Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP)

[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.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

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.

My warning - don't try to change the RPG a bit and make it more interesting by changing the genders of the player characters (and accordingly making minor changes to their biographies) because if/when the players find out how their characters have been created, they will take the whole game as a joke... Although, I can't say it wasn't funny when they tried to attract a troll with a freshly baked blueberry pie or kill the trolls by blowing up the bridge under which they lived with fireworks!