It comes in a slipcase, well my copy did. Way back in 2011 when Cubicle 7 first released The One Ring it was as a nice hard slipcase with two beautifully illustrated softcover volumes and two color maps, one of each labeled either for the adventurers or for the referee (loremaster) and one slipcase to bring them all together and on the shelf to store them.
Some time later Cubicle 7 reprinted The One Ring as a single combined hardcover, which is nice and all, but I prefer the slipcover version. I have a hardcover reprint which I acquired via a second hand book seller, but when perusing The One Ring (TOR) I prefer the feel and convenience of the original printing. (The finish on the softcover books has an elegant, almost soft feel to it.) There is just something very satisfying about a nice slipcase.
What's in the slipcase are some very nicely illustrated products, which are well written, but perhaps a bit more difficult to comprehend than is optimal due to the rules being split between the two volumes. I was told by a chap at the Cubicle 7 booth one Gencon that reorganizing the rules was one of the main goals for the hardcover reprint. (I call it a reprint edition as what they refer to as the 2nd edition is currently in the works.)
In addition to some nice covers and a hard slipcase, The One Ring has some interesting rules which give me a better feel for J.R.R. Tolkien's world in game form than any other RPG to date. The journey is a big part of both The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy and designers Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi make it just so in The One Ring. Fatigue and despair can affect characters who may become weary during the journey. Hope and shadow are at odds with each other as the characters spend hope in order to try for success and the shadow creeps into their being through various points of contact with the dark forces.
The core mechanic uses a d12 and a variable number of d6s (based on skill) rolled and totaled and compared against a target number. The 1 and 12 values on the d12 have special meaning and on the proprietary dice which were conveniently packaged with my slipcase, but have to be purchased separately if you buy the hardcover. Regular dice can be substituted, however.
Encounters are meetings with important folk in The One Ring. Skills include courtesy, riddles and pipe smoking which may be used during such encounters. Part of the appeal for some players may be the chance to role-play an encounter with characters such as Legolas or Balin from the fiction. The end of a journey may result in a Fellowship Phase wherein the characters work on various tasks such as improving their skills, healing and recovering from the fatigue and despair of the journey.
Combat is abstract and theater-of-the-mind and revolves around the characters assuming a "stance" such as pushing forward to aggressively engage the enemy, fighting defensively, or holding back so as to shoot missiles from a distance (which requires that other characters stay between the shooter and the enemy).
The slipcase version of The One Ring, subtitled Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild, is focused on the Mirkwood area of Middle-earth during the time between the events related in the novel The Hobbit and those of The Lord of the Rings. The setting is therefore well known and yet contains many mysteries. I think the choice is a good one, but if players desire more, Cubicle 7 has released a number of supplements which now cover about everything Professor Tolkien detailed in his popular fiction except for the nation of Gondor.
The One Ring assumes (and takes for granted) that the players will be running "good" characters who desire to be heroes, not anti-heroes. This is the way Professor Tolkien described his characters as well and The One Ring clearly aims at giving players a very Tolkienesque game experience. This is not a game about killing orcs and taking their stuff (stuff that may cause you to acquire dread shadow points), but rather an engine for gaming in a make-believe world many of us have a great fondness for. In a word: Nice!
No comments:
Post a Comment