Day Seventeen: The One Ring

 One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...

The One Ring RPG is quite possibly the most beautiful book in my collection. It's so gorgeous and the interior layout is so clear and attractive. Even the paper quality just feels lush. O Elbereth, this is a truly stunning book! 

The game itself is an extremely faithful and thematic representation of Middle-Earth. Characters are defined by the culture to which they belong. In addition to battles, they must also undergo Journeys and undertake Audiences with NPCs whose help they seek. They must also resist giving in to the Shadow, which leads to despair and corruption. The game is divided into an Adventuring phase and a Fellowship phase, in which the PCs can rest and recover in safe havens: this replicates the feeling in Tolkien's books of visiting Lothlorien or Beorn's house. Tasks are resolved by rolling a custom d12, with numbers 1-10, an Eye of Sauron (auto-fail) and a Gandalf rune (auto-success), as well as a number of d6s based on the character's skill level.

Character Creation: I was surprised and pleased by how easy this was. You choose your Culture, which gives you your statistics, a special ability and starting skills. I decided to be a hobbit. I decided I wanted a name like Gorbadoc Brandybuck (Frodo's grandfather). A bit of googling revealed that Gorbadoc's name is from an early Brythonic king, and on the same list of kings I saw Gurgustius. Gurgustius! Or Gurgy for short, which reminds me of Gurgi from The Chronicles of Prydain. So that's my name sorted.

Hobbits have the majority of their skills pre-chosen, but I got to choose a Favoured skill (those with ticks) and my weapons from a list of options - no greatswords for halflings. I also chose my Distinctive Features from a list: I picked Fair-Spoken and Merry. I decided that Gurgy is a very social Hobbit who likes meeting interesting new people abroad. I then chose my Calling, which is my motivation for adventure. I picked Messenger, which fit with the social theme I was going with. This let me pick two more favoured skills out of a list of three. It also gives me my Shadow Path, which is the form that corruption will take if I fall to darkness. Not much chance of that for a Hobbit! Then I had 10 experience points to distribute to improve my skills, and got to choose some equipment.

The final choice that I made for Gurgy were his Rewards and Virtues. All characters start with 1 Valour and 1 Wisdom. For every point of valour, a character receives a special item; for every point of wisdom, they gain a special ability. Those chosen at character creation come from a generic list, but more experienced characters pick from culture-specific options. I gave Gurgi a Leather Corslet of Cunning Make, which is lighter than usual, and the virtue of Confidence, which gives him even more Hope (used to resist the Shadow.) 

The final options are party specific: you have a pool of Fellowship Points to share, a Patron, and a starting Haven. This edition is based in Eriador, so Bree is suggested for the starting Haven. For the Patron, I decided we'd have Gandalf the Grey advise us. I imagine that Gurgy is one of the impressionable young hobbits who ran off into the wild after listening to Gandalf's stories, to whom Bilbo alluded in The Hobbit.

Final Thoughts: Beautiful, thematic, evocative... The One Ring has a great reputation, and it's well deserved. A lovely game that I'd love to play one day. I actually have a collection of all the first edition books as well... The Darkening of Mirkwood one day, perhaps?