Does anyone remember MERP?
 

I don't know if this is the right place for this one but the people I most respect as academics come here. Move it if you like.

Does anyone remember an RPG called MERP? I only ever played it once when a friend of mine bought it, this must have been about four or five years ago. All I remember is that my character was a Hobbit whose encumberance was so high he couldn't walk when he had his back pack on.

I'd love to hear about whether the game still exists/if anyone else remembers it.

I think this thread is probably going to be moved to Novices and Newcomers.

Yes, I played MERP once or twice, but never really got into it. Fighting anything was pretty much lethal. I don't think the game is being produced any more.

As an aside, the translator for PJ's movies, David Salo, also worked on MERP.

Cheers!
-Lily

MERP? what is that? many enter roasted paths? or howabout Merriadoc eats ribs peacefully! what does MERP mean?!?

Middle Earth Role Playing

It was a pencil-n-paper RPG that came out around the same time as AD&D, but prided itself on being "more realistic." This meant that if you were a hobbit, your life expectancy wasn't terribly long.

-Lily

Yes, I remember MERP as well and have played it restlessly for some time. The group of friends with whom I did this, especially me and my brother, even bought some of the books ICE published cornerning the People and Places in M-e.
ICE indeed stopped publishing the books concerning MERP, but there are still stores that deal in these books.

There are still MERP players out there -- check out MERP.com. Lots of MERP on sale on Ebay, as well :-)

Ah, MERP, I've still got it somewhere. The things I particularly remember were the really pretty maps (which can be downloaded somewhere on t'internet), the inevitability of serious left leg wounds (and subsequent short life expectancy of the victim) and the parachuting hippo.

It was always fairly hairy for a low level party, especially if you ran any of the MERP-produced adventures which specialised in lots of really tricky traps. At higher level things generally went more smoothly.

They were forced to make a lot of stuff up to produce a playable D+D style adventure game and if I remember, weren't authorised to use info from some of the books due to a copyright issue. They also invented lots of strange things in the East and South of Middle Earth, such as evil elves etc, but you could happily ignore all that.

Has anyone played the recently-released Middle Earth RPG? (Don't know the name but I've seen the box in passing)

I am an Spanish active player of Merp. Pretty nice game, particularly when you ignore the most strange things (like those fell beasts that appear everywhere). I did run an adventure in Esgaroth in late Third Age of which I was very proud, as low-level players managed through subtlety and politics to destroy the evil schemes of an evil cult in the area without unsheating a sword.