TROS: Crashing and Burning in Middle-Earth (long)

[Trevis Martin]

By consensus my play group ended our fledgling first time TROS game last night and I thought I'd post a small post mortem here.

Let me state up front that I really like the Riddle of Steel.  I think its a brilliant design.  Somehow, though, I couldn't make it work this time.  This one was a hard switch for me.  We've been playing various Forge games for almost a year now including Sorcerer, Inspectres, Donjon, the TQB variant of the Pool (using the setting for Witchcraft), SOAP, Universalis, MLWM and I'm sure I'm missng one or two in there somewhere.

We run in a leapfrogging game cycle that alternates games from week to week. (play A first week, B second, A again on third, etc)  This is because we have one player who can only attend every other week.  The game we were alternating with during the TROS game was the TQB-Pool game using the Witchcraft setting.  By contrast that game was went fantastically and ended just last week.  

Some of the trouble I had with TROS had to do with its simmy qualities.  There was suddenly a lot of stuff to keep track of compared to other games we'd been playing with previous.  I think the players felt this way too as several jokes went around the table during character creations about compelex formulas for derived stats, etc.   Combat...whoo...  I loved the way it worked on the simulator but keeping everything sorted out and the right tables in front of me was a significant challenge that slowed what we did way down.  Maneuvers were confusing to them at first and we decided to make them optional aside from the basic ones.

The skill thing.  That one really got me somehow.  Its been so long since I played a game with a 'skill list' that I found myself floundering on that one.  I found that the style of play I prefer revolves around conflict resolution rather than task resolution.  I know that you can do conflict resolution on a small scale but for some reason when asking for rolls (which I was so used to bouncing off of for my creative direction)  I found myself feeling very limited by the narrow nature of skills.  Having somone roll their riding skill for some overall feat felt...funny.  I decided that it might be better to simply go with the characters packages and the overall rating for those.

Somehow I just wasn't wrapping my head around TROS and its play.  I'm not sure why.

The big thing that was the main problem IMO was that we decided to set our game in Middle-Earth.  It had some interesting elements to it.  We were playing in the fourth age, almost 1000 years after LOTR.  The united kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor had come under the rule of a despotic king (who in fact was still of the rightful bloodline, he just had an overly tight grip.)  The king was into all sorts of bad stuff, making his own wars to the east and south and taxing heavily for them.  The king ruled from the traditional capitol in the north and has a sub king in charge of Gondor.  Many of the nobles of Gondor were unhappy with the state of things and were protesting and more or less gathering around the Steward of Gondor, who is old and has recently been ill.  Rohan also had, after being badly treated by the High King, allied themselves with the Steward, In response the King was preparing to reannex Rohan saying that it was improperly given by a Steward, etc.  The king was taking ever more draconian measures to deal with fomenting rebellion, including a cadre of secret police.  The Elves were very few and far between, as most of them had sailed west.

The Characters

Eldecar, only son of the Steward of Gondor.  Eldecar had been on a quest to find a new white tree of Gondor (for the old one had perished whereupon the king erected a statue on the site.)  He has left his father and his duties to his household to pursue this quest.  When play began he was just returning to Gondor and had been on the quest for 10 yrs.  He gets the message that his father is ill and his father's enemies are gathering to strike.
SA's: Destiny: Become King of Gondor.  Drive: To find the White Tree, Faith: the Goodness of Humanity,  Conscience: Heroism,  Luck

Adara, noblewoman, daughter of the Steward's brother (i.e. Eldecar's cousin) Rash and independent she is on the side of the growing rebellion.  Her father recently confirmed arrangments to marry her to his closest advisor, another lord of Gondor.  She discovers that he has plans, by his marriage to her to insert himself in the line of succession for the Stewardship.
SA's: Consceince: Justice, Drive: to liberate Gondor, Destiny: to help bring peace to Gondor, Passion: Hatred for Zond (her betrothed.), Luck.

Logan, former nobleman, robin-hood ranger type.  His father was executed for treason and his lands were siezed by the king and given to another lord.  He begins play in prison where he recieves word that his younger sister has married the lord who now posseses his lands.
SA's: Destiny: to reclaim his lands  Passion: hate Kaltras (lord who now has his lands)  Drive: Revenge himself on Kaltras, Luck, Conscience

Isengorn, elf of half-elven descent.  His mother was recently killed and he discovered in her things letters indicating her love affair with a man (the current Steward).  He has gone in search of his father, traveling into the dangerous human lands where few of his kind have been seen in hundreds of years.
SA's: Drive: to discover the truth of his family, Luck, Conscience. Passion (no points, undefined), Destiny (no points, undefined.)

Althea, a peasent healer in a local village.  She was apprenticed to her mother and all set to take the position when her mother retired.  They recently treated a ranger who had been wounded in a fight with the kings inquisatorial guard.  Althea fell in love with him.  Alarmed, her parents sent him away and her father immediately betrothed her to one of her childhood freinds from the village (now the saddlemaker.)  She begins play hearing that announcement.
SA's: Drive: Find Holt, Destiny: To bring lost healing lore of the elves to humanity, Passion: Love of nature, Luck, Passion: Hates the government

Simon. a hermit who lives in the woods, venturing to town only occasionally.  Years ago befreinded a small community of elves which were staying in Ithilian.  when in town he accidently dropped an object which was a gift from his close freind among them.  The through his own cowerdice, he revealed to the townspeople where they were and in the ensuing confrontation, though most of the elves escaped to the north, his freind was killed.  When play begins he has just seen one of the elves who was a part of that community.
SA's:  I don't have them all because I don't have my copy of his sheet but it was something like Drive: to atone for his betrayal, I don't remember the others.

A basic summary of events goes, Althea gets the news of her marraige and runs out of the house literally running into Simon (who gathers herbs in the forest for Althea's mother's healing) and another person who is revealed to be...an elf, the one that Simon remembers from so long ago and Isengorns travling companion.  Confrontation with the town ensues (who have grown very superstitious about elves in the intervening 1000 years.)  A unit of the kings inquisatorial guard shows up (secret police essentially) to arrest Althea's parents for harboring a traitor to the crown and they interrupt the confrontation.  The Inquisator moves to take the two elves (the other one is Isengorn) prisoner but Althea, Simon and one of the Elves gets away.

Althea's parents and Isengorn are arrested and trasported to Minas Tirith.  Althea, Simon, and the other elf go after them.  Isengorn is thrown in a cell with Logan who has just had a visitor telling him about his sister's marriage.  Meanwhile Eldecar has come to Minas Tirith to look in the archives again for clues to the location of the Tree, and Adara is there with her father who is there to attend council.  Adara learns of her own betrothal and confronts her father on it.  Her father doesn't listen.  Adara follows Zond to get proof, and overhears him talking to an Inquisator ally of his about his scheme to insert himself in the succession.  The Inquisator mentions that Eldacar appears to have returned and is in the city, and so Zond is forced to alter his plans to include the elimination of Eldecar and also that he has captured some elves, the first to be seen in many years.  There are also roumers of border raids on Gondor by Rohan and a gathering threat of war.

Adara finds Eldecar and tells him of the plot and the prisoners as well.  They decide to make a jailbreak.  Simon, Althea and Belrain (the other elf) arrive in the city determined to free their loved ones also.  Logan and Isengorn make plans to break out.  All three occur sumultaneously and all of them ride from Minas Tirith for the Stewards Castle.

Just before arriving at the their destination they come upon a town that has been massacred and burned. Evidence of horses and gear of Rohan are in the town.  They see a rider at the other end who flees when he sees them.  Eldecar and Adara and Isengorn chase him down and discover he is a scout of Rohan's royal house who is bearing a message to the Steward.  They are fired upon by ork archers in the woods and repel them.

...and that's where it ended.

perhaps three or four sessions.  One week we were missing a member so we played Inspectres.  The setting I think screwed stuff up.  There were two players who weren't wild about it anyway (warning sign...sigh) and two of us are very knowledgable about it.  The thing is, to me at least, there is just to much known, and to know, about ME. Even when we tried to distance ourselves from it with the time jump, its just so ...full, it feels like a great weight on our collective legs. The other thing is that LOTR is high fantasy.  TROS, IMO,  feels more gritty than that.  The jailbreak and stuff took  f o r e v e r  because of my stuggle both with combat and with the skill/task/conflict resolution issues.  

In the end the play devolved where there were more conversations about non-game things (mostly due to handle time) lots of jokes that pretty much destroyed what little mood we had, and a lack of engagment on everyone's part.  So we put it down.  I'll admit that the pool game that alternated with this one did end up emphasising the difference between the systems.  I certainly felt it emphasized my sense of constriction anyway.

We're going to try again but we're planning to use Wyerth this time not as much baggage.  Maybe its that old thing I read about here once about heavily defined characters needing a sketchy setting to play in, and heavily defined settings doing best with more sketchy characters.  

I don't know if anyone has advice about running this that might help me out but it would be appreciated.

regards,

Trevis

ps.  As a happy side note, I just purchased OBAM.  Great job Brian! (I think) its really a nice supplement.

[ZenDog]

I think one of the problems was the setting, if a couple of players are ME scholars and others not so keen, that doesn't bode well. Also like you said there is just so much of Middle Earth, to me as an RPG setting it works best when the players are footsoldiers in the middle of the ring war.

Weyrth is a very good setting in my opinion. At fiorst glance it looks like a fantasy heart breaker, but if you look carefully it is a rather clever modular world that allows campaigns in nearly any area where warriors can shine.

F'rex starting in the NW corner you have the dark age nations, with Savaxen, Angherhad, Picti and Sthal. Next to them you have medieval worlds, then late mediaval renaissance, to the east we have all the horse based nations of the steps (the poles, cossacks, and tartar/huns) plus the russina peasantry. In a nother corner of Weryth there are oriental worlds, you can play in the equivalent of Egypt, Greece, Arabia, Africa it's all there in Weyrth.

My advice would be rather than have a disperate collection of heroes from all over Weyrth decide what type of campaign you and the players want flavour wise (dark age, oreintal, medieval, Arabian, Egypt etc) and play a campaign focused on a small part of Weyrth with all the characters coming from the same type of culture if not country.

I find the focus helps although that's just me you and your players might prefer a more mixed bag.

From a mechanics point of view I found TRoS slow going on the first session, but on our second session things picked up and I expect as me and my player (we are playing a 1 on 1 online game- see link in sig) get a better handle on the rules things will become as smooth as any game we play.

[Mike Holmes]

Have you considered any of the methods that people have posted to streamline play on the TROS forum? I think there may be elements that you can dump without losing any of the stuff that works for you.

I coulda told you that ME wouldn't work (it never does for the reasons you state), but nobody ever believes me. I played a lot of MERP, and it's not just the system that's problematic, but that weight that you talk about. Less is more in RPGs in terms of the mythic weight of a setting, IMO.

Mike

[Trevis Martin]

Have you considered any of the methods that people have posted to streamline play on the TROS forum? I think there may be elements that you can dump without losing any of the stuff that works for you.

I've read around, certainly the big thread list at the beginning pretty extensivly.  I don't recall a lot of options other than using the skillpackages in a similar fashion to 'cover' in Sorcerer rather than as seperate skills (which I will probably implement.)  I'm not sure how, or if I could trim down combat.  The combat system is a big part of the game. (Admittidly the SA's are more important.) I've heard of people dropping maneuvers and I've thought it would be tough to drop them completely, because you still have different target numbers depending on if you defend with your weapon or a sheild or you just evade.  I've considered just going with the basic maneuvers, Cut, Thrust, Feint, Block, Parry, Counter and Evade (from the QS rules I think.)  Anybody else got either suggestions for streamlining or cool threads to look at on this issue?

I coulda told you that ME wouldn't work (it never does for the reasons you state), but nobody ever believes me. I played a lot of MERP, and it's not just the system that's problematic, but that weight that you talk about. Less is more in RPGs in terms of the mythic weight of a setting, IMO.

Oddly this is the first time in many many years I've tried playing in an established fictional setting from a novel, show or movie.  I'd often thought before that when I'd see people suggest adapting Dune, or ME or Star Wars, Robotech,...well the big story has happened in the universe, you know?  There isn't really any room for anyone else.  My perception I know.  The thing is if we reach for a setting out of a desire to somehow become those heroes in that setting, to be closer to living our favorite stories (that's been my desire from time to time) and yet we can't play the actual heroes involved because their actions are already established.  

Now playing in something like Hyborea is a different matter.  After all the Conan stories take place all over, and there is no grand, world altering story going on.  I see room to adventure in that setting.

Anyhow Mike, a lesson learned.  Hopefully our next go will work out better.

regards,

Trevis

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Regarding the maneuvers in TROS, you do need to keep the Evade options; those are really important. However, all the Proficiency-based maneuvers can be chucked out, poof. All those Cuts and Hooks and whatnot. Just let that stuff take care of itself through narration that corresponds with allocating dice. If you allocate a lot of offensive dice, that's a "big move," and so on.

To be absolutely clear, I am advocating abandoning the idea that to cut an opponent, you must choose an option called Cut off a list. I am advocating instead that if you allocate dice to offense and defense, we at the table should all be aware that you are cutting at the guy in thus-and-such a way, based on your words and gestures. And all those bonuses associated with specific maneuvers just vanish too; it's all allocation and SAs now.

Some people think that guts the game; others think it cleans out a lot of crust. Your choice.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Trevis, I have completly the same feelings about both big story worlds, and worlds like Hyborea. Hyborea is definitely way more playable. Still, per Sorcerer & Sword, why even stick to that? You can make up your own setting with hardly any effort at all, and have more fun doing it.

Mike

[Trevis Martin]

Mike,

Good point.  We may not even use Wyerth then, we'll see.

Ron,

Good idea, I can see that.  I assume you still roll vs the target numbers for the weapons being used, yes?   So we still have to know if the defender is using sheild or weapon to defend which can come up during narration.  And we need the evade options.  The only reason I see to keep track of cut and thrust (which can be done by the GM in response to the narration) is that the TN's are different for some weapons.

thanks,

Trevis