge of what's almost an escarpment, he finds a group of dwarven veterans, well-armed and in full armor. Their leader has a white beard and is missing an eye (his helm is closed over his bad eye). His good eye is green and piercing. This is Nár. When he sees Baldr, he says, "We were expecting to see gobbos up the other side, but this is interesting, too." He invites the Barding back to his small camp to talk.</p><p></p><p><em>(I can't imagine Tolkien would have ever used the word "gobbos." But I did, and therefore Nár did. I look forward to doing better going forward.)</em></p><p></p><p>The dwarves tap a keg of a deep, roasty porter and share some trail rations with Baldr and Frór. Baldr decides not to waste the old dwarf's time and, after the toasts are done, makes his pitch. In short, it comes to something along the lines of "My brother could be dead right now. Need security for the trip to the south. Humbly request. Extra soldiering. Help to find out what happened to my brother," but in full sentences. </p><p></p><p>Because this is what Baldr and my buddy want from this trip to the Iron Hills, I decided to make it a big deal and use the Council rules. I set the Resistance at 6 — this is a Bold request, and the dwarves'll get less out of it than Baldr and Black Arrow Mercantile. I could have reasonably said it was Outrageous, and I may have set it that way if Grór were asked, but Nár's more open to this sort of thing. For the Introduction roll, he uses <em>Persuade</em>, taking the <em>favoured</em> bonus from earlier and spends 1 Hope for an extra Success die. The final roll is 21 against TN 16, including a six on the extra die, so the Time Limit for the Council is 8. Which means that next session will run through the Interactions and Baldr will be looking to get 6 Successes in no more than 8 attempts. It should run mostly in the same way as a 4e skill challenge, so I'm looking forward to seeing if my sense of similarity pays off in actual play in two weeks.</p><p></p><p><em>(My only other real note is that I'm still trying to figure out how I want to handle NPCs traveling with the "Company." I've been using NPCs as modifiers to die rolls, granting favoured if the task is something they're good at. For instance, on the night of the aurora, Nefstan was sent out hunting. I had my buddy roll using Baldr's skill, but favoured, to reflect Nefstan's skill. I'm going to reread to see if there's more concrete guidance on this in the book, but it's been okay so far. Building up full stats for NPCs that are mostly color makes me not want to use NPCs, which is admittedly crazy talk for an RPG, so this is the solution that I've come up with so far.)</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Old Fezziwig, post: 9315893, member: 59"] We finally picked this game up again last night and got a short session in. When we left off with Baldr and Arn, they were packing up their horses in the morning and exchanging goodbyes with Beli, Borin, and Burin. This is the morning of 1 Nénimë in game. Before play started in earnest, we did chat a little bit about Black Arrow Mercantile Co. and their position on selling weapons to the Easterlings. My buddy's explanation was that Sigmarr [I]mainly[/I] sold "implements" to the Easterlings, but, occasionally, a sword might fall off the wagon. (Which I can only assume is what their pamphlets say: [I]Black Arrow Mercantile Co., Shovels, Rakes, Hoes, [U]and[/U] Other Implements of Destruction[/I].) Clarification made, we picked up the journey to the Iron Hills again. In a broad sense, the end result of the journey was that it took, all told, about five days from Dale to the Iron Hills. (Two failed [I]Travel[/I] rolls, and three successful ones got them into the gates of the Iron Hills in the late afternoon of the last day.) I forewent harsh consequences for the failed rolls, leaning into more atmospheric consequences. The first day, after the drunken revelry of the night before, was a bit of a slog and kind of just a miserable day of travel with everyone a bit hungover. Baldr attempted to liven things up with a funny story, but he failed, getting a couple courtesy chuckles from Nari and Nefstan. The next day was better in terms of travel, but the sounds of wolves in the distance at night put a bit of a damper on everyone's mood. The group has the sense of the wild closing in on them as they go to sleep. From here, things turn up. They make excellent time the next two days, catching a great view of the aurora over the Iron Hills the next night at they eat some potato and herb stew, which carries over into their last day of travel, with them reaching the gates on 4 Nénimë in the afternoon. [I](I'm not entirely pleased with how the Journey rules work. Three rolls to figure out what's happening (one for distance traveled before an event, one for the target of the event, and one for the type of the event) kind of stopped play dead in their tracks. I feel like I have a better read on the process now, so I'm willing to keep on going with the RAW, but it's a lot of rolls to establish one thing. My Rolemaster and WFRP 2e books are looking askance at me right now, and their disappointment is palpable, but I said what I said.)[/I] At the gates, Baldr and Arn notice that there's a token guard presence. Mostly older dwarves, all lightly armed and not at all the elite of whatever military arrangements Dáin has made. Baldr greets the dwarves most politely, sending Grór greetings from his father, and explaining his mission. He makes a point to bring up his brother and explain Black Arrow's aims here. Also, he asks to be directed to Nár. I feel like this is kind of a critical moment, so I call for a [I]Courtesy[/I] roll. Determining what success would look like was easy: you'll be brought right to Nár. But describing failure was tricky. My initial thought was that Arn blows it by saying something rude or overly direct or haughty, but I wasn't convinced about that, so I asked my buddy, "Hey, is Arn good at his job? Or is in over his head?" Turns out Arn is good at his job. So we pivoted and set the stakes differently — Nár would be less accessible on a failure; basically, he'd be imprisoned. Getting his help would be much harder. We didn't have to deal with that, though, as my buddy rolled well, getting a great success and having one Success die to spend on effect. He spent it on widening the impact of his greeting. I narrated a crowd of dwarves hearing his pitch to the castellan and it having a favorable impact on them. Mechanically, I told him that when he makes his pitch to ask Nár or Grór for help and men, he'd be favoured on the roll. He and Arn are assigned an "attaché" from the dwarven military to assist them while they visit. His name is [B]Frór[/B], and he's lean with a red-plaited beard and wears light leather armor with ornamental metalwork. He's been assigned to them for the length of their stay and brings them to quarters appointed in the style of the Bardings over the gates, with a view into the valley. Arn, as the senior brother, gives Baldr leave to go find Nár and heads off into the halls of the Iron Hills to seek craftsdwarves and ale. It's an uneasy parting, but not an unwelcome one. Arn's here for business and grateful not to go chasing after "feral" dwarves. Frór does know where Nár is and brings Baldr deep into the halls of the dwarves, past the mines and forges, and to a large cavern. At the edge of what's almost an escarpment, he finds a group of dwarven veterans, well-armed and in full armor. Their leader has a white beard and is missing an eye (his helm is closed over his bad eye). His good eye is green and piercing. This is Nár. When he sees Baldr, he says, "We were expecting to see gobbos up the other side, but this is interesting, too." He invites the Barding back to his small camp to talk. [I](I can't imagine Tolkien would have ever used the word "gobbos." But I did, and therefore Nár did. I look forward to doing better going forward.)[/I] The dwarves tap a keg of a deep, roasty porter and share some trail rations with Baldr and Frór. Baldr decides not to waste the old dwarf's time and, after the toasts are done, makes his pitch. In short, it comes to something along the lines of "My brother could be dead right now. Need security for the trip to the south. Humbly request. Extra soldiering. Help to find out what happened to my brother," but in full sentences. Because this is what Baldr and my buddy want from this trip to the Iron Hills, I decided to make it a big deal and use the Council rules. I set the Resistance at 6 — this is a Bold request, and the dwarves'll get less out of it than Baldr and Black Arrow Mercantile. I could have reasonably said it was Outrageous, and I may have set it that way if Grór were asked, but Nár's more open to this sort of thing. For the Introduction roll, he uses [I]Persuade[/I], taking the [I]favoured[/I] bonus from earlier and spends 1 Hope for an extra Success die. The final roll is 21 against TN 16, including a six on the extra die, so the Time Limit for the Council is 8. Which means that next session will run through the Interactions and Baldr will be looking to get 6 Successes in no more than 8 attempts. It should run mostly in the same way as a 4e skill challenge, so I'm looking forward to seeing if my sense of similarity pays off in actual play in two weeks. [I](My only other real note is that I'm still trying to figure out how I want to handle NPCs traveling with the "Company." I've been using NPCs as modifiers to die rolls, granting favoured if the task is something they're good at. For instance, on the night of the aurora, Nefstan was sent out hunting. I had my buddy roll using Baldr's skill, but favoured, to reflect Nefstan's skill. I'm going to reread to see if there's more concrete guidance on this in the book, but it's been okay so far. Building up full stats for NPCs that are mostly color makes me not want to use NPCs, which is admittedly crazy talk for an RPG, so this is the solution that I've come up with so far.)[/I] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
[Actual Play] The One Ring 2e
Top