Ran my first #TheOneRing session the other night. We got a late start so we only made it halfway through the first adventure of the beginner box. Took the 4 intrepid hobbits about a half hour just to cross the swollen river - there was a ton of laughing and tomfoolery going on, but the rolls were also terrible on a pretty consistent basis. At couple of the players mentioned it seemed harder than it should to cross a river, to which I responded that #TOR2e is not full of epic heroes - get used to failing "easy" tasks in other #TTRPGs.
The following night we made it through the second half of the first adventure in about half the time, partly because I wasn't looking as much stuff up and partly because they were making better choices and rolling better. We will see if those players will be able to handle being mediocre by heroic standards down the road, but I definitely enjoyed the experience, in large part due to another experienced #TTRPG player who joined the group.