The One Ring - Build A Fellowship & Quest Across Middle-Earth!

We are exploring the One Ring 2e on today's episode of The RPG Goblin! With our special guests Brandon and Parker from Nat1Nerds podcast!

Now they just finished up a whole exploration on the Ome Ring system themselves but on this episode we dive into what makes One Ring stand out, their experience playing/running the game, if non Lord of the Rings fans will like the system and what magic as a strength means!!

We break down the really cool dice pool system One Ring uses, how the game works with it not having any classes, the beauty of the low magic setting and the genius behind the different phases of play! Plus you get tons of fun rants during this episode from our one and only Lord of the Rings fan, Parker!

Get The One Ring here: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/the-one-ring/

Go and listen to Nat 1 Nerds here!: https://linktr.ee/nat1nerds

Transcript

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Let's explore Middle Earth today as we dive into One Ring 2nd edition, aka a Lord of the Rings TTRPG where you get to play out as your own fellowship within Middle Earth and the lord of the rings universe itself. Now this episode is very much gonna be geared towards lord of the rings fans. But even if you're not a Lord of the Rings fan like myself, you will still really like hearing about the system if you are into low magic fantasy, one where there isn't spells and mages everywhere that can do these big tricks, but it's part of the world. It magic is around, but not everyone can wield magic. Where you go through phases of taking a journey, getting into combat, having counsel, which are basically role playable debates and stuff like that. This is what is all in 1 ring. So as I bring on nat one nerds, we are going to discover 1 ring with you and see if it's gonna be your next game. Welcome everyone to the RPG Goblin, a TTRPG podcast where we explore these games and make it fun and easy for you to learn them because I know it can be super intimidating and scary and all of that. You might be just familiar with D and D, and there's a bunch of other games out there, and most of them are just as easy easy to play. And yeah. So I am your host, Willow, and I am the resident goblin. And I'm really obsessed with these games to a point where it may be a little concerning how much I talk about them, but it's fine. That's why we started the podcast. And on today's episode, we are going to be talking about 1 ring, specifically the 2nd edition of of 1 ring that Free League Publishing came out with. And to talk about this today, we have on Parker and Brandon from the Nat One Nerd's podcast, another TTRPG exploration podcast, but they do it a little bit differently. Fantastic show, but I'm gonna bring it over to them for them to properly introduce themselves and tell them all the cool things that they do. So, go ahead guys. I'm Parker. Hey. I'm Brandon, and we're the nat one nerds. Like Willow was saying, we do our own little TTRPG exploration podcast. We do it in very episodically, we go through and talk about How the systems work, what players need to know, what the game masters need to know. We'll do, like, an actual play of each one. We We have a very strict system down, but it's kinda fun to get to explore all the different ones. And as she said, we just finished our exploration of the one ring, And it was a lot of fun. Parker is the biggest Tolkien buff I've ever met and probably one of the biggest ones that I will ever will meet. So he knows everything about Tolkien, so he's really good on this one. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense that I was, chosen to be the the lore master when we when we played the system. I mean, you are the real life lore master of Lord of the Rings. I only have 20 of his books on my shelf, man. That's not cool. 20. Yeah. It could be a lot more. That's that's That's the what we should be looking at. No. But, I mean, that's why I think that you are also perfect to come on for this episode as well because What I want is people who are obsessed and, like, literally, you know, the biggest nerds for these games. So, like, I love it and, So I'm really excited about this. And I think a little bit before we get into actually, 1 ring itself, I would love to ask, how you actually got into lord of the rings. Originally, kind of your history there and, like, what? I know it's probably opening a huge can of worms. So okay. I I do have a story because people have asked me that before. And, really, what it comes down to is my father read me the Hobbit when I was in 2nd grade of elementary school, and I loved it a ton. And I I wanted more. I wanted more. And my dad's like, well, there is more, but it's They're not children's books like Yeah. The Hobbit is. Mhmm. And I just kept insisting and insisting, and he knew I was a big reader. So he's like, okay. We'll Well, we'll give it a try. And he did have to do a little explaining, you know, throughout it, but we we read the lord of the rings together, the whole trilogy. Oh, I love that. I I loved it. And then, you know, when Fellowship of the Ring came out as a movie to say I'm thoroughly impressed with your attention span as a child. I couldn't get it. Just really did. Oh, I was I was absolutely enthralled. Well, that's how me and my father spent Time the other, you know, and that was that was one of the big things to do. The other one was scouting when I was older, but reading was a huge one. Yeah. It's just like that special connection. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so when the movie came out, he went to see it first because he wanted to make sure, because he's like, okay. Either number 1, I wanna make It's not overly violent. Mhmm. And number 2, either this is gonna be a massive success or it's gonna be absolutely horrid. Because nobody had Successfully done a live action adaptation of the Lord of the Rings. Mhmm. And he was so impressed, and he's like, you know what? Honestly, You're old enough. I give you permission to come see it with me. Yeah. Like, I'll go with you. And so we we went, and, obviously, that just entrenched it even further. I got really obsessed with it. I did try to read the Silmarillion, and that was the 1 book that kinda started kicking my butt a bit. So I had to put that to the side, kinda just enjoy the trilogy and the Hobbit and whatnot. But then, obviously, when I felt like I was better prepared and better educated. I was like, I'm gonna try this again or the sim Aurelian. Did the exact same effect as the hobbit did. I got even more entrenched, And my dad had no idea what he created because I also credit the Hobbit with with me becoming a nerd. Yeah. And getting For sure. Into, you know, the video games and, obviously, later in life, TTRPGs. I I mean, it's the natural pipeline. Yeah. Well, I mean, it got to the point where in high school, we had a group of I had a group of friends that I'm still in touch with, and we kinda each had our, like, speciality fandom. Like, somebody was the doctor who person. Somebody was the Nintendo person. I was the token buff. Like, Anything about lord of the rings, my my jam. They watch it with me. They're like, we knew you liked it. We didn't realize how much you liked it, and they just I am what you made me. You made me. Yeah. Exactly. No. I love that so much. And I love that it's, like, such a special connection and and, like, there being an actual like, because, you know, you can do things within you can do things within the realm of, I think, Lord of the Rings, like, using D and D and stuff like that. But, like, actually having, like, a system that caters directly to those stories and, like, that lore and all of that, I bet was absolutely amazing. That's one of the best things I discovered when we started exploring this on on our podcast Mhmm. Was this was a system that was built with with the setting as the foundation first and foremost. It wasn't mechanics. It wasn't a story. It wasn't some interesting concept of any kind. It was The world in Middle Earth that was already created by somebody else. And they took that and they built from there because they wanted to I can tell by reading the core rule book That they wanted to respect the the lore and the legendarium of that world as much as possible Without without going too too much. Because there's a thing as creative license Mhmm. But it was still used as a very gentle and respectful tool. Yeah. Oh, man. I love that even description of it. Like, you know, they were respectful and gentle and, like, you know, it's almost, I I love using this phrase of, like, a love letter towards something. And, you know, I recently, I talked about, like, alien RPG that felt like the same way where and that's also by Free League. So maybe there's a theme here of, like knows what they're doing. Yeah. Exactly. I think they have I believe they have someone specifically who handles, like, all of the IP stuff where they want to be respectful. They want to be you know, honor the media that it comes from and all of that, and I think that is absolutely fascinating, especially with all the IPs that they're doing. And I am curious get Hollywood to do something like that. Oh, yeah. If only. But yeah. And I'm I'm curious. Brandon, do you have any love for, Lord of the Rings yourself? Or I mean, I've always grown up loving Lord of the Rings, but nowhere near as much as Like, to me, it was just, like, a really cool fantasy adventure because I've always loved fantasy in general. Mhmm. And Lord of the Rings just really scratched that itch and was super well written. Mhmm. And I just always loved how it there's different depths that you can watch it as. Like, as a kid, I was like, oh, cool. Swords and magic and dragons and stuff. And got older and used to the plot more. Like, it just got deeper, and it's just you always find new stuff when you go through and watch it unless you're parked because then you know everything. But it's just it's so much fun, and I've always loved it. But Mhmm. It's not like a staple of my life, but I've always genuine genuinely enjoyed it. Yeah. I love that, and I love that both of you still have that love for the game, so I bet well, actually, you know or not the game, the series and, you know, the whole the world. So when you did start the podcast, I'm curious. Did you know about 1 ring before you started it, or was it after? It was after we started. Oh, and I meant, like, that was immediately, like, yes. And, honestly, I don't remember it because I think I was the one because this is a system that I personally had chosen because I just was like, I really, really want it. And if I'm gonna spend money on the system, like, this is it. Oh, absolutely. And I just don't I don't remember. I'm sure it was through, like, social media or something, but I just don't recall, but once I discovered it, I was like, oh, we gotta do this. We gotta do this. We gotta do this. And so after Brandon had chosen call of Cthulhu. Because for the 1st season, we we did 4 4 systems. Mhmm. And we kinda alternated roughly what Each one of us wanted to explore. Yeah. And so the last system was called Cthulhu that Brandon had chosen. Mhmm. And so it was, you know, quote, unquote, my turn to choose. And I was like, 1 ring, 1 ring, 1 ring, 1 ring. Like There's no doubt about it. 1 ring. Like, that's that's what we're doing here. Yeah. I love it. And so I guess, you know, this is probably gonna be an episode that caters more heavily to the lord of the rings and Tolkien fans out there. But for people who aren't as familiar with that world and, you know, that entire, I guess not franchise. What's I guess series. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it. How would you yeah. The fandom. Yeah. How would you explain what 1 ring is to everyone? Specifically, 1 ring, not necessarily Lord of the Rings as a whole. So the One Ring is very much of a system that's built not around just goofing off in a generic fantasy world with your friends. Mhmm. But it's specifically catered to storytelling. All the mechanics of the one ring center around building what it refers to as fellowship Yeah. Which is your party. And it's the adventure that your fellowship goes on and the story that they weave through Middle Earth. And it's not as much about going to stop the big bad evil guy or going on this adventure that it's it's primarily just storytelling, which is really fun because it encourages a lot of collaborative interaction between the players. I adore that. Absolutely. I mean, do you have, 1 do you have an explanation as well? Because I I feel like it's fun to kinda go back and forth between you guys. Like No. I brand what Brandon said was was spot on. It's it's very much about telling a a story, building out that foundation of Not only a a world setting, but a full blown history, a full Yeah. Lore, what's going on at the time that you're playing in. And so it's all geared toward what Brandon was saying was was essentially storytelling. Mhmm. You know, everything's meant to encourage, You know, in character dialogue, it's meant to encourage role playing. It's meant to encourage those things that sometimes in, You know, for example, D and D tables. As Brandon was saying, it's very much kind of a goofy for the most part, kinda do kinda whatever. Yeah. And in the one ring, like, obviously, there's places for that. Like, you can't not do that there. Yeah. There's gonna be comedy. Yeah. Oh oh, absolutely. When we play, there was plenty of comedy, and we only did a 1 shot. So probably our I made a sword out dad bard a duck, dwarf, and dad bod. In, like, Middle Earth. So, like, you can do whatever you want. Yeah. All I can think of is a dwarven dad bard with a dwarven in dad bod. Oh, he absolutely did. His whole reason for adventuring was he wanted to get away from his kids because they were just Cute. I I will say, though, because, you know, what you said earlier was that this is definitely geared toward Tolkien fans and the Lord of the Ring fans, whether you've only seen the movies or whatever. Honestly, this system, in my opinion, is well built that anybody can Play and enjoy. Yeah. The you know, whether it's a 1 shot, whether it's a small campaign, even a long campaign. It's it's It's still kind of meant for it's still made with everybody in mind. My my wife played with us on the podcast, And she had only seen the movies, like, twice, both with me and both because she loved me. And, you know, afterwards, she looked we kinda talked about it, and I said, what what did you think? Because she was in our character creation episode. She was in the actual play. And And I said, what did you kinda think? I know I loved it, and I, you know, I don't want you to mince words. Did you Yeah. Did you enjoy it? You seem to be enjoying it, and she said that she Really light the system. I think outside of D and D, this is her favorite system that she's played in. Oh, that's so cool. She's only seen the movies twice. So, I mean, yeah, she's She's got that introduction Mhmm. But you don't you don't need that introduction for the system based off where the because the core rule book encourages to play In this part of middle earth Mhmm. That isn't as that doesn't involve as much lore from the movies and the and the trilogy books as as other places. Yeah. For sure. You're yeah. So it's it is it's still meant for everybody. Yeah. It's geared. It's a love letter and all that kind of stuff. But If you're willing to give it a chance, then it can just be as just as fun of a system for those who aren't necessarily fans of Tolkien. Absolutely. I actually really love that because I think it can be a little difficult sometimes with, systems that rely heavily off a lure for people that are not familiar with it already to actually, like, play because it's like, I know vampire masquerade is a really good example of this. There is so much lore because this game is so old and the book is just filled with it that if you aren't familiar with the lore and the stories that they have within the book, You can't fully, like, play the game to its full potential because, like, it's kinda structured around that story. And so I love that, at least from what you said, you aren't required to know every single detail about lord of the rings before you play, and I think that's really, really good, especially for TTRPG. And I like it too even as, like, alternate, for, alternate options for, like, fantasy games other than D and D too because, you know, there's D and D and Pathfinder, but those, like, kinda follow the same, you know, kinda high magic high magic, high magic, and all that. Yeah. Yeah. They're very similar high magic, combat, stuff like that. Those are big focuses with the base. A cool wizard and blow stuff up? Exactly. Well, I I at least for me, I feel like I I think of 1 ring, and I feel like I see something that has less magic than something like D and D and, you know, a little bit more down to Earth, if that makes sense. Would you say that's accurate? Oh, absolutely. And that's actually taken directly from the actual legendarium lore from the books. Mhmm. You know? I mean, if We'll just use the movies as example because that'll be people will know that a little bit better. Absolutely. If you kind of really pay attention how often Gandalf the wizard because there's only 5 wizards in all of middle earth. Mhmm. 2 of which we have absolutely no knowledge of. I forgot about those guys. 1 is just a hermit in the woods, and one turned absolutely evil. Mhmm. So out of 5 wizards, Here's this guy trying to rally the free peoples. And if you kinda pay attention, he hardly ever uses magic. You can count how many times he uses magic in all 3 movies probably on one hand. Oh, wow. I always find that really strange. Well, it's it's interesting because magic is definitely a heavy presence in the world. There's magical artifacts. There's the elves. You know, there's the wizards. They I mean, they do use magic. I mean, magic, again, was using magic for fireworks, but it's you know, a lot of it is just It it's not this idea of magical might overcoming everything. It's a matter of people willingly Choosing to hope, choosing to fight, choosing to reach inside and find that courage. Well, I feel like Tolkien definitely took the route more of Infusing the world with magic instead of having magic be like spells. It's everything is magic. You don't use magic. Yeah. It's it's a part of the world. It's, yeah, it's not its own thing. I like that a lot. And, actually, there there's a game that, I I, this game that I backed on, Kickstarter or whatever crowdfunding thing, called Land of Eem, which actually one of its main inspirations is lord of the rings. It's like lord of the rings combined with the muppets. It's fantastic. I can't wait for it to actually, like, get to me because it's so cool. And that's and now now that you're, saying these things with, like, you know, more of the earth and, like, you know, there like, there's magic ingrained in the world, but it isn't spells. I'm getting a lot of that within land of beam 2. So I love how that's, like, the main theme because it is so easy to be like, oh, yeah. You know, and D and D magic is everywhere. Everyone can cast magic. You know, it's not anything special. Well, it feels something a lot more specialized in this. And I'm curious and maybe to start to segue a little bit into character creation stuff, is there even options for people to wield magic within the game? Nope. Not that we can tell. Obviously, we've only done it one time Mhmm. Read through the book a couple times. But as we kinda said, based off that inspiration with What how Tolkien built his world, Free League Publishing also was, like, not not really. I mean, there's some, like, aspects of character building, Especially as you level up Mhmm. That could be kind of magic hull Yeah. In a sense, kinda like that. But If you're looking for for wizards casting fireball or straight up sorcerers or necromancers or anything like that, you're not gonna find that. You're not gonna find a A class or a culture that is built around casting spells. Do you want to find out feels like a breath of fresh air. Like like like, tone it down on magic a little bit. And, I mean, that I I'm curious because you do mention that, like, things are infused with magic. Is that been almost like, are people able to get, like, magical items? And, obviously, it's probably not similar to what magical items are within D and D. You know, their their own things. But is that something that's really prevalent in the world, especially in one ring? You can find weapons like that that kinda give you, What's called the favored role. It's the equivalent of advantage in D and D. Mhmm. You can find things that kinda do those, like, simple things to really help you. Yeah. Because in this system, you're you're not using a 20 sided dice. You're using a 12 sided dice. Oh. So My god. Yes. We love systems that use other dice. Yes, please. Especially the 12 sided die. Love it. Yeah. Okay. That that poor guy doesn't get enough, enough love. It really doesn't. Like, I I I think there are, like, 3 maybe 3 systems That I've seen that actually use a d twelve as it's, like, core die. And I can only think of 2, and one of them is now 1 ring. So no. I love that. And so, actually, let's get a bit into, like, I guess, the system itself. You know, you just mentioned that it uses the 12 sided dice. Is that the only die that you're using throughout the game? Are there other dice that you used to? No. So your 12 sided dice is called your feet die, and that is your main dice. Mhmm. And d sixes too. But Yes. There are d sixes as well. What's really unique about the d twelve, though, in this system so when you're first starting out and your character is doing pretty well for the most part and you're rolling the dice, There are 2 symbols on the dice. Obviously, you can use any d twelve, and you can replace where it would be on the die. So where the 12 would be is a was a Gandalf ruin. It's a ruin that he uses in the hobbits and Mark Bilbo's door as as a burglar. It's just a burglar for hire. So it's used like that. And if you roll that, regardless if If you hit your target number, which is how they determine successes or failures, if you hit that, you succeed. Yeah. So it's almost like a nat 20 type thing. Yeah. It's essentially a nat 20. But on the flip side, where the 11 is is an eye of Sauron, Oh, just fun. And what's unique is that just because you roll an doesn't mean you automatically fail. So there is an automatic nat 20 in the system, but until you reach certain conditions with your character, the nat one effect Doesn't happen until those conditions are met. Mhmm. So because those target numbers can be kinda high. Yeah. I mean, it's cool rough because if you roll the eye of Sauron, your d 12 automatically counts as a 0, which means you're only relying on your bonus dice, Switch. Most of the time, you're gonna fail with that anyways. So those those d sixes that he was mentioning are instead of having a modifier like in D and D where you have, like, plus 1 to this or plus 5 to that, it's a number of dice instead added onto your feet dice. So if you're proficient with the skill and have, like, say, like, like, 2 ticks in it Mhmm. You roll an additional 2 d 6 on top of that. All the points. Sixes also have a little Elvis symbol that stands as a success icon Mhmm. That grants you not only does it count as a 6 on Top of everything. Mhmm. But it also gives you special abilities should you pass the target number. Mhmm. So it's almost like a mini nat one Or sorry. Mini nat 20. Sorry. We don't want mini nat ones. Those those are horrible. Those might be worse than nat ones. Yeah. I mean, They sing a little bit more. Yeah. So but yeah. So that's that's kinda how the dice system at least kinda works. I like it. It's almost like a it's almost like combining a little bit of, like, a d 20 type system where you're rolling just a d 20 for everything combined with, like, a dice pool a little bit. It's just like a smaller dice pool. And so I I I really like that, and I'm curious because you did mention that sometimes the, the target numbers can get pretty high. So, like, at least in in your experience so far, like, how higher you normally roll in in this game, that, like you know, adding on, like, a d twelve then however many d sixes. So the way the target numbers work in the one ring is, basically, they start at 20, And then you have 3 main stats, and each stat determines a different target number because you have 3 target numbers. Mhmm. You basically just subtract that stat from 20 to get your real target number. Okay. And so whenever you're rolling something in that category, then that's the target number you use. Oh, okay. So it's, like, kind of a straight across the board, but is it in it's individualized for every character, I'm assuming, then? Yes. Okay. That's actually really fun. It's almost It's almost like along the lines of, like, actually, I'm trying to think of what that does remind me of. I was gonna say it's like a saving throw type thing, but that's not really how that works. Like, the refer to it as closer to, like, call of Cthulhu because call of Cthulhu kinda has a target number system where you have to reach a certain number with your the 100 in order to to pass or succeed in the check. Yeah. So that's kinda what's happening here. Feels very specific to the characters and kinda shows, like, you know, when they are super specialized and good at this one thing, it does show because then their target number is a lot lower. Oh, man. Yeah. I actually really like that. That's cool. So instead of relying on, the stats for an enemy per se to see if you pass their stats. Mhmm. You're trying to overcome your own strengths and weaknesses that are already there on your character sheet. So when you're in combat In combat, you're always trying to meet or beat your strength target number because it's based off strength, because it's physical. Mhmm. And if you can beat that, you hit the enemy no no matter what kinda enemy they are almost. Mhmm. I always found that kinda strange because, like, It it the target numbers are all set, and they never change, which means, like, it's the exact same target number if you're trying to sneak past some random drunk person as it is if you're trying to sneak through the literal, like, eye of Sauron staring at you. You have the same party number, and I found that kinda strange. But I I can also see where they're coming from. Yeah. I I guess you would then look to see if there's ways that they would Be able to give you, like, advantages or like, not even necessarily within the common way. Like, advantage, disadvantage dice, but, like, is their ways that that target number adjusts at all? Is there ways that you can get bonus dice, I guess, to your rolls or maybe it takes away bonus dice? That's actually a valid thing that the system does suggest is that if it's an exceedingly Hard thing, like, for instance, if you're passing the literal eye of Sauron, which, one fact, the literal eye of Sauron is not in the books at all. It's In the books, it's metaphorical. It's metaphorical. It doesn't actually exist. They wanted to add more drama to the movies. Yeah. Of course. You as a as the lore master, you can say, hey. Go ahead and roll this ill favored. Mhmm. Essentially with disadvantage, or you could take away a bonus dice like minus one d one d six, which in this system, you can just say minus 1 dice, and everybody knows what you're talking about because Yeah. There's only 1 other set of dice, and that's d sixes. Yeah. You're automatically rolling d twelve for everything. Like, we're all on the same page here. No. That I I like that for the balancing. I kind of view the reason why target numbers are the way they're done in the system because I think it's trying to have a reflection of how Tolkien viewed middle earth was that It was very much that anybody could be a hero. Yeah. And anybody could overcome their own weaknesses, or overcome their own ego Mhmm. Per se. Now a lot of the characters have a lot of nobility background, but the real hero of the story is some random Hobbit from the Shire Yeah. Of people that literally hate adventuring to no end. Like, you won't find TTRPGs in the Shire because nobody wants to even do that there. So that's kinda how I view it, kind of maybe why they do a target number system. That's just speculation on my part. Mhmm. But trying to really showcase because there is ways to level up. It's not like D and D where you get mystical powers out of nowhere almost. Yeah. But there the you do kinda level up. You do improve your character. You add d sixes as you go along that you can put in places And so forth because you're becoming a more seasoned adventurer. Yeah. And, actually, I think I'd, specifically, I We'll we'll continue your thought in a moment. I just wanted to say that I would like to touch on the character, creation stuff, soon here, especially with, like, the whole, like, anyone can be a hero. Like like, does that reflect as well within the character creation? But if you sorry for interrupting you. I was just like, I need to make sure to get that out. No. We can absolutely dive into character creation. So Absolutely. And so I guess the, like, big question that I have is, like, what, you know, what are the options slash steps for character creation, especially with the perspective of, like, you know, in the movies. Like, it is just a bunch of people. Like, it's just people. Like, it's not like, oh, yeah. We're already grand heroes or whatever. Like, do they reflect that as well within the 1 ring character creation? Yeah. You kinda start out as kind of, an average person or somebody that has gone on very little adventuring. And the biggest the biggest choice you make in character creation that kinda really defines Almost everything else about your character is what heroic culture you choose. Mhmm. So Some of the options are you can be a Hobbit from the Shire. Mhmm. You can be of the men of Bree. You can be a ranger of the North, kinda like Aragorn. Mhmm. You can be an elf from Lindon, which is an an Elvish, country off to the west. You can I'm Trying to think what other options are you can be a dwarf of Durrance folk. Mhmm. And based on what culture you choose, kinda helps. Instead of rolling your stats in the system, they kinda just give you a table to choose from. Yeah. You can roll the table to kinda make it a little bit random if you want, but it kinda sets the thing because, again, they're trying the system's really trying to reflect how those cultures were in middle earth during the time that they are recommending you play in. Yeah. Absolutely. So elves are gonna be naturally keen eyed. That's Mhmm. That that's just how it works. Men are gonna have this interesting, desire to be very much swayed by the shadow to go evil or good. Interesting. So your your hero culture really kinda defines a lot of aspects. Yeah. Sets the stage for everything. Mhmm. I love that. And that's a fun way instead of, like, being like, oh, choose your race. Like, it almost like it puts a little bit more weight in that decision because it's like you are, You know, you are deciding where you are coming from and and all of that. That's really cool. Yeah. And in a way, it it simplifies this character creation. Mhmm. Like, it you know, compared to trying to help somebody make a D and D character versus trying to help somebody play a the one ring character. Mhmm. The one ring does a much better job, especially introducing people to the system. It's a lot more more streamlined. It's a lot more bare bones. Mhmm. Like, hey. Let's make a character so that we can get to the story. Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah. We all wanna play. Like, we're not we're not spending, like, 2 hours trying to figure out how to make characters. And now I I am curious. How was your, you know, obviously, people can go and and watch and or not watch, but listen to your guys' character creation. But as a little bit, I guess, of, a sneak peek, how did you find, you know, as a group going through the character creation of 1 ring? Did you was it fast? Did you enjoy it? Were there any parts where it's like, I honestly found the character creation to be super simple. Like, you literally just choose your culture, pick your target numbers, pick your proficiencies, and then you're pretty much set. Yeah. Love that. Like, there's a couple other little nuances, but it's just it's super simple. Mhmm. And it's not it sounds like it's not a, class game. Like, there's no classes? No. You don't magically gain power as you kill goblins. Probably the closest thing to classes in the system is outside of the hero culture. The other the second probably biggest option you have is choosing what kind of calling you have. You can be a scholar. You can be a warden. Mhmm. You can be a a leader, a captain Where you have those instincts. But as far as mechanically going, Collins kind of more act as backgrounds if you're gonna compare it to, like, D and D. They kinda They kinda act as a subclass, but, mechanically, they act more as a, as a background words. Pretty straightforward. There's a couple little extra things to throw on to your hero of culture Mhmm. And you kinda move on from there. And then, of course, you still have an option where You have a certain number of of points, if you will, that you can start putting wherever. Just be like, oh, I want an extra d 6 on this skill. I want an extra d 6 on this skill. So there is there is There is a component where it's purposely the player themselves doing what they want on their character once they have that foundational culture and calling Yeah. Decide kinda what they wanna specialize in and, like, what they wanna be good at, you know, things like that. No. I I like that a lot. And, you know, I I I've, like, come more and more. I've liked, systems that don't have classes, but also there's, like, sometimes a fun thing with it too because, like, Dragon Vein, another freely game. Instead of, like, having traditional classes, they have, like, profession type things, where it's like, oh, you can be a scholar or a or a hunter and things like that. And, like, yeah, it kinda gives you something like abilities. It doesn't, like, do too much outside of that. Is that kind of similar to how those callings are? Do they give you any, I guess, how you're mentioning how the, ancestry stuff would give you, you know, keen eyes if you're an elf, stuff like that. Do those callings also give you something where it's like you gain a bonus where it's like, oh, let's say you're a scholar. You get this, like, you know, knowledge, and you're able to recite outings. Yeah. So we'll we'll kind of I'm gonna go off of Brandon's character that He had he had a had a dwarf kind of bard type thing. So he was a dwarf of Durin's folk. Mhmm. And the calling that, I believe you had chosen Brandon was messenger. Is that correct? Yeah. Oh, fun. So messenger yeah. So messenger is kind of that it's almost like it's a calling where it's it's also a profession where you're, essentially, you're delivering news. Mhmm. You're you're delivering important messages. Yeah. Literal a literal messenger. Yeah. But it allows you to travel, allows you to be kind of cultured in a unique way. Mhmm. It allows you to have been like, oh, I've dealt with people over here before. Mhmm. Because outside of the big kingdoms of middle earth, It's pretty much the wild with little pockets of civilization kind of Yeah. Sprinkled throughout. So in order to go from 1 pocket, you gotta cross over into the wild, Deal with whatever comes up during that point to get to the next pocket where you're trying to deliver the message to. Yeah. That's cool. So in this case, messenger, What the callings do for the most part is that they allow certain skills to be favored. So every time you make that skill because of your calling, You always roll with advantage on that feat die. So for messenger, the favorite skills are courtesy, song, and travel. Yeah. Like, I mean, it makes sense why you would choose that for kind of a bard type character. I love it. What are some of the examples of some of the other skills because it seems like this is more heavily like, you're you know, it's a it's a skill system, it seems like, versus, like, specifically rolling with stats like it is about the skills. Yeah. So Brandon mentioned earlier that there were 3 main stats that you have that everything else is based off of, and those 3 stats are strength, Heart and wits. Love it. And underneath each one, there are there are 6 skills associated with each one. Mhmm. Outside of weapons. Weapons have their own little thing, but we can get to that later. So A lot of the a lot of the skills associated with the messenger. So one is travel, and travel is under heart. Song interestingly, song is listed underneath strength. So a couple of them, I'm not entirely sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's your own like, your strength is song. Yeah? Yeah. Music? It could be that. Well, the way they word it is strength is like your force of being. It's not just physical strength, but just how imposing and impressive you are as a person, like how you put yourself out there. Oh, okay. Impressive you are as a person, like, how you put yourself out there. Oh, okay. Yeah. In D and D performance is labeled underneath charisma. If performance was a skill In the one ring, which probably would be closest to song, it's listed underneath strength because you're you're creating a presence. You're drawing attention to the song. Presence. Yep. That's That's actually good even like, that would be a good skill, like, presence itself. No. I love that. Yep. Exactly. There's some really interesting ones. There's, there's lore. Mhmm. There's riddle. Riddle's a skill. Yeah. And it's not just it's not literally just riddles. It's it's the it it's this it's the it's being proficient in that kind of mindset and in that mind skill Of being able to solve riddles. So when you're faced with an obstacle that requires some wits for you, riddle might not be a bad skill to try to roll. In this system, as long as you can justify why you're using the skill, then the lore master more often than not was gonna allow it. Yeah. So it's a system that heavily encourages you, like, use your strengths. Yeah. Come up with creative reasons why you can do this, you know, and and even put it to your advantage too. Like, yeah, how can I use riddle to, overcome the situation maybe where you're trying to talk with someone? I don't know, like, you you can try and go out out outside of the norms with that. Mhmm. Exactly. Yeah. There's there's there's lots of different skills, lots of options to be able to choose from, and that's and that's really fun fun to do. Yeah. Love it. And so, you know, you you did mention a bit of I mean, I think so this is again gonna come from me, really loving this land of Im game, where there's actually a lot of rules around travel and stuff like that. And I know, like, you know, lord of the rings, they go on this whole journey and all of that. Like, a big part of the story is that journey. Does one ring also have, like, kind of rules and, stuff set up for traveling in the game? Yeah. So there's 3, essentially, there's 3 adventuring phases in the one ring. There there is a travel phase Mhmm. Where you kinda roll. Often enough, you're required to make a travel check. Mhmm. And during that time, you can be waylaid by something minor. So it's not necessarily a combat scenario, but something happens while on the road because The joke is there are no safe worlds in Middle Earth. They're all dangerous all the time, and it's kinda true. Mhmm. And so in the travel phase, you would make travel checks and so forth to see how, not only to see if you get some interesting encounter. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Yeah. We also roll to see how fatigued you get. Yeah. And that fatigue could then, affect your load capacity. Mhmm. And if your low capacity is affected, then you you potentially become wearied, which Mhmm. Then spawns, you know, ill favored circumstances for your That things. Their character. That things start to happen. Yeah. It definitely kind of ricochets off into other aspects. Yeah. So because unlike D and D where you can just get a bag of holding, this system's like, no. Those don't exist at all. Who remotely like that. You it's either your person or or your pony. Which which one is it? You have to carry your shit like a normal person. Yeah. Yeah. No. I I love that, though, because, again, like, part of it is that journey. You know, those are elements that matter. And so, like, making sure, like, yeah, you can only carry so much. And that's what I do like about some of these more grittier games where they're like, yeah. No. You do have to track your actual inventory. You know, you do have to keep an eye on that because these are things that are going to matter later in the game and may mess you up while you're traveling. Though I I I I very quickly want to ask about so, like, when you're going on the roads and stuff, like, yes, sir, you know, there's always a chance that something bad can happen, they're all dangerous, things like that. Does 1 ring have, like, random, like, random encounter tables or things like that to kind of help with those ideas while you're at least for a GM. Yeah. No. It they do have tables in in this book That you can roll from because I'm a big fan of random tables. Yeah. I I just bought the I don't know if you know the game master's establishment. Book of it's my it's one of my favorite purchases ever. I love that book so much. I've already been using it. You would love land of Eden so much because that book, Like, they have literally a whole, PDF that is filled with random encounters. Like, it it is so amazing, which is, again, why I was asking about because it's, like, again, very there are similarities between the games. And so I I am curious if there are even location specific too. Like, if you are traveling through, See, this is where my lack of Lord of the Rings knowledge comes in. Yeah. It it depends. There is, there is a map provided in the book. Mhmm. It kinda has, like, It it's a map almost for the travel phase in a way Mhmm. In which there's it's just kind of a hexagonal pattern over this portion of Middle Earth. And the portion of Middle Earth that the the core rule book and the system heavily focus on is a place called Eriador. In Eriador, that's Probably the most common places you'll hear of is the Shire, the town of Bree Mhmm. And, like, Rivendell. Like, those are 3 big places that people know of from the movies, and those all are in that region in the middle are called Eriador. And it'll show a place like, oh, here's some civilized land in green. Mhmm. Here's some wild land. Yeah. And here's some dark land. Like, it gets even more sketchy. And I I love how that And I love to have that just feels like it can make the traveling not so boring too. Like, it can make things siding when you are going through these different lands. There's actual places on the map that you can, like, travel through and that can have something there versus sometimes in D and D games or at least D and D is not meant for travel. Like, there's no, like, really good travel rules or anything. So sometimes it can be like, if you focus on travel, it can feel like, why are we doing this when, like, there's nothing there to kinda support to make it fun. So I love that they did that with 1 ring. Yeah. No. So yeah. And it's it gives you tables for, like, How, how in-depth the encounter is. Mhmm. It goes it ranges from a joyful sight to terrible misfortune. Of it. So and and everything kind of in between. I mean, it definitely still encourages the lore master to be creative and to Even though the world may be kind of established there, that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of things for the loremaster to come up with while while running the game. Absolutely. So it it does that. And I just said, there's definitely rules. There's a whole section on the journey phase or the travel phase. And I mean, one of the first things you do when you go into the travel phase is that it actually assigns journey roles to each member of the party. Oh. And if the party's small enough, Then people double double dip. And if it's large enough, then some people may not have anything to do. Mhmm. You know, you What are these roles? Yeah. So the role so there's a guide Mhmm. In charge of all decisions concerning route, rest, and supplies. There's the hunter in charge of finding food in the wild. There's a lookout, and then there's a scout in charge of setting up camp, opening up new trails. I do have to say that in our playthrough, we all picked the wrong rules because we didn't know what we'd be doing. We're like, oh, this name sounds like it would work, and it's like, oh, do this role. It's like, wait. What? Yeah. Unfortunately, the the trial like, the the journey phase in our actual play because we're only doing a 1 shot Yep. It's hard to fit all these phases in, you you know, like a 3, 4 hour run. Oh, for sure. And the journey phase was that part that we kind of just kinda did the bare bones, kinda just skimmed over the top Mhmm. During the actual play so that we can we can fit everything in. So but it it was kinda interesting, because I know initially, I think my wife, she was playing a ranger Mhmm. Because she wanted to be female Aragorn, and she kinda was female Aragorn. Love it. And she you know, it's funny because she had the hunting skill, and she didn't choose hunter as her as her role. And I think there was some, like there was kind of some last minute changes, but I think people either, It was there were skills associated with it that they weren't super great at or they just they just rolled bad. You know, it happens. Yeah. And so I think if we you know, after playing it a couple times, we would have this down pretty well, Pat, and Mhmm. It would probably be a much smoother and much more enjoyable phase to go True. Yeah. So I mean, I I even love you mentioning the fact that you did have a little bit of struggles with it because, yeah, that that is so easy to do. It's so easy to mess it up or not even mess it up, but make the mistake. Like Mhmm. Oh, wait. I didn't actually real like, I have like, I'm sure everyone has an experience of making a D and D character and putting the stats the wrong way or or picking the wrong subclass or some or, like, specializing in the wrong things. Like, it's so easy to do that, and and that's the same thing for other systems. Doesn't mean it's the end of the world because you can just kinda do your own thing to work around it. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, we always joke that's the reason why we're called the nat one nerds is because We don't always roll very high, but it it it is a very interesting phase to to go through in the system for your Mhmm. It's and it can be pretty enjoyable, and it doesn't have to be necessarily very lengthy either. It's just, hey. Here's some mechanics. Because, really, it's one of those phases where if you really wanted to, especially in playing a You don't have to do it. Yeah. You can skip right over it. Yeah. But if you're doing, like, a long campaign, or just really wanna dive in and just Really get all the potential that the system has, then absolutely do the journey phase. It can it can be just as fun. I'm curious for your guy, in your guys' opinion. Would you want to explore the journey phase further, like, more than you did on 1 shot? Yeah. Yep. See, that's why you gotta play longer games. Like, you gotta be like, alright, guys. We're gonna be playing 1 ring so that we can take advantage of this awesome system. Brandon, you heard her. We're playing 1 ring ring again sometime soon. So alright. Season 2, not 1 nerds is gonna be all just a 1 ring playthrough. Exactly. Yes. Sometimes decisions have to be made, and sometimes you just have to play 1 game. No? I love that. I mean, I I support that. Like, do it. Like, have a great time. Do a podcast within a podcast that's all about the one ring. Exactly. I mean, why not? Well, I'm I'm actually this is Other shows get spin offs, where can't we? Exactly. I mean, I've I've seen there's quite a few shows that will literally do just mini arcs of of certain games where they're like, we wanna actually just explore this more thoroughly. So we'll just play for, like, 20 sessions and then, you know, complete a whole story, but You don't have to commit to anything super, super long because sometimes people will, like, you know, record for one day, and that will be 2 episodes. So, like, you could have something that gets, where you get to experience that longer story and not have to have that much of a commitment, which I think would be really cool see from you guys, especially with how much you love lord of the rings. Like, that would be really awesome. I'm supporting bad habits maybe, but it's fine. I am curious, though, if you guys have you know, on the show so far, you've covered 4 games, correct, in in the 1st season? Are there any of them that you do have that urge to make into something longer, like, play for longer? I have actually considered, exploring more of the one ring. Like, I've talked to Brandon because Freely already has expansion books. They they have 2 currently, and they're coming out with a third, which the third one I'm very excited about because it's all about Moria. Mhmm. And the depths of the mines, and it's such an iconic location in middle earth. Mhmm. And if you're if you like the dwarves at all or just thought it was cool in the movies, like, Oh my gosh. Like, there's a whole expansion now for it. So, you know, depending on how Christmas comes around or or whatnot or or whether I just have a super weak moment on Amazon or whatever. I probably will end up eventually purchasing that. Mhmm. And I've looked at Brandon, and I was like, I would love To revisit the 1 ring with one of these expansions and maybe do episodes based off, like, hey. Here's a bonus episode because Parker really likes Lord of the Rings, and let's talk about the expansion from Free League Publishing all about Moria or Yeah. All about the lone lands, which is this Very desolate region that there's not a whole lot of lore from Tolkien about. And it's an expansion I'm sure Free League had a little bit more creative license with Mhmm. To do with. So they have a whole expansion book, and it's even a smaller section of Eriador, and they have full extension for it. So We love that so much. Or even doing, like, another another, you know, kind of, you know, 1, 2 shot actual play episode again of the 1 ring with those like, hey. Here's a discussion episode about it, and then, hey. Let's actually utilize this expansion book in that's that can inspire another adventure in Eriador with with this group. So Yeah. I love it. And, actually, Brandon, because you need to bounce Thank you for coming on and doing this. My wife just texted me saying she's really hungry. Oh, you are all good. Thanks. Parker can cover I trust his knowledge with 1 ring and Lord of the Rings. Yeah. He's got it. I'm more here to rein him in when he starts going a Crazy self. Alright. I'll I'll I'll take up that job. Alright. Yeah. But thank you so much for coming on. So much. Yeah. Thank you. Alright. Have a great night. You too. Alright. Awesome. Yeah. So, you know, this has been a fantastic dick chat so far about 1 ring. And, I mean, this is great that at least Brandon wasn't the, lore master because I do want to start getting a bit into the lore master stuff. Hey, everyone. It is time for the midpoint break today as Brandon hops off this episode, and we will be continuing the rest with just Parker AKA our lore master. Now I'm very excited about this because we get to start to dive into some of the lore master parts and even deeper into the game because this is actually really a fascinating game. Like I said at the beginning, I'm not really a lord of the rings fan, but I really like this setting, and I really like the world that is around lord the rings, and it actually really makes me wanna give the movies another shot and maybe look into the books. But I'm not a reader, so we'll see. But I wanna say, hey. Thank you for listening to this episode of the RPG Goblin. I really hope that you're enjoying it. And if you are, please make sure to give us a review because it's gonna be really helpful because we are still in the month of November right now, which means we are still trying to get to a 1000 listens during the month of November. We are, at the time of recording, about 70% away from this goal, and we still have about another week when this episode comes out. Now how can you help? Well, you can make sure to give the RPG Goblin a listen. Obviously, if you're listening to this episode, thank you very much. But if there are previous episodes that interest you that you haven't listened to yet, please consider giving them a listen now so that we can start pushing closer and closer to our goal and have a TTRPG party, which which will be amazing. You can also recommend the RPG goblin to a friend, which will be awesome. Get them to start playing more TTRPGs with you. That'll be great. You can also share the RPG Goblin on all social media, anything between, like, hey. Go check out this podcast or even just resharing stuff that I'm posting. That would be awesome as well. And finally, they'll leave a review, which is a great way to show that you are enjoying the show because it helps keep it going for me as well. So all of that just to say, let's get to a 1000 listens by the end of November. We are literally 70% of the way there. We are so close, and we are coming to the last week in November. And I believe that we can do it so so that we can have a TTRPG party, have giveaways, guests, and all that fun stuff. Now for today's episode's promo, we have a promo from the monstrous playbook. Now I just wanna say thank you to these guys for reaching out to me because they wanted to their stuff about the November goal. But I was more than happy to have their promo on my show as well because they are a monster of the week actual play podcast. Isn't that amazing? Monster of the week is one of my favorite games as you may know. Let's listen to the monstrous playbook to see what they're all about so that you can go listen to their show and learn monster of the week. So, yeah, let's get into that. My name is Johnny, and I'm the host, executive producer, and prince of lies For the monster's playbook. What's the monster's playbook? It's an actual play monster of the week podcast set in my hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Where no monster can hurt you as badly as you can hurt yourself. It's a character focused adventure where you'll meet Keira Ashwood, A journalist with a cult past she's desperate to atone for and a secret power hidden even from herself. Casey Davis, a taciturn secret agent becoming disillusioned with the agency she thought she could trust. Theonessos, A professional sorceress trying to escape the shadow of her powerful magical family. And Mark Clayton, a pretty haunted introvert Who just wants to make sense of his powers and all the weird things that keep happening to him. This is a show where danger could just as easily come from an otherworldly threat As from the fragile emotions that anchor our characters and bind them together. If you like Buffy the vampire slayer, the Dresden files, or any City set supernatural story with monstrous threats and messy feelings, check out the monster's playbook. New episodes every other Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, this is great that, at least Brandon wasn't the, lore master because I do want to start getting a bit into the lore master stuff unless if you think do you think there's anything else that, at least player facing or at least general mechanics? Oh, wait. Is there other, sorry. Are there other, not tiers, but are there other Phases? Phases. Yes. That's what I was I'm like, hold on. There's supposed to be some Yeah. So there's there's a whole section that, I haven't been able to personally get into quite yet. There's a whole fellowship phase. Mhmm. In the fellowship phase, all that really is is just a chance for the fellowship to unwind, recuperate from adventures if they've been wounded. Yeah. Because if you're wounded in the one ring, you're actually wounded. You break that leg, It has to heal naturally. There's no cure wounds to to just fix it or a long rest, which I don't know why there are even players to begin with in D and B because you can just take a long rest, and it just fixes everything. And your leg will be fine. It it will heal itself somehow. Mhmm. Yeah. And then depending on when you reach certain milestones, it's definitely I would say that this leveling up system is a milestone Mhmm. And, like, how most D and D campaigns are run nowadays Yeah. For sure. Where it's and it's it's it's a special fellowship phase called, like, a, like, a Yule phase. Mhmm. Where it's like a you know, metaphorically speaking, like, hey. We accomplished something really big. Now let's kinda like, oh, you know, you're able to get a couple Additional d sixes where do you wanna put them at Yeah. You know, type of thing or if you wanna take on another virtue. Because one aspect of character creation that you can also do is you can embody cultural virtues, and it's a list of virtues that are associated with the culture that you're a part of. Yeah. You know, with the hobbits, they have their list of virtues that you can pick from, and you can do it in any order or not do ones Mhmm. Depends on what you wanna do. For instance, if you're, Yeah. So, in instance, if you're a hobbit, I should backtrack. You do start with 1 basic virtue, And there's this kind of a general list Mhmm. That you can pick from. It's kind of a smaller list, but people can pick from that list and be like, some of them are pretty straightforward simple. Some of them are a little bit more complex. Mhmm. Do you have any sources? Yeah. So let's let's look at some examples here. Because I love flipping through this book because this book makes me makes my soul happy. Free league books are so fun to flip through. I only have, The only, like, actual, like, big free league book that I have is Vaesen, and I love going through that so much. It just feels like a tome. Like, yes. Like, look at all the cool monsters. Well, I love the artwork too. Oh my gosh. Side or, like, the borders. Like, it's just so cool looking. Like, I feel like I'm looking through a tome that is kind of middle earth ish. It's it's really cool. Oh, I love it. So for virtues, I'll go over the basic virtues real quick, that you can pick from. One is confidence. Raise your maximum, hope rating by 2 points. Mhmm. You're, you're dour handed, your the hardiness, mastery, nimbleness, prowess. So kind of really general Mhmm. Type stuff. I just also realized I listed off words that you're like, does that mean in the system? I have no idea. Nimbleness. Yeah. I mean, like, I I believe it means something. Yeah. So, like, for instance, Since, like, mastery is a pretty straightforward one, choose 2 skills and make them favored. Mhmm. You just get favorite roles on the next level. Like a bar bar type thing in D and E. Yep. Type thing. Yeah. Yeah. Abs absolutely. One is prowess. Lower one of your attribute target numbers by 1. Oh, thank you. The the the threshold to succeed just got lower for you, which Love that. It's all kinda almost like you go 1 up in armor class. It doesn't seem like a lot, but, oh my gosh, you can make a huge difference. Yeah. I I always pick defense, By the way, when I play a paladin and choose a fighting style, I always pick defense. Yeah. You always We're pretty hard class. I have tortured I have tortured a DM with just going full defense on a paladin before. Like, you will not hit me. Like, you you can't even try. If you really wanna do a broken thing, Brandon actually played a character for a few sessions when we were first playing D and D together. He did a war forged, all the war. Yeah. Artifice or with a shield. At level 1, his armor class was already 20. Oh my god. So There's some broken, broken belts that you can do. Yeah. But we probably should get back on topic here because so, yeah, those are some of the basic ones. To give just one example real quick, if that's okay, from, like, the more, like, cultural virtues that you get from. So one of them so, like, virtues of the hobbits. One of the things hobbits are known for is that they're kinda small and nimble, and they can kinda just disappear. They don't generally like the big they don't like the big folk. So they just like, oh, just and it's interesting because hobbits don't have any magic about them, But this ability is just so uncanny to anybody outside of the the race of hobbits or the culture of hobbits that they still view it as supernatural. Oh, that's cool. And so on the system, you have this ability to do art of disappearing. Mhmm. If a location or a situation offers even the smallest opportunity to hide or sneak stealth silently away, you can make a stealth check. If you get one of those, success icons from your d six, Mhmm. You can spend 1 to just simply disappear. Oh, that's actually cool that you can, like, spend it too. Mhmm. Oh, man. I love that. And I'm I'm assuming that as well is just a strictly, like, hobbit thing. Like, you can't get that as any other No. You you can't because that's that's very much in line with, again, with the legendarium that Tolkien had created. So And I think that's Great, though, because then that does mean there's some diversity between, like, the people in your party, especially if you're like, hey. 1 person's a hobbit, 1 person's a dwarf. They can't pick the same thing and have basically the same ability. Which I think encourages a lot of, a collaboration at the table both, and storytelling ones. Oh, yeah. For sure. Which then builds a better unified table, which then helps your friendship and Mhmm. Overall. So yeah. It's I I kinda like that. So in some ways, it might be kinda limiting a little bit, but Mhmm. I think the I think the benefits outweigh the the the disadvantages to that. Yeah. No. I I agree. And, again, it does it it makes everyone feel a little bit more special too because then, again, they have those abilities that are only that only they can do. And you don't have that situation where, hey. You have a whole party in D and D and everyone can heal, and the 1 person who plays the cleric is like, oh, well, then, like, my one main thing being able to heal is kind of like, it's not special anymore. So I I like that approach with, like, limiting it a little bit because I don't think limits is bad in the game. Limits can open up more creativity of, like, what you can do. You No? Just because it limits one thing doesn't mean it limits everything. Yeah. Exactly. It it really depends on your point of view. You can view it as super limiting or you can is not. Yeah. And what I like about the system is that though the target numbers are really high or they at least they can be really high, There's still plenty of opportunities. Like, the fact that you only have the chance to get a nat twenty rather than also getting a nat one Yeah. In most situations, That's that's kinda cool right there. So you can succeed there. You know, if you have extra additional dice, there's those, like, mini nat, you know, the mini net twenties, quote, unquote, that you can use to and you can cash them in so the more you roll. And it's kinda surprising how often sixes came up. Mhmm. I know, like, during our combat scenarios or in the actual play, people were rolling sixes on their additional dice with their favorite you know, with their proficient weapon that they were using. And they're like, Yeah. I'm gonna cash it in to do a, to do a to do a hard blow, which is gonna double the damage, Like, just right off the bat. Mhmm. And they didn't even roll, like, the the nat twenty on the feed diet, but they got they beat the target number, and they got that success. And they're like Mhmm. I'm like, okay. Like, they didn't give you the turn, but he's dead already. So, like, it's fine. It sounds like, combat's pretty quick or at least can be. Yeah. It can be. Because because the character creation is so streamlined, I feel like the combat gets a little bit more streamlined a little bit. It definitely depending on the combat scenario, it can feel a little bit like, oh, your turn to hit, your turn to hit, your turn to hit. It can potentially feel that way. But if you do it right and you know? Because, again, this unlike D and D, this isn't combat centered system. Yeah. It's a storyteller. It's It's focused on narrative. It's a narrative based system. Mhmm. So in combat, you essentially, you can Do you can do more than just hit things too. Mhmm. What's kinda interesting with combat is that one of the first things you choose every single round is what kind of stance you take. If you take the forward stance, you can roll your attacks favored, but then if an enemy comes after you, They can do a favorite as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. I've I've I've heard a few games that do similar things like that where they have these, like, diff like, you have to choose how you approach this combat. I love it. Okay. Sorry. Continue. This is great. No. Absolutely. And what's nice is that if it doesn't work out that round, you can just change it next Rome. Yeah. Absolutely. You know? There there's a there's a defensive stance where you you you kinda you're at a kind of a disadvantage of some but so is the enemy toward you. So if you're kinda running low, I'm just gonna hope for the best, but at least that would be a little safer. You know? Like yeah. Which makes sense. You're trying to defend yourself Yeah. And and whatnot. So it's it's really interesting. And then there's also options where if you don't wanna, like, physically attack somebody Mhmm. You can still choose a, the stances come with ability. So if you do, like, a a forward stance Let's see if I can find that list here real quick because they are kinda cool. Mhmm. If you do the forward stance, you can you can do, like, an intimidation Essentially. Uh-huh. Because you're so aggressive, like, that's intimidating. So you can kinda use your action to do that. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And what these tasks can do, I should say, is that whether forward, open, defensive, rearward, they each have this this special ability that you can substitute your your physical attack for Mhmm. That usually acts as a boost to your fellowship. Yeah. So if you intimidate the foe so, like, your opponents could be made weary. Mhmm. You know? And that's that's something you don't want. Mhmm. There there was one that was kinda really cool that I really liked. Oh, so in open so if you choose the open stance and do that combat task associated with it instead of the physical attack. Any members of the company fighting in forward stance gain an additional 1 d 6 on their On their attack. Oh, yeah. That's good. Now each time for these tasks to work, you do have to make a role. Mhmm. So for instance, for that one, it's in a in a hearten role Mhmm. Which is under your heart stat. Mhmm. Mhmm. So if you can succeed on beating that heart target number with your in heart and roll with however many d sixes you may be, attached to that skill depending on how well your character wants to be in that. Mhmm. You you can potentially give everybody an extra d 6 or sorry. Yeah. An extra d 6. I love that. So which can make it a difference. Yeah. Because it's it's fun being able to actually, like, support your party because I feel like, you know, in in D and D, there are, D and D is always gonna be the comparing thing, but in D and D, I feel like there aren't too many abilities that do support, like, your friends. Like, sometimes you don't always want to attack. Sometimes you do want to try and put others at an advantage Another than, like, help like, the help action, which everyone always forgets about, I always forget about it, like, it's so easy too. It's like, there aren't too many things other than, like, healing or, I guess, enhanceability. Like, those those are ones that can help your party, but being able to have that being able to have that stance, succeed on that check, and then actually help your party with whatever they're doing, so cool. Yeah. And that's that's what I really like about this system. Because I feel like in D and D, if you want to be that supporting character, You almost have to commit to that type. Mhmm. So, like, if you, like, you choose to be a bard. Now granted, it's a combat system, so everybody can fight. Everybody can do But there are definitely classes where that's absolutely all you do. You know? Your paladins, your barbarians, your fighters. But if you wanna be a supporting, it's almost like, you know, like the wizard. Mhmm. Yeah. He can technically fight, but he's Probably not going to because, you know, a 1 d four is gonna take them out practically at low levels. Staying in the back, like, doing Yes. Staying in the back, like, You know, like, healing word or oh, oh, retreat guys. Retreat. Fireball. Oh, we didn't get out of the way fast enough. Sorry. Yep. You know, Anybody can be supporting. Anybody can be frontline Mhmm. In the system. It just depends on that particular scenario. And it's almost like a, almost a camaraderie too, like, being a group. Absolutely. Yeah. Because, again, it's that narrative focus. So if The more collaboration and camaraderie there are, the better your narrative is gonna naturally be Absolutely. You're making the story together, and it's your story. I love it. So So cool. Yeah. Yes. So but, yeah, the the combat phase is definitely is definitely pretty pretty unique versus D and D. There are you do kinda have a somewhat bonus action a little bit. It's a bit more limiting than in D and D, and whatnot. So but, yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty much you know, for the most part, that's combat. I will say that the weapons are already determined. It's already predetermined how much, It's not HP. It's endurance. Your your health is essentially your endurance, which by the way is also tied to your weariness or sorry, your load, Which can then potentially if you get to Oh. It just Yeah. It just seems like it's just. Yeah. So every decision you make in the system Needs to be there has to be a little bit of thought put into it. You can't just do willy nilly per se. I mean, you can. Don't get me wrong. I mean, that's, You know, you you can absolutely do that, but, but the weapons are needs. Yeah. Always need to make a decision that's It's gonna actually, like, not be dumb. Yeah. So weapons already have pretty determined amount of damage. So if you hit, you cause this amount of the endurance loss. Yeah. Makes it easy. Like, write it down. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's just kind of it's very straightforward. So it kinda helps, so it it still allows you to roll dice for sure, but it also kinda just kinda cuts away at a little bit of the extra fat to to combat. And so it it I mean, just makes it just that little bit faster. Yeah. It's fun rolling dice with just being able to be, like, alright. You know, this does 4, and now, like, okay. We get that done. I hit that. Those 4. Move on to the next first and then you can kinda keep rolling like that. And I am curious. Is there any sort of, like is there something like an initiative or anything like that that is within the ring? It's determined by the stance choice. Oh, okay. So everyone So Even even month or I guess I wouldn't say monsters necessarily, enemies also do that as well? So that is the case for enemies, but the first and foremost rule for combat is that the fellowship goes first. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Now it now if the enemy is surprise ambushing them type thing, that's a little bit different. But in general, You know, when you kinda come head to head, the fellowship members go first. Mhmm. And whoever does forward stance goes first. Whoever does open stance goes next, Defensive and then rearward. And then whatever the monsters choose, they go in that same kind of order. Mhmm. That's so cool. And I like the I like the fellowship first because, again, a lot of this is, like, you know, that that almost like common man's journey to, like, this heroic quest in all of that, and, like, it it's almost putting them at a bit of a advantage within the game, but that doesn't mean that it's gonna be easy. Like, they may have the advantage, but it's not gonna be like, oh, rambos and butterflies. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that's what kinda counters that because I know when we, You know, we're talking about the one ring on our podcast. A couple people that had done the actual play with us Had commented that the target numbers were like, we felt like they were kinda really high. Mhmm. And, again, you're you're in a world where where Sauron has pretty heavy influence over the entirety of Middle Earth. Whether he has direct control of it or not, he's still influencing it in negative ways, And so you kinda have to combat that a little bit. Mhmm. But the the system also allows you as you said, like, for Kept rolling. I don't know what it was. My my wife was a player, and she rolled sixes so much during combat. She's doing all this, like, extra cool stuff and damage. And I'm like, I literally didn't even have a prayer for this guy to even get to his turn. Like, we didn't even finish the full round. My wife would just, like, just obliterate them. And so the system, like you know, it may seem kinda hard. And, again, it's it's meant to be a little hard. It's meant to be a little challenging. If it's too easy, it's not fun. Yeah. But the system does does unique ways to kinda help balance it out. Mhmm. So it's like, That might seem hard, but, you know, when you start playing it, you start to slowly realize that, maybe it's not as Hard as I thought it would be. Exactly. Hard, but not that hard. And so it it's kinda nice. Yeah. There's a bright side. Mhmm. I mean, there's the hope a little bit. You know? There is that that hope. And I do want to touch on very quick. You you were mentioning, like, even before that, you can, like, spend those sixes on things, and specifically in combat, like, being able to spend it on, like, a hard blow where you're able to do extra damage. Are there other, I guess, like, kind of maneuvers like that that you can spend those, sixes on either in the combat or in any of the other phases? Yeah. Absolutely. So, since we were talking about combat. Mhmm. So if you roll if you beat number 1, if you beat your target number and you get a 6 on one of your additional dice, You can do, kind of some special damage. Mhmm. So for instance, probably a very popular one for a lot of people, I know it was very popular with the 4 of us, was the heavy blow option. Mhmm. Yeah. Of course. You spend, yeah, you spend 1 success icon to inflict to your adversary and additional loss of endurance equal to your strength rating. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, and then if you're using a 2 handed weapon, you can increase that by an additional one. Mhmm. So Oh, that's nice. By the way, HP doesn't go up to a 100 and something stupid. Like, it it's not this constantly whittling, whittling, whittling, whittling. Like, obviously, it's a TTRPG. They're kinda, For a lot of system, there kinda has to be a certain amount or else it'll be over too fast. But, you know, when you kill something, you kill something in the system. Yeah. And it scales too. So even if it's not super high numbers, you're not gonna be you know, everyone doesn't have, like, hundreds of health, but they're not doing, like, 50 damage. Like, that's not possible because it scales itself down, and it almost makes some of the math a lot easier too. Yeah. Absolutely. Another option is you can, you can do a shield thrust. You can if your strength is greater than the target's attribute level, spend 1 success icon to push Back your target. Yeah. The adversary has inflicted a penalty losing 1 d for the length of the round. So, essentially, you can use shield for us, and they lose a d six. Mhmm. Should they end up hitting, they lost a d 6. Yeah. Or they lost d 6 to even try to hit you To beat Mhmm. To beat their target number that they have to beat. Oh, that's cool. There there are definitely different options. And, obviously, in a lot of common scenarios, heavy blow is kind of a popular one as I said, but Yeah. There are a couple other options as well. Yeah. The other thing too that you can do is that if you roll a 10 or that 12 On the feet die to attack, you can do what's called a piercing blow. Oh. And a piercing blow, you have to beat their protection value. So instead of just a straight up AC number, there's a couple little more mechanic to it. There's there's a parry rating, there's a protection and whatnot. But if you can beat those and get through, Then they have a piercing blow, and they are now officially wounded. And for most enemies, I would say 90% of enemies in the system, if they're wounded, They're dead. Yeah. They're dead. So That's that's the thing as well with, like, some combat in D and D. It can be like, oh, man. You're trading blows, you're stabbing people, and it's like, okay. After, like, 2 stabs, I feel like you would be dead by now. Like Yeah. How are you not bleeding out right now? Yeah. Like, What's going on here? Like, sure, maybe every round lasts 6 seconds, but still, you just got stabbed in the chest. Like, what's happening here? Yeah. The We got exploded by a fireball. Yeah. Or the road did sneak attack damage, and it's just like, like Like, if you Like, I I love the more narrative approach to systems because it can be like, you know, that moment when the rogue comes up behind the enemy and they get the drop and they hit that attack, and then it's like, okay. I am able to stab them straight through the back. Like, that should then be rewarded with, yeah, that enemy goes down. Like, you were able to accomplish all of that. You were able to go up behind them. You were able to successfully hit. You were able to do that damage. Like, why not be like, you know what? You actually yeah. You you you bring the enemy down because you did all of this just to get this one moment, and, like, I feel like it should be rewarded. Yeah. Exactly. And what's really great about the system is that combat Comic's definitely very much an option, but because it's narratively based, the book also encourages you not to immediately go into combat because While the enemy may die from a wound mechanically speaking, your character can still be wounded. And while you wouldn't die automatically, there's a severe consequence to it. Mhmm. So if you're wounded, you end up essentially rolling to see how severe the wound is. Some of them is, like, you'll recover in a few hours and You know, or you can be severely injured, which could be expressed in days Yeah. When you recover. Or you could go into the dying phase. Yeah. I played, dragonvein, and that and they have the same thing where it's, like, those critical wounds and those, like, injuries that, like, last for days. I know the 1 character ended up, like, breaking ribs, And it was, like, 5 days of, like, having, banes on, like, all of the strength based stuff and all of these things, which I think is so fun to explore in a longer form game too, like, where you actually have to play out those days. Mhmm. I love it. Yeah. So if you don't mind, there's actually 1 other phase I kinda wanna discuss real quick Oh, yeah. For sure. Before we move on, because it's one of it's probably my favorite phase in this entire system. Mhmm. It's called the council phase. Oh. And unlike D and D where you just make a persuasive for a persuasion check Mhmm. There's a whole phase dedicated to doing this, Depending. Now, obviously, if it's, like, minor role playing, then Mhmm. You know, just go through it. But, you know, because but in Middle Earth, there are lords and ladies that you come cross like Elrond in Rivendell. You can be talking to the mayor of the Shire. You can be talking about some noble coming over from Durin's folk, from the dwarves, because some of the some of the people or you could be talking to Gandalf even. Yeah. It's And then your yeah. In your fellowship, you have to present, essentially, it's it's almost like they've kinda turned these into, like, a mechanical debate that you have to do. Yeah. And so you first, you've you've the loremaster first decides how, how difficult it is of a rating from, You know, like a 3, 6, and a 9, depending on how depending on the request that the party or the fellowship is wanting to make. Mhmm. If it's pretty straightforward, maybe a 3. If it's Kind of asking a bit, you know, a 6. Mhmm. If there's not really any benefit to them, then it's gonna be harder. For sure. Which, depending on the rating, Then creates a time limit. Mhmm. And then somebody acting on behalf of the fellowship, they make a role, And they essentially can pretty much, for the most part, choose any skill they want. Again, as long as they as long as they can narratively justify it, then okay. Absolutely. Some chess sets. If you're choosing battle for your option, that that may not work. But for the most part Unless, though, you're trying to impress them through a battle, like, maybe to show your strength or something like that to then, like, get You just proved me wrong. That's okay. I I approve. I I I am always down for it. Yeah. You can you can make anything work if you try hard enough. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So free. Like, where you're going through a scenario where you're trying to impress some people where it's like, alright. You know, I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna show off in this battle. If I win, you have to do this for me. Hell, yeah. Let me show you my my, martial arts skills here real quick. So one of the examples they give is, You can you can roll in awe. There's an awe skill, like, you're kinda like song. It's kind of a a presence. Yeah. Presence based skill, were to impress strangers, to quickly Reveal as, you know or sorry, to impress strangers quickly, revealing much about yourself, like, just kinda being upfront and honest. You know, some people really appreciate the blunt and honest approach Mhmm. Courtesy to ask for support, especially from friends, or you could roll a riddle to extract information without revealing too much So that's where that kind of that riddle comes in. Yeah. So whatever skill they choose, they roll to see if they can beat the target number associated with that skill. If it's under hard, they beat their hard target number. If it's under wits, they beat their target number there. Perfect. So the role result determines the time limit of the council. That is the total number of attempts that the player heroes are granted as a group to present their case Before they are finally the the, dismissed. Mhmm. Now whether you succeed or fail in the roles, you can still do the council You can still talk to them whether you succeed or fail in the role. It's just a matter of what kinda consequence happens if you truly fail in this Council. Yeah. So so if you for each, for each 6 or each icon you get on the success dice that are attached to your feet die if if you have them. Mhmm. I will say if you try to roll a skill where you have no additional dice associated with with it, Chances are unless you roll a Gandalf, then I mean probably not gonna succeed. It's it's always possible. Like, it's it's like Mhmm. You shouldn't like, it's not like you should you should avoid it at all costs, but it may not be the best. You know, you may not be great, but it's it's fine. Yep. So for each icon you get, though, you get an additional attempt Mhmm. With with the council. Oh, yeah. If you fail, then at minimum, you still have that basic that that foundational time limit. Mhmm. But if you do fail, it It ends in a disaster, which is partly up to the lord master. So it's like not only do they just be like, no. This isn't for us. Thanks visiting us or, like Mhmm. We really don't wanna hear this just go away type thing. Like, it could end up, like, oh, guards. You know, like Yeah. You know, it's ending disaster. So in in our actual play in our actual play, we had such fun with the council phase because they started out in Rivendell, And they were talking to Elrond. Love it. Because they were going to a ruined elven city, associated with Elrond's, heritage and stuff like that. Elrond had been there before because elves live they're immortal in middle earth. Mhmm. And they each were trying to make an attempt, and one of the unique roles was was Brandon's dwarven dad bard. You know? Uh-huh. Because he chose song. Oh, yes. He decided he had written a poem About his experience in Rivendell as a dwarf because in Middle Earth, elves and dwarves do not get along at all. Mhmm. So The hospitality towards him was less than his other compatriots, and he actually expressed that in the poem. And I'm sitting here as a loremaster. I'm like, This poem ended better end really well, man. Like but he succeeded on his on his dice roll, and it was funny because he actually recites the poem. He actually the wall. As the player, and it was good. It was awesome. Yeah. I mean, like, just for that, go listen to the, actual Yeah. Just go yeah. If you wanna hear Brandon recite poetry, yeah. Go over that one notes now. Yeah. There There we go. There's just spin off right there. Improv poetry. Yeah. Improv poetry. It feels like that should be something. Yeah. Improv That'd be hilarious. That would be so good. To create a such his, like an actual play situation where where poetry is, like, The skill that you all should use. So Yeah. A bunch of, like, a bunch of battling bards where it's like, alright. Each of you do your like, Each of you create a poem and read it all for this challenge, and it's like, oh, wait. We actually have to create poems. Like, that would be so fun. Mhmm. So yeah. And so in in the council phase, each player then makes their own attempt. So once Spokesperson has gone, then everybody does. So in this case, we're we were given 3 chances because they failed on the initial role for the council phase, And and there was 3 players. So each person essentially had to succeed on their role. But Again, the target numbers are high, but there are options to help get to that number. Mhmm. Definitely. I will say about target numbers, if you do a 1 shot with this system, The book and I didn't see this when I first did this. There is actually a suggested rule where if you're doing a 1 shot or a very small campaign, the book's, like, Subtract from 18 instead of 20. Oh, to make it look like it's here. Threshold because you're not gonna you're probably not gonna really do a true level up. You're gonna pretty much The skills you have or what they are. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, sorry, guys. It's fine. Right? I mean, everyone was succeeding on things anyway. It's it's okay. Oh, yeah. Especially at the end, like, I couldn't get any hits on them hardly. Anyway, So and then the book obviously has some suggestions and stuff like that. And so at the end so at the end of the council phase, If they succeed, they're able to pretty much, for the most part, get what they requested. Yeah. If they fail let's see. If they fail, the opposite. But if it's a disaster, the book essentially says if it ends in disaster, so if they fail that initial role and then fail the council phase on top of it, The company is now seen as a threat by the folk encountered. Yeah. Yeah. So they may end up being in prison. It may be attacked, or they may just be heavily harassed, you know Absolutely. While while around that area. So even if they're Even if they're really ticked, they may not necessarily do anything directly, but they can still cause great misfortune to the to the fellowship or to the the company. Yeah. I I'm actually really curious. Did you run into any situations where anyone failed, like, really badly within your actual play? I'm trying to think if anybody truly failed because everybody essentially ended up succeeding Mhmm. During this council phase because they were pulling in their resources, which In this system, you wanna be careful how you use your resources Mhmm. But you want to use your resources at the exact same time. They're they're they're there for a reason. You wanna use them. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to think if anybody drastically failed. I know there was 1 player that rolled some eye of Saurons, but she wasn't she wasn't miserable, which is the condition you need in order to it To become a nat one, essentially. So she, I mean, she failed, but not spectacularly. I'm trying to think if there was an instance. They were just that cool. Like I think well, no. There was one. I think there was a scenario where as a lore master, I determined that somebody, I see. I think somebody, like, dropped their weapon or something. Nobody I don't think anybody truly Failed, failed, kinda not to the disaster level that Yeah. Of course. We just write about. Everybody ended up doing people were doing better than they think they were So which is which is good. I mean, as they're having fun, you know, but they still failed, and that's that's also okay too. Yeah. Absolutely. Failure is okay. It's an option. Failure is not. So but yeah. So those are just kinda some of the phases. Yeah. I like those a lot, and I like breaking even the game down into phases. Is like it it almost makes it more manageable. Like, okay. You know, we're going through the journey right now. We're going through combat. We're going through, oh god. What was the level up one? It's the Yule? The the fellowship fellowship. Fellowship. Yep. As in okay. Yeah. The fellowship phase, and then you have the council phase, and it's just like, okay. Yeah. These are each parts within that, like, kinda story, and they break it down for you. Yeah. And it allows everybody to to try something new. So If you're playing a very introverted character in D and D or even in Pathfinder or whatever, you're not gonna be doing a whole lot of talking. Your charisma stats are not gonna be very high at all. But in this system, it's like, well, if you're gonna present this argument to a council of people, like to a lord or lady. Mhmm. You you gotta talk. Mhmm. So how are you doing that? I think 1 player, she did lore. Mhmm. She talked about how, because the essentially, what they were debating was is if the if If the party as a whole could go do this task that Elrond wanted. Mhmm. Because he was just gonna send other people. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because he didn't wanna use this party, especially with their being a dwarf in there. Mhmm. And Elrond's a pretty lenient guy, but even he is not completely unfazed by his people's bias to or their their lack of respect toward wars. Because if you if you look in the movie, when Elrond's wishing the fellowship goodbye, he says, may the blessings of elves, men, and then it shows Gimli the dwarf, and then he says, Free folk. Like, you can't get the dwarf. So it's just like I'm just gonna lump the rest of the people with Mhmm. Aw. You feel like He has more respect for men than he does for dwarves. It's Mhmm. You know, it's so they're trying to convince, and so 1 player did lore to Try to convince them like, hey. You've you've had good relationships with the dwarves in the past. Yeah. And, like, we've we've done things together as a free peoples. Mhmm. You know, overall. And there's old alliances and stuff like that, and she succeeded on that role and so and whatnot. So It was it was very cool. It was very cool how creative they got. Yeah. And, again, as long as it's narratively justified, the system encourages you to build on those strengths. So Yeah. Yeah. You may not have a ton of skills where you have a ton of extra d sixes to use. Mhmm. But you can use the ones with d sixes attached to them. And that's and that's almost like kind of the charm of like, you know, you you're deciding like, hey, I wanna play someone who's really good at lore, who's really knowledgeable about these things. So it's almost like that's the natural thing. They're gonna try and solve situations using this thing that they are that is their specialty. So I think it even makes a lot of sense. Like, sometimes I think people can be like, it feels like power gaming, but, like, it's not really when that's what that character is good at. That's what they specialize in that they're good at it for a reason. It's not just because it's like, oh, I wanna make sure I roll good on everything, but, You know, I wanna be a knowledgeable character. I want to be able to approach a situation, say, hey. You know, in the past, you guys had a decent relationship, and, you know, we've done a lot together and all of that. I love it so much, and so I'm I'm curious for you, especially as a huge Tolkien fan. How did you find running, 1 ring? Like, what was your experience as a, lore master? I for my 1st time ever my 1st and so far only time lore mastering the system, I think the biggest challenge for me was that I almost knew too much. Mhmm. And I was so scared to inwardly break canon Yeah. Yeah. Because I have such huge respect for Tolkien. I mean, in reality, it's just in my kitchen with, like, 3 other people. Like, nobody really cares, but I do. So, And so I had to be like, okay. What can we do? What kind of adventures can we have that isn't gonna influence, events on too big of a scale. Yeah. Absolutely. Because, obviously, if it's too big of a scale, like, oh, let's go march to Mordor and just go, like, try to fight Sauron himself. Like, Number 1, you're all gonna die. Yeah. 1st session. Let's go. Yeah. Number well, number 1, you probably wouldn't even make it into Mora before you Before you die. Even if you do, you definitely will die. And Frodo kills Sauron via destroying the one ring, so can't have that happening. So, I mean, luckily, the system again, it focuses on a certain region of Middle Earth. So, I mean, people aren't gonna do that, hopefully. TTRP player is gonna do what TTRP player is gonna do. Yeah. Maybe they'll have their own offshoot version of that Yeah. Story and, you know, what they wanna be there. Yeah. So I I think for me, it was almost like I I thought it would be very helpful, but then I saw ways that it was at advantage. So that's why I say that you don't have to be a token buff Mhmm. To play this game, and you don't need to be a token buff to run the game. Yeah. Absolutely. As as long as you're, you know, as long as you read the core rule book and and you just are there to have fun and just To see the positives and to really build on those. Like, it's just as fun of a system as any other system. Yeah. I'm sorry. And, you know, there's almost an advantage to not knowing too much. Like, somebody that's only seen the movies, good introduction. They get a general idea. Yep. But then they, like, feel like they have more freedom to do these different things. Mhmm. So I love that, actually. Mhmm. After the actual play, I did think of a couple more, adventure ideas. So the adventure idea that we had was, I don't think it'll give too much away. Mhmm. But they went they were going after a rumored, plantier, which is a seeing stone. And in in lore, there's only 7 of them. And pretty much all of them are lost or destroyed or whatever except for 3. And one of them, Sauron has. Mhmm. Which is how Saruman communicates with them because they both have sing stones. And so that's very much. There there are only 7 of these. And And so in my lore is that Elvin Smith from the previous age of the world had attempted to see if they could somewhat Minorly, vaguely replicate one. And so it was a very minor one. It was very small one. It wasn't gonna be able to do a whole lot, but Mhmm. Elrond, if there there was rumors and that there was also rumors that the enemy was going around that area Potentially looking forward, and Elrond did not want them getting any more advantage than they already had. Mhmm. Because Elrond, being the wise man, he knew he would have known by this point that Sauron had or most likely had one of these stones, which now made them dangerous. So he's like, I don't need anymore. So he says if you either confirm that there isn't 1 or if you do destroy it slash bring it back. Yeah. So Love it. And so that that was that was the adventure. It's kinda breaking more a little bit, but it was to a point where it was It's kinda like what Free League was doing with the system. It was enough creative license to get creative, but not enough to, like, truly break lore and still be able to respect it. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's that's you know, when it comes to people playing the game, it's probably gonna be people trying to follow the lore and the stories a bit more thoroughly, especially if they're fans of, you know, the movies and and the Tolkien stuff. And there might be people that are like, you know, the world's cool, and I just wanna play with that instead of, like, actually worrying too much about, you know I need to make sure this line of events happen or or I need to make sure there's only so many of whatever. And that's why I do think your comment of, like, people who don't know anything, obviously, can still run the game and they're almost at it's not even an advantage, but it's it's a completely different experience at that point because you don't have all of that meta knowledge there of, like, okay. I need to make sure there's only 7 of these stones and and all of that. So I think that's really, really cool, and I'm curious if you would say that, like, almost those quest type, stories are, like, the ones that are really good at being told within 1 ring? I I would I would definitely say so. Mhmm. The system definitely encourages you to act as a fellowship company and to and to stick together and and really build on each other's, strengths and and to help each other with their weaknesses. Yeah. I love it. Because one of the ask one of the role what what's a really cool thing about the system is that the mechanics encourage not only the narrative, but there are mechanics built in that also just encourage the straight up role play. Mhmm. And one of those is that, Is that you can get shadow points, which is the influence of the shadow or the enemy or what or his influence. Mhmm. Because Sauron may not have dominion over those areas anymore, but his presence from ages past when he did kinda have a foothold, they still linger. Yeah. For show. In in Eriador, there's a place called Angmar. Mhmm. Kinda and that's where the witch king gets his name, the witch king of Angmar, that that main Nazgul character. He ruled that area, and that's where he was able to launch attacks in the Areador and really break that region down into what it is today. Because that region essentially fell, but it wasn't taken over. Okay. You know? There was reinforcements from Gondor and the elves that went north, and they were able to drive them away, but the people were shattered. And that's where we get the rangers. There are there are remains of a noble kingdom. Mhmm. So and but now they're just they're rangers that just wander the wilds, protecting us and what you know, protecting the few pox of civilization that are, that are that are left where they're not appreciated. Mhmm. I love that. Movie you know, in the movie, when Frodo says, who's that man in the corner that's been looking at us? Oh, he's one of the rangers. Mhmm. You know? Like, he can come in. He can spend his money. He can do whatever he wants, but He's a ranger. Mhmm. Like, it's just this but there there's definitely plenty of of storytelling To to be had here. Yeah. Absolutely. So, and so the the the the system does a good job, of still highlighting those influences that Sauron once had or his minions once had sway over. And when you come across certain scenarios, you have to roll a valor or a wisdom roll depending on the kind of shadow. Mhmm. Is it kind of attacking your your your mind, or is it kinda going after your heart a little bit here? And if you fail your your resistance role Associated with that that attribute, then you gain shadow points. And if your shadow either meets or beats your current hope status, then you become miserable. And that's where the potential for nat one Become reality, mechanically speaking. I like that a lot, and I like how it's almost like I I like how it's a kind of consequence or not even a consequence, but, like, an effect that happens that isn't like, oh, you know, you get stabbed or anything. But, like, it is, like, almost, like, mentally wearing you down and and all of that. And that's, like, kind of the big thing that you you don't want that to happen. Yeah. I know. And if you're influenced by the shadow too much, then you Start attaining negative attributes. You know? You becomes you know, for for dwarves, they might start becoming really greedy. You know, kinda like if you've seen the Hobbit movies, Thorin kinda had that dragon sickness thing happening that could potentially happen to your dwarf character. You know, if you're a ranger, your bitterness towards the civilized pockets just becomes too great. You're like, I'm tired of protecting people that don't, You know, value me Yeah. You know, all this kind of stuff. So you start developing these negative attributes and And whatnot. And, unfortunately, we haven't played enough to really see the full scope of those. Mhmm. But the fact that that's even an option is already very exciting. And I would love to do A long term or at least a long longer campaign or something with length with with this system. Like, any anything that's longer than 1 game, please. Yeah. Anything that's longer than 1 game. But tied in with the shadow is is your hope, And hope is a resource is a mechanical resource you have in the system, where if you spend a hope, you get an extra 1 d 6 to whatever type of role you're trying to make. Mhmm. Combat, out of combat, whatever. You can use it. But but what's what's the key is that the rules specifically state, If your shadow score meets or beats your current hope level. So if you spend a lot of hope, then your hope level is really low. So you could not get you can have this much shadow and you have this much hope and you're fine, but then you suddenly use 1 too many. You're getting shadow points, and it's it's not good. And now there are ways to get rid of those shadows. Mhmm. But it's a good idea to try to just simply avoid that as much as possible. Absolutely. It goes back to that. Use your resources absolutely, but these are how you use your resource. Yeah. Be very, very, very careful. Because there may be scenarios where you may have to just take 1 for the team and to get through the current situation you're in. Like, you're in a bad situation. 1 of your party members might be wounded. Mhmm. We need to kill off these buggers so that we can get out of here. I'm gonna take shadow. Yeah. Absolutely. Spend hope. You know? Because as long as you have hope, you know, even if below shadow, you can still technically use it. Yeah. Absolutely. The character that's off. Yeah. Like that trade off a lot. No. I think this this is really, really cool. I mean, again, I like I said before, we started to talk here. I'm not a huge lord of the rings person. I don't really know, like, the lore and stuff. I've watched the movies a few times, but it's, like, never been something that's really stuck. But this sounds really, really fun to play, especially with almost still being able to make those cons comparisons with, like, Land of Eem and stuff too, where it's like I can see where, like you know, they have a whole thing about dread and all of that, and so, like, I can get where that's, like, kind of the shadow instead. And, Like, it's it's really, really cool, and it makes me excited to try like, I really do wanna try this now, especially as someone who's not and and you say that it's not important to know the lore Makes me feel better about it because I I definitely don't know anything, but, I think though that we are probably getting pretty close to the end here. I mean, obviously, there's there's quite a few, like, GMing type things that we didn't quite cover. I mean, like, running enemies, I guess, is something that we could go about. But, like, I think that's even specific to you need to, like, kind of experience that you need to see, like, the stats and stuff. Like, we could go through it, but I think we're we're starting to get pretty, pretty long here. So I think no. It's it's all good. No. This has been great. It's it's been really awesome hearing about the game and hearing about, like, the lore and stuff and even your Your knowledge about it has just been really, really cool. And so I guess we will get to wrapping it up here unless you think there's anything, like, super important, like, that's, like, feel like something that's really important to the game that we haven't covered yet. If not, then I think that we can get to wrapping up here. I think we hit a lot of the highlights of the system. Obviously, there's a lot more to the system that, you know, I have yet to get to, and that Isn't you know, you can't cover every single thing in a single podcast episode. Oh, for sure. There's so many things. I'm not gonna try, and we didn't try that on ours. And we gave ourselves 5 episodes Yes. To to do this. And we still didn't try to do every single little thing, but I think we fit a lot of the the main highlights of the system and a lot of The the core mechanics of the system. And a lot of the beauty of it. It's it's it's a great Mhmm. Great game. Yeah. And, honestly, the core rulebook does a really good job of explaining things Mhmm. Which is really impressive because I know it would have come out, I believe, in, like, Swedish, I believe Mhmm. 1st and foremost, and then it would have been you know, because I believe it's Fear League is a Swedish company, I believe. Yeah. I I believe so. Oh, well, not I believe so. I know I know they are a Swedish company whether or not I know I I'm trying to. Do they come out with both Swedish and English translations of every book? I believe that they would. Like, that would make sense. Yeah. No. I I mean, that That makes sense. I mean, I'm just glad they did. Yeah. So thank you, Freelee Publishing, for Yeah. Publishing in English. We very much appreciate it. We love your stuff. Yeah. Thank you for sharing, like, all your amazing games with with the world that doesn't understand Swedish. Yeah. I I will say that, honestly, a lot of questions are I feel like this is a core rule book. This is one of those core rule books that, obviously, I'm a little biased toward Tolkien, so I'm gonna go in with a positive right off the bat. Mhmm. But it's one of those core TTRPG rule books that I just legitimately just enjoyed just sitting down and reading. Oh, yeah. For sure. So if anybody's worried about being a little overwhelmed, this is one of those books. It's okay. You can sit down and just read it. Mhmm. And if need be, you can look at the table of contents and kinda start at a certain section and kinda work however works for you. Yeah. Flip through. Jump around. Does a good job of giving of a lot of the major locations in Eriador, so lore shouldn't be an issue. Yeah. It's like I don't know anything. Willow, you could be a great lore master. So I could be a lore master one day. Yes. Yes. Just, you know, you can just go back and Read that chapter and read about the locations and kind of the brief history of Eriador. And Yeah. Just have an idea of it and Yeah. Go the head first into the game. I I love it. But, yeah, I I'd love to wrap up, though, because I really want to ask you my favorite question, especially because it just makes me really happy, and I know how much you love lord of the rings and and this game. So I just wanna know. So so far in your experience of of playing the game and reading it and all of that, do you have, like, I guess, a big reason of why you love 1 ring? It's a it's a difficult one to answer. It it it it is, but I think people anybody in the TTRPG community that's Should seriously consider the one ring just solely because, as mentioned, it is very narrative driven. Mhmm. It's very role role play driven system. It has built in mechanics and lore that will help Your table come together better than other systems will Mhmm. Just right from the get go. I love it. And and because it's so heavily invested in Tolkien, this system will also allow you to kinda learn those same lessons you would by reading the Lord of the Rings Mhmm. That you know, it's it's a small everyday deeds of people that keep evil at bay. I love it. Even the smallest person can change the course the future. Mhmm. You know, to hold to hold on to hope no matter how bleak the situation may be. Mhmm. You know, and to just, you know, be able to find that courage deep within you. You know? Just as Bilbo did when he faced Smog the dragon Mhmm. Alone. Somebody who'd never even been on an adventure before, and his first one is battling a dragon. It's like a level one character going against a dragon in D and D. It's like, oh, no. Yeah. I love it. But it's also to show too that, you know, violence Isn't the answer, and it's also not always a solution either. But it just It just allows you to have the full expansive role playing, and I think this system does a good job of getting the full tabletop experience. And so For for multiple reasons, I I recommended both, you know, mechanically speaking, literary token Viewpoint Mhmm. And and just, you know, and just for role playing reasons. It's it's just it's just a system that Does it out of the 4 we've explored and out of the ones I've heard about, this system, in my opinion, is the most well rounded. Mhmm. I love that. Absolutely. No. That's that's great. And I love just hearing people's, like even just their personal opinions of, like, why they love these games. You know, it just makes me really, really happy, and that was fantastic. I wrote a few notes of, like, even, like like, the hold on hope, however bleak. Like, that's just, like, really I love that so much. And I just wanna say thank you so much for coming on and talking about 1 ring with me because this was absolutely fantastic. And if anyone listening, you wanna know more about 1 ring, first off, you can go check out Nat One Nerds and their entire little miniseries that they did on 1 ring. They go over the character creation. They go over actually running the game. They go over, I believe, like, your advice on how to, like, GM the game and even, like, your thoughts of GM ing the game. And, like, they do this whole 5 part series, and it gives you a you know, they have a bit more time to actually explore some of these topics versus an episode, and you could hear it get played out. So it's a great way to actually experience the game for yourself without getting it yourself yet. But if you find it to be an awesome game and you find it resonates with you as a person, please consider going over to free league and getting the game for self because it's really, really sounds really cool. And I haven't played it yet, but I have played other freely games. I've read other freely games. They're all fantastic, so I can just just recommend them just from that. Like, I know it's gonna be great because it's free league. But, yes, please please Go and do all of that, and I guess, I'll do kind of one final thank you, Parker, so much for coming on, and thank you, Brandon, for coming on too. Unfortunately, he had to leave early, but that is okay. And I guess we will, the last thing we'll do here is if you just wanna tell everyone again, where they can find your show and where they can find you, on social medias, do that, and we will end the episode there. Yeah. So if you wanna find, Nat One Nerds, on social media, we're mostly active on Instagram. Mhmm. We also have a Facebook, and we also have a threads. We're kinda still figuring out the thread thing. We'll admit that. Because neither of us ever had done Twitter or anything like it's beforehand. So yeah. So it's a different platform, but you can find us on all 3 of those platforms to get podcast updates. Mhmm. You know, Just some general advice that we come across that we wanted to share real quick. I love it. Just some fun memes and stuff like that. Just just, you know, just kinda the simple stuff to, there's also some D and D advice as well on there just because it's such a popular system, so we we do a little segment. And that's the thing as well. Like, yeah. Even though a lot of us Don't want to play D and D. That doesn't mean we also don't have our love for the system and our own advice for the system and and stuff like that. Like, mine is like, it's It's still like, even though it's not everyone's preferred game, it's still a good game. It's still a game that a lot of people enjoy. So I I love that too. Yeah. No. We we we definitely recognize our D and D roots, and we respect it, and we're grateful we're grateful for Dungeons and Dragons Yeah. To getting us, You know, as the gateway drug essentially into this wonderful community. But, as far as the actual podcast, You should be able to find it on most podcast platforms as far as I can tell. Some of the bigger ones, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Mhmm. Google Podcast currently. That's going away soon, unfortunately. Because that's that's my that's my preferred platform from Honestly, from my podcasts. Find us on Goodpods, you know, Amazon Music, And whatnot. But we also there's also some that pull. So you can find us on there. Yeah. So we we appreciate anybody that listens to us. Thanks, Willow, for for having us on. Absolutely. It's always a pleasure and, you know, the fate accelerated, Mhmm. Episode. I I'm, like, trying to get like like, my mind's going faster than my mouth can go. The episode was fantastic, and this was even great to do as well. So it is more than more than my pleasure to have you guys on again. But, yeah, I think though that is the end. Thank you so much for coming on, Parker. Thank you so much everyone for listening and, I guess, watching as well because video, that's fun. And I think that is the end. So thank you so much, and goodbye.