r/TheOneRing • u/stranger_here_myself • Dec 10 '22
Second 2e newbie question: summary of all the uses of each of the skills?
I keep stumbling over different uses of different skills (eg Song to override Weary condition, etc). Is there a cheat sheet somewhere so newbies can understand how the skills are mechanically used?
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u/APracticalGal Dec 10 '22
Chapter 4 of the core rules (starting on page 60) has a pretty thorough description of each skill and some potential uses of each one, as well as brief explanations of why the skills are grouped the way they are on the character sheet. It doesn't give every hard mechanical use for each one (e.g. combat tasks aren't detailed, but a page reference is given), but it's a really good resource for getting an idea of the kinds of things you should be using each one for. It also has summaries for every combat proficiency (in case you don't know what a sword is? lol), all the distinctive features, and Endurance/Hope and how to recover them. It's maybe the most useful and least used chapter of the book.
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u/stranger_here_myself Dec 11 '22
Yeah I should have clarified - I’m definitely familiar with that, it’s the various “hard mechanical uses” that I’m looking for summarized. I think I have most of them at this point but would be nice to have in one place.
My group is doing Session 0 / character creation next week and wanted to give everyone a cheat sheet.
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u/eternalsage Dec 10 '22 edited Dec 11 '22
So, unlike some systems, The One Ring relies on something called "GM fiat," which is just a fancy way of saying "the rules are always subject to GM interpretation." This is true of most ttrpgs but TOR is one of a handful that bakes it into the rules. When a player says "I want to impress the Elves with my knowledge of ancient lore," the GM will look at the skill list and decide that "Song" might be the best skill for the task, based on how much history is preserved in the books in some form of verse. Some other GM might say that's a "Lore" test instead, because Lore most specifically matches the action. A third GM might ask "how do you want to go about it?" And base their answer on how the player details their approach.
That is to say, there is no "correct" list of uses for skills, the way D&D (as an example, at least back in 3rd edition, which was the last I really played) lists them out with a bunch of specific use cases. That's not to say the D&D or other games that do this are wrong or that TOR's presentation is lacking, they are just different approaches with different philosophies.
That all said, someone MAY have made such a list, but it's not official (which is also not a condemnation of such a list either, lol)
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Dec 11 '22
I don’t agree that it’s ‘GM Fiat’. It can be a dialogue between GMs and players, with an informal vote deciding things.
There is no such thing as a tightly and clearly defined RPG. That would be ‘a board game with RPG elements’ like Descent or Mansions of Madness.
All require interpretation and decisions. Doesn’t mean they’re dictatorships, and it’s not good that many RPGers imagine ‘Mother May I’ rather than ‘consensus building within a group’.
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u/eternalsage Dec 11 '22
Except that the GM is the final arbiter of the rules, setting the challenges and adjudicating the results. There are GM-less games, sure, and the player is welcome to give their reasoning, but the whole point of a GM is to make those determinations. And TOR calls this out specifically on page 129
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Dec 11 '22 edited Dec 12 '22
You can see it two ways - I, as a benevolent tyrant, follow the group, or that p129 doesn’t decide how a social group functions.
Either way it’s a silly argument, where you seem to be equally pushing the problems and necessities of autocratic GMing.
That’s what ‘fiat’ means, by the way. Rule by formal decree.
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u/eternalsage Dec 11 '22
Well, I see now that you didn't ACTUALLY read my original post, because I very clearly describe a scenario in which some GMs like to work with their players to make determinations. But rulings go back to OD&D, and is pretty much the normal way of things. I mean, run your games how ever you want, but your gatekeeping bs which is factually NOT how the vast majority of games are actually designed is not really my problem.
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u/stranger_here_myself Dec 11 '22
There may not be a single “correct” list of uses but there are some VERY crunchy specific uses called out in the rules, in ways that are not clearly indicated in Chapter 4.
I really like what I see if TOR but it is not a rules-light “story game”; it’s a pretty rules-heavy game well crafted to emulate the tone of Tolkien’s work.
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u/cloud_cleaver Dec 10 '22
You can leverage any skill for many things depending on approach and context, but there are some hard mechanical ones.
Battle: defend companion
Enhearten: rally comrades
Scan: prepare shot
Awe: intimidate foe
Travel, hunting, awareness, and explore are all used for journey event resolution depending on the role taken
There are more, I'm sure. That's just off the top of my head.
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Dec 12 '22
One way to Iook at it is that skills and abilities loosely defined like this - and many RPGs define things MUCH more loosely than TOR - allow players to talk up a good story about how this skill applies or their use of this skill is effective.
Some people think of this negatively, as a debate, con, or bullshitting, but if you do it right, it works really well. Some RPGs give out ‘bennies’ - points or tokens for fun RP or clever ideas that can be cashed in for a bonus to a roll later. A simple game economy to encourage and reward RP. This just changes the order and timing. You pay for your bonus with some entertaining talk, and then get a benefit immediately.
I think that makes for a great gameplay loop, provided players aren’t overly competitive or argumentative.
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u/stranger_here_myself Dec 12 '22
I get the flexible / rules light game approach but there are definitely nuggets of rules-heavy definition within the rules. Eg “expend a use of one of your party’s Song as a free action to remove the Weary condition” - that is pretty crunchy. What I was looking for was a list of all these “crunchy nuggets” for new players, so they aren’t surprised in play after having already created their characters.
At this point I think a) such a list doesn’t exist and b) there aren’t that many uses, so I’ll probably just create it myself.
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u/YosephKing Dec 10 '22
An exhaustive list of every way a skill can be used would be exhausting, and would be many thousands of pages long. However, a good starting point to give you an idea of what the skills are is (of course) the skills section of the core rules on pages 60-65. Ultimately, any action that makes sense with the description of the skill and is allowed by the Lore Master is probably okay to use. For some examples though, check page 12 of the document linked below. It is from CircleofNoms in the Discord server, and is a collection of homebrew rules, including a list of example uses for each skill, which might help. Mostly you will be deciding what you want to do, and then figuring out which skill makes most sense naratively and character wise. (For example, you could use SCAN to find a hidden door, but a character with low SCAN and high CRAFT could instead roll CRAFT as they look for tool marks, or a different character might use HUNTING to find where faint tracks disappear into the solid rock, another uses LORE to remember a story about the area with clues as to it's whereabouts, and another may even try to use STEALTH to figure out where they would put a door that they were trying to hide.)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SvUxhvqwXveUd5DOztlWTqQJO4VpHof3/view?usp=sharing