I love the concept of The One Ring, its devotion to a Tolkien-specific tone, by ensuring the relevance of journeying and non-combat skills, something sadly lacking in other iterations of Middle Earth gaming. That being said, I still find The One Ring just a little too complicated for my tastes these days. Put it down to being over 40 and not having the time to spend months developing system mastery for all the games I want to run and play.
The hack below aims to keep many of the elements of The One Ring, just simplified and rebuilt using the Tiny Dungeons core rules. I’ve tried to merge the two where possible, but that’s meant complicating Tiny Dungeons and limiting The One Ring, but I think it’s turned out to be a fair compromise.
I’ve included some of the optional rules from the Tiny Dungeons core rules book, such as Criticals, and included some tables and traits from AIME. Where I’ve strayed, such as how to use armour and creating an additional medium rank of weaponry, was purely to try and ensure things weren’t veering to far from The One Ring’s tone and options. You’ll still need both of the original rule books to make sense of everything, especially The One Ring for the creatures, Gear and guides, but if not, you should be able to work out the basics.
I’ve yet to run a campaign to fully playtest this so please do let me know if you’re able to and it works or if you find anything that’s broken.
Imperious Rex 
Awesome. I was planning to do this myself and I am glad someone beat me to it.
LikeLike
Let me know if you get to run it and how it works out for you!
LikeLike
We plan to start running in October. Will keep you posted.
LikeLike
Hey Brock, enquiring minds want to know if you managed to get this to your gaming table in October and if so how it went.
LikeLike
Thanks for checking in about the Middle Earth Tiny 6. Unfortunately, things fell through. But, I still think is a great homebrew!
LikeLike
That’s a shame, but thank you! I’m considering doing the same thing for WFRP next.
LikeLike
I’m thinking of doing my own Tiny D6 hack for Symbaroum after being really impressed by your efforts. Have you have had any feedback on how your hack works in the wild or even tried it out yourself yet ?
LikeLike
Thanks Lloyd! Nice to know I’m not shouting into the void.
So far I haven’t. I was rushing to get my existing lock down campaigns finished before my firstborn arrived a fortnight ago. While I doubt I’ll manage it any time soon, I’m thinking of doing the same thing with WFRP, so I’ll be very interested to hear how you go with Symbaroum.
LikeLike
Hm, I like it, but it is a little too “bloated” for being Tiny D6 IMHO. Some trimming and perhaps updating to new 2e is needed.
LikeLike
Thanks for checking it out. Yes, it’s not supposed to be a ‘true’ Tiny D6 version of The One Ring, but a hybrid of the two. It keeps as many key elements of TOR as possible, but very much slimmed down and using the simpler D6 mechanics. If you just used Tiny D6 entirely then it wouldn’t be TOR at all, and that would lose a lot of the excellent genre emulation TOR manages to achieve.
LikeLike
Love TOR and Td6! Care to send me the doc in word and I might give it a try to adjust it and trim it somewhat for personal use?
PS Have you seen There & Back Again AKA “Hobbit 1937 TinyD6”?
LikeLike
Sent to your email!
LikeLike
Great! Thanks!
LikeLike
Bit tricky to get it right with +/- skills only, if you stick with the TinyD6-model, as you then would never roll 2d6. I understand why you went with up to 4d6.
However, I want it more simple and closer to the source, and will try to go with the TABA -approach with Traits and Skills (Having a skill is an advantage. Not having a trait is a disadvantage.), by using the “Traits” (Movement, Survival, Custom etc) as headings for the Skill groups.
LikeLike
Totally understand why you’d do that. I wanted to keep it as close to TOR as possible to be able to use all the supplements and scenarios with minimal conversion.
LikeLike
I would like to see a D6-hack for Cthulhu as well. I am aware of Tiny Cthulhu, but I didn’t like that one at all. Wrong archetypes, no effort in skills and the Sanity rules (Corruption) feels off.
LikeLike
Yes, I was disappointed with Tiny Cthulhu as well. It had a lot of potential, but seemed like a very half-hearted attempt to adapt the rules and genre tropes.
LikeLike
There is def a place for a (better) fan supplement here, with relevant archetypes/occupations and a skill list that at least feels “twenties”.
LikeLike
Did some thinking about a better Lovecraftish D6 during the weekend.
Sanity could work just as Shadow in The Ring. If (sub)skills (say Archaeology, Medicine etc could be grouped in over-“Traits”, just as in TABA, it could be a great Minimald6-hack! Having a Skill gives a d6, not having the overall Trait at all is minus a d6.
LikeLike
Did some thinking about a better Lovecraftish D6 during the weekend.
Sanity could work just as Shadow in The Ring. If (sub)skills (say Archaeology, Medicine etc could be grouped in over-“Traits”, just as in TABA, it could be a great Minimald6-hack! Having a Skill gives a d6, not having the overall Trait at all is minus a d6.
LikeLike