Intro: The One Ring and Strider Mode

 Mae govannen!

I love dragons, elves, and all things fantasy. In case you couldn't tell by the... ya know... *gestures at my entire blog aesthetic*

When I heard about The One Ring, a tabletop role-playing game set in Tolkien's Middle Earth, I knew I had to check it out! I'm going to try playing a solo version, and I set up this blog to record my Player-Hero's adventures. As well as The One Ring content, I'll probably include the occasional cosplay post. (If you're mainly interested in cosplay, check out my Instagram!)

First things first, a quick introduction to the game...

What is The One Ring?

(Besides a little gold band into which the Dark Lord Sauron poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life.)

The One Ring (Free League Publishing) is a tabletop role-playing game (ttrpg) in which each player creates a character and guides them through an adventure, with one person facilitating things like setting the scene and controlling non-player characters (NPCs). (Dungeons & Dragons is the most well-known example of a ttrpg.) It's basically a collaborative storytelling experience. Set in Middle Earth, The One Ring has its own rules that help it stay true to Tolkien's lore.

Starter Set or Core Rulebook?

Earlier this year, I got the opportunity to playtest The One Ring at C2E2. We went through one of the adventures from the Starter Set, which contains several premade Hobbit characters and adventures, specialized dice, and some cool maps and item cards, along with a simplified version of the rules.

The starter adventure was quite fun and got me hooked on the game, but its simplified rules don't allow for creating original characters of various races. I really really want to play an elf (shocking, I know) so I skipped the Starter Set and bought the Core Rulebook, along with a couple of supplements...

Rivendell Compendium and Loremaster's Screen: A supplementary booklet for Rivendell as a setting, and the option to create High Elves of Rivendell as playable characters. (It also includes Elrond as a patron, and NPC descriptions for Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir, Erestor, and Glorfindel!) The Loremaster's Screen will come in handy if/when I start running this game for other people.

Peoples of Wilderland: A pdf with three additional playable races: Beornings, Elves of Mirkwood, and Woodmen of Wilderland.

Character Lifepaths: A pdf with backstory ideas for various types of characters. They can be used as rolling tables to create random characters, or simply read through for inspiration. I'm especially interested in the character creation aspect of this type of game, and I wanted to have lots of options!

I like having paper copies and I can't pass up the opportunity to decorate things, so I printed out the supplementary pdfs and put them in cute folders with LOTR-themed stickers.

What is Strider Mode?

I also bought Strider Mode, a pdf with modified rules for running the game solo. It allows a lone Player-Hero to face situations that would ordinarily require an entire Fellowship, and it's named after Middle Earth's most well-known solo adventurer, which I think is a nice touch.

It might sound counterintuitive to play a ttrpg on your own (after all, I won't have a Loremaster to facilitate or other players to interact with), but it's basically a storytelling game. Think of it as somewhere between reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book and writing a novel. I'll be my own Loremaster, creating an adventure and navigating it as my Player-Hero, using dice rolls when needed to help determine outcomes. And, of course, recording my adventures so you can join me on my journey.

My decorated copy of the Strider Mode booklet

A note on dice...

The One Ring uses a specialized set of dice: two d12 "Feat" dice, and six d6 "Success" dice (the official version comes in black or white). These look cool and I'll probably end up buying some eventually, but for now I'll be using the mismatched d12s and d6s I picked up for cheap at C2E2. I'll just need to remember that rolling the maximum number on a die counts as an automatic/extra success, and rolling an 11 on the d12 is an automatic failure (the Eye of Sauron symbol on the official die).

Knowing my love of shiny things, I wouldn't be surprised if I start finding cool generic dice sets at conventions (resin with themed inclusions? Liquid core? Actual gemstones?!) and start using those. Of course, there are also online dice-rolling options, but again... shiny things.

Stay tuned for my next post, where I create my elf Player-Hero!

- Jess