Funniest night I have had running an RPG tonight.

The party of four having braved the Midgewater marshes, managed to successfully locate the lost barrow. After that it all went rapidly down hill. ”Twas a simple task!” Climb down a rope have a mooch about, see what all the fuss is about. Climb back out….Problems…. in the ‘One Ring’ RPG an eye of Sauron on the D12 is a bad omen. Firstly it gives one zero points for that dice and secondly it increases the knowledge of the whereabouts of the party to Sauron who will direct his power to thwart them. This can be a warband of orcs or the ‘world’ turns against them. Think Cahadras in the Lord of the Rings. The Threshold in the area they were in was eighteen…They started the session with six. Less than an hour later they were up to fourteen.

The big problem was, firstly they had to climb down a rope into the barrow. The graceful elf of Mirkwood went first. She threw her four dice (3D6 and her D12) she needed a mere 12 due to her athleticism… the eye of Sauron and a grand total of four points. Down she fell… winding herself in the process. the hobbit Hoban rushed to her aid, got another eye and fell in too… luckily he landed on something soft … the elf. The ranger managed to get in without any problems at all.

Hoban then fell through a weakened floor to a flooded lower level, nearly drowned but was fortunate enough to be rescued by the party and also managed to accidentally grab some treasure on the way out.

If you thought getting in was bad, getting out was worse. Never have I seen so many failed roles, every failure involved an eye.

A cursed rope was blamed…it was a nice normal rope to begin with but it must have somehow become tainted as they couldn’t get out of the barrow. After eventually escaping they met some baddies, beat them, rescued a major NPC and threw a lot more eyes…. the weather turned against them and the normal rule of needing was overruled meaning an 18 was required. So wet, bleeding and footsore they struggled back to Bree.

All in all a hoot of a night.