TTRPG Roll 23-35 – “I am looking for someone to share an adventure…and it’s very difficult….” The One Ring Strider Mode (Free League Publishing, 2022)

Roleplaying games (RPGs) are, by nature and design, for groups. The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of The Lord of the Rings, Second Edition (Free League Publishing, 2022) is no exception. Like most every RPG, the core rulebook for The One Ring clearly says, “The game can be played with as few as to people (one player plus the Loremaster), and with as many as six players or more” (The One Ring, 8). With the RockyMountainNavy Boys now starting to go their separate ways, getting even our small group of Loremaster (me) and two adventuring players together is almost impossible. Although RockyMountainNavy T, who lives at home, and myself can still play, I find myself turning more to solo RPG play these days. So it was that I acquired The One Ring Strider Mode (Free League Publishing, 2022). Much to my surprise, Strider Mode is not only for solo play, but will likely find its way supporting a cooperative RPG adventure by RMN T and myself using The One Ring.

Joining a Company

The idea of cooperative play—by a group—is built into play of The One Ring. The last step of character creation is to “Gather a Company” (The One Ring, 28):

Adventurers know that the burdens are easier to bear when shared with others. That’s one of the reasons why they gather in a Company, a group united by a common cause — be it to fight the Enemy, lead a hunt for a prized prey, or scour the land seeking lost or stolen treasure.

The One Ring, 51

In some cases, the rules for The One Ring explicitly call out the need for a Company. For example, the rules for a Journey call for player characters to assume one of four roles for the length of a Journey:

The members of the Company assume different roles during a journey. A journey role summarizes roughly what a Player-hero is doing for the length of the trip and comes into play when the Company experiences an event (see Journey Sequence).

[There are four journey roles to cover: Guide, Hunter, Look-out, and Scout.]

The One Ring, 109

Solo Strider

Strider Mode is a set of solo rules for The One Ring RPG: “Strider Mode does not require a Loremaster, allowing a single player to undertake journeys as a lone adventurer in the perilous world of Middle-earth” (Strider Mode, 2).

Strider Mode is supplementary to The One Ring — the core rules are required for solo play, and familiarity with those rules is assumed.

Though in practice Strider Mode differs little from the core experience of The One Ring, there are some distinctions that facilitate the solo experience and help drive the narrative without a Loremaster at the helm. This supplement provides options and tools to help guide your solo adventures in the Third Age.

Strider Mode, “How it Works,” 3

Strider Mode is built around the solo player using three core tables (Strider Mode, 3):

• The Telling Table (page 10) helps answer simple questions about locations, people, creatures, and events. Use this table when you would normally ask the Loremaster a yes/no/maybe question like “Is there light in this passage?” or “Is there an herb-master in this village?”“
• The Lore Table (page 11) helps inspire answers to more complex, open-ended questions or reveal new events and situations. Use this table when you would normally ask the Loremaster for details about the world around you, such as “Who do I see coming up the road?” or “What do I find in the Troll’s lair?”
• The Fortune and Ill-Fortune Tables (page 8) offer prompts for narrative outcomes when a Gandalf rune or Eye of Sauron icon is rolled on your Feat die.

Strider Mode calls out rules changes for portions of the Adventuring Phase in a session of The One Ring. The major differences are no roles during Journeys, an expanded Journey Events Table tailored to solo play, and a new combat stance to give a combat advantage to a solo player not needed when battling with a Company (Strider Mode, 3).

Cooperative Strider

One page 3 of the Strider Mode rules a text box appears that has totally changed not only how I look at solo play with The One Ring, but solo play using any number of solo RPG adventure rules. I’m going to quote it at length because it deserves to be heard far and wide:

COOPERATIVE PLAY

This supplement is geared for solo play, but can also be used for play with two or more players in a small Company, without the aid of a Loremaster.

When you are playing in a group without a Loremaster, the normal conversation you would have with other players is expanded to include the details of the world you inhabit. When a question or situation arises which would normally be resolved or depicted by the Loremaster, the group can collaborate to decide what happens, or use tools such as the Telling Table (page 10) and Lore Table (page 11) to help come up with an answer.

With cooperative play, it’s imperative that players share the narrative spotlight, allowing each participant to “take the lead” at times in envisioning the world around the Player-heroes. Stray from allowing one player to become the de facto Loremaster, and take turns if necessary to foster a collaborative experience.

Strider Mode, 3

The idea of playing The One Ring in a cooperative manner with RockyMountainNavy T is very interesting. Cooperative play would be a way for both of us to adventure and tell a story together. The major challenge I face is that I am still learning the core rules for The One Ring. Making the jump to Strider Mode looks to be fairly easy. The rules for cooperative play, however in Strider Mode are not very explicit; for example Strider Mode adds a new distinctive feature—Strider—where solo Player-heroes are considered Inspired on skill rolls (Strider Mode, 5). Should that feature be used in cooperative play? I think so, and probably will play it that way. As I reread Strider Mode I discovered this very question was actually addressed on page 19-20:

JOURNEYS IN COOPERATIVE PLAY

When playing cooperatively without a Loremaster, a small Company of two Player-heroes can use the Strider Mode version of the journey rules described in this supplement. You will not select roles, but should each describe your focus during the journey and resolve events accordingly Take care to balance the focus of the events across both Player-heroes. If you are unsure which Player-hero is the target of an event, make a random roll to decide.

A larger Company of three or more Player-heroes should use the journey roles and sequence as detailed in The One Ring core rulebook. This includes assigning journey roles.

In either case, use the original version of the Journey Events Table when playing cooperatively (page 112 of The One Ring core rulebook) to properly include the Company in the consequences of an event. As with solo play, you can use the Event Detail tables for more insight into the nature of an event.

Strider Mode, 19-20

Open and closed drama

Now that I see it in front of me, I perceive how various solo RPG rules can be used for cooperative play. The three core solo play tables in Strider Mode are very similar to those used in many solo RPG rules built around “Oracle” play. For example, Extended Solo: Additional Solo Material for Twilight: 2000 (Free League Workshop, 2022) and Solo Space Opera with Cepheus (Parts Per Million, 2023) both use a form of the “Oracle.”

Broken down to its most basic level, “Oracle” play strives to give solo players answers to both open and closed questions as well as add an element of (unpredictable?) drama. Here is how Strider Mode and Extended Solo and Solo Space Opera with Cepheus loosely compare:

Question	Strider Mode	Extended Solo	Solo Cepheus
Closed	The Telling Table	Closed Questions	The Oracle
Open	The Lore Table	Open Questions	The Muse
Drama	Fortune/Ill-Fortune Table	Cyclic Drama Dice	Threat, Countdown, Drama

Third Age goes first

While I certainly could play any of the three solo rules sets named above, I think I will start out with Strider Mode first as is it perhaps the best “integrated” of the three when it comes to at least some consideration of support for cooperative play. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes…

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