Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP)

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Rumil

Left leg wounds,

Minor calf wound!

[Thinlómien]

Well - I think MERP is rather uncanonical, but if you take the racial descriptions and such with a pinch of salt, I think it's very enjoyable. And after a while you might get bored with the system because (unlike Ibrin implies ) it is very simple, maybe even too simple. Anyway, I think it's very nice, especially for tabletop RPG novices.

[skip spence]

Was that the one with the dices that went from 1-100 and all those accompanying lists? You attack an Orc with a mace, roll a 04 and he gets a bruised pinky toe...?

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Was that the one with the dices that went from 1-100 and all those accompanying lists? You attack an Orc with a mace, roll a 04 and he gets a bruised pinky toe...?

Haha, probably the one. Does this look any familiar?

[skip spence]

No really. Thing is, the game we played was in Swedish and was called Sagan Om Ringen - Rollspelet. Think it might have been a translation/adaptation of MERP.

To be honest, we never really played it properly, mostly just rolling the dices again and again to slay Dragons or Balrogs and gain a heap of experience-points, so that the characters could reach the next level. Always wanted to play with a good Gamemaster though but none of my friends had the inclination.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Minor calf wound!

That's a Rolemaster joke!
(For the record, people kept getting minor calf wounds all the time in a campaign that was played in a Downer get-together a year ago.)

Originally Posted by skip spence

Always wanted to play with a good Gamemaster though but none of my friends had the inclination.

Aww you must come to Finland again and we'll arrange something!

But yeah I did some googling and according to Wikipedia, Sagan om Ringen Rollspelet (huh almost continued from there in Swedish) is a MERP translation so they're basically the same.

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

I never use pre-made scenarios

Sometimes they can be great fun. After having roleplayed for some six years (first with MERP and then with Rolemaster) we switched back to basics - The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, which is a really simplified version of the former two, and played a couple of pre-made scenarios. It was very uncanonical and absolutely silly, but I don't think I've ever laughed so much when roleplaying. Recently we gave our GM some pre-made MERP campaigns as a birthday present since we want to continue playing with the same characters, but ironically enough it means we must start using MERP again.

In any case, I started roleplaying with MERP and quite enjoyed it until we switched to Rolemaster, which is a far more complex system and, despite having almost too much content, better in my opinion.

I don't think we've been tampering with the battle stuff much, but one of us does medieval fencing and always complains about the illogicalities of the system. However RPGs are RPGs and can never be as realistic as we'd like them to be, and if we tried to take into account every single thing, it wouldn't be so fun anymore. Good modification suggestions are always welcome, though. Have you been doing it yourself, Rhugga?

[McCaber]

MERP is a little bit before my time, but I've had a lot of fun running Middle-Earth with Burning Wheel. That's one of the few games I've seen that really *got* the Elven mindset.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Well - I think MERP is rather uncanonical, but if you take the racial descriptions and such with a pinch of salt, I think it's very enjoyable. And after a while you might get bored with the system because (unlike Ibrin implies ) it is very simple, maybe even too simple. Anyway, I think it's very nice, especially for tabletop RPG novices.

I agree that MERP was quite uncanonical (a lot of invented stuff in there, and not all very sensible), and the game was easy enough to play, but the players I worked with took FOREVER to do the character set-up, very likely because it required them to make too many choices and they just didn't want to decide (you might get the idea that I was working with a bunch of idiots. All too many were, alas. More interested in just rolling dice than in using their brains). I should point out that this was with the last available version of the system, which may not have been the same as earlier versions. Don't know, frankly. I never use pre-made scenarios, nor have I ever used a game playing system as I got it (and I go back to the very first version of D&D, in a little cardboard box, printed by mimeo). I always change things. Just my way.

[Rhugga II]

Thanks so much for your insights, guys. Just curious if any of you modified the order of actions in battles - as someone who comes from an initiative-type background, it is really hard for me to conform to their system.