When we sat down the play The One Ring 2E there was a glaring issue: XP was boring. It’s a static award for showing up. It only provides incentive to play, not to play in any particular way. Each player-hero gets 3 skill points and 3 adventure points at the end of each session, that’s it. No modifiers for what actually happened, just those points.
XP in TOR1E drove interesting rolls. Since skill points were generated from making rolls players would choose to make rolls and spend resources to get XP, putting them in a more proactive role. Since adventure points were awarded for being present but also for moving towards a company objective players had an incentive to pursue goals.
So we house ruled it. Here’s our XP system.
Experience (skill points and adventure points) are earned by the fellowship, not the player-heroes. All members of the fellowship who are present for a session receive the same number of skill points and adventure points based on the actions of the fellowship as a whole during the session.
Gaining Skill Points
The fellowship earns one skill point for each skill category (strength, heart, and wits) that the party has rolled all of: a failure, a success, a great/extraordinary success (one or more 6 rolled). The fellowship earns one additional skill point if all three categories have had a roll made in them which benefited from support (helping dice from another player-hero).
The fellowship will earn between 0 and 4 skill points per session. At the end of the session all player heroes receive the number of skill points earned by the fellowship.
At the end of session all tracking resets, no matter if skill points were gained or not.
During a session the GM tracks skill rolls made by the players and checks off the type of roll for that category if it has not already been checked. It does not matter which player-hero makes which roll, all rolls are tracked for the fellowship together.
- Earn 1 skill point for the fellowship if all are checked at end of session:
- Fail a strength skill roll
- Succeed on a strength skill roll
- Succeed on a strength skill roll with one or more 6s
- Earn 1 skill point for the fellowship if all are checked at end of session:
- Fail a heart skill roll
- Succeed on a heart skill roll
- Succeed on a heart skill roll with one or more 6s
- Earn 1 skill point for the fellowship if all are checked at end of session:
- Fail a wits skill roll
- Succeed on a wits skill roll
- Succeed on a wits skill roll with one or more 6s
- Earn 1 skill point for the fellowship if all are checked at end of session:
- Supported strength skill roll
- Supported heart skill roll
- Supported wits skill roll
Gaining Adventure Points
The fellowship earns adventure points based on the actions of the fellowship during the session. At the end of session the actions are reviewed and each one that the group agrees occurred is marked. Then one adventure point is awarded to all player-heroes for each category where any actions are marked and another for any category where all are marked.
The fellowship will earn between 0 and 4 adventure points per session. At the end of the session all player heroes receive the number of adventure points earned by the fellowship.
At the end of session all tracking resets, no matter if adventure points were gained or not.
- Earn 1 adventure point for the fellowship if any are checked at end of session and another if all are checked at end of session:
- Create something of use or beauty
- Offer redemption for a wrong
- Give something of value to those in need
- Earn 1 adventure point for the fellowship if any are checked at end of session and another if all are checked at end of session:
- Protect nature or the innocent
- Forge or strengthen an alliance
- Push back against the Shadow
References
This system is inspired by elements from these games:
- The Burning Wheel by Luke Crane and later evolutions in Mouse Guard by Luke Crane and Torchbearer by Thor Olavsrud
- Dungeon World by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel
- Beyond, an unpublished game by Sage LaTorra
The adventure point actions are inspired by:
- Adam Drew’s essay On Shadow
- Tolkien’s comments in the forward to The Silmarillion, from his letter to Milton Waldman in 1951:
“Anyway all this stuff is mainly concerned with Fall, Mortality, and the Machine. With Fall inevitably, and that motive occurs in several modes. With Mortality, especially as it affects art and the creative (or as I should say, sub-creative) desire which seems to have no biological function, and to be apart from the satisfactions of plain ordinary biological life, with which, in our world, it is indeed usually at strife. This desire is at once wedded to a passionate love of the real primary world, and hence filled with the sense of mortality, and yet unsatisfied by it. It has various opportunities of ‘Fall’. It may become possessive, clinging to the things made as its own, the sub-creator wishes to be the Lord and God of his private creation. He will rebel against the laws of the Creator – especially against mortality. Both of these (alone or together) will lead to the desire for Power, for making the will more quickly effective, – and so to the Machine (or Magic). By the last I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of developments of the inherent inner powers or talents – or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world, or coercing other wills. The Machine is our more obvious modern form though more closely related to Magic than is usually recognised.”
- May’s over! I logged reading 38 comics and finishing one book. Not really keeping up with my goals there, but hey, there were some good comics there at least.
- Speaking of good comics: Zdarsky’s Batman is yet another great Daredevil-to-Batman writer success. But it’s interesting how different his approach to those characters are. His Daredevil run certainly went beyond street-level with ninjas leading a dragon into battle and all that, but on Batman his big pieces so far seem to be the multiverse and Zur-en-Arrh (Batman’s backup personality, yeah, it’s a Grant Morrison thing). Oh, and Batman survives falling to Earth from space without a ship or space suit. It’s bananas in a way I love for comics to be bananas.
- Watching DC try to find a name for Captain Marvel that’s not Captain Marvel is my new hobby, and now they’ve got Mark Waid doing it.
- On the topic of Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings Magic set previews have started and the art direction is brilliant. And a good bit more diverse than most Middle Earth art. Hipsters of the Coast provides a pretty comprehensive case for why this is excellent.