Prologue Chapter 1, Shadows in Eriador, The One Ring 2E Solo Actual Play

Shadows in Eriador 

The One Ring 2E Solo Actual Play

Prologue, Chapter 1

Welcome everyone to my The One Ring 2E (using Strider Mode) solo play-through! I’m as excited as the rest of you are to be playing in this amazing world. So let’s get started into session 0, because prep is play, as they say.

Why I’m doing this, the scope of the project, and safety rules

I love Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and have since I discovered them as an awkward pre-teen in middle school. It coincided with the release of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, and it seemed like this magical world was coming to life. I often daydreamed about leading a company of dwarfs into the Misty Mountains or defending Minas Tirith from the horde of Sauron’s orcs.

As I grew up I always kept a soft spot in my heart for all things Tolkien and I reread Lord of the Rings probably once every couple of years. I must be on my 7th or 8th readthrough.

That being said, I’m not a Tolkien scholar and I expect to get things wrong about the lore here and there, and definitely expect to misspell names and places. Please let me know if I make any outrageous mistakes.

As an adult, I also stumbled into the TTRPG hobby and I’ve loved it since I rolled my first dice.

But why solo and not with a group of my very own adventurers. Time! A busy family and professional life mean I have only limited time to place RPGs and while I hope to play The One Ring, I’m currently in a long-term campaign. Solo games are a great way to experience the feel and mechanics of an RPG but by yourself. It's different, but not better or worse. You do miss out on the important interpersonal dynamics of a group of friends, but playing solo allows you to flex your creativity muscles in a completely different way! It's not for everyone, but I love it.

The scope of this project will be for as long as it keeps me interested. I’m not going to promise weekly posts (made that mistake in the past) or the completion of a masterful grand quest. Instead, I’ll play when I can for as long as it's fun. Life is too short to play games that aren’t fun. I post them publically because a few people get enjoyment from reading them and I like knowing my stories get out there in public.

As for safety, this campaign will have a similar feel to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Violence will be a part of it but only as a necessity and never overly graphic. There won’t be any swearing or sexually explicit things. Not that I have any problem with that, it's just not in the style of the game.

Now let’s move on to character creation.

Tools I’ll be Using

Obviously, I’ll be posting on this blog when a session is ready to be published. A session will roughly be a block of the story that fits naturally. I’ll aim for something that can be read in 10-15 minutes, which works well.

I use Notion, a notetaking app to write initial drafts. It's a good flexible cloud-based program. I write on my cheap Lenovo Chromebook (purchased for homeschooling during COVID), which is light and flexible.

I’m using the Strider Mode rules to help create a solo experience. I don’t have any comment on those yet, but I will probably write a review once I get farther into this campaign

For the character sheet, I’m using a PDF fillable version, nothing fancy or automated. You can find it here: https://jezgordon.itch.io/the-one-ring-2nd-edition-rpg-custom-character-sheet

I also don’t have any of the purpose-made dice, but they are pretty and I may buy a set later on. I use my standard physical dice or a boring digital dice roller app on my phone.

Character Creation

To help me out I’ll be using Party Business Podcast’s (A The One Ring actual play podcast) character creation summary. It's pretty useful.

https://www.partybusinesspodcast.com/blog/character-creation-in-the-one-ring-rpg-2nd-edition

Heroic Culture

While I was leaning toward picking my favorite Tolkien culture, the Dwarfs, instead I’m leaning into picking a culture that’s more suited for wandering the fields of Eriador by themselves. Also, I feel everyone will be playing as a Ranger, so I’ll be picking a Man (or woman) of Bree. I always thought Bree was an interesting place, a crossroads between the Shire and the dwarf lands. Many a Ranger sit at the Prancing Pony, along with travelers and merchants of all stripes.

A Man of Bree is worldly, not because they have traveled but because the world has traveled to Bree. Maybe they are a merchant’s son or a caravan guard, or a barkeep bored with the life in the tavern. We will see!

Cultural Blessing

The cultural blessing for Men of Bree is Bree-Blood. There is a flavor/ roleplaying part to this and a mechanical part. Let’s do the roleplaying part first.

Due to the position of their homeland, the Men of Bree enjoy better relationships with Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, and other inhabitants of the world about them than is considered usual.

This will be very valuable to a solo journey. He/she will be a character that is happy to speak and parlay with all the free peoples of Middle Earth. Where an Elf or a Dwarf may be suspicious and a Hobbit unsure, a Man of Bree will welcome all with open arms.

Now mechanics:

Each Man of Bree in the Company increases the Fellowship Rating by 1 point.

Now it may seem silly that I’m picking a culture that gives a bonus to the Fellowship rating if I’m by myself. But using the Strider Mode rules, Fellowship is done a bit differently.

As a solo player, you have a Fellowship score equal to 3 plus any additional bonuses from Virtues, Cultural Blessings, and your Patron. Your Fellowship score, rather than representing the bonds between you and your Company, instead signifies your connection to the communities you serve and the wilds you roam — a hope that cannot be diminished by the Shadow.

So the fellowship score will be useful as my character-hero marches through the wilds and into new communities.

Men of Bree have a starting standard of living of Common. This is important later on.

Determine Attributes

Attributes are an important part of the game, as it determines how difficult things will be for the hero to accomplish. There are three attributes, Strength (anything the hero does physically, such as picking something up or singing), Heart (the measure of the hero’s spirit and empathy), and Wits (the hero’s intelligence and cleverness).

Each heroic culture has 6 different attribute arrays to pick from. So it's time to decide what our hero will be like. I’m going to say our Bree-lander will be a well-rounded hero, not great at anything but not bad at anything. This will give me the best chance at roleplaying many different types of encounters.

Strength - 4

Heart - 5

Wits - 5

Calculate Target Number

This is a simple calculation to determine what number we need to beat with our roles for the task to be a success. Normally you would subtract your attribute score from 20 to get your Target Number, however, the Strider Rules suggest you use the alternate rule of subtracting from 18. This represents that our hero will be on their own and won’t be able to rely on friends for help. Also mechanically it makes the game easier and less brutal.

I’ll go with the 18 but I’ll reserve the right to change it to 20 after a session or two if it seems too easy for my hero.

Strength Target Number = 18-4= 14

Heart Target Number = 18-5= 13

Wits Target Number = 18-5 = 13

Calculate Drived Stats

Derived stats are other stats that are very useful to your hero and are calculated based on attributes and what culture you picked. There are three derived stats, Endurance (how long you can fight and how much you can carry, Hope (how inspired you are, they can be spent to give you extra dice), and Parry (how hard you are to hit).

Endurance = Strenght (4) + 20 = 24

Hope = Heart (5) + 10 = 15

Parry = Wits (5) + 10 = 15

Again this is a pretty straight-down-the-line character. But we will see how this all works out in the end! More to do.

Skills and Combat Proficiencies

These are the baseline skills our hero will get as a Bree-lander. I have to pick one of the two underlined red skills as a favorite, meaning I can roll 2 D12s and take the highest to count to my roll. I think I’ll pick Insight! Maybe our Hero has learned how to read people and situations from a life behind a bar in Bree?

Credit: The One Ring RPG by Free League Publishing

Now with that done, I need to pick our combat proficiency. I can choose to put 2 in axes or spears. I’m thinking axes. Maybe our hero has a dwarf friend who showed him a thing or two behind the tavern, or they are a former woodsman?

I can also pick 1 for another proficiency and I pick bow, as it may be useful to have a ranged option for our hero.

Distinctive Features

These are features to tell your hero apart from others and start to give them personality. The book gives a list to pick from and I’ll go with Inquisitive and True Hearted.

Our hero also gets another feature from Strider Mode, Solo Player-heroes receive an extra Distinctive Feature: Strider. While journeying, the Player-hero is considered Inspired on skill rolls. This means when I spend hope to improve my chances I can get two D6 instead of one D6. This represents our hero’s comfort in being a lone wanderer.

Choose a Calling

The One Ring has six different Callings. Callings are what motivate a hero to leave their comfortable homes to journey across Eriador. I won’t go through all options but I’ll be picking Messenger, someone who is tasked with traveling to distant lands carrying tales of the enemy and hope.

For Messenger, I can pick to favor two skills from Courtesy, Song, and Travel. I’ll choose Courtesy and Travel, both will be important to my ask of spreading messages to the free people of the world.

I get another distinctive feature called Folk-Lore. My hero will have knowledge of many customs and cultures in their travels.

And if the Shadow takes me I’ll succumb to Wandering-Madness, where I will never find a place to call home again and will be destined to walk the lonely roads of Eriador until I die.

Previous Experience

Normally heroes have 10 points to improve their skills but Strider Mode allows me to use 15, which is great! Point allocation costs more as you improve it further, so adding the first level in a skill costs 1 point, but adding the fourth point costs 5 points! As seen below.

Credit: The One Ring RPG by Free League Publishing

So I'll be doing:

3 points to increase Lore to Level 2 from 0

3 points to increase Awe, Healing, and Battle from 0 to 1 each

6 points to increase Travel, Explore and Scan to Level 2 from 1 each

3 points to increase Persuade to Level 3 from level 2

That's all 15!

Starting Gear

The important part with starting gear is to ensure you don’t weigh down your hero too much and that you keep a good buffer of endurance. Each item has a ‘load’ score and if that goes higher than your current endurance you will start getting penalties.

I’ll be picking

Axe - Damage 5, Injury 18, Load 2 - One-handed weapon

Bow - Damage 3, Injury 14, Load 2 - Ranged

Leather Shirt - 1D protection, Load 3 - Armour

Helmet - +1D protection, Load 4 - Headgear

Buckler - +1 Parry, Load 2 - Shield

That gives me a current load of 13 on endurance of 24.

My hero also gets two useful gear items based on their wealth level of Common. I’ll pick Rope and Pipe and Weed.

Starting Reward and Virtue

Valour and Wisdom are important measures of how far our hero has come. They both start at 1, as our hero has yet to start their journey. But all heroes get a starting Reward and Virture.

For reward, I will pick Grievous (weapon) — Raise the Damage rating of a weapon by 1. Maybe the dwarf who taught me how to use an axe gave me a beautifully built one from the Lonely Moutain.

For Virtue, I’ll pick Nimbleness — Raise your Parry rating by 1. My hero will be hard to hit, which is useful for life alone. Must have learnt that while breaking up fights in the Tavern.

Now that's all the mechanical aspects of the creation. But we have no name, picture, or backstory yet! That is the next step and we will do that in the next Prologue Chapter. And I'll also finally be able to show off the character sheet to everyone!

Until next time.

- Croaker