Downloadable Adventure: Barahir's Ring

[macaddicttt]

Originally posted by ben hur

Just to clear this up: by 'narrating parts' you mean the text in blue? Just to make sure.

Yes, I meant the blue sections. I should have been more clear.

[ben hur]

No worries, I thought that's what you meant, just wanted to make sure so I didn't change something you liked and left something amiss.

Any parts of the blue text that you specifically dislike? I changed the Rivendell one, shortened it and changed the wording, I myself noticed that it was overly long, boring, and useless. Anything else? Thanks!

[Leardinoth]

Good Work!

IMO, we need more stuff like this online.

If we could compile more good quality stuff (like this and the stuff coming from the unofficial LOTR RPG design studio), it would definetly be worth posting it on a separate site, for quick and easy reference.

Keep it up, and thanks for the nod in the acknowledgements!!!

L

[GavynnAlexander]

Okay, finally go the thing to download - don't know what my problem was. Read it over. Here is what I think-

Overall, I think that it is a great start to an adventure. I like the background information given to the Narrator is great. The more the Narrator knows about the inner workings of the situation, the better. It helps set the tone for the Narrator, which helps him set the tone for the other players. It also helps the Narrator fill in information when the PC’s do things that are not part of the “story”, and the Narrator wants to make sure these additions fit the plot as best as possible.

I like the blue text. I did not find that is was jarringly unTolkien.

I would like some expansion at this point though. The blue text says: “You traveled many leagues across the Ettenmoors” and on until “you did not happen upon any obstacles to your progress”. I think that this makes the great journey go by too quickly. This may just be Narrator’s taste though. Certainly I think that there is something to be said for quickly moving the story along and getting to the meet of the story, but there is also something to be said for making the PC’s FEEL the journey.

Instead of writing in a bunch of stuff to happen to them, I would suggest that you make a “Narrator’s Note” box. Here you could briefly discuss the different styles of story telling (long journey v short journey) and provide a list of half a dozen “adventure points” of one to three sentences each describing things that could happen to the PC should the Narrator want to make a bigger deal of the journey. Sometimes I like random encounter tables, sometimes I do not, and that is why I would go for a simple list for the Narrator to choose as many or as few events as he wants. It might be best if one or two of them could have some indirect significance to the quest. On the other hand, sometimes “random” things do happen to you that impact the adventure.

You describe the hazard of falling into the cold water. I might go a little further with it. I was recommended reading some survival web sites on the matter. I did. You might be able to glean some additional health risks of having a water-drenched body in the frozen wastes. Have you ever read Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire”? If you have not, see if you can locate it. You can find it online at the following link, if it works:

To Build a Fire

http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/gsr/fire.htm

It is about a man who is traveling in the frozen wilderness alone and falls through thin ice and all the trouble he has because of it. Would the PC’s have to carry wood with them? You might talk about what exactly it takes to get dry. I would say something about frostbite too. Make walking around with wet clothes a bit more dangerous than just he cold modifier (which I like, by the way).

I want to know more about the ring of stones? Are there inscriptions on them? What was their original purpose? Who built them? I am guessing that this is somewhat like stone hinge. Was this for sacrifice, or maybe an astronomical observatory? Was it built during the time of Angmar, or do these stones even predate its founding? If that is the case than they could have been corrupted by the Witch-King, or maybe ruined by him. I am sure that the players will ask what they find around here and try to put together what exactly it is. Even if the purpose of the structure or anything about it cannot be discovered – this is just too neat a location not to describe in greater detail. With the description of the physical cold and the spiritual cold, something has to be going on with these stones. So, inside the stone ring it is physically warmer than outside? That is neat – might trivet the players a place to rest and recuperate. BUT it is spiritually cold. The PC’s would have to find a way to dispel that before they could find true rest.

I did see two typos. On page four, second column “successfully” is spelled “successfullu”. Also page 2 top of second column says “It was long afterwards taht” instead of “that”. Very minor both of those.

I wish I had seen the picture version of this. Maybe when you have it exactly the way you want it you can make a text only version and then a very nice layout version. I would certainly like that.

Like I said in the beginning, I really like it and am looking forward to seeing the rest of the installments. I think that this could be bulked out to make a grand chronicle.

Oh, and one last thing – thank you very much for mentioning me in the acknowledgments. I was shocked when I read it. You could separate my name to Gavynn Alexander, something I did not do on my user handle (I guess I just was not thinking about using spaces!)

Of course, I have done one of the things that I hate – that is reviewing something without playing it. So who knows exactly how it will go when you are actually playing it. I would certainly consider having my group playing it, and will let you know the results if and when that happens. Thank you VERY for sharing your hard work. I am sure that is will bring fun to the tabletops of several gamers now.

Catch you later,

Gavynn


To Build a Fire

[ben hur]

Thank you both, Leardinoth and GavynnAlexander, for your reviews! That gives me a huge amount of material to think about!

Gavynn: I've been thinking, this could turn out to be a really big chronicle! I was thinking I'd just make a short one, but now that I think about it, the Ring of Barahir is a really solid story element, and there are many, many threats to face on the journey.

What happened was this: I was reading the Return of the King's appendix and thought up this story, and then the next day as I was thinking about the interesting complications that the cold of the North would create, Leardinoth posted about avalanches! So I immediately was enthralled with the idea of the cold being a major feature in the chronicle. Also, I thought of a Stonehenge scene with Wolves, a meeting with the Lossoth, a scene with a Ice Giant, and a big battle with Angmar. But there could also be fights with phantoms and fell beasts, and perhaps bandits, orcs, trolls, and so on in the Ettenmoors (like you pointed out, lots of opportunities for conflict in this region, but I was so enthralled with the North that I wanted to get to the Icy part quickly ).

Thanks for the ideas about the Stonehenge place (yep, Stonehenge is what I had in mind when I made the scene), I meant to flesh it out a good deal more but I didn't get around to it! So I think I'll write up some more backstory for that!

I'm also thinking it might be a good idea to switch from "Read the following: Your party travels over a barren wasteland, and..." type thing to more of a "Describe the emptiness of the barren wasteland thus...", I think it'd be a lot easier on me and it would make the chronicle much more free-flowing (so it won't seem as constricting). There are good and bad things to be said about constriction... Barahir's Ring seems rather constricted to me, which is pretty good for the beginner who isn't quite sure how to narrate and needs lots of help (heck, I'm a beginning narrator), whereas Brandir's The Bringer of Gifts was a little too loose-flowing at parts, I wasn't sure how to narrate it too well. So maybe if I give a lot of resources and suggestions but not strict "say this" it'd be best.

So yes, this could become quite a large adventure! I have to decide though, how big it's going to eventually be... school is starting Monday, I don't know how busy I'll be. I'll see what I can do.

[Alathriel]

When can we expect to see the second part of Barahir's Ring? Just curious how the work is coming along

[ben hur]

Originally posted by Alathriel
When can we expect to see the second part of Barahir's Ring? Just curious how the work is coming along

Actually I just posted! But unfortunately the title said "oops, mess-up" or something, so I don't blame you in the least for not seeing it.

Here it is reposted (hang in there with me ):

I should (that's should, not will ) be done with the second half of Barahir's Ring shortly. I have finished redoing the first half (it actually has a quite a major overhaul in it's layout, which I hope is for the better).

Sorry for the extra wait! It was kind of like I had all these thoughts and just wrote up the first half in three days, posted it, and thought "Oh, another three days will see the second half complete as well", but that was quite far from the truth. I wasn't exactly sure how to give the information on how to roleplay the discussions (heck, I might have it all wrong still ), school started (homeschooling that is, but it's still called school of course), and we went on vacation, so it came to a rather abrupt halt.

Actually, I'm going on another vacation for a few days, so it won't be up for, say, a week at least. But it looks like all I've got left is fleshing out Scene 5 and putting it in order. Both Scene 4 and Scene 5 consist of a hefty deal of roleplaying, and that's definitely not my strong-point: give me some numbers to crunch and that'll keep me happy! But of course, the Lord of the Rings is really all about the roleplaying, and this chronicle seemed to have some interesting characters to roleplay, so I had to go through the difficult process.

So, hopefully within a week and a half the whole thing should be up for your comments and criticism! I'm expecting a lot of the latter, as I really have no idea how well the roleplaying scenes will look.

And then after that I can work on the version with pictures... whew. Not sure if I'll get around to that till, like, Christmas or something.

Thanks for waiting patiently guys, I really am looking forward to hearing your comments, in an excited/scared sort of way.