The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Sigh. Like many people I know, roleplaying started with Dungeons and Dragons back in the 80s -- or perhaps even longer ago in the dark ages. Also, like many people I know, the reason I was interested in fantasy role-playing in the first place was because of the absolutely brilliant man --J.R.R. Tolkien -- who wrote The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to inspire me to tell tales as grand as his. Imagine, then, my delight when I heard many years ago that there was actually a game designed specifically to work in Middle-earth -- not just the generic fantasy-land posited by D&D. It took me a few years to actually get up the gumption to track down that system, though, so circa 1996 I walked into my local comics and game store and asked for Middle-earth Role playing (MERP) by I.C.E. They didn't have any in stock, but about a week later I was the proud owner of the relatively new second edition of MERP. My first impression was poor -- the cover art was an extremely strange interpretation of the scene in which the Ringwraiths attack Frodo at Weathertop by the otherwise talented Angus MacBride, MERP-man par excellence. The interior art was likewise of a style that didn't agree with me much -- probably 95% of it done by Liz Danforth in her unique style.

But, what does interior art matter anyway? I asked myself as I delved in. Let's see what this game's got.

I found the organization of the book to be confusing and hopelessly scattered. It is difficult to read a rule, or part of one, and then flip backwards to see the rest of the result somewhere in the appendix. To have half of the character classes in one location, and the other half somewhere else. To have two different entries (not counting the tables) for each monster in the book. I could have lived with this, however, if it was the book's only fault -- after all a few readings and I know where to find stuff anyway, right?

The most greivious (to me) fault with the book was its mangling of the Tolkien world into a D&D-like place. Much of this has to do with the game's very First Generation, dungeon-crawl attitude. This is extremely unfortunate, as I suspect most people would rather tell stories in Middle-earth rather than dungeon-crawl. After all, hasn't D&D already done the dungeon-crawl in a bigger and better way? In addition, most likely in an attempt to compete with D&D, MERP actually bastardizes Tolkien's creations in a number of ways to make them more generic and cliched. All of this in an effort to capture the same market as D&D without capitalizing on the strengths of the Tolkien license. I believe, and I would be surprised if this wasn't a fairly general feeling, that Middle-earth Role playing should focus on Middle-earth rather than on trying to be a catch-all generic fantasy. As an example of this, many of the classes have no real equivalent in The Lord of the Rings yet are here for "competitive" sakes -- Ranger's that cast spells, wandering warrior-monks and the like. Much of what I.C.E. writes is like this -- it sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the occasional vague reference to something that Tolkien wrote. And then when the book actually contradicts Tolkien in places... As you can imagine, the milieu can only take so much of this abuse before all resemblance to Middle-earth is lost and we find ourselves in just another equivalent of Greyhawk's world, or the Forgotten Realms.

MERP has a system which is a little brother to RMSS, the so-called Chartmaster. This system is best designed for technical, number-crunching tactical games rather than character and story driven games that generally work better without all the numbers and chart-consultations. The basic roll is a d100 role that is "open-ended": that is, on extremely high or low rolls you can actually go, in theory, beyond the 1-100 confines. This basic system works for most of the rolls you must make, but the really tricky part comes when you must then apply these rolls with a frightening barrage of modifiers and a massive deck of tables. The tables, while initially providing some amusement due to the writing, are also not very much in the spirit of the genre they are trying to tag.

Perhaps I just expect too much of an old system. Perhaps my experience with Second Generation role-playing had already spoiled me even then. Certainly my experience with some Third Generation systems, such as The Window^TM have turned me off even more now, as well as my research into Tolkien's recently published drafts and notes, which I.C.E. did not have available, by the way. However, I think even then MERP does a bad job of playing its strong points (i.e. the Tolkien license) instead of pushing the setting to the side and trying to be a generic FRP. The RMSS, which was supposedly initially developed to work for MERP (before it took on a frightfully complicated life of it's own) is actually a very poor system to capture what I think most players would require of role-playing in Tolkien's Middle-earth: the ability to tell good stories that resemble, in some way, those in the books.

Of course, as many of you will know, I.C.E. no longer has the license to produce MERP or any of its supplements. However, I'm sure there are plenty of copies sitting around in used bookstores and the like (I've seen plenty of supplements out in these venues.) If you're looking for particular supplements, good luck.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Middle-earth Role Playing, Second Edition
Author: S. Coleman Charlton Category: game Company/Publisher: Iron Crown Enterprises Line: MERP Cost: $20 Page count: 264 ISBN: 1-55806-191-6 Playtest Review by Joshua Dyal on 10/10/00. Genre tags: Fantasy	Sigh. Like many people I know, roleplaying started with Dungeons and Dragons back in the 80s -- or perhaps even longer ago in the dark ages. Also, like many people I know, the reason I was interested in fantasy role-playing in the first place was because of the absolutely brilliant man --J.R.R. Tolkien -- who wrote The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to inspire me to tell tales as grand as his. Imagine, then, my delight when I heard many years ago that there was actually a game designed specifically to work in Middle-earth -- not just the generic fantasy-land posited by D&D. It took me a few years to actually get up the gumption to track down that system, though, so circa 1996 I walked into my local comics and game store and asked for Middle-earth Role playing (MERP) by I.C.E. They didn't have any in stock, but about a week later I was the proud owner of the relatively new second edition of MERP. My first impression was poor -- the cover art was an extremely strange interpretation of the scene in which the Ringwraiths attack Frodo at Weathertop by the otherwise talented Angus MacBride, MERP-man par excellence. The interior art was likewise of a style that didn't agree with me much -- probably 95% of it done by Liz Danforth in her unique style. But, what does interior art matter anyway? I asked myself as I delved in. Let's see what this game's got. I found the organization of the book to be confusing and hopelessly scattered. It is difficult to read a rule, or part of one, and then flip backwards to see the rest of the result somewhere in the appendix. To have half of the character classes in one location, and the other half somewhere else. To have two different entries (not counting the tables) for each monster in the book. I could have lived with this, however, if it was the book's only fault -- after all a few readings and I know where to find stuff anyway, right? The most greivious (to me) fault with the book was its mangling of the Tolkien world into a D&D-like place. Much of this has to do with the game's very First Generation, dungeon-crawl attitude. This is extremely unfortunate, as I suspect most people would rather tell stories in Middle-earth rather than dungeon-crawl. After all, hasn't D&D already done the dungeon-crawl in a bigger and better way? In addition, most likely in an attempt to compete with D&D, MERP actually bastardizes Tolkien's creations in a number of ways to make them more generic and cliched. All of this in an effort to capture the same market as D&D without capitalizing on the strengths of the Tolkien license. I believe, and I would be surprised if this wasn't a fairly general feeling, that Middle-earth Role playing should focus on Middle-earth rather than on trying to be a catch-all generic fantasy. As an example of this, many of the classes have no real equivalent in The Lord of the Rings yet are here for "competitive" sakes -- Ranger's that cast spells, wandering warrior-monks and the like. Much of what I.C.E. writes is like this -- it sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the occasional vague reference to something that Tolkien wrote. And then when the book actually contradicts Tolkien in places... As you can imagine, the milieu can only take so much of this abuse before all resemblance to Middle-earth is lost and we find ourselves in just another equivalent of Greyhawk's world, or the Forgotten Realms. MERP has a system which is a little brother to RMSS, the so-called Chartmaster. This system is best designed for technical, number-crunching tactical games rather than character and story driven games that generally work better without all the numbers and chart-consultations. The basic roll is a d100 role that is "open-ended": that is, on extremely high or low rolls you can actually go, in theory, beyond the 1-100 confines. This basic system works for most of the rolls you must make, but the really tricky part comes when you must then apply these rolls with a frightening barrage of modifiers and a massive deck of tables. The tables, while initially providing some amusement due to the writing, are also not very much in the spirit of the genre they are trying to tag. Perhaps I just expect too much of an old system. Perhaps my experience with Second Generation role-playing had already spoiled me even then. Certainly my experience with some Third Generation systems, such as The Window^TM have turned me off even more now, as well as my research into Tolkien's recently published drafts and notes, which I.C.E. did not have available, by the way. However, I think even then MERP does a bad job of playing its strong points (i.e. the Tolkien license) instead of pushing the setting to the side and trying to be a generic FRP. The RMSS, which was supposedly initially developed to work for MERP (before it took on a frightfully complicated life of it's own) is actually a very poor system to capture what I think most players would require of role-playing in Tolkien's Middle-earth: the ability to tell good stories that resemble, in some way, those in the books. Of course, as many of you will know, I.C.E. no longer has the license to produce MERP or any of its supplements. However, I'm sure there are plenty of copies sitting around in used bookstores and the like (I've seen plenty of supplements out in these venues.) If you're looking for particular supplements, good luck. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Middle-earth Role Playing, Second Edition