Yora
2014-09-12, 01:17 PM
Does anyone have experience with this?
It's an italian Roleplaying Game (though published in English by a British company) obviously set in Middle-Earth. It has been around as a pdf releasr for some time, but also went into print just recently. So far, all the published material has been set in the Mirkwood region, including the Anduin vale and the Lonely Mountain, and takes place between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Probably a smart move with the LotR movies already being over 10 years old and the Hobbit movies currently being released. And it's also a setting that works particularly well for an RPG, as it is known that after the death of the dragon the old cities of the region were rebuild and prospered, but also had their own dealings with Saurons forces, which only get briefly mentioned in passing by the novels. That's an environment with a great demand for heroes.
The biggest problem with the game seems to be the rules themselves. Characters have lots of different stats (Body, Heart, Wits, Valor, Wisdom, Shadow, Standing, Endurance, Hope, Fellowship Points) that are really not that easy to figure out for new players, and to make things worth you need special dice, which often can be an instant-reason to dismiss a game entirely. You could play it with normal d6s and d12s, but have to remember that an 11 is critical failure and a 12 critical success. But why start out creating a game that does not use normal dice to begin with? Also, the adventures call for skill checks all the time, and most skills are social skills, which is an approach to games I really don't like. Also combat looks pretty complicated. Somehow the game looks to be both for narrative focused games and to be quite fiddly, which would be a bit like worst of both worlds.
But it looks just fantastic! The layout is great and they probably got the best artist for the pictures they could get, whose style of muted and faded colors and overall gloominess fits the setting perfectly.
The reason why I am interested in the game is really the setting material and adventures. Which I have to say are pretty expensive for pdfs of their size. But on the plus side, these don't waste any space on character options and special equipment, which so very much plague all D&D books and their spawns. Adventures are not stat blocks and dungeon maps, but almost entirely explainations and outlines who the NPCs are, what they want, and how they interact with the PCs. In a way, quite a lot is left to the Gamemaster. Descriptions of locations are brief and there are no lists of stuff that can be found. The idea is instead to provide an outline and understanding of the whole situation that enables the GM to improvise with ease as the game goes along. It's an approach I very much prefer to what is found in most published adventures. Very often I use adventures for other games than they were written for, and once you strip out all the rules and enemy stats, what you are left with is exactly the stuff that is provided by the TOR adventures.
I also really love the NPCs that are presented. In the D&D settings I've read, NPCs tend to be either some kings or archmages who the PCs never get to interact with, or tavern owners and gatekeepers, who are usually completey bland and forgetable. TOR focuses on the people the players will most likely interact with, like village leaders or the right hands of local rulers who deal with the dangers that PCs tend to get involved with. And fitting the middle-earth setting,these are not larger than life people, but still tend to be quite interesting ones.
Maybe I might give the system a try one day, but I really like to run a campaign using that setting, even with a different rules set.
It's an italian Roleplaying Game (though published in English by a British company) obviously set in Middle-Earth. It has been around as a pdf releasr for some time, but also went into print just recently. So far, all the published material has been set in the Mirkwood region, including the Anduin vale and the Lonely Mountain, and takes place between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Probably a smart move with the LotR movies already being over 10 years old and the Hobbit movies currently being released. And it's also a setting that works particularly well for an RPG, as it is known that after the death of the dragon the old cities of the region were rebuild and prospered, but also had their own dealings with Saurons forces, which only get briefly mentioned in passing by the novels. That's an environment with a great demand for heroes.
The biggest problem with the game seems to be the rules themselves. Characters have lots of different stats (Body, Heart, Wits, Valor, Wisdom, Shadow, Standing, Endurance, Hope, Fellowship Points) that are really not that easy to figure out for new players, and to make things worth you need special dice, which often can be an instant-reason to dismiss a game entirely. You could play it with normal d6s and d12s, but have to remember that an 11 is critical failure and a 12 critical success. But why start out creating a game that does not use normal dice to begin with? Also, the adventures call for skill checks all the time, and most skills are social skills, which is an approach to games I really don't like. Also combat looks pretty complicated. Somehow the game looks to be both for narrative focused games and to be quite fiddly, which would be a bit like worst of both worlds.
But it looks just fantastic! The layout is great and they probably got the best artist for the pictures they could get, whose style of muted and faded colors and overall gloominess fits the setting perfectly.
The reason why I am interested in the game is really the setting material and adventures. Which I have to say are pretty expensive for pdfs of their size. But on the plus side, these don't waste any space on character options and special equipment, which so very much plague all D&D books and their spawns. Adventures are not stat blocks and dungeon maps, but almost entirely explainations and outlines who the NPCs are, what they want, and how they interact with the PCs. In a way, quite a lot is left to the Gamemaster. Descriptions of locations are brief and there are no lists of stuff that can be found. The idea is instead to provide an outline and understanding of the whole situation that enables the GM to improvise with ease as the game goes along. It's an approach I very much prefer to what is found in most published adventures. Very often I use adventures for other games than they were written for, and once you strip out all the rules and enemy stats, what you are left with is exactly the stuff that is provided by the TOR adventures.
I also really love the NPCs that are presented. In the D&D settings I've read, NPCs tend to be either some kings or archmages who the PCs never get to interact with, or tavern owners and gatekeepers, who are usually completey bland and forgetable. TOR focuses on the people the players will most likely interact with, like village leaders or the right hands of local rulers who deal with the dangers that PCs tend to get involved with. And fitting the middle-earth setting,these are not larger than life people, but still tend to be quite interesting ones.
Maybe I might give the system a try one day, but I really like to run a campaign using that setting, even with a different rules set.