OOC Thread.

Ah, that's sad to hear. Well, at least we gave it a try...

Baelrick is off to retire as the champion.

Ha, gotta end it on a high note!

Shame, I loved playing with you, cowleyc! Hope we cross paths again in more games. :D

As for me, I'm happy to continue!

Well, I've already lost 3 out of 6 players. I think we'll wrap this up and I'll move on to something else...

I'll leave this game open for a few more days, in case you want to discuss it, thank us for playing, or just wish to bid everyone here goodbye...

Well if we decide to play, Tyr would have followed the road south.

I'm glad you ran this, and that I joined on! This has been a pretty great experience! It definitely made me interested in checking out OpenQuest or even RuneQuest to slap on a little more.

There is also SimpleQuest coming out soon. Not sure how much they'll simplify the OpenQuest rule set, and how much it will compare to The Age of Shadow...

This was fun, and it was nice playing with all of you. :D

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the system though - it's definitely interesting, but it seems to be very punishing on low levels. When your skill is 50%, a penalty of 25% is pretty harsh; although, I suppose statistically it's not that different from other systems... And difficulty seems to be the point, so fair enough. XD Maybe I'll try it some more, if there is an occassion.

Well, I guess the system is not meant to be as combat heavy as I made it. The rulebooks seems to suggest that opponents should not be more numerous than players, and they even provide the Horde Rule they strongly suggest you use if the players are outnumbered... Which is also odd as simultaneously, it suggests players pick their fight carefully, so I'm getting a bit of a mixed message here...

Maybe horde rule is less for difficulty and more for streamlining? So GM doesn't have to roll as much as if each NPC used full turns.

I think it's more to fit in line with the source material. The fellowship tried to avoid fighting and only fought it out when they had no other choice.

Also remember that every member of the fellowship was wearing magical armor and carrying magical blades. As well as cloaks and boots of elvenkind. Gimili's gift of Galadriels hair being an artifact and same with the one ring, which likely gave some magical aid to the fellowship by virtue of being the most powerful magical item ever made, more so than the simarils.

It's ironic to me that people say D&D is based on LoTR when every member of the fellowship was equipped with artifact items. Reminding that Sam, Pippin, Merry, and Frodo each had ancient swords forged specifically to kill Ringwraiths. Which is why Pippin and Eowyn destroyed the Witch King of Angmar. "No blade held by man can kill me." And neither of them were a man thus the prophecy came true.

A fun fact worth observing is that Sir Christopher Lee, Sir Ian Flemming and Tolkien all went to school together and all served with the British Commando in various roles. And the fellowship themselves are based on the Commandos and their feats throughout WWII. Which is almost certainly why even the junior commandos, represented by the Hobbits, had the best equipment and training for their task.

But legendary fiction is difficult to replicate in games of chance. And they, the Commandos, did not take games of chance operating only in certainty.

I would also like to thank you all for the game, it was fun and masterfully conducted. I hope we can play again together in the future.

As for the system, it was originally designed to simplify the Runequest ruleset, which, while similar, is a lot more fiddly. Runequest is very deadly, and definitely not fit for large engagements since we are tracking each attack and parry / dodge. For a high fantasy game, maybe Classic Fantasy (from Design Mechanism, based on Mythras) would be more appropriate. It is crunchier, but characters are made more survivable by increasing hit points and starting skills. I would be up to try it!