Game session of Sunday

Yesterday was Sunday, and as usual, we had our (short) session playing Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG.

In this game, I am the Narrator (or Dungeon Master if you prefer); my wife plays Carawen, an Elven female warrior from Mirkwood, and my daughter plays Luna, a (very young) wizard, pupil of Radagast, from the land of Rohan.

They are in year 2700 from Third Era. At the moment, they are traveling in the Iron Hills directed to Cape East, the most eastern of the Dwarven settlements in the Iron Hills. They are following the tracks of another Dwarf, Nar son of Dar, who was hunting a Dragon years before.

In the last short session, while they were camping on the road they met Morwen, a mysterious woman who was traveling alone coming from Cape East. During the night, they were attacked by a group of six orcs, but they were able to overcome them, also thanks to the prowess of Morwen with her sword. While they were warned about the possibility of attacks of Orcs on this road, they have not discovered yet if there was something more behind this.

Aside from the story (very little happened), I had the possibility to play-test the new version of my spreadsheet.

What went well:

• spreadsheet is very good at keeping track of effects, like Staggered, Wounded, Broken Leg, etc.
• since I can track them, I will actually use them

What went wrong

• I didn't have the stats for a creature in the spreadsheet, hence I had to add them on-the-fly (lack of preparation);
• having a single creature to make a test is fine, having 6 of them is cumbersome (need automation here);
• some skills like Elusion (?) where I need to roll 3d6 and drop the lowest one are hard (create a generic dice roller to use);
• while the system keeps track of who is doing who, I have to ensure that this is actually what is happening (interface is sometimes confusing);
• Staggered tests are very common, better to have a dedicated button for it (add staggered button);
• also, sometimes I am not sure of what is happening: maybe I need to add a little more log;

Actions (still to be cleared)

• ensure that you have the proper stats loaded;- devise testing for a group, both for players and for other creatures;
• create a generic dice roller (how many dice, how many to drops, etc);
• have the system explain what it is doing;
• add a button to check for Staggering;