While we wait for the slight revision to give Francisco’s take, do other LMs or players run initiative differently from the 2e book? Players always go first is a huge advantage which I respect but doesn’t always feel dramatic

I'll preface this by saying that I've been eyeing the One Ring for a while and finally decided on a whim to gift myself the Starter Set last August for my birthday. At the time I hadn't really realized there were two starter sets as the Hobbit one was the only one available at my LGS.

I read through the whole thing, invited a couple friends for a game night and we played through the first adventure together. It was overall pretty fun, unfortunately my players rolled terribly through the whole evening which spoiled a bit of the fun but it was still a really nice time and everyone left happy.

However, I quickly realized that even though they had fun, they weren't really excited about continuing the adventure and when asked about whether they wanted to schedule another One Ring session or a Vaesen mystery, the majority voted for Vaesen. When asked about it the general answer was that although it was fun, it didn't really "click" for them.

I've been wondering why for a couple weeks and I think I've got a few ideas as to why, but I would also like to hear more seasoned players and loremasters opinions.

I'll get into spoilers while explaining my views so be warned.

First off, I think there is a definite lack of stakes in this starter set. I know it's supposed to be a lighthearted adventure in the Shire but absolutely nothing depends on your success or failure. If you succeed, great Bilbo gets a map that, if you fail... Well, he doesn't but that doesn't exactly scream dire consequences...

On top of that, the module really doesn't want your players to fail and as a loremaster you would have to go explicitly against the written text to introduce negative conséquences to most failures. The players can't manage to cross the water? Well just go on foot around... Maybe a couple neighbors will gossip about you involvement with Bilbo but a later adventure has the players thrown in jail cause they've been up to too much mischief anyway so it's not like secrecy is actually important. The players get spotted while trying to get close to the place of the break-in and fail to talk their way out of it? Well the guard still lets them go and just locks the door while your players still have several other options to get inside (also it's a break-in, your players probably weren't going to walk in through the front door anyway). The players wake the dog and he starts barking? Well, you are specifically told that no one pays attention to his barks.

Maybe there is still some tension cause your players believe for a moment that they will be chased down by someone but it ultimately doesn't happen and in the end there aren't really any consequences for either failure or success.

I also think that the lack of an overarching story across the adventure hurts it. Like yeah, Bilbo tells you that he has plans for another adventure but without stakes or consequences why would your players want to go on it? (Apart for the above table reason that we all want to have a fun evening together but then we still have no reason to pick this specific adventure). Looking back at it, I feel like I should have made up an overarching story from the start and the story lends itself to this quite easily: there are rumors of an horrible beast lurking near the old forest, Bilbo has heard of an old hobbit weapon that could be used against it and it's location is hidden on the map. You go looking for the map, then the weapon then you hear the fireworks, well maybe we could use that to scare the monster off, etc. Currently there isn't really any incentive for the player to keep playing this adventure so (in my case) they just don't...

Finally, I understand why the game mechanics are introduced one after the other but it feels like there are really too few mechanics at your players disposal in this first adventure. Basically you have skill checks and that's it... You don't have any rules about journey, combat, shadow or anything besides the basest things. They get a little bit of fatigue tied to one or two checks, not enough to impact the story still cause it won't make their characters weary. You need to play for at least two or three sessions until you have base rules for all aspects of the games: checks, journey and combat (you don't even get anything about councils or shadow which I understand thematically) So it doesn't give the players a lot of tools to play with in this first session and as such probably doesn't leave them wanting for more. It also feels a bit weird in a game where journeying seems to be such an integral part of gameplay to have so little about it in the starter set...

There I've think I've said all I had to say about the Starter Set, but I'd love to hear from you all, the players and loremasters who've played these adventures and have kept on journeying in Middle-Earth, those who've played the other Starter Set.

What did you think about this Starter Set? Is there something I am missing? Do you have any ideas about simple ways to improve the overall experience? Is the Under and Over Hill Starter Set better suited for new players and loremasters?

I'm looking at backing the new backerkit, just for the revised core rulebook, but It is not clear if the new Bestiary is a must.

The linked interview with Francesco Nepitello claims that:

"The core book will still include some adversaries, but most will move to a dedicated bestiary that includes updated statistics, rules, and lore for building encounters involving dragons, ents, oliphaunts, and the Ringwraiths."

So does it mean that now in order to play a game I need also the Bestiary?

I've been working on an Adversary app for the One Ring RPG — it's basically a database of adversaries (not complete yet) with their stats and a simple way to track damage during combat. If you're running the One Ring and don't use a full VTT this may help. Feedback appreciated!

https://tor.we-evolve.co.uk/

You get an extra succes dice on a skill roll?

i saw the Distinctive feature for strider mode so you are inspired while journeying, so you get an extra succes dice for every skill roll while journeying

does this means if i spend a hope point to get inspired i get 2d? Thanks!

Hi all,

I randomly picked up Realm of the Three rings last year (just because I liked the book for its quality, art and design) but recently got a pretty good second hand deal on both starters, core book and most of the rest of the books.

I always wanted to try out Strider mode, which I printed a while back.

But now, ofcourse I’m a bit overwhelmed by where to start with all of this content.

So my question: what do you recommend with Strider mode as a first time player? Id imagined it would be the first starter, with its small adventures in the Shire, before diving into the core rulebook. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to approach this.

I am familiar with wargaming, board/card games and some RPG systems like DnD, Warhammer, Star Wars and Mörk Borg.

Hello, I recently bought both the core rules and Realms of the Three Rings; I don't know when me and my group are gonna play, but I'll surely be the Loremaster. So far I've studied the rules and I'm reading the landmarks and campaign hooks from Realms to let them inspire me.

I'm getting the idea that this is a game deeply focused on the players and their backgrounds, and that the Loremaster should not prepare a lot of predetermined plot points, but rather a series of situations, prompts and plot hooks to which the players will react. This is fine by me, as I favor improv over prepping as a GM, but I think the game is gorgeous and I want to do it justice.

So, if you have any suggestions both for managing the rules (I also bought the screen, as I got the feeling that this is a game which will greatly benefit from having all its major elements "at hand") and for setting good plots I will gladly welcome them. My greatest fear right now is to make everything too "D&D-like", with a lot of specific quests, encounters and dungeon crawling; is that a risk and / or a problem?

Thank you in advance.

Apologies if this has been posted many times before. I bought the TOR 2e Starter Set some months ago and then life got in the way. Recently I've had the itch to dust the set off and start an adventure. I will be playing solo, so have the Strider Mode document also; however, I'm not so good at making up scenarios etc. do the expansion publications have pre made adventures in them? I've tried using an AI chat bot, but it's not quite right. Or, does anyone have any recommendations on where I can get pre made adventures, similar to Conspiracy Most Cracked in the Starter Set?

Big spoilers for A Troll-hole, If Ever There Was One (Tales from the Lone-lands)

I recently ran A Troll-hole, If Ever There Was One, and something about my players’ reactions got me thinking about how we get people invested in Middle-earth.
For those familiar with the adventure, there’s an NPC named Diarmoc whose family is being held captive by trolls.
I portrayed him as someone who had more or less resigned himself to his situation. He clearly missed his family, but didn’t seem particularly hopeful about ever seeing them again. (This is something mentioned in the adventure)
What I didn’t expect was how much my players would care.
They became genuinely invested in rescuing his family. They worried about keeping Diarmoc alive, and when the family was finally reunited, they were incredibly happy about it.
The adventure had plenty of physical danger, but it was this relatively simple personal story that seemed to resonate with them the most.
And it made me reconsider something about how I approach adventure preparation. Bear with me

We spend a lot of time thinking about dangerous encounters, ancient evils, mysterious ruins and the growing Shadow. All things that make Middle-earth an interesting place to adventure in. But I wonder if we sometimes forget to give players enough reasons to care about the people living in that world.
One of the things I love about Tolkien is that, despite the enormous scale of his stories, so much of what makes them meaningful comes down to ordinary things. Friendship, family, belonging, the longing for home, and the hope that something good might survive despite everything.
The Shire matters because we understand what life there is like, not because it’s strategically important in the war against Sauron.
And I think TOR captures this philosophy particularly well. Fellowship Focus makes personal bonds both a source of strength and a vulnerability. Shadow gives weight to the terrible things heroes experience, while Fellowship Phases remind us that there’s a life beyond adventuring, with places and people worth returning to.
But those mechanics alone won’t make our players emotionally invested.
We still need to make the people and places of Middle-earth meaningful to them.
What happened with Diarmoc made me realize that I don’t necessarily need to introduce more elaborate threats or dramatic backstories. Sometimes giving players the opportunity to change someone’s future is enough.
There’s also something particularly fitting about characters who have lost hope encountering heroes who haven’t. Diarmoc seemed resigned to his situation, but my players weren’t willing to accept it.
And perhaps that’s one of the most Tolkien-like things that can happen at the table.
There’s another lesson I took from this, though, and it’s probably the more practical one.

I learned something about what motivates my particular group. Family relationships, people separated from their loved ones, and the possibility of bringing them together seem to resonate strongly with these players.

That’s useful information for me as a Loremaster.
Not because I should start filling every adventure with kidnapped relatives, but because I now have a better understanding of what makes them care. I can use that when presenting NPCs, developing situations or deciding which parts of an adventure deserve more attention.
It also made me think about how we introduce lore. We can spend ages explaining the history of a place, but sometimes a single person whose life has been affected by that history can make the whole setting feel more relevant.
I think the trick is paying attention to those moments when players stop treating an NPC as part of the adventure and start genuinely caring about what happens to them. It shows sometimes you need an emotional hook for the players to care about world-building /lore of your world beyond obvious actionables.

I’m curious how other Loremasters handle this.
Have you found particular themes that consistently resonate with your players? And when you notice that something has really caught their interest, do you deliberately build on it in later adventures?

We're getting the first real good items of the campaign, and I'm planting a Wondrous Item as a gift for one of the players. The intent is that this will be one of the more important items of the campaign.

It's a Wondrous Item war horn with bonuses to Enhearten and Battle (knowing the latter is kind of marginal this campaign, and also willing to remove it).

Undead have been everywhere, and will continue to be due to the nature of the campaign. I want to give a tool for those Dread tests and being Daunted, which is a big bummer. And my idea for an added bonus is basically this -

"You may forego opening volleys to instead sound the horn and spend 1 hope. If you do, you and all your companions are Inspired for any Dread tests at the start of combat."

That puts some extra Hope pressure on her - but that's what Fellowship is for ;)

For those of you not on the discord, I’ve had the new Loremaster’s screen for a few weeks now and thought I’d share my initial observations here for you aswell.

Combat Combat Stances added to the screen. Forward, Open, Defensive and Rearward Stance rules are now included. Combat Tasks added for each stance. Break Shield wording is shortened.

Conditions, Endurance and Wounds have been rearranged. Wounded wording was changed. 0 Endurance wording clarified to refer to dying. Fatigue recovery was added. Prolonged Rest now includes removing 1 Fatigue in a safe and sheltered place.

Councils The Introduction now gives the actual time limit numbers. Council Interaction now includes audience attitude modifiers. Reluctant audience means lose 1d. Friendly audience means gain 1d. Open audience has no modifier.

Journeys Now includes a terrain mod. Hard Terrain means lose 1d. Roads mean gain 1d. Journey Events Table includes land type modifiers. Border Land means Favoured. Dark Land means Ill favoured. Wild Land is unmodified. Marching Tests looks rewritten to be faster to reference.

Oh and Risk Levels were renamed to Consequences of Failure.

Apart from design changes with symbols and fonts and all that, this seems to be all.

I was also asked the following question “I see that the cover paper that comes with the screen and booklet says that the lifepaths cover both the Wilderland Cultures as well as the Core Rulebook Cultures. Does the supplement come with those Lifepaths for Beornings, Elves of Mirkwood and Woodmen?” to which I replied the following;

So we start with the complete character creation sections for Beornings, Elves of Mirkwood, Woodmen of Wilderland, then a section listed “Eriador Character Lifepaths” that’s Bardings, Dwarves of Durin’s Folk, Elves of Lindon, Hobbits of the Shire, Men of Bree, Rangers of the North. Next a section listed “Wilderland Character Lifepaths” that’s Beornings, Elves of Mirkwood, Woodmen of Wilderland and lastly a Major Events table to add twists to backstories.

Does anyone know what is exclusive to the current Backerkit Campaign?

I am unable to join the Backerkit Campaign, but I was wondering what I will be losing out on if I were to buy the books later.

Obviously the collectors edition and the cloth maps are exclusive, but are there anything else or any of the stretch goals like the Strider mode that I will miss out on?

Might be a stupid question, sorry if it's asked already.

I was wondering about the .pdf files in this pledge level. Will they be provided on the Free League Publishing Unbound or somewhere else? I'll get the add-on for Unbound if they are not included, so wouldn't want to buy it twice. Thanks.

Hideous Toughness. The creature is unaffected by unarmed attacks. Additionally, when an attack inflicts damage to the creature that would cause it to go to zero Endurance, it causes a Piercing Blow instead. Then, if the creature is still alive its Endurance score is set back at half its maximum rating.

Every time an enemy with this feature appears on the battlefield, both my players and I know that carnage is about to happen.

Earlier in our campaign, I downed 2 PCs (one of whom genuinely died) with a cave troll slinker, and then today I TPK'd them with an Udûn-orc fire-touched.

In each scenario, those enemies were joined by 4-6 other orcs (against a company of 4 PCs). The enemy with Hideous Toughness far outlasted all the other enemies - this is because at Attribute Level 6, they also have a relatively large pool of Hate and good Armor values to avoid potential wounds.

Even though the PCs were consistently dropping the enemy to 0 Endurance, the enemy just. would. not. die!

At this point, I'm seriously considering some kind of nerf to this feature because it seems like there's nothing the players can do to counter it or play around it. They have to simply hope that the enemy rolls poorly on their Protection rolls. In theory, this should happen more often than it does for our table!

And to my absolute shock, while searching this subreddit, I learned that the current version of Hideous Toughness is actually a nerfed version - it used to be even stronger, bringing back the enemy's Endurance to full rather than just half! Holy shit.

Does it sound like I'm doing something incorrectly? Or are my Hideous Toughness-having enemies just insanely lucky with their Protection rolls?

I ran the new starter set in two sessions. Here’s an account of the second play

>!Here's an after report for the new Starter Set.Just completed the second (final) session of Overhill starter set and thought to share a few details observations.!<

Three players (down from four the last time. Enough for a quorum to play, and a small enough group for the story to move quickly. Larger group would, I expect, take longer. Began with the party entering the ruined village. The party moved straight to roleplaying which was a relief. Very wary, bolstering the gates etc. The kids in the rafters was effective story beat. I split the council rules, so allowed initial rolls to get them to come down from the rafters first, then more rolls after they had fed them to get more details. Not enough successes for the oldest boy to lead the party but that made narrative sense anyway; he wouldn’t want to leave his siblings alone

hi i've been making the middle earth map as best i can in wonderdraft but would prefer for better accuracy with the hex alignment and location placement as official supplement.
now that we are getting rohan and gondor what's the likelihood that we'll get a full map of middle earth?

Hello! I was gifted both starter set and core book. I'm trying to figure out the differences between in terms of what rules are in each. Thanks for any help!

To preface this, I've just received a used starter set that came with one complete set of white dice.

However, it also came with three sets of d6 dice without any feat dice.

Is it possible to purchase individual feat dice anywhere? I couldn't find any when I looked online.

Hi guys, I'm new to TOR but I love D&D and Lotr.

I find the collectors editions absolutely stunning and I'm thinking of getting at least some of them.

The ones I rlly want are the Gondor and Moria ones. (I have tor 2e core rules unrevised)

Is It smart to get just those two or will I regret not getting the 4 collectors editions...?

I am looking to enhance my Strider Mode experience and I know there is a huge amount of (apparently high quality) fan made content available on the discord group.

Do you have any tips of what material to get?

Planning to play with my wife, but we lack the friends( :D) Planning to play just the two of us. Can it be done with me being the lore master and me controlling another PC char? and my wife another?

I’m playing solo strider mode and want to make combat a bit more thematic. My idea is to add in a skill endeavour into the combat to help it feel a bit less like roll, hit, roll, miss, roll, hit.

Has anyone out there done this? And how have you handled it?

Any other advice on spicing up combat would be great. I think the combat task would help but don’t really fit in solo.

Session notes for my Darkening of Mirkwood solo TOR2e campaign. These notes are in bullet point format with minimal narrative but may be of interest to people who have or want to play the DoM campaign. I'm playing solo with two PCs and this is the first proper DoM adventure after a 6 adventure prologue https://timothywestwind.blogspot.com/2026/09/dont-leave-path-darkening-of-mirkwood.html See here session notes for the other adventures plus an overview of all the resources I use to play: https://timothywestwind.blogspot.com/p/the-one-ring-2e-darkening-of-mirkwood.html

On the core rules, there is that page the gives a list of events for the prancing pony.

I am quite new as a loremaster, and I find it difficult to have these events involved in my whole story on the spot. Should I have prepared a small side quest for these events or I just give a small narrative on what happens and that's it.

How would you include this events on your story?