001-OOC General OOC
You roll the Feat die (basically 1d12-1) and a number of Success dice equal to your skill value
If you have no rank in a Skill (ie. 0 Awe) you can still roll, and thus 'only' roll the Feat die (which is a d12).
Rolling a Gandalf
That is when you roll what is normally a 12 on the d12. The TOR dice have the 12 replaced by a 'Gandalf rune', which is the rune for the letter G (as Gandalf carved on Bilbo's door etc.).
That is good for you, auto-success and all that-- whereas it is the opposite when the Loremaster rolls for the Enemy (where it counts like an 'Eye' counts for you of the Free People!).
When you roll what is normally an 11 on the d12 you roll an "Eye" (for the Eye of Sauron, the Great Eye, which is the Dark Lord's symbol).
An "Eye" is NOT an automatic failure. You can succeed when rolling an Eye, even get a great success etc..
The Eye simply does not count, or counts for 0, when tally your dice. Meaning that often you fail because you got 0.
Also, as a side-effect, rolling an Eye in out of combat situations raises the Eye Awareness by 1 point (whether the roll resulted in a success or a failure). We'll get into the Eye Awareness mechanics later (it is the game mechanics to see if/when you catch the Eye of the Enemy, dark events occurring when you do).
Just like the Gandalf, the 12, being good for the PCs but bad news for the Enemy. The Eye is good news for the Enemy (acting like a Gandalf when the Loremaster rolls for the Enemy NPCs etc.).
On the Success dice (which are d6) the 6 is replaced by an Elvish symbol (that Second Edition does not name, but was named a Tengwar in first edition).
So, as Áski said in her super explanation above, these 6's mean you not only succeed, you get a Great or Extraordinary Success (Note: if you get 3 or 4 or more 6s, it is super cool and we will RP things, but, mechanically, it is still like rolling two 6s).
This can be interpreted by the Loremaster as they want, or as the Player narrates.
But there also are rules to help if needed, giving each of those 1 or 2 6's a choice of results.
For example: you can "spend" a 6 to give a success to a fellow player (ie. you are all rolling for Stealth, one PC fails the roll, another get a Great Success-- the one who succeeded downgrades to get a normal success and has the failing PC upgrade to a normal success and thus not failed-- this most be possible, and RPed as how you do it - just choose narrating how you prevent your friend, in the nick of time, from stepping on that old branch...) ; you can "spend" your 6 to do something faster (ie. you craft a raft in 1/2 day vs. normally taking a full day to do so). We can see about putting a table re. those rules if/when needed.
And, to finish of this Wall of Text (sorry, long post), we talked about Favoured and Ill-Favoured rolls (when you roll 2 Feat dice and choose one of the 2) ; Áski did a great job explaining how Hope can give you bonus dice (Note: for those used to 1E, 2E has you spend your Hope before rolling, not after) ; when Áski said you can roll 2 dice instead of one by invoking your Distinctive Feature, that is called Inspiration.
And you can be Inspired through those means, or other means (ie. calling upon a Cultural Blessing).
And you of course can have situational Penalties - where you lose (remove from your pool) one or more d6.
