Fria Ligans forum

Dear Francesco,

Many of us in the French-speaking community have experienced what we believe to be a bug in the gaming system.
It concerns the character's corruption cycle, through the management of Shadow, Hope points and Miserable state.
What we understand about the intentions of this subsystem is the desire to provide a relatively slow, subtle progression of character corruption, but one that becomes more and more certain as permanent Shadow points accumulate. Which we like very much!

However, there was a case in the game where this system got out of hand, corrupting a character in record time:
When a character has few Hope points, even if he has just suffered a Bout of Madness (resetting his Shadow but adding a permanent point), he is likely to be permanently in a Miserable state and thus to cause another Bout of Madness.
The typical episode that has revealed this problem is a travel to Dol Guldur (for example in Darkening of Mirkwood), and the exploration of it. The Tests there are numerous and the difficulty is high, especially the Travel and Corruption Tests, so that the Shadow increases quickly while Hope decreases just as quickly.
The One Ring is a game where it is difficult to regain Hope: you spend it regularly but regain it more slowly.

One could certainly say that you have to be seasoned for such a journey and that the characters were perhaps too inexperienced (you should have waited for a few adventures, for example), and therefore, that this decline is logical.
We can easily understand that the characters come out marked by this travel, that some of them have developed one or more Flaws. Why not. But we consider there’s a bug if the system get so out of control that the character has no chance to get out of it, trapped in a spiral.

We've had the opportunity to think about a solution, if it helps you think about the problem:
A character becomes Miserable when his Shadow value reaches its maximum Hope Value (instead of his current Hope value, which only manages the Spent Heroes state and the number of Hope points the player can use).
When an event corrupts a particular character, he earns Shadow points.
When an event brings despair to the entire Company, the maximum Hope Value of all characters decreases by an amount depending on the severity of the event.
A new Undertaking is added to the Fellowship Phase which allows everyone to raise their maximum Hope Value to their original value.

The objective here is to avoid provoking a new Miserable state too quickly and to further emphasize the idea of the slow degeneration of the characters.

Hope this will help and that this spiral will be avoided in the next "(un)expected" version.

Here is an example of that issue : a character that spend hope points, gain shadow points, become miserable and enter an infinite loop that quickly ends by the character becoming unplayable.

Here is an example of that issue : a character that spend hope points, gain shadow points, become miserable and enter an infinite loop that quickly ends by the character becoming unplayable.

I don't see any instance of the player regaining Hope via the Fellowship Pool, or because of their Fellowship Focus remaining unharmed during a session, which allows a player to regain a point of Hope. Is there a reason for that? There are also several instances throughout the adventure supplements of unique situations that allow players to gain hope that can serve as a framework for rewarding Hope to players throughout your sessions. This graph makes Hope and Shadow look like a one-way street towards misery, rather than the system of back-and-forth tension that I believe it's meant to be.

Hello Carcharoth,

You say that in our example you see no use of the fellowship pool, that a character may gain back Hope point due to his fellowship focus and that some unique situations in the adventures allow players to gain hope. You're right about these but it doesn't apply all the time in game sessions. Let's see below detailed answers :

1. No use of the fellowship pool in our example
In our example, all happened during one game session. In the case of a travel / adventure in a very dark place like the region around Dol Guldur, or right inside Dol Guldur, the Fellowship pool is quickly emptied by the characters (Fatigue tests, Travel roles tests, Hazard episodes tests, Corruption tests, Combat tests) and then it's of no use anymore during the same session.

2. The fellowship focus gives back Hope point at the end of a session
The fellowship focus gives back hope only at the end of a session, in our case all happened during one unique session.


3. You say that in certain situations in the adventures, we can gain hope
There was not such situation in the session. In a dark place like Dol Guldur and around it, there is no reason for a situation to give back hope. It's like Frodo and Sam when they are in Mordor : their Hope keeps going down.

To be more precise, that system issue happened during year 2950 of Darkening of Mirkwood. The related plot asks the company to go into Tyrant’s Hill and to the Fens of Dol Guldur. This happens only 4 years after the start of the campaign and thus the PCs aren't supposed to be very experienced (not with a high level in Wisdom and other skills useful in such a trip). I believe that it could also happen in the first scenario of Ruins of the North : "Nightmares of Angmar" ask the PCs to start in the Black Hills of the Vales of Gundabad, going to the Mountains of Angmar and to the ruined fortress of Carn Dûm. This is quite a very dark and dangerous place to go for a first scenario and the bug of "spiral of Miserable state" that we describe could happens there if run in one session. And this is sad that a character is lost due to a system bug.

I'm not sure this is a reason enough to change the rules as they are, I think it's more an issue of bad timing of the adventure in the campaign.
Have to agree that visiting Dol Guldur so early can result in two consequences: either the exploration is adapted to young characters and then Dol Guldur loses part of its fear, or it is as hard as should be and then some heroes will be corrupted for life.
Besides, Dol Guldur is the "worst" place a fellowship can go to in Wilderland, so entering it and escaping untouched so early in the campaign can even feel anticlimatic: "We've already been to Dol Guldur. What else could stop us?"

I can't really judge if your group played well (strategically speaking) the use of Hope points: if they knew they were going to enter Dol Guldur, maybe it would have been best to accept some failures in the previous tests, etc. But I don't know the exact situation, and can understand that you also deemed important not to enter Dol Guldur already Weary or Wounded, for example.
It's a very extreme example and my opinion is that it's a warning sign, but not enought to change an entire mechanic that seems to work fine in the rest of situations.

Adding to all this, the next session in our Darkening campaign is, precisely, going with Radagast to Dol Guldur!
We are all full of Hope (thanks to the recoveries from the pool and focus), so I'll let you know how our group comes out of the Sorcery Hill.

With the same caveat as Falenthal (that is, that I don't know the details of the game in question) I agree with him that Dol Guldur should be some really scary dangerous badass stuff.

The real issue might just be that the visit to Dol Guldur happens so early in the campaign, which has always bothered me. Gareth tried to balance things by having it be quick, and only into the very outermost parts of Dol Guldur, but it's still problematic. Without some extremely conservative play and lucky rolls, it seems like the only two choices might be ruined characters or anti-climax.

I don't remember the details precisely, though. Does Radagast provide some kind of protection from (or recovery for) Shadow? Maybe that's a solution, if it could be done without it being a free pass that would eliminate tension.

And maybe one potential rule change is that you can only suffer one bout of madness per adventuring phase? How would that affect things?

Talking about anti-climax...

Refreshing the entire pool at the beginning of every session when, for example, you're inside Dol Guldur?

This means, to go through that particular adventure, you need: luck on rolls, good knowledge of Hope/Shadow system as a player and have to be clever and choose the righr moment to end a session, having in mind that next time, the pool would be refreshed.

Furthermore, but not that sure, I remember the Travel needs a looooot of rolls, depending on where you're coming from (Rhosgobel ?). Then exploring needs a lot too. You can't count on luck and the pool.

It depends on the rhythm of your previous sessions. If you go slowly, then your Hope is probably high. If you play longer sessions, this is not the same game. So relying on the pool is not an argument to me.

It depends on the rhythm of your previous sessions. If you go slowly, then your Hope is probably high. If you play longer sessions, this is not the same game. So relying on the pool is not an argument to me.

If you are playing longer sessions, the Loremaster should be breaking them up and refreshing your pool halfway through. The normal expectation for a "session" of TOR is about 4 hours. If you're playing all-day marathons for 8-10 hours, you should be refreshing the Fellowship Pool when you break for dinner or whatever the approximate halfway point is.

I'm also unsure why you seem so surprised by a PC falling to the Shadow in this adventure. I absolutely get what you're saying about it feeling like an inevitable spiral, but they are in the deadliest and darkest location in all of the base region (Wilderland/Rhovanion). If a player doesn't run a very serious and real risk of losing their character here, then the game isn't being terribly realistic or immersive. I know if I were a player at the table and I didn't feel seriously threatened by the prospect of going to Dol Guldur, I'd question the faithfulness of the system to the source material.

There was not such situation in the session. In a dark place like Dol Guldur and around it, there is no reason for a situation to give back hope. It's like Frodo and Sam when they are in Mordor : their Hope keeps going down.

With all due respect, this is completely wrong and does not adhere to the source material or one of Tolkien's greatest recurring themes: that Shadow is fleeting and that hope and light can be found in the darkest of places. Here is a direct excerpt that completely contradicts what you've said above:

... Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim.... There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings Book 6, Ch 2, The Land of Shadow

So if Sam can regain hope from seeing a star while sitting in Mordor staring out across the plateau of Gorgoroth during the height of Sauron's power in the Third Age, there is no reason your PCs could not recover Hope from something similar while in southern Mirkwood.

Players should always be presented with the chance to regain hope. It may be less common in places of shadow, but it should always be a possibility. It is the Loremaster's job to mediate the systems and adapt as necessary in order to present the players with a challenging but fun experience. If they are perhaps too inexperienced for where they are and getting drowned in shadow, and you think it's too much, then perhaps the full moon should appear just in time and in all of his glory to the dismay of the enemies, or perhaps a cool breeze with the fresh smell of a far green country suddenly blows in from the west and revitalizes your heroes.

Middle-earth is a setting of an ever-encroaching Shadow, but there is still light to be found even in the darkest of places and the West has not forgotten the Free Peoples, regardless of what The Deceiver would have them believe.

Hello Carcharoth,

You say that in our example you see no use of the fellowship pool, that a character may gain back Hope point due to his fellowship focus and that some unique situations in the adventures allow players to gain hope. You're right about these but it doesn't apply all the time in game sessions. Let's see below detailed answers :

1. No use of the fellowship pool in our example
In our example, all happened during one game session. In the case of a travel / adventure in a very dark place like the region around Dol Guldur, or right inside Dol Guldur, the Fellowship pool is quickly emptied by the characters (Fatigue tests, Travel roles tests, Hazard episodes tests, Corruption tests, Combat tests) and then it's of no use anymore during the same session.

2. The fellowship focus gives back Hope point at the end of a session
The fellowship focus gives back hope only at the end of a session, in our case all happened during one unique session.


3. You say that in certain situations in the adventures, we can gain hope
There was not such situation in the session. In a dark place like Dol Guldur and around it, there is no reason for a situation to give back hope. It's like Frodo and Sam when they are in Mordor : their Hope keeps going down.

To be more precise, that system issue happened during year 2950 of Darkening of Mirkwood. The related plot asks the company to go into Tyrant’s Hill and to the Fens of Dol Guldur. This happens only 4 years after the start of the campaign and thus the PCs aren't supposed to be very experienced (not with a high level in Wisdom and other skills useful in such a trip). I believe that it could also happen in the first scenario of Ruins of the North : "Nightmares of Angmar" ask the PCs to start in the Black Hills of the Vales of Gundabad, going to the Mountains of Angmar and to the ruined fortress of Carn Dûm. This is quite a very dark and dangerous place to go for a first scenario and the bug of "spiral of Miserable state" that we describe could happens there if run in one session. And this is sad that a character is lost due to a system bug.

I see what you're saying, but I do believe that point #3 is debatable. While I agree that Dol Guldur is and should be treated as a dark and miserable place, if going there is causing your party to plummet into Shadow, then I don't see why you can't invent situations that might help inspire hope, even if just for the sake of having a fun game. Why not have the players stumble upon a fragment of ruins leftover from the kingdom of Oropher? Why not have a small beam of wholesome sunlight cut through a break in the forest canopy to remind the party of the simple joys in life? If the players at least have a shot at sustaining themselves spiritually (regaining Hope), then it probably wouldn't feel so bad to lose characters to Shadow, and could make for some memorable story moments.

I understand the idea of letting the Hope shines inside of the Shadow, that must be a good house rule.

But here we're troubling with the rules as written. They only provide 2 ways for recovering Hope. The pool and the fellowship focus. Official adventures don't provide many points.