On this episode of Let’s Roll!, Siskoid welcomes fellow GameMaster Ian Fletcher back to the show to cover Iron Crown Enterprise’s Middle-Earth Role Playing (or MERP), the first and longest-serving role-playing game set in the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien. Plus, GameMaster Advice on how to handle magic items in your fantasy campaigns!
Relevant images and credits in the Let’s Roll Supplemental.
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Count me in Ian’s camp. LOTR, and it’s extended universe, are my favorite novels of all time. Heck, I’m so much of a DVD Extras nerd that I’m listening to “Exploring Lord of the Rings”, where an actual English professor is going through the novels sometime only a few paragraphs at a time!
MERP is a game that I HAD to pick up when I saw it in a game store when I was in college. I never got to play it, because it wasn’t something that my friends were interested in. The main thing I remember about it, beyond the deep dive into Tolkien information, was the tables. So. Many. Tables. I get what they were going for, but even _I_ thought this system was too crunchy.
That would likely be the Tolkien Professor, from the Mythguard Institute. I also follow along with his lecture series (his series on Le Morte D’Arthur is fantastic as well by the way).
He’s the one. I was planning of checking out his Arthurian stuff as well (being the Pendragon guy), but I have 200 episodes of ELOTR to finish first. 😉
I’ve heard about the Tolkien Professor before, but never checked out his work. This may be a sign from the Valar to give it a try.
Some corrections now that I’ve listened to this:
I said “Raiders of Cardolan”, and referenced pirates to the south, thinking about the Corsairs of Umbar. Cardolan was one of the three kingdoms of Arnor, though they would have had access to the sea from Tharbad and the Greyflood.
By Gavin Norman, I was meaning to reference Ben Milton’s videos (Questing Beast) – though Gavin Norman (Dolmenwood, OSE) is a master of good layout.
Good God, I struggled with this game system but ran it for my cousins (who were like brothers to me) and fudged a lot just to get them to successfully do something against foes…
… but I did enjoy reading the books and planning how to get their characters high up enough in level to handle the adventure challenges.
Art was evocative, writing gave a broader view of the world of Middle Earth, but the system was mostly impenetrable to me. Gave it the old grade school try though.
Finally! A game too crunchy for Alex Osias!
Off topic but I know you’re fans and have reviewed it in the past, Cryptozoic just announced a 40th anniversary reprint of th eold DC Heroes RPG that originally came out from Mayfair. More news at the link:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/dc-heroes-role-playing-game-gets-new-reprint-from-cryptozoic.707829/
Saw that!
This goes Waaaasy back, but this may explain the Ted Turner tape recorder smashing reference in the Come On Down JLE module.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/07/01/Media-mogul-Ted-Turner-says-he-made-a-mistake/9408425880000/
It was scary how much my history with MERP echoed Ian’s. The first table top RPG that I ever played was Dungeons and Dragons, back when I was in 3rd grade, but my mom put a stop to that as soon as she found out about it. On the other hand, she had no problem with me playing MERP, because Tolkien was such a devout Catholic. As a result, this became the primary RPG of my youth. Glancing at my bookshelf, I still have 21 of the sourcebooks, as well as my collection of Middle-Earth: The Wizards cards.
This was the first game I ever ran as a GM, roping my two younger (i.e., elementary school age) brothers into playing with me. Unfortunately, one of their characters was disemboweled in the final boss fight, and died instantly (i.e., a roll of 90 on the CT-2 – Slash Critical Table). My brother ran off in tears, and I never ran another TTRPG session… until just a few years ago when my daughter took an interest in DnD, thanks to Critical Role.
Even though that was the last time I played MERP with other people, it was not the last time I ever played the game. Fortunately, ICE published three solo adventure books under the banner of Middle-earth Quest. The books were similar in style to the Lone Wolf books, for those who are familiar with that series. A simplified set of rules were included in the adventure books themselves, but you could also play through them using the full ruleset. A fourth book was solicited, but, as far as I know, was never published. [sigh].
Okay. I’ll just stop there, and say thank you for another remarkable episode.
Ironically, my mom now has no problem buying all sorts of DnD paraphernalia for her granddaughter. 😛