After Secrets Buried

[Vladim]

This thread is mainly meant for @BlueTrillium and @Maester1216.

I think we'll be soon approaching a point where I would be happy to close the adventure. Overall we've been playing for about two years by now, give or take, and we've completed Words of the Wise and Secrets Buried-the two adventures I had initially thought we could run as a way to test this idea of playing co-op in Middle-Earth using the Ironsworn system and some material from The One Ring 1st edition.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the results-the systems worked well together, and it was a fun and new way to approach this game.

I can probably expand with more details, but I don't think it's necessary at this point. I am happy to hear your thoughts about it too, and all the things you liked and didn't like, about Secrets Buried or in general. And, importantly: what do you want to do next? Continue? Take a short break? End it here?

I definitely have ideas going forward but they lie in a somewhat different direction (i.e., maybe not Ironsworn), and I probably could use a (temporary) break as well, but I would like to hear where everyone stands as I consider all options.

Suggestions are of course always welcome!

[Maester1216]

I don't have any particular notes on my end. Like you said the system worked great on its own, and I think you did a great job translating elements of One Ring over to this.

I'm happy to stay on, whether you wanna keep going or decide to take a break.

[Vladim]

Thanks! I probably messed up RPing Radagast in that tense scene between him and Bróin in Tyrant's Hill, but otherwise I think most of it was done well-ish. I think...

I'll wait a bit for Blue's thoughts and then I'll list up some possibilities, and I invite you both to add your own wishes if you have any!

[Maester1216]

I liked it! It establishes a future conflict between the two without dominating the entire undetaking.

[BlueTrillium]

I'll echo Maester, I think you did a great job of integrating One Ring/LOTR and Ironsworn elements!

I like Ironsworn generally as a system, very simple to use and pick up, but man that 60% fail rate on the dice even with our best stat, lol. Though it's mostly tough because it's hard to dial back on our own characters, I think. xDD At any rate I can see why you might want to try a different system. I'm cautious about that but I guess it would depend what the new system might be/how accessible (and free, lol) it is.

RL has gotten more complicated lately so I would not be averse to a bit of break while things are figured out. But I could certainly chime in with various two-cents here and there, wherever you wanted input (to the best of my ability, not being a LOTR expert, etc xD)

[Vladim]

I think you just hit a spot of really bad luck with Tarric @BlueTrillium; statistically, I don't think the fail rate should be 60% with a +3. I hope it improves a bit as we move forward!

Ok, so I am also happy with a bit of a break for now, but here's some ideas going forward. Do let me know which sound most exciting to you; we don't have to do them actually but these are the ones that excite me the most.

1. There's actually a ton of material in The Darkening of Mirkwood and other The One Ring 1st edition supplements so we could continue with those. They're pretty easy to adapt to Ironsworn. But I am not as keen on those, at least for the time being: having played through these two adventures (Words of the Wise & Secrets Buried), I feel like (a) it takes a lot of time-at least 1 year in real life-to finish them, so they're a big commitment and (b) it's less satisfying to me when the potential outcome(s) are more or less known, because these adventures are pre-written. So right now I think I'd skip those, but I could return to them on a later date.
2. We could also create our own adventures on the fly (in true sandbox Ironsworn fashion) by pursuing goals such as altering the situation at the Toft (it was vaguely mentioned in the beginning of this adventure). For some things like that, there's very little in the TOR books, so we have more freedom. But again, it's a big commitment in terms of time and effort so I don't want to do it right now.
3. This depends on how you feel about The One Ring 1st edition, but I could merge the two groups if we could convert our Ironsworn characters to TOR. For this, I think I'd let Idunn go somewhere else (as I don't want her to be GMPC). There's a free and intuitive TOR character builder, but the system is a bit different from Ironsworn-more crunchy I think, though not by a huge lot. It's not free, but it's mostly intuitive, and I am happy to teach it if need be.
4. For many years I've been itching to try playing Do not let us die in the dark night of this cold winter, a winter village survival mini-game (almost like a board game) where the PC(s) help a small community endure a harsh winter. I hesitate to suggest it because I've tried it before, with another group of players, with mixed results. But I like it and I really want to try it again-solo it if need be. The rules are simple though and I'd be happy to teach them if others are interested. Though I need to warn anyone curious that it may feel a bit too repetitive in its mechanics (like a board game) and it's a bit on the grimdark side (PCs can't die but NPCs may end up dropping like flies).
5. Similarly, I've been curious to try Ironsworn: Reign, a free, fan-made settlement builder/management expansion for Ironsworn. I've already read a couple of those and Reign's mechanics seem the most polished and well-thought out. Maybe Tarric & Bróin & Idunn & co help raise a village; it could serve as a brief palate cleanser between adventures without being too much of a commitment in time/effort, and allow us to check the Reign rules in play.

I'm also open to other suggestions and ideas-and if someone wants to take a more active lead in this, I'm good with it!

[BlueTrillium]

(regarding 60% fail comment) Oh, I hadn't even been thinking of Tarric specifically, I was just thinking back to some Ironsworn stats I generated once upon a time for fun, to see if different ability spreads would give different results. And admittedly, I was mentally including Weak Hits as fails, since they usually have some negative results attached, especially thanks to my tendency to torment my characters.

I couldn't find my previous worksheet, but now I'm curious again so I went back and did some partial maths again if you have any interest -- (google sheet) -- but basically, even using a stat with +3, you'll only Strong Hit 33% of the time (and Weak Hit 44% heh). Interestingly, if you wanted a character that would Strong Hit at least 50% of the time in their chosen stat, they'd need a +5 on that stat. So what this is actually telling me is that I need to ease up a bit on the Weak Hit punishments, heh.

No real meaning or intention with the figures there, I just enjoy messing around with numbers when they're provided. xDD I think all in all, Ironsworn picked a good range for their standard stats.

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Anyway! Of the ideas listed above I think I'd be most interested in #4 or #5, though given the grim sound of #4, perhaps if we went that route we'd need to make up some characters/location we're less attached to, heh. (e.g. not Olwinne dying, nooooooo). But yeah whether we help Rhosgobel or one of the other Woodmen towns recover after various events, or build up some place new (refugee town, new fortified staging point against whatever is coming for Laketown, etc), could be interesting.

[Vladim]

38 minutes ago, BlueTrillium said:

(regarding 60% fail comment) Oh, I hadn't even been thinking of Tarric specifically, I was just thinking back to some Ironsworn stats I generated once upon a time for fun, to see if different ability spreads would give different results. And admittedly, I was mentally including Weak Hits as fails, since they usually have some negative results attached, especially thanks to my tendency to torment my characters.

I couldn't find my previous worksheet, but now I'm curious again so I went back and did some partial maths again if you have any interest -- (google sheet) -- but basically, even using a stat with +3, you'll only Strong Hit 33% of the time (and Weak Hit 44% heh). Interestingly, if you wanted a character that would Strong Hit at least 50% of the time in their chosen stat, they'd need a +5 on that stat. So what this is actually telling me is that I need to ease up a bit on the Weak Hit punishments, heh.

No real meaning or intention with the figures there, I just enjoy messing around with numbers when they're provided. xDD I think all in all, Ironsworn picked a good range for their standard stats.

---------------------

Anyway! Of the ideas listed above I think I'd be most interested in #4 or #5, though given the grim sound of #4, perhaps if we went that route we'd need to make up some characters/location we're less attached to, heh. (e.g. not Olwinne dying, nooooooo). But yeah whether we help Rhosgobel or one of the other Woodmen towns recover after various events, or build up some place new (refugee town, new fortified staging point against whatever is coming for Laketown, etc), could be interesting.

Cool cool! I get it now. I think some folks in the Ironsworn community have also done this kind of probability analysis-I'll see if I can find it later. But the numbers sound about right!

I'll wait for Maester to pitch in and then I can give more details in the preferred option(s). We could also split the party here (e.g., if Maester is interested in TOR) so folks shouldn't feel to constrained by others' preferences. I'll make it work!

[Maester1216]

Ironsworn: Reign is really jumping out at me. I always felt like Bróin's true calling was in Kingmaker 😁.

The winter-survival game by contrast is less of a draw.

Outside of those I'm happy to transfer Bróin over to TOR 1e as well - I kinda have him built already, as he'd initially been made while I was toying around with the system.

[Vladim]

Cool cool! Looks like it's Ironsworn: Reign FTW then. It'll probably be a shorter story, mostly improvised, and no ETA yet... but I have some ideas on how to tie it in as I've already given the matter some thought... I'll keep everyone posted! Here or on the Discord or (most likely) in both places!