We’ve taken the opportunity with the revised edition of The One Ring Roleplaying Game to completely re-lay it out, seamlessly integrating the Adventurer’s Guide and the Loremaster’s Guide into a single volume. The revised edition has been thoroughly re-edited and reformatted for clarity, ease of use and reference. It not only incorporates previously supplementary rules, including the encounter rules from Tales from Wilderland, but also changes many of the existing rules based on 3 years of fan feedback and countless gaming sessions in that time.

For those of you who are just curious about the changes over the previous edition, we’ll be discussing them more over the coming weeks and, upon pre-order, we’ll make a rules update PDF freely available.

The hardback volume contains all the rules, background and advice you need to play – just grab a set of dice and sit down with your friends to start having your own adventures. For players, it contains rules for making up your own heroes (as well as six ready-made characters if you just want to pick one of those and start right away), all the rules of play and rules for advancing your character as they gain experience.

For Loremasters (who are responsible for starting off the stories and running the game) it contains all manner of advice for running a game set in Middle-earth, including invaluable advice on how to handle the lore and canon of the setting. There’s also rules for the agents of the Shadow, including a bestiary of monsters. The setting of Wilderland is also detailed, as is a timeline of events up to the start of the campaign. There’s also a ready-made adventure, and an overview of the Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, so you can get started right away if you like.

One of the biggest changes we’ve made to the new edition is its physical format – where once there was a slipcase containing two paperback guides, now there is a single, hardback volume. Not only is this format far more durable to wear and tear, but it’s allowed us to put all the various rules in one place.

We’ve taken the opportunity of a revised edition to thoroughly re-edit the text, incorporating our own feedback as well as the feedback from dozens of playtesters and countless gaming sessions over the past 3 years. Francesco Nepitello, the game’s designer, and Andrew Kenrick, Cubicle 7’s managing editor, pored over every line, clarifying and changing text where necessary, and reformatting it into a seamless whole.

We’re gearing up for the release of a new edition of The One Ring Roleplaying Game, and until it goes on pre-order in June we’re publishing a series of articles that each take a look at a different aspect of the game. Today’s article is the first of a two-part article about the core mechanics of the game.

Games of The One Ring are split into two phases: the Adventuring phase and the Fellowship phase. We’ll cover the Fellowship phase in more detail another time, for today we will look at the Adventuring phase. In an Adventuring phase, a company of adventurers heads off from their homes and into the Wild, in search of adventure. Its in this phase where the principle action of the game takes place; where epic journeys across Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains are embarked upon, where Orcs and Spiders and Wargs are fought in combat, and where wits are matched with the Great Goblin and the Elvenking, Thranduil.

Last week we described how The One Ring is divided into two discrete phases – the Adventuring phase and the Fellowship phase – and went into some detail about how the core mechanics work. Within an Adventuring phase, adventurers are most often engaging in one of three distinct activities: travelling across perilous lands, interacting with wary or suspicious characters, and drawing swords to battle dangerous adversaries. Each of these activities is handled with its own mechanics.

Smaug may be dead and the Necromancer driven from his fastness in Dol Guldur, but Sauron is not defeated and his taint still lies heavy upon Mirkwood and his many agents and spies still roam Wilderland. It is these dark forces that the heroes of The One Ring must face, whether in the guise of physical foes such as Orcs and Wargs, or against the more insidious threat of the corruption of spirit and the destruction of hope.

In The One Ring Roleplaying Game, this latter threat is represented by a set of mechanics called Shadow points. We asked games designer Francesco Nepitello to explain more about them.

“In my opinion, Shadow points are both a measure of the loss of reason and corruption. They represent fear and doubt, gnawing away at the capability of an individual to trust in a brighter future. So, they represent self-doubt, insecurity, resignation and the result of giving in to our darkest urges. But in a world were evil is incarnate, Shadow represents also an outside threat, a corrupting force that can taint the spirit and twist the mind of a hero.”

As we discussed the other day, long and perilous journeys are at the very heart of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so they similarly form the heart of The One Ring Roleplaying Game. The journey rules give the players the feeling that their characters are embarking on an epic trek across Mirkwood or the Misty Mountains or down the Anduin. The part of the journey rules that captures this the most is when the players first plot their route, huddling over the map of Middle-earth and arguing over whether the best way to get from Beorn’s house to Lake-town is by going around the top of Mirkwood, or straight through the middle.*

The new edition of The One Ring Roleplaying Game features two distinct maps: the Adventurer’s Map and the Loremaster’s Map. Not only are these included in the game as pages in their own right, but also incorporated into the end-papers, a neat solution that makes them instantly referable without the risk of coming loose or being lost.

*Hint: The writers of The One Ring cannot be held responsible for any danger – including spider-poisoning – that befalls characters wandering into Mirkwood without a suitable guide.

As we mentioned a few weeks back, games of The One Ring are split into two parts: the Adventuring phase and the Fellowship phase. While an Adventuring phase is packed with dangerous battles and perilous journeys, Fellowship phases provide heroes with the opportunity to rest and recuperate, to practise their skills or pursuing a noble undertaking.

Designer Francesco Nepitello explains how the Fellowship phase came about:

“One of my primary design focuses was to make the passage of time a central feature of playing The One Ring. I feel that it is the unfolding of history what really turns the deeds of a character into an epic worthy of song. So, making the passing of the years a mechanic of the game was a must. I’ve played a lot of King Arthur Pendragon in my time, an excellent game that successfully tackles the issue, and I have seen other games inspired by the same principle (Mouse Guard among the foremost of these). So, the division in two distinct gaming phases was a natural choice.”

Ahead of the release of the new edition of The One Ring Roleplaying Game, we’ve been talking a lot about the game. Well, ahead of the pre-order starting next week, we thought we’d share what a few of our fans have said about the current edition, so don’t just take our word for it!


As well as critical acclaim, The One Ring has also garnered a whole spread of awards, and it was both a privilege and an honour to for it to be so well recognised by the gaming community.

We haven't confirmed this until now, but it will a simultaneous pre-order and PDF release. Significantly, we will also have the PDF uploaded to Bits and Mortar today so store pre-orders will get the PDF very soon too, since we like to support our retailers whenever we can!