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by Professor X

I got this from AI, not sure how accurate it is:

In The One Ring 2nd Edition, difficulty is handled primarily through each character’s personal Target Number (TN), with circumstances modifying the dice pool rather than changing the TN in most cases.
Core Resolution
Players roll:
• 1 Feat die (d12; Gandalf rune = automatic success; Eye of Sauron = 0, and automatic failure if Miserable).
• A number of Success dice (d6) equal to their rank in the relevant Skill (or 0 if unskilled).
The total is compared to the character’s own TN for the Attribute that governs the Skill (Strength, Heart, or Wits). Success occurs if the total meets or exceeds the TN (or on a Gandalf rune).
TNs are calculated at character creation as 20 − Attribute rating (or 18 − Attribute for shorter/one-shot campaigns or “Starter Mode”). Higher Attributes therefore produce lower (easier) TNs. These TNs are fixed on the character sheet and do not normally change with the situation.
Skills are grouped under the three Attributes, so every skill check uses the matching personal TN.
Accounting for Circumstance / Difficulty
The Loremaster adjusts difficulty mainly by changing the number of Success dice or the nature of the Feat die roll, not by altering the TN:
• Bonus Success dice (“gain (1d)” or more): Favourable conditions, useful items, spending Hope (1 Hope = +1d; if Inspired, +2d), support from another hero (who spends Hope), certain Virtues, or narrative advantages. The Roll20 sheet and rules texts explicitly note that the Loremaster may grant (or impose) bonus/penalty dice based on context.
• Penalty Success dice or Ill-favoured rolls: Adverse conditions. An Ill-favoured roll uses two Feat dice and keeps the worse result. Weary characters also treat 1–3 on Success dice as 0.
• Favoured rolls: For Favoured Skills (or other special circumstances), roll two Feat dice and keep the better result.
This keeps the math player-facing (you always know your base TN) while letting the Loremaster tune difficulty through the dice pool.
Special Cases
• Combat attacks: Use the attacker’s Strength TN, modified by the target’s Parry rating (added to the TN).
• Protection tests (to avoid Wounds from Piercing Blows): TN equals the weapon’s Injury rating.
• Shadow/Corruption tests, journey Fatigue checks, etc.: Use specific ratings (Wisdom/Valour, Travel, etc.) against the character’s relevant TN or a default, with possible situational dice modifiers.
• Extended tasks (Skill Endeavours, Councils): Difficulty is expressed as a Resistance rating (number of successes needed: typically 3/6/9) plus a time limit (number of rolls allowed). Individual rolls still use the normal personal TN + dice modifiers.
In short, the game makes the baseline difficulty personal and fixed (via Attribute-derived TNs), then layers circumstance on top mainly by adding or removing Success dice or by making the roll Favoured/Ill-favoured. This is a deliberate design change from the 1st edition, where the Loremaster more freely set variable TNs from a difficulty table.

by Tomcat1304

Derang3d wrote:

Is it safe yet?

Could be. Do you want a spot on the list? :)

by MichaelLavoie

Just heard this for the first time in awhile and wanted to post it posthaste. Some 80s Boston rock.

Face to Face - 10-9-8
Youtube Video

A new episode has been added to the database: Patrick Mullen... Steal This Idea!

by lorddillon

CHAPTER 1: A STAR TREK PRIMER:

This chapter is almost 30 pages (runs from pg 12 through pg 39) and covers the setting of Star Trek (a.k.a. the Star Trek Universe) in a decent amount of detail. It's enough detail that someone who knows very little about the ins-and-outs of the setting can become comfortable enough to play a character in this setting. If they read it all, that is... it's pretty extensive and I have a feeling a lot of people will simply skip it or stop reading after a couple pages. Especially someone who knows even a little bit about Star Trek.

In this chapter we have Ambassador Raymond Merton as our guide - that is, the one who speaks to us from the thin light-green sidebars similar to Commodore Xen in the Foreword. And to my earlier point, in the first thin sidebar of the chapter, Merton literally tells the reader, "If you are already familiar with Star Trek, feel free to skim this as a refresher, or skip to another chapter." Given that, and the fact that the majority of people who will buy this book are buying it on the strength of the Star Trek name in the first place... I wonder how many people actually read this entire chapter.

:bd6-1: STAR TREK ESSENTIALS
The introduction to this chapter has a good 2 paragraph explanation of the basic outlook of each of the major civilizations in the setting. There is an entire section that delves deeper later on, but as an introduction it is a decent (and quick) explanation of what to expect about the major different philosophies of the civilizations in the Star Trek Universe.

:d10-1: Culture The overall culture of the Federation is described as 'permissive with outside influences' and basically celebratory regarding the cultural differences of its greater than 150 member species. This short section is an invitation to the players and GM to explore literally any type of social and cultural aspect that seems interesting, even if very little canonical detail is known.

:d10-2: Economy The Federation is a post-scarcity society, which means the citizens do not have to compete for their basic needs to be fulfilled and there is no need to accumulate vast wealth. The book points out that it doesn't mean that no one accumulates great wealth, but that there is not a NEED to do so, since everyone's food, clothing, housing, education, and health care are guaranteed. A collateral benefit of this is that knowledge, art, and creativity is prized among citizens. The book invites players and GMs to think about the possible hobbies and desires of a person growing up in such a society, and how that might impact their outlook as they join Starfleet.

:geek_star: There is a nice sidebar in this section - a proper sidebar with black text and stylized box around it - describing how members of Starfleet and citizens of Federation planets manage resources and barter. It mentions an economic prime directive that forbids undue influence on economies/societies that do not have replicators. This sidebar tries to help the reader understand how a person can live in a society without a 'modern' sense of money and spending. It is a good sidebar - I am not sure it goes far enough. I wish this section had more to it, including a couple of examples, which would go a long way to help a GM use this concept in game - and maybe it does during discussions of the first contact mission style? I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet. This is the sort of topic that nerds like myself, and the people at my tables, often talk about when we think of Star Trek, and I can easily see it bleeding into a game scenario or two.

:d10-3: Religion & Spirituality The Federation is a secular society that puts no single culture or belief above another. At the same time, each individual member and each individual citizen is welcome to follow, believe, and adhere to whatever religious or spiritual aspects of their culture are important to them. The book tells us to, "Feel free to bring religion or spirituality into your game through your character. In Star Trek, religion hasn’t disappeared; it just is no longer the defining aspect of life that it was in centuries past." It does admonish the reader to be as 'sensitive' to current religions as possible and says it is better to "avoiding speaking directly about modern religions" and focus on unknown or alien-based religions instead.

:d10-4: Society This section informs us of some basic ideals among Federation member worlds:
1) There is a great deal of diversity within the Federation and that diversity is celebrated
2) Free movement among Federation member worlds is assumed
3) Freedom of speech is also assumed
4) Member worlds are allowed to govern themselves as long as they don't infringe on the rights of citizens and other members of the Federation
5) The official language is Federation Standard, though the Universal Translator allows people to understand thousands of languages (and gets its own sidebar later)

:halfstar: This section ends with a set of questions for players to ask themselves regarding the society their PC may have grown up in. This last paragraph of questions becomes a standard part of these early sections of the book. Other than just things to think about, they don't really have any bearing on character creation as far as I can tell.

:d10-5: Stardates Time on most member worlds is tracked locally based on things like day length and seasons. For the Federation though, a unified system of tracking time needed to be developed. Stardate is the name of the system that was developed. This allows us to place different events in the proper chronological order no matter which planet or region a person or ship is located on. "After the 23rd century, 1000 stardate units is equal to a year, so a stardate of 44000.1 is equal to 1 January 2367 at 0053. Prior to 2323, multiple stardate formats were used." LOL at that last sentence.

:d10-6: Technology Three main types of important technology are explained in this section: Communication, Holograms, and Transporters, with a sidebar nod to the Universal Translator mentioned in the last section. There are many types of advanced tech showcased in Star Trek, of course, but this section highlights these three (four) because they greatly affect every individual.

:d6-1: Communication - Transmission of communications is addressed in this section. Over long distance, subspace radio, usually just called subspace, is used to transmit and receive messages. This type of communication is faster than light and is accentuated with relays and boosters, providing for almost instantaneous communication across vast distances. They discuss differences in communication transmission times in the different eras. They also mention personal communicators. This section ends with a list of questions for a player or GM to ponder... which is becoming a theme in this chapter as mentioned earlier.

:d6-2: Hologram Technology - This technology is used to record and display life-like representations of people, places, and objects. There are various uses for such technology but the two main uses discussed in this section are a ship's Holodeck and the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH). Along with their popularity with crewmembers, the restrictions on Holodeck items and injury during a Holodeck exercise are mentioned. The effectiveness of an EMH as well as expansion of the programming to create other emergency holograms to fill in important crew roles. The book helpfully points out, "They are not designed to be self-aware, though there are exceptions." LOL

:d6-3: Transporters - This includes a brief description of transporter technology and how it can be used to transport personnel as well as cargo. It makes a distinction between personnel transporters which work at quantum resolution and are therefore safe for living beings and cargo transporters which work at molecular resolution which is fatal to any living creature.

:geek_star: Personal Log Sidebars - This chapter introduces a new type of sidebar. They are kind of a mashup of the two previous types of sidebars, which I refer to as thin sidebars (with the light-green writing) and proper sidebars (blue box with black text). These new ones have a stylized green box outline but use black text, and contain a log entry from a character in the Star Trek Universe. Most of them are great, but...

:nostar: The first one of these in this section is on the page with stardate and technology info and is from Ensign D'Vana Tendi, who I think is a character from Lower Decks? Those in the know please correct me if I am wrong. The thing about this sidebar is... I don't know why it's here. All the others served a purpose, but this one is... I don't know, it's a weird placement choice. You can see it to the right.

The second one of these is on the same page as the Hologram discussion and is a logged message from the Doctor (Emergency Medical Hologram) to Captain Janeway, both of the U.S.S. Voyager. I can see the point of this sidebar in context with the EMH discussion and the quote I posted above about EMH's being self-aware. Again, all of the other ones feel relevant and specific to the section they accompany other than that first one.

:bd6-2: NOTABLE CIVILIZATIONS
Ambassador Merton tells us what this part of the chapter is about in a thin sidebar.

:halfstar: The intro page to this section has a too-small map that isn't very helpful. It's a shame that they didn't reproduce a larger version of this on the facing page or something.

I'm not going to explain these civilizations in detail, and the book doesn't get into extreme detail either. Each faction gets a page or less of examination. These sections go through the basic chain of events from the early days of the people and through the different eras of Star Trek, often all the way to the 32nd century. This is done in only the most cursory way without much description or detail. Here is the list of civilizations (factions) described in this section and the general moniker I apply to them based on the write-up:

:d10-1: The Coalition of Planets - Peaceful & Diverse Explorers
:d10-2: The Klingon Empire - Honorable Warriors
:d10-3: The Romulan Empire - Technologically Advanced Conqueror Spies
:d10-4: Cardassian Union - Domineering Taskmasters Who Mete Out Brutal Punishment
:d10-5: Ferengi Alliance - Shrewd Merchants Building a Financial Empire
:d10-6: Orion Syndicate - Crime Lords and Petty Thieves Evolving into Pirates
:d10-7: Borg Collective - Resistance is Futile IYKYK
:d10-8: The Dominion - Genetically Enhanced Addicts, Manipulators, and Mimics
:d10-9: Other Civilizations - This short section briefly mentions the Tholian Assembly, The Q Continuum, the Pakleds, and a few species in the Delta Qaudrant that get no more than one sentence of description.

:bd6-3: ERAS OF PLAY
This part of the chapter guides the reader through the key eras of the history of the Federation.

:geek_star: The introduction tells GMs (and players) to play in whatever era they think is the most interesting, and even switch things up and visit different eras. Basically the authors just want the reader to know they should play the game the way they want to play it no matter what this section says... but if you need guidance about the big events of each era, this is the place to find that info.

Here are the eras as delineated in this section of the chapter, with my notes about which Star Trek Media applies to that era:
:d10-1: 2199 and the Prior: First Contact and the Birth of the Federation - Enterprise
:d10-2: 2200 to 2299: Exploration and Expansion - Discovery (seasons 1&2), Strange New Worlds, TOS, TOS Animated, Movies I - VI & Generations (part)
:d10-3: 2300 to 2399: New Allies and New Adversaries - Generations (part), TNG, First Contact, DS9, Insurrection, Voyager, Nemesis, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Picard (part)
:d10-4: 2400 to 2499: Expanding into the Unknown Picard (part)
:d10-5: 2500 and Beyond: The Far Future - Discovery (Seasons 3-5)

:geek_star: The thing I really like about this section of the chapter that the the end of each era provides a couple of paragraphs that explain what running a campaign in that era will likely entail along with a short proper sidebar that says RUN THIS ERA IF THE GROUP... and then gives 3 or 4 bulleted reasons why the party might want to play a campaign in that time.

:geek_star: The second thing I really like about this section is that it elaborates the information about each civilization mentioned in the last section, and gives more details than before, but doesn't go into such overwhelming detail that you feel you are reading a novelized historical document. Is it still overwhelming? Yes. Did the authors do a good job of trying to give important facts and details and just enough context to make it understandable? Yes, I think they did.

:halfstar: Oh, and the third thing I like about this section - it has a really nice proper sidebar that is dedicated only to technology through the eras. Now, mind you, this sidebar is two pages long... so is it really a sidebar? No, I guess not... but they did need to separate it from the main sections that are labeled by timeline era. I feel like they could have pulled this out to the beginning of the chapter and presented it as part of the introduction instead of placing it as a massive sidebar after the first era. That's why I gave this a half star.

OVERALL THOUGHTS ON THIS SECTION

If I didn't know anything about the Star Trek Universe, would this chapter make things clear? Yes, I think the first part of the chapter gives a really decent overview of the main tenets of the setting. But Star Trek covers a vast timeline and overall this chapter is packed with information that might feel overwhelming to a new fan. I am not sure how you get away from that with such a long-standing IP... I think the solution Modiphius settled on was to provide a large amount of information, and then release era based books that contain even more detail (see 23rd Century Campaign Guide and there was a recent announcement for the 24th Century Campaign Guide).

Sidebar Issues? With the exception of the first personal log sidebar, I think the ones sprinkled throughout this chapter are pretty good and are related to the idea presented on the rest of the page - except that first one... pity that the first one is the confusing one as it colored my perception of the next few of them (and then I got over it). The proper sidebars are all good and the thin sidebars are neither frequent nor intrusive.

I would have liked more art in this section... it is a relatively dense slog and smaller, more frequent art may have made it seem less dense. Maybe not, though, as is the book is a pretty easy read. On the other hand, I am a professor and am used to reading textbooks and dense academic papers, so maybe I am not the best judge of that aspect of this chapter.

Stay tuned for my next post, covering Chapter 2: Starfleet

A new episode has been added to the database: Crew Gunk: Part 28 - If ADHD was a Deer

A new episode has been added to the database: RPGaDAY2026 August the 7th Mercy

A new episode has been added to the database: RPGaDAY2026 August the 7th Mercy

A new episode has been added to the database: RPGaDAY2026 August the 7th Mercy