Middle-Earth Role Playing

Middle Earth Role Playing/MERP Ist Edition

by C. Charlton

From the back of the book:
The Lord of the Rings RPG (Middle Earth) and its suplements give the support and the structure for role-playing games in the best ever fantasy setting... J.R.R. Tolkien´s Middle Earth.

In spanish:
El juego de rol de El Señor de los Anillos (Tierra Media) y sus suplementos proporcionan la estructura y base para jugar a rol en la mejor ambientación fantástica de todos los tiempos... la Tierra Media de J.R.R. Tolkien.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Games, Reference, Gaming, Fiction, High Fantasy

276 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1986

Reviews

[C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was the summer after my sixth-grade year, and my familly was driving to spend a week in Sun Valley, Idaho. We stopped at a mall somewhere, and my parents offered to buy each of us a book to keep us occupied on the drive, and in the very back of Waldon Books I found this: The Middle-Earth Role Playing Game boxed set. I had never even heard of a role playing game at that point in my life, but I was a huge Tolkien fan; I didn't even know what I was buying, but I knew it was Tolkien related, and it intreagued me.

I don't think I'm being overly dramatic when I saw that random choice changed my life. For the next six years, until I graduated high school, role-playing shaped much of my free-time, my weekends and evenings, my friends, associates, and my understanding of what is meant by the term "dice". Had I chosen a forgetable David Eddings novel instead, who knows if I would, at this very moment, have War Law, the mass-combat rules suppliment to Role-Master, tucked into the top drawer of my desk in my class-room at school; I never plan on playing it, but I just enjoy readin rules books.

To this day, I cannot read fantasy, sci-fi, or any weird fiction without wondering how it would translate to an RPG, what the rules system would be like, how characters would be created, what combat resolution would entail. I've created more than one game from scratch, translated some of my favorite works into campaign settings, and wasted large amounts of money on games I will never play, all thanks to this slim, red box. The rule-book is still burried in my closet, spine held together by duct-tape.

Is it the world's best RPG? Not by a long shot - its very basic, very introductory, nothing I'd return to if it weren't for the nearly mythic position it holds in my childhood.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's difficult for me to really give Middle-Earth Role Playing a rating separate from nostalgia, because it's one of the first roleplaying books I ever bought. I still remember sitting on the floor of the town's hobby shop when I was nine, reading the book, and not understanding why the shop owner came up to ask me if I was finding everything I was looking for. A month or so later, I came back and bought the book. It vanished in a move until I bought another copy a couple months ago and reread it, and it still has all the magic I remember from that first reading.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's a great RPG, though. Right from the first example of play, it's obvious that this isn't just drawn straight from The Lord of the Rings. Here's a quote that I think will illustrate what I mean:

GM: "You all move to the end of the right-hand wall and look around it. You see a 15' by 15' interior with lots of rubble consisting of rocks, timbers, ruined furniture, and other junk. There is what looks to be a large chest under the rubble directly across from you, near the end of the left-hand wall. You also see what looks like stairs leading down from the far left corner. What do you do this round?"

Drogo: "I move very slowly into the tower, along the inside of the right-hand wall, watching the stairs."

Leanan: "I cross to the left-hand wall and begin removing the rubble from the chest, searching for any magic items or loot."

Nári: "I aim between the stairs and the main door, so that I can fire at either if something happens."

Agonar: "I prepare my Levitate spell."

Wait, what?

Yeah. It's not like magic doesn't exist in Tolkien's world, admittedly. Think of the anti-theft money pouch in The Hobbit, the blades of Westernesse looted from the barrows, Gandalf lighting the wargs on fire, or Galadriel reading the hearts of the company. However, Middle-Earth Role Playing takes this much further than that. There's some GM advice about magic being subtle and dangerous, including charts to determine whether the forces of Sauron notice any use of spellcasting, and then the spell lists are full of classic D&D-type spells like levitating, fireballs, invisibility, magical armor, and the sample adventure has a ton of magical items, like the armor that contracts when hit with perspiration, or boots that leave no tracks but force the wearer to run east if used for too long. It's hard to square this with magic being subtle or rare.

A lot of that is because MERP is based on a simplified version of Rolemaster, and contains everything Rolemaster is famous for like tons of critical hit charts, spell lists with fiddly spells, incredibly detailed XP awards for nearly every possible action, people tripping when trying to cross a flat room, and so on. The critical charts only have five armor categories instead of twenty, the spells only go up to level ten, and there are fewer classesprofessions than in Rolemaster, but everything else is pretty familiar. Including the critical hits that can kill experienced characters in one hit, the fumble tables, and the dozens of charts, some of which are printed two or even three separate times in different places in the book.

Which brings me to my main complaint--this is the worst-organized roleplaying book I have ever read in my life. The appendices take up over half the book, the majority of information needed to play--including the cultural descriptions, magic rules, bestiary, and combat rules--are all stuck in the appendices instead of near the appropriate sections in the main text, and a ton of space is wasted reprinting things. Parts of character creation rules are reprinted three times: once in the early example of creation, once in the main body of the character generation rules, and once in an appendix. I have no idea how you would find anything in here during play, unless the reprinting is to increase the chances you stumble on it as you frantically flip from page to page.

Despite the problems using this as a technical manual, it's amazing to read, because the setting information in here is top-notch. The bestiary includes all the usual creature one would expect, like Balrogs and dragons and orcs, but also includes entities mentioned in other Tolkien works, like the mewlips or the fastitocalon. There's dozens of pages describing the cultural groups the PCs can come from in huge detail down to what they use for money and the typical style of clothing worn by its members. Here's the example for the Sindar:

Smock of gauze or light silk; close-fitting waistcoat or tunic of fine linen, cotton, or heavy silk - tunics vary in length from short garments barely extending below the waist to long ones slit up the sides for freedom of movement; leather or metal belt or a sash of linen or silk; closefitting hosiery or a sarong skirt of lucent cloth or heavy silk reaching from mid-calf to the ankles; boots or decorative open sandal's; hip-length cape. The colours of the garments are all variations on white and grey: cream, eggshell, ivory, pearl, lemon, charcoal, taupe, blue-grey, rose-grey, green-grey, smoke, silver, beige, and so on. Embroidery and appliqué are used sparingly, usually to create texture or pattern (as with white on white or cream on lemon) rather than for contrast (white on charcoal or blue-grey on ivory).

Whether this would ever get used in a game I don't know, but it's certainly great to read. You can see more of the cultural descriptions here, which seems to be an adaption of MERP to different rules.

Another aspect I really like is Liz Danforth's art, which is fantastic. Here are a couple examples:


And this one:


All the interior art is done in that style. The combination of those pictures and the great descriptions means that game ideas fairly leap off the page when I read through Middle-Earth Role Playing. And it's true that the system won't support a lot of them, since the default skill list is oriented entirely toward traveling to ruins and then delving into them and murdering everything you find within--seriously, there's no skill for interpersonal interaction at all unless you get into the "Secondary Skills" appendix--but the focus on traveling through wilderness and fighting the Shadow actually does reflect The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit pretty well.

Reading this again makes me want to run a game. And sure, it might have spellcasters levitating, and PCs getting limbs chopped off in the first combat, and players consulting the magic item prices chart for when they head into town to sell their wand of fireballs (note: real chart that exists in the book)...but it's still got that attraction. And it might be nostalgia, but the setting information in here is legitimately great to read on its own if you love world-building. And what else is The Lord of the Rings about if not world-building?

[Baron Greystone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this years ago, and it's still on my shelf. Even tried playing it. It's very inspiring, but leaves something to be desired in execution. The game mechanics get bogged down in details, and the feel of the magic doesn't fit into Middle Earth.

All that being said, there were tons of supplements released. Again, a joy to read. But I wouldn't recommend playing this game. Rather, as many folks did, I would use the books with another game, if at all.

A great means for daydreaming about Middle Earth.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved reading the rule books and modules for MERP, but sadly I never found anyone interesting in playing in Hawaii as a kid. In retrospect, perhaps that was a good thing to avoid becoming a complete nerd during those formative years.

[Andy Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought second-hand out of nostalgia. The Games Workshop boxed set with the Crhis Achilleos cover is a great bit of design, and I have many fond memories of playing this. Reading it again, I was struck by how game design and layout have change dover the years. This is a dense, crunchy read, with a lot of content packed into a functional if not engaging layout, with illustrations varying from functional to atmospheric. The text seems to have been fitted in around the many tables, which is perhaps as you'd expect from an adaptation of Rolemaster, the notorously crunchy system it is based on. For all the system-heavy rules, there is content here related to running games, to Tolkien's world. And considering Tolkien's investment in detailed world-building underpinning his story-telling perhaps this is the right system for that world for that time. Later takes have had prettier layout (though the components in this set were great and the box artwork still stands up), and brought more modern game design approaches to their subject, but I enjoyed revisiting this old friend and would happily play it again some time.

[Aliquid A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nostalgia tells me to give a higher rating... but re-reading it now tells me otherwise.

With the rolemaster rules, the 'style' of roleplaying associated with those rules, and the write-up, it just doesn't "feel" like Middle Earth. Not at all. Sure they throw in Middle Earth places and creatures... but the magic doesn't fit, the combat style doesn't fit, the hack & slash & loot gameplay doesn't fit.

I like some of the art still.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

More useful as a condensed, somewhat simplified version of Rolemaster than as a Middle-Earth RPG, since it largely fails to capture the atmosphere or spirit of the books. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first real roleplaying game, which was given to me as a Christmas gift when I was 13. This was a great starter system. I've worn the book out so much that it doesn't even resemble a book any more.