So you are off to fight the balrog or a dragon, or maybe just down to the local troll caves where they move in large, violent clusters. This will involve fire, sharp objects, and massive blunt trauma on all sides. And your plan for survival is to bring a Minstrel along, who will sing songs that raise your spirits?
: Zubon
Bah, LotRO is a good game. And you’d take minstrels and captains :-)
You have to remember they’ve done it as morale, so the songs are to boost your flagging morale while getting a good ol’ kicking.
While it’s easy to make fun of LOTRO’s morale mechanics, I don’t think it is much more ridiculous than the usual “health” systems. (In most health systems the hero fights at 100% ability even with extreme wounds until a final minor scratch kills them.) In LOTRO, a fight which is going badly causes a character to lose morale, until the willingness to fight is broken and one flees. I think the morale system fits the LOTRO world much better given the restrictions of the lore (no resurrection and rare use of magic).
Or dwarves that talk about runes… :)
Lame. Always hated the healing in that game. Makes me laugh every time I try to play it.
When I was playing I also laughed every time I saw a Minstrel breakout his instrument to play. I didn’t mind the Morale mechanic but the whole visual doesn’t work. I’m fighting this monster that is trying to kick my azz so some guy near me pulls out his mandolin and plays a tune tapping his feet?? Doesn’t work for me.
The systems in LoTRO aren’t any more stupid than the mechanics of any of these games. If you play and enjoy fantasy MMOs, your house is made of glass. Really, from Diku MUD on up the basic mechanics of these games have always been silly. In PnP space you have some systems that are a bit more realistic (GURPS comes to mind, there was also Rolemaster…”shudder”), but few of those mechanics ever migrated into PC gaming and none have become widespread.
This number is how “alive you are”. Bad guys make it go down, good guys make it go up. The how is usually handwaved so we never know how this white mage came to know this inexplicably powerful cure spell or how this priest’s god can give to all his followers the power to heal any wound and resuscitate the dead pretty much at will. In the context of the LoTR universe, songs raising an ally morale make sense.
So if you ask me if I’d rather have a morale raising musician or some kind of mystical dude to keep me alive against a Balrog, I’ll take the minstrel. If i’m going down, it may as well be to an insane drum solo. :-)
Morale + the Hope/Dread effect makes alot more sense than the mysterious healing other games have LOL
Troll: Must kill tiny man thing! Hatred out of control.
Hobbit: Strums a tune on the lute.
Troll: What is that sound? It’s delightful! I’m taking a nap.