Get your Hobbit On! (The One Ring Starter Set - Review)

A quaint little box! The One Ring 2E Starter Set from Free League.
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Index:
0:00 - Intro
1:41 - the stuff
3:41 - the books
9:40 - the characters
10:20 - the verdict (good)
12:05 - the verdict (less good)

[@doomhippie6673]

I like it a lot. A nice touch to start like the Lord of the Rings: doing Shire stuff like a birthday, sneaking into Farmer Maggot's fields for mushrooms etc. Appreciate the simple bucolic setting and the peacefulness of the Shire. And then understand why it is worth protecting. Here you move on to the core rules and see what the world outside is like. It is almost like Sam in the movie: "One more [page in the core rulebook] and I'll be farther away from home than anytime before..."

[@bruhdon4748]

😂😂😂😂

[@WASD20]

Well said!

[@TheConfessor]

Thanks for the kind review! This was a pleasure to write and I'm glad to see so many people enjoying it.

[@lrstudio3221]

The Shire book is probably the first game supplement I've owned that is an actual real page turner. Can't put it down! Great work! I've always had a desire to learn all that I can about The Shire and this book scratches that itch quite successfully.

[@TheConfessor]

@@lrstudio3221 When I was talking about writing it before I got the gig I said to Francesco "Well, I live in a town of 200, love to cook, love a good pipe of tobacco, my wife and I keep bees and chickens, and live on a large rural piece of property that's 25 miles from so much as a grocery store with our extended family that I've always joking called 'Brandy Hall. Also, I have massive feet. That qualify?" Francesco later gave me the moniker "The American Hobbit." Writing the Shire was literally the Impossible Dream That Was Never Going To Happen. It was the specific reason I decided to toss my hat in the ring when it comes to writing for the table top industry. I never dreamed I'd ever get to be the one who got to do it and literally wept tears of joy when I got the job.

[@lrstudio3221]

@@TheConfessor a great story! I grew up very rural and still to this day live in a very small town. (600 residents) My wife won't let me get chickens though. 😄

[@TheConfessor]

@@lrstudio3221 Oh the chickens and bees were her idea! I drew the line at goats.

[@lrstudio3221]

@@TheConfessor 😄 I'm an artist and the closest I get to goats are some of my brushes, so I don't blame you!

[@safe-keeper1042]

Quaint, little adventures sounds like an excellent idea in today's world of scope and spectacle creep and plots that seem to all have to be about saving the world (or galaxy, or universe). Great idea for a starter set.

[@jacobrodgers7743]

This is an easy point of confusion, but the Eye of Sauron is not an automatic failure. It simply counts as 0 (meaning you have to make your total on the d6s only) and can trigger other bad stuff.

[@WASD20]

Ah! You are correct. Thanks for clarifying!

[@SteveWFitch]

Starter kits help NEW PLAYERS to tabletop gaming. Learning as a Hobbit in the Shire is perfect! And, Hobbits are awesome

[@dangarthemighty0980]

I love it, backed the Kickstarter and got everything about two months ago. A friend of mine is running me through a prequel game that will eventually lead into a campaign that he is planning. Thank you for the review.

[@bluecarpettiles]

Great review and thanks for highlighting how skill checks and combat works. I love the quality of Free League products and agree that as a starter set it gives you some great stuff to begin with but the game really comes alive once people create their own characters and explore Middle Earth.

[@brianv769]

I have not played yet, but this was my first backed Kickstarter! Love everything in it!

[@Dyundu]

The idea of running a quaint rural low-stakes adventures really reminds me of Ryutama, which is a really under-appreciated TTRPG. This looks really fun!

[@WASD20]

Never heard of it. I’ll have to look it up.

[@Dyundu]

@@WASD20 Ryutama is great! It’s a Japanese RPG with a stellar English translation and wonderful art. It’s got a very Ghibli/Harvest Moon vibe.

[@bruhdon4748]

@@Dyundu I am sold

[@DjigitDaniel]

One of the most underrated hex crawl, zone combat TTRPGs ever produced. I use its mechanics in other RPGs systematically.

[@putonghua73]

​​​@@WASD20In a similar vein to Ryutama is 'Golden Sky Stories!

[@randrews103]

Greatest thumbnail ever

[@lrstudio3221]

Thanks for the well done review. I ordered this set and the core rules today after watching this. I've played / ran the original MERP (with Rolemaster expanded rules) way back in the late 80s and 90s and have been wanting a good Lord of the Rings RPG rules set ever since. As a bonus, after ordering, Free League sent me PDFs for everything I ordered, so I can read up on it while I wait for it to get here. 👍

[@WASD20]

Nice. What a standup up company.

[@randrews103]

I actually like this style of cobat. I feel like this would be great for my kids. I see a lot of homebrew potential. Dwarves, elves and so on.

[@hopefulhyena3400]

As a big fan of the little guys, this sounds interesting.

[@AndyGoodacre]

Would love to see your review of the core book!

[@gavinboyer4634]

Personally, I'd keep the misprinted dice. They're limited edition!

[@WASD20]

Good point! I'm not a HUGE dice collector, so maybe sell them in 5 years for millions, lol.

[@SugarySmallpox]

A review of your thoughts on the core book would be awesome! Great video!

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

Great reveiw love the astetict of the set and it sounds like a turtorial zone for new TTRPG gamers to start with.

[@SkiddosMusicAndMore]

I love LOTR Soooo much!!! Thanks Nate, now you've convinced me to buy it!

[@iamcoolalot]

looks gorgeous, i love the art

[@eastargamemanufacturing6914]

Thanks for your video! Your views and presentation are great! 😉😉

[@carsick6817]

for my one ring campaign im planning on running through the starter set, then through Bilbo, the players then meet gandalf, and they make their homebase rivendel as they do set up missions for the fellowship. example: scouting moria to see if it is a viable passage. i forgot to mention that im gonna have my players each make a hobbit and a different character of their choosing, then after playing through the starter set (as the hobbits) they then go to rivendel and meet their other characters, they then can choose to either have their hobbit join gandalfs scouting team, or to have their other character join the scouting team instead. that way we get the quiet less serious part of middle earth before getting into the big adventures.

[@canyondaley731]

I love your reviews!

[@dan31789]

I gotta say, hands down, best thumbnail ever

[@WASD20]

Thanks! Credit to my friend Will for the idea. :)

[@inside-terrace59]

Awesome content Nate! tysm for this awesome content! Been a viewer since 2017 😎😎

[@WASD20]

Thanks!

[@cassmi8783]

Great video! I believe when you roll an Eye of Sauron, it's just a zero instead of an automatic failure.

[@splatcave3145]

It starts slowly and simply, like Tolkien's stories. However any GM worth their salt could easily take the pregens and expand the adventures or plot their own. Simill-arly 😉, with the long winded narrative text, you can always abridge it yourself 😁

[@paavohirn3728]

So far in really digging the game on paper. What I'm worried is in the system the gap between a strong skill and a decent skill is huge. The other is that there's a lot of rules and rolls for everything. Other than that the rules seem fun and very thematic.

[@matthewshroba1511]

Awesome thumbnail. How could I NOT click!?

[@razorboy251]

I like the starter set a lot for the amount of stuff you get in it and for how much it adds to the core book. The core book does not detail the Shire or surrounding areas at all so it's nice to get all the stuff about the Shire from the starter set. Also, the nice map and the dice are pretty good value (since just buying a dice set can set you back 15 dollars). However, I agree with you about the adventure. It's nice but it's limited in scope and you can't continue into a wider world campaign with those characters, and the read-aloud text is too long. On the topic of TOR, I've now ran three sessions of it and having an absolute blast - it really recreates that Middle Earth feeling. I highly recommend picking up the Loremaster's Kit as well - a lot of good stuff in there too!

[@WASD20]

Nice! Thanks for the comment. :)

[@tazmokhan7614]

when i saw the price tag i couldnt believe it and i put it back shaking my head as i put the box back on the shelf and that was 3 months ago...now that I saw your review on the map and the lore book which I am a huge fan of and the dice...i will deinately get this box, also even if there are no epic adventuring in this 50 buck box, this adventure is a little too small and running around the shire fighting a troll name jack and gathering hobbit "artefacts seems a little suss for my taste, but overall i am still getting though thx for changing my mind.

[@Ryan-rt9wn]

I gotta say, the thumbnail got me!

[@cfrun02]

I wanted to start up a campaign. We are all new to the one ring. Do you think if I manipulate the starter adventures that I could use them as their starting quest to a bigger campaign with their own player created characters (instead of the box ones)

[@sophliketoph]

I feel like this would be a handy game to play if you wanna learn RP gaming. You can tell me if I'm wrong.

[@markgnepper5636]

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

[@AlanaWheat]

I've just started as a Loremaster for this having brought the core rules last week. Any advice would be appreciated! I've watched the D&D videos but it would be interesting to hear your take on the One Ring and session planning* (especially as on my initial search, there isn't a great deal available online yet for 2e). I've successfully made 3 characters and had a go at the travel section with my partner. Practice makes perfect but I don't want to make it too boring that the party might lose interest. I've never played D&D before so your videos and a few others are what I've been using for inspo! Thank you for doing them. Looking forward to delving more into map creation too! *planning meaning, most of it will be improv so I'd be interested to know how you would tab the book to locate things quicker, etc.... any help is good help, thanks Nate!

[@ranty_fugue]

Now do a review of the core book! 🙂

[@WASD20]

Probably will!

[@ranty_fugue]

@@WASD20 Awesome! Looking forward to it. Thanks.

[@JackOfHearts42]

This looks really cool though.

[@starshiplazyboy475]

The C7 Adventures in Middle Earth player's guide is one of the best 3rd party supplements I own. It let me run the very low magic campaign in 5e that I've been trying to homebrew for years. I'm hoping this product will be on par with the previous one.

[@Crack_the_Skye]

And now Free League is releasing a new edition of AiME, albeit under a new name.

[@canyondaley731]

I wanna to get the booknow!

[@NefariousKoel]

I'm also not a big fan of the color art in all the TOR2e products, but the black & white drawings are amazing. I believe the artist who did the distinct color art is the same as that in Symbaroum, and it worked for that RPG's dark faerie tale style setting, but seems a bit out of place in TOR. The B&W drawings in the core book, though, are superb.

[@reaperofsouls2354]

It's supposed to be 1-10, with the eye of sauron in place of the 11. The Gandalf rune is the 12. A quick fix for the dice until corrected is to reduce the number value by one. This will give you the 1-10 value, as it should be.

[@WASD20]

Or just turn the 11 into a one. That's a bit easier for my brain. lol

[@grendol6968]

But these dice go to 11!

[@WASD20]

@@grendol6968 🤣

[@MRdaBakkle]

Correction the EYE counts as 0, but is not really a crit fail. It counts as auto fail only when Miserable. The G rune is auto success, and rolling a 6 on the D6s is more like the crit success.

[@willowwoods6983]

I want this....

[@piece4157]

Free League for the win

[@adilsonlc]

I'm giving it a try. I wanted something "smaller" to get my kids into playing roleplaying games. Because of its LOTR theme, it seems easier to sell it to them instead of regular D&D.

[@auggjl]

Out of curiosity, is it working well with kids ? I was thinking the same (reading the Hobbit with my 10 year old daughter and 7 year old son and thought it would be a great continuation)

[@garethmason7920]

If you had to choose between one ring 2e or lord of the rings 5e, which would you choose ?

[@WASD20]

I’d choose 2e because it was built with LotR in mind, unlike Lord of the Rings 5e, which is trying to fit the fiction on an existing system.

[@garethmason7920]

@@WASD20 thank you for your response as I was really torn

[@CScott-wh5yk]

Will you reviewing the core book as well?

[@WASD20]

Probably!

[@tinaprice4948]

How is this compared to other Middle Earth tabletop games? I bought many of the Middle Earth books , brother and I tried reading it to start playing and we just couldnt get in to it :/ And so they sit on my shelf :(

[@WASD20]

I'm not really familiar with too many others. The only other one I own is Adventures in Middle Earth, which is based on 5th edition D&D rules, so is quite different from a mechanical standpoint.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

I mean there seems to be 2 camps of TT gamers in regards to lore... Those who love lore and those who ignore it... For instance I know solidly atleast 3 KZbinrs who belive you must have lore in your system and atleast 3 who would ignore it 100%... So I belive atleast for my TT game and talking about TT games have lore but set up the book in a way that the no lore gamer can just skim though it.

[@joshualichkay7047]

Cool I like Lord of the Rings.

[@glennjamessephton7593]

Hello there

[@MRdaBakkle]

The correct dice is supposed to be 1-10. So the 11 is suppose to count as 1.

[@WASD20]

Yeah included a little text correcting that, but it was perhaps not noticeable enough.

[@adriansantiago4424]

Do another Nate critiques video

[@danmorgan3685]

The price difference between the base book and starter box is negligible on Amazon. While the quality looks good i don't see the value in getting an incomplete rule set and a small setting versus the complete rules.

[@bamboozledgreatcrowd8982]

MERP!!! Your welcome.

[@tinaprice4948]

I played MERP a long time ago :D Good memories!

[@lrstudio3221]

I ran a MERP game back in the late 80s and 90s and absolutely loved it. We used the Rolemaster expanded rules set with it and really enjoyed some of those critical damage charts. "Use a spatula" 😄

[@tinaprice4948]

@@lrstudio3221 MERP ! I remember once skipping the first two steps going up the stairs but the third was the trapped one and it chopped off part of my leg and I bled out after so many rounds lol , I think I died more often than the other players lol!

[@lrstudio3221]

@@tinaprice4948 😄 Merp was such a great system.

[@fufu1405]

Why would I need anything other than Hobbit adventures? I don't understand how you could wanna play anything but Hobbits/Halflings anyway.

[@JeanMichelAbrassart]

Cubicle 7 didn't discontinue the product. I think they simply lost the rights to it. But it wasn't a choice for them, and they never stated plainly what happened...

[@1161ofmany]

*stated*

[@WASD20]

I did not say they discontinued it, just that it was discontinued.

[@NefariousKoel]

Thankfully the 1e products from Cube7, with a large focus east of the Misty Mountains, are still quite compatible with 2e. I appreciate FL's choice to keep the system very similar, with only minor changes, and my older resources relevant.

[@Jarofdice]

Playing a "Hobbit Adventures in Shire" are not so epic. That's true. But "The One Ring" beside that is a game in a vast, old and mysterious land. Land destroyed by Witchking from Angmar a many years ago. Full of secrets, mystery and danger. Under the Eriador lies things that should not be awakened.

[@WillWildsOutdoorAdventures]

I want to play

[@WASD20]

Let's get it going! Maybe this summer.

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

:D

[@dmal-ty5qw]

"I'm not a big fan of lore, and history" :/

[@WASD20]

Lol. Yeah it sounds bad but I guess I just mean I don’t generally enjoy reading more than a couple pages of it in an rpg book.

[@dmal-ty5qw]

@@WASD20 yeah Middle Earth lore and history are a vast, deep ocean lol. I just don’t know how you could possibly condense it into a few pages. Definitely a unique problem for a few settings out there. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time as another example.

[@WASD20]

Love those books! Still haven't made it through the series, but meaning to get back to it. When it's in the context of a story I have no problem with lore and history. But a book full of lore/history is something I'm not too interested in.

[@bruhdon4748]

1st’ve

[@sunsin1592]

The books look great and convey the feel of Middle Earth well. But I utterly loathe the mechanics. It feels like a glorified board game that substitutes roll playing for roleplaying. Most of the rules could pretty much be jettisoned if you have any experience gaming. I especially dislike the journey and audience mechanics as I see no reason to determine how people feel or what reactions are by rolling a bunch of dice in advance. And all the stances, etc., just get in the way of smooth combat. The problem seems to be that they want to recreate the books rather than just give you the tools to game in Middle Earth. So we're just using White Box FMAG as our base system with a few bits from TOR. I even found a way to make use of their custom dice.