Review: The One Ring TTRPG is a cozy take on The Lord of the Rings

Last year saw a huge rise in tabletop role-playing games, with many more Kickstarter campaigns surpassing the one-million-dollar mark than ever before. The One Ring was the most popular, and it is the sequel to the highly-acclaimed RPG system. It first appeared in 2011. Because it was, the campaign made more than $2,000,000 The Lord of the Ringstrilogie and its predecessor The HobbitThe granddaddy and most popular form of role-playing is. It’s also one of the best-known fantasy franchises.

What can be done to make an old favorite and beloved game into a new tabletop role-playing gaming (TTRPG).

In the age of the legacyquel — that is, additional tie-in media created well after the publication date of the original piece — it feels like a hard arc to make Tolkien’s Middle-earth stand out among all the derivative mythologies that have sprouted up around it. The Lord of the RingsThere are many sizes available, as well as different game consoles, TV screens, and age groups. It is important to ensure that the TTRPG is appealing to both old-timers and newcomers to the franchise. The TTRPG must feel engaging without feeling cloying, welcoming without getting too watered-down.

The system’s core rules, a book titled The One Ring: Roleplaying within the World of The Lord of the Rings, attempts a fresh take on Middle-earth by focusing on the parts of Tolkien’s world that are decidedly It is not epic. It sets the timeline; it is the twilight or the Third Age. This game takes place after the events in The Hobbit Yet before the call to arms in The Fellowship of the Ring. The result is a growing sense of dread in the midst of modern life. The problems are not world-shattering; they don’t threaten to split apart Middle-earth. For fans looking for relatable stories that contrast with the rich lore, this is a game. It Lord of the Rings.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

That’s not to say that there aren’t mechanics in place for epic fights and longer encounters, but there are no armies, no war. You won’t be leading the Horse-Lords as they reclaim the lands of Rohan from the Dunlendings, but you and your friends might have to figure out how to muck out Farmer Maggot’s stable and still get home in time for second supper.

The maps, included inside the front and back covers of the book, are presented in both the ink-on-parchment style of the original novels and as a field of colorful hexes, a la old-school Dungeons & Dragons world maps. They provide a detailed overview of Middle-earth’s most overlooked areas, as well as other more expansive landscapes. These characters will visit Hobbiton not Lothlorien. Fights take place in Weathertop and not Minas Tirith. It is set in Eriador west of the Misty Mountains far from the foreboding and legendary Mordor. People from Lindon, Bree and the Shire are the cultures represented in the book. The one ring is not mentioned anywhere in the book. It’s only mentioned under Traveling Gear, on the pre-generated Bilbo Baggins character sheets. In fact, there are only a few pages at the end of the Loremaster’s chapter about the Eye of Mordor detailing what might actually trigger Sauron’s ire towards the player’s small, far-away company in the first place.

Francesco Nepitello, the lead writer of the game has obviously limited its scope but it is not detrimental. With clarity and an eye for detail, the world-building in the book establishes the boundaries of the player characters’ experience, before focusing on the ways that they can break through those boundaries by physically journeying through the map. This book establishes limits and invests immediately in helping players break through them. One Ring Places a strong emphasis on low-stakes plot hooks, and travel overland. The RPG’s structure fits perfectly into established media canon and allows those not familiar with the original media to discover a beautiful land in their own way.

It is extremely clear. Starter Set: The One Ring, the system’s introductory boxed set. One of the slim, title-titled books contained in that box contains two. The Adventures The Shire, Both contain ready-made scenes for players to explore. However, you won’t find any wizards or kings within them. Eriador doesn’t have solid borders or strong empires. Instead, it is a rural landscape full of connected friends and families, legends and isolated villages. The Adventures Book is an assortment of five scenarios featuring Bilbo baggins, the main non-player character, who guides the players and offers small quests that help them to get on the longer journey.

The unique game system uses a pass or fail d12-based dice-rolling mechanic, with a character’s statistics and skills helping to determine success via additional d6 dice rolls. Each player knows the target number they need to hit in order to pass a given skill check, so the game master (called a loremaster here) isn’t even required to judge the outcome. That tends to speed up play, and it also enables the loremaster to instead use the quality of a given dice roll — a 12 being an automatic success, 1 an absolute failure — to steer the fiction, creating investment for both the players and the loremaster with every roll. It is recommended that you use custom d12 or d6 die, which are both included in the game. Starter Set, but it’s also fairly easy to rely on standard dice instead.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Two phases make up the game: one is called an adventuring phase and another is called a fellowship phase. The Fellowship Phase, which is the rest period, follows the Adventure Phase, in which characters must face situations and fight or trick others. The Fellowship Phase allows players to evaluate their progress and calculate if their character’s valor has increased enough to allow them to improve their weaponry or skills. You can prepare for your next adventure, create an heir or improve your character skills. I think back to this. Ryuutama,Atsuhiro Okayada’s Japanese cozy game, in which players can focus solely on their journey across the landscape. Which landscapes they’re passing through.

Both games have a sense of some kind of hidden darkness at the edges of the map, but don’t approach it with any interest. It’s there, but it’s ancillary. One Ring also has a sense of earnestness to it, the kind of adventures you go on when you don’t have to deal with the threat of wars or invasion. It’s an interesting space to occupy, narratively, creating a liminality within the gameplay itself. It is a place where epic stories are told. The Lord of the Rings Hangs heavy on One RingThe game is very intentionally focused on Eriador’s pastoral valleys, shires, and similar areas. Ryuutama The mythology of the small-town drama is what it centers on.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Another similarity is Ryuutama The existence of a patron is a requirement. To guide the fellows on their adventure, the loremaster should be a powerful and wise Middle-earthian. Some patrons are familiar canon characters (Gandalf and Bilbo), while others are more obscure (Cirdan and Tom Bombadil). The patrons are able to anchor an otherwise modest setting into something great and, if it continues onwards, possibly something truly extraordinary in its own right.

You can do this by setting firm boundaries One Ring within a microcosm of a massive, familiar world, the book pushes the narrative beyond the traditional hero’s journey — the same push against traditional heroic structures that Tolkien himself commented on in his books. There’s still space for the pervasive classic swords-and-sorcery roleplaying that many people love, but there’s also an acknowledgment that sometimes the hero’s journey really can be just going there and coming back again.

The One Ring: Roleplaying In the World of the Lord of the Rings One Ring Set Come out March 22, You can pre-order both at Shop online for Free League. Free League provided a copy of the game’s physical product to review. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. They do not affect editorial content. However, Vox Media might earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.