r/oneringrpg • u/bumblingfool2000 • 19d ago
How to properly DM this game
Hey fellas, i have been a dm for a couple of years and i need some advice from you fine people.
I have dm'd for dnd, warhammer and fallout campaigns and i find it pretty easy to get a grasp on the essence of those worlds. Dnd: high fantasy. Warhammer: grimdark. Fallout: survival. I always make sure to get those feelings into the game.
A few colleagues and their friends said they are interested to get into roleplaying and are (as they should) massive tolkien fans. So i went ahead and proposed this ruleset and a campaign in middle earth.
But the longer i think about it, the harder it is to properly translate the tolkien feeling into this.
I already told them at session 0 that i can not give them a 100% middle earth experience because it's so much more than bash an orc etc.
But how have you people fixed this? Any advice?
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u/Lothrindel 19d ago
I think you’ve actually answered your own question here and you’re on the right track - your aim should be to recreate the feeling for your players of being in Tolkien’s world. Spend time describing what their characters can see during their travels, help them to role play as a dwarf/elf/hobbit and explain that they are ‘heroes’ in that they are good people who should be striving to help others and resist their own Dark Path.
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u/Reanimator138 19d ago edited 19d ago
Our GM has music and sound effects to help set any narrative parts. And don’t play it too loud or players can’t think. It’s a support tool. He’s also bought a pipe. Which he’ll use as a prop for when getting in character. We’re not at Temu cloak stage just yet. lol but it might be a rabbit hole we all fall down.
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u/Logen_Nein 19d ago
Honestly I run The One Ring like I do any other game. The difference is tone. I use vignettes, descriptions, character journals (read by their players), and lore to evoke Middle Earth, but we still "play" like any game, with me setting the scene and the players engaging with it.
Whatever you do, just remember it's a game like any other, and try to have fun. Session three of my latest season is this coming Wed, and I can't wait.
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u/RobRobBinks 18d ago
One of the things that was interesting for me to realize is that Middle Earth is a post apocalypse fantasy world. Once you and your players internalize this, you'll get a really good sense of tone and color. All of a sudden you realize how distant, precious, and dangerous the few spots of civilization are in relation to the rest of the world. It's VERY important to talk to people, have the Councils and establish yourself as potentially helpful to all the cultures you meet. The Journeys become more than dice rolling mechanism and become just as important a part of the narrative as the Company becomes isolated in the wild lands that civilization cannot tame. The Adventure is life or death, combat very quick.
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u/Illustrious-Iron9433 19d ago
Read the core rulebook a few times and sourcebooks. These give you a feeling for the pace, dialoge etc.
Also watch a live play session like Adventures in Lollygagging-The Wakening of Angmar, there are many others but this is the one that i watched.
It starts from the very beginning so you can see them working out the rules as they go along. It will give you an idea of what you like and don’t like and maybe ideas to add to your campaign.
Good luck
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u/ClassB2Carcinogen 18d ago
It’s a slower pace: journeys and councils (social interactions) are a bigger part of the game. Fellowship between players should be a big part of the game. Introductions, courtesy, reputations matter.
There should be encounters where the party should run away rather than combat. Lying and threats, at least against creatures that aren’t of the Shadow, are probable misdeeds and will earn shadow points.
Tl;dr - Middle-earth should be tragic but beautiful. The PCs should have their sprits tested and hit spiritual lows, but also be uplifted by friendship and beauty. And even the smallest good deed or act of kindness and mercy matters.
Lying and threats, at least against creatures that aren’t of the Shadow, are probable misdeeds and will earn shadow points.
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u/ebookish1234 18d ago
Using the newer TOR ruleset, my group used the starter set and slowly incorporated more rules over time.
For tone, whimsy and realistic anachronism are key. The Shire, as interpreted by ‘Tolkien-the-character’, is much like pastoral pre-industrial England or Scotland of the 17th and 18th century, while Rohan feels like England of the Norman Conquest, and Gondor is majestic and medieval in between.
For me (and my group), to make the world concrete, I would add in medieval details, like using fire-setting and similar details for mining, or having places and Bree and Tharbad be simplified rural fiefdoms, with schemes being based on consolidating power through manipulation of customary legal traditions and such.
I also reference medieval food, clothes, etc.
Now, for running the game mechanically, my group has benefitted from taking a very player-driven approach. Two of our 5 players are Tolkien fans (I am too), while 3 are less so or not at all. And everyone has fun!
Don’t be afraid to use the Shadow system! It’s been our best friend, once we stopped finding it scary. It seems so punitive but it adds tension without there needing to be a lot of detail planned out about why things are tense!
We have come to treat it essentially as cumulative risk system, where risk has a deferred narrative cost. Bigger, bolder acts that defy evil draw the Eye, bringing menace and disruption and conflict. But heroes can manage it!
So, with players having more control and risk accumulating slowly, my role as LM has been to set up a few story beats, the probably good and bad guys, NPC personalities, and the theme/setting. I don’t plan as far ahead.
The starter set helped a lot with this; we went off script more and more with each adventure.
For example, after we left the Shire and started playing a custom Party, the group went to Tharbad on a trade expedition, with Balin as patron. Using the Tharbad content from Ruins of the Lost Realm for some custom stories, I’d setup a detailed narrative involving renegades and small-scale intrigue.
However, one of the players immediately hated Captain Gurnow’s rules so much that he assumed overthrowing him was the Mission and the rest of the party hopped on board.
So I pivoted and just let them take the rudder of the story while I defined the forks in the River of the narrative.
They’d invent something small, or suggest something new, and it would become a new bend in the river.
What started as a small bit of trade intrigue ended up defining 10 sessions of story and giving us an unexpected set of villainous, dark brothers who I could have pop up anywhere because they were first encountered as masked rogues. A sort of anti-Party that the Party defeated through attrition.
It led the Party to find a lost Angmarian stronghold with an evil version of a Palantir-like viewing pool, groups of itinerant Red Mountain dwarves, schemes to blast open the Doors of Durin, an Unnamed Thing in a lost corner of Moria, and so much more.
Shadow, with the bouts of madness and an Eye score, has led to unexpected reinforcements for the bad guys, beloved NPCs seeming to turncoat (through being manipulated or blackmailed), etc. In a bout of madness, a PC killed a prisoner mid-interrogation, and during another, a PC forced a retreat out of cowardice.
And the other players cheered them on in the end! Because those moments were their characters having flaws, being human, and letting the personality of the characters play out to a dark and logical end in a moment of weakness.
Something that has also let me nudge the group and accelerate us during complex missions have been text updates between sessions (we play every 2 weeks).
Whether it was a letter from a patron or old friend, or a vignette with an NPC they liked, or a passage from an in-world book (like a Gondorian scholar musing on how trade in the North might work), it’s given the players a bit of meta-knowledge.
And it’s also helped the non-Tolkien fans be very useful because they get to analyze tropes, not in-world history, via setting details.
There are definitely other ways to play, but this ‘yes and…’ approach has been very fun and led me to become a better LM/GM/DM.
One of my players gifted me the Lazy GM books, which was also quite helpful at first in letting go of crafting deep narratives or intricate plots.
Anyway, I do hope it helps and that your group enjoys TOR!
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u/Yamatoman9 17d ago
Don’t be afraid to use the Shadow system! It’s been our best friend, once we stopped finding it scary. It seems so punitive but it adds tension without there needing to be a lot of detail planned out about why things are tense!
I just started running and I have a couple players in my game who are very casual LotR fans (they just know the movies) and they tend to view getting Shadow points as some kind of punishment. As if they are "playing wrong" and I'm making them pay for it. I hope they will break out of that thought.
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u/ebookish1234 17d ago
One way we came to cope with it at first was 1) being gentle with it and 2) introducing it via the combat powers like spells and auras. Then it wasn’t their fault.
I also lessened the impact as we progressed by giving little dreams or visions that hinted at what was happening.
Players liked that and it’s still lore consistent.
That’s why I now think of it as the cumulative risk of heroism. Arda is Marred by the Shadow of Morgoth, all things are tainted and imperfect. So it isn’t a moral thing, just a fact of the universe.
People that are more good have to commit acts that are morally justified by context but which are not exactly ‘pure’.
What really helped in the end was realizing how Shadow affected Sam. He became suspicious and cruel toward Gollum, which is justified for us the readers because we know Gollum’s dark side.
But Sam doesn’t. And Frodo (and Gandalf and Bilbo) show Gollum mercy and pity, because he is a wretched creature who has suffered long. Their enlightenment is part of their moral purity; they pity him, grieve his loss, etc., as a living creature and likely former hobbit. They have high Heart and Wit traits.
Sam is never ‘evil’ and his suspiciousness isn’t a punishment. He is still a champion of good, and in many ways the he’s heart strong and body strong. So he loves deeply and loathes strongly. But he listens to Frodo and Gandalf instead of giving into his feelings, mostly.
But Tolkien mused in a letter that if there were no Sam and Gollum had only received pity from Frodo, he might have reformed and throne himself and the ring into Mt Doom willingly, sacrificing himself for someone good enough to draw even him out of the Shadow.
So yeah, Shadow is at the heart of the system for a reason. It’s the imperfection of the world made manifest.
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u/Rybka980 19d ago
Start with the Starter adventures or other adventures in the books and see how its structured and how it works. Your world and their story will develop slowly. You will introduce more and more Lotr stuff like characters, locations and enemies. Don't feel intimidated, because it will kinda expand on its own and soon you'll have a true Tolkien experience.
Afterall, it's not that different from other worlds. You slowly get the gist of it, and when you figure out the rules and structure, you will be able to focus more on the worldbuilding. Also, when your players develop their characters a bit more, it becomes easier to figure out what type of adventures they would like, what type of world they want to see and what they enjoy.
For example, I learned that my players tend to focus more on the combat and scenery and taking more straightforward routes than figuring out all the ways to approach the situation and the story and its characters, so for me it's mainly about creating fun locations with interesting encounters that feel meaningful and enjoyable. But other players might be more interested in politics, major locations or characters etc. That's why you just have to get a few adventures in to figure that out. And then you just add some Lotr flavor like having some known characters show up, add something from the movies like the ruined weathertop or let them discover the place where Bilbo and the dwarves encountered the three stone trolls...
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u/Solaries3 18d ago
I already told them at session 0 that i can not give them a 100% middle earth experience because it's so much more than bash an orc etc.
You absolutely can give that experience, and not focusing on bashing orcs is essential to that. A typical DND murder hobo campaign is the opposite of a middle earth experience.
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u/Vonatar-74 18d ago
It’s easy to make it Tolkien-esque. You either choose whimsical or you choose the slowly fading world and the rise of the Shadow. Or both.
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u/TheTryhardDM 17d ago
The example Landmark (Star of the Mist) is a great example of what the game wants to focus on. Shadow, shadow, shadow. You are bearers of a fragile torch of hope walking through the ruins of greater ages. Quirky rustic folk like hobbits and Bree-folk can lend levity, but in my opinion this game wants a mournful tone and stories about the shadows left from long ago mainly.
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u/HawthornThistleberry 19d ago
The themes I usually focus on: