Saturday 21 January 2012

First Taste of The One Ring

The other night we happily got back to some roleplaying after too long a time (nearly a year). One of the group has bought up The One Ring by Cubicle 7.

We went over the basic system tonight as a couple of the crew couldn't make it. To be fair it was down to Paul getting married on Saturday, so understandable and the best of wished to him and his missus to be.

Anyway I think it's fair to say that we are all looking forward to it. For those who know Dungeons and Dragons 4e it's the complete opposite from that. Combat is abstract, with no map to place miniatures on, rather the combat target numbers are based on how aggressively you are approaching that round of combat. Also the combat focuses not on wounding, but recognises that just fighting is a tiring business, so all attacks cause fatigue. So a heavily armoured dwarf can but beaten to the ground exhausted despite being in no danger of taking a wound.

There is also a great deal on party dynamics, roles with the party and saying true to your alignment, which is nice. . When stats like fatigue get low they can be boosted by luck. The interesting party is that the low number of luck points avaible for this is a PARTY pool, so everyone has to agree when and to whome these valuable points go. As the group are all friends it should not only work well, but create some amusing banter aside to the usual dwarf/elf name calling. Not that that's not fun.

Probably as I'm a wargamer I'm looking for some roleplaying in my RPGs now-a-days, and a bit less overcomplicated miniature moving (like D&D 4e). I have many other games that I play that are specifically designed for that. This game at first glance looks like it forces the issues and roles that usually get ignored for adventuring parties in most other rpgs. If it hold it's first impressions it may well become my favourite system to play, I'm looking forward to it that much!


1 comment: