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I don’t know, I think this is highly relative. We’re having this rules discussion completely out of context of a story. A character climbing a fence in a hurry seems infinitely more likely to happen in the course of normal play, and it would call for a roll if appropriately dangerous to that character. For a Hobbit trying to steal from Farmer Maggot, I don’t see why that would get ruled as too trivial for a roll.

The same character would likely be simply incapable of scaling the Morannon (at least for awhile, one would hope). But this idea that the rules are universally applicable isn’t right. Which is another reason why it has been correctly pointed out both that those rules are an abstraction; and that the new relativity of TNs to individuals makes it hard to say that any given Task X should always have a fixed TN. Like or dislike the new system, it is simply less precise than having set values that always apply across the board as in 1e.

Less precise might be accurate, but it's a abstraction of real life to a gaming system. It can't possible be a simulation and it shouldn't be. That would be very boring. The swingyness of dice rolls makes it very exciting. Much more exciting than a TN set by Loremaster.

How is excitement factor in any way impacted by how the TN is set? Hitting that TN depends on a dice roll either way. I’m honestly not sure I understand what you mean.

Yes, but what did you expect from rolling a Skill with only 1 rank? If I'm a total novice but by spending Hope I could accomplish what a much more experienced character can do, than what's the point of getting better at things and not simply stacking as much Hope as possible?

The difference here to other systems is that climbing over the garden wall and scaling the black gate will be the exact same target number.

Wrong.

Climbing the garden wall requires no roll.

Scaling the Black Gate (*) will have a Foolish risk level (p. 131), require a skill endeavour (so no single roll) with a Daunting resistance (p. 131-132), probably with a short time limit (the damn gate is guarded, after all) and the skill roll will be ill-favoured,

So no, it's really not the same thing.

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(*) That is, if the LM allowed it at all.

Please try reading the whole conversation before being outright dismissive.

1) I’ve very easily provided a situation where climbing a wall would require a roll.
2) maybe they only want to get to a ledge on the gate.
3) the character clearly wouldn’t be able to get there anyway- it was a hyperbolic comparison to make a point. But thank you for pointing me to these extra mechanics.

Francesco has noted that the change in TNs was in part to take pressure off the LM. I sure feel much less pressured having to make use of multiple different mechanics to make a test challenging rather than letting my players know “it’s TN14 unless I tell you otherwise”


By the way for those interested, my Hobbit player was really pleased that he couldn’t hit the troll, spot the gore crows or rouse a companion with song all because they weren’t strong enough to have a lower starting TN. They’re really looking forward to not playing a third of the game for the next few months as they hope to Eru that they don’t end up in a situation outside of their comfort zone.

Mattcapiche that made me really laugh, thank you.

I’m sensitive to the idea that “not everyone is good at everything” and that there are trade offs in character creation. But at the table yes, it really does kind of suck to tell someone “if you wanted to be able to sing well you should have invested more in your Body attribute.”

Really I just mourn the idea that characters built and specialized one way (burglar obviously might have some search and stealth, some persuasion, some Riddle) couldn’t also develop excellence in at least one unexpected area outside of the norm. Skills like Song and Riddle were things outside of the standard RPG experience that really made clear that you’re in Middle-earth, and players weren’t really discouraged from diversification.

Now I feel like there is an associated real cost of diversifying: higher average TNs across the board. This might actually be even more apparent in solo play, the primary benefit derived from this (I’ll just say it) backwards way of setting difficulty.

Please try reading the whole conversation before being outright dismissive.

I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive, but what you wrote was factually wrong.

1) I’ve very easily provided a situation where climbing a wall would require a roll.
2) maybe they only want to get to a ledge on the gate.
3) the character clearly wouldn’t be able to get there anyway- it was a hyperbolic comparison to make a point. But thank you for pointing me to these extra mechanics.

I know you used a hyperbolic. But someone unfamiliar with the rules, only reading "All Tests are the same TN! Game broken!" (*) posts, might get the wrong idea, to say the least.

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(*) yes, I'm being hyperbolic here.

How is excitement factor in any way impacted by how the TN is set? Hitting that TN depends on a dice roll either way. I’m honestly not sure I understand what you mean.

What I was trying to say, badly apparently, don't make the game realistic, make it exciting.The players seeing the dice pool change size and then rolling said dice pool, is more exciting from their point of view.

Ohh, okay. That makes sense, thanks.

There’s been considerable debate about the dice pool math though as things seem to be a little more difficult, on average. Knowing that, it’s harder for me to get excited about this more “active” approach.

Here’s another thing I don’t get - one of the big advantages of Attributes as TN is that players can supposedly more quickly report their success/failure without the LM managing it. But now the LM has to referee or at least note and answer rules questions should they arise on which bonus dice (Hope, Useful Items, etc) apply to the roll. It would seem to actually slow things down in practice as players exercise creativity to get their dice.

I ran a test session with a group of people who'd never played the first edition. While they had an enjoyable time, and generally got a handle on the basic gameplay mechanics, there was some frustration during the combat that so much effort was required to have a reasonable chance to hit the basic enemies they were up against. Once we were nearly through the session, the characters with higher strength were starting to get the hang of Forward stance, hope points, utilising their advantage, etc - finding ways to up their chances. But the Hobbit character with 3 strength decided to switch to alternate actions that had a more reasonable chance of success, only to find the stance-based ones very underwhelming. It wasn't until we collectively came up with another idea involving setting a fire that they felt they had contributed in any way to the combat. (As a side note, the distinction between main and secondary action wasn't particularly clear, and took a bit of deliberation).

Whether this is an issue with the rules as written, or as we interpreted them, or 1ed hangups on my part, or for that matter our playstyle in general, I'm not sure; I'm not a game designer!

Here’s another thing I don’t get - one of the big advantages of Attributes as TN is that players can supposedly more quickly report their success/failure without the LM managing it. But now the LM has to referee or at least note and answer rules questions should they arise on which bonus dice (Hope, Useful Items, etc) apply to the roll. It would seem to actually slow things down in practice as players exercise creativity to get their dice.

Correct, the player will need to ask, try to convince, does my useful item apply. To me at least this adds an element of fun through the interaction.

My impression, perhaps an incorrect one, was that the static TN was meant to cut down on prep time, not table time. That could just be my wishful thinking. I don't get much time for prep anymore.

I'm sympathetic with the idea that the way difficulty is set in this system feels foreign to those of us who are used to having a more direct lever to control it, such as setting the TN directly would have been in 1e, if I understand how it worked. This is certainly the more common approach across game systems I have played. To have to work more indirectly is a bit of a cognitive switch for lm's used to the more direct approach. Saying this is not slamming those who might find this a difficult adjustment, there are good reasons why the common approach is, well, common; it makes intuitive sense.
I'm looking forward to a more rigorous test when my players encounter more high stakes roles, and when I remember the damned helping rules correctly. *smile* I'm going to have to dock them at least 3 hope apiece for all the helping they were doing that I forgot to charge them for.