More tingles as the Kickstarter for The One Ring 2e becomes a physical reality, forged to seduce mortal men
I wanted to say a bit about why I am excited to see this game re-emerge with an evolved and streamlined rules system.
The Starter Set is a delight, introducing the game through the eyes of adventuring hobbits around the Shire, with hooks throughout to introduce a further lightened set of rules to emblematic Tolkien concerns. It’s like you are playing the backstory to various Hobbit or Fellowship of the Ring chapters. Thank goodness these hobbits were about to ensure everything was alright.
The hobbit mini campaign within is full of wonders, and looks to be a great tutorial into the whole game. It carries much of the whimsey of Hobbiton within it, and I can see it forming a discrete stand-alone series for family. It also acts as a starting point for broader adventures across Eriador, the lightly populated western lands of Middle Earth.
Look
I am a big fan of the aesthetics of the 1e line, with its heavy velum look and consistent style to the illustrations, many in colour. The style continues throughout the line. The design of the 2e book is quite different and, for me, I think I prefer it. The lighter page smudged paper lifts the content off the page much more attractively. The colour splash pages are effective and the detail sketches, lavishly found throughout the book, are very good indeed. The framed borders look wonderful, giving the whole book an ancient feel, like a forgotten book, found deep in the old libraries of Minas Tirith.
Rules
Overall – leaner and easier to run, but preserving all the flavour through very similar mechanics. This is both an overhaul and faithful to the original, which is quite a feat to pull off. The interlacing of events, with impacts on the characters, modelled simply and effctively with various currencies, such as Hope and Shadow are all there and possibly play out easier at the table.
The default Task number is now 20 minus the governing Attribute, rather than a 14. Using the Attributes in this way is really neat. Modifiers now affect the number of Skill dice ,which is just lovely. Favoured is still a thing but doesn’t affect Attriubutes themselves. Favoured Skills take the advantage of the best of two Feat Dice, and ill favoured the disadvantage of the lower of two Feat Dice. Looks to be a good move.
Council (Encounters as was), Travel and the whole ‘Fellowship Phase’ have all been described more straightforwardly, and I’m right at home with the nicely described D&D 4e skill challenges (let’s call them what they are). The same may be true of combat too, which preserves the excellent semi abstracted ‘stance’ based positioning with resolution that has plenty of options. It all looks familiar but a little clearer and easier..
I anticipate that Adverseries are even easier to use in the game, preserving the simplified structure, but even more so. Being able to design your own Nameless Things, ancient evils that do not owe allegience to Shadow, but some more ancient force, is great fun.
Next
I am greedy for more Heroic Cultures, to quickly and easily expand the peoples that we can represent in play. So, it is particularly good news that the Lifepath system, that was unlocked as a stretch goal, is about to head into editing with Peoples of Wilderland not that far behind. Ruins of the Lost Realm is in the final stages of editing as well. Hooray!
As the line develops, I shall buy all of it. It shall make the table.
Tingle.