Anyone ever run a long campaign in Middle-earth? My group really wants to run a campaign there. When I was in high school we played MERP a whole lot but I was never a big fan of how MERP handled the world. I loved the product but when it comes to simulating the feel of Middl-earth I found it wanting.

Has anybody played the Decipher system or the One Right RPG system? From reading online it seems that the One Ring RPG is very abstract when it comes to simulating the world of Middle-earth.

The Decipher system I ignored when it was released because I thought it was based on the movie.

Well, if you think about it, there are tons of source material out there.  You can readily adapt things to your favorite system.

The Decipher system was pretty similar to d20 but with 2d6.  It had issues in the core that were fixed in later books.  I don't remember much more about it.

No experience with The One Ring.

ICE's Lord of the Rings Adventure Game should have been the ultimate lite Middle Earth game sadly they made some bad presentation choices that made it seem too childish.  Solid rules though.

Look, I  have never played "The One Ring. However, just making a character online with  friend, felt like it was a Middle Earth thing.

I've owned MERP (and played it), I've played Decipher's game (and concur with Dan Davenport's old review of it as it was my elf in the example!)

Yet neither of them made me feel like I was truly making someone that fit, pretty much only Middle Earth.


Now it is a little off center from hard core traditional from what I've seen, but I think Middle Earth needs something with a few, I guess, soft elements that flow like a dream.


That's my feeling so far on "The One Ring"

Really, I wonder if something more directly medieval would work.  Prince Valiant or a modified Pendragon, for instance.

Considering how easily Gimli and Legolas mow down orcs, I'd have to think something heroic would be best.

Pendragon (or for that matter, BRP games) tend to be somewhat deadly.

That was actually my problem with MERP. Every time we'd try to play, we'd all die in the first few fights thanks to the Rolemaster style combat system.

Eventually we just used D&D with some tweaks, dropping clerics in favor of the "healer" class from one of the old Dragons (#3, now that I look)

We did it for a one-shot campaign using BX D&D. Dropped clerics and magic users and worked out a cleric version of the elf. Thus magic was very limited indeed.

Monsters were down to orcs, goblins, worgs, ogres, and spiders. Virtually no magic or magic items.

It played well enough really. Though I only got in on two sessions due to conflicting schedules.

MERP: I think that even the simplified rolemaster rules are way too tables-heavy ( at least for my taste) and found the system to play quite slow, especially on higher levels. The implementation of the setting isn't that bad, with the exception of magic. It is not a horrible game, but  neither is it a great one. It also works much, much better if you don't allow any spellcasters as characters and just use magic as a deus ex machina NPC power.

Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG looks horrible. Pretty much all the artwork consists of stills from the Lord of the Rings movies, and that doesn't work nearly as well when the pictures are moving and so on. So the book is also quite ugly. The system is also a bit incomplete - the original production plan considered several "important" splats which were eventually written but never published, mostly because one of Decipher's staff stole so large amounts of money from the company that they could no longer afford its licenses. The system has some few minor problems and quirks as well, but for the most part, it works okay. From the three officially licensed Middle Earth RPGs, it is probably the best, but it has these problems. Unlike the other two, the system isn't unsalvageable, however: If you are willing to review and edit the rules here and there, you'll get a pretty good game. Without this additional effort, I found it a bit clumsy at times. There is a decent collection of house rules here.

The One Ring has great artwork. That is also the best thing about the books. It is also a horribly frustrating game, which shows that it could have been good or worthwhile but it almost never actually gets there (there is a new, revised edition. Perhaps it has changed everything that is wrong with that system, but I highly doubt that). Basically, it is a great example of how deceiving artwork and production values can be, because content-wise, the system is pretty bad.
The One Ring works great as a sourcebook for a Middle Earth RPG (similar to Trail of Cthulhu for actual Call of Cthulhu games) but as a standalone game, it isn't worth it: The rules are horribly organized, gimmicky for the sake of introducing unique, gimmicky rules, needlessly complicated in some areas and overtly abstract in others (there is no balance between these two, so instead of a game of medium complexity, you get one that is both too abstract and too complicated  for the respective audiences at the same time). The enforced balancing between the various free people of middle earth ruins the implementation of the background as much, if not more, than the unfitting magic system of MERP. Apparently, only lazy, slightly depressive  and not particularly bright elves ever become adventurers. But even this balancing (as dogmatic and destructive as it generally is) has been implemented horribly: the game has aspects (specialties) that you can ever only choose during character creation.  So, what are you going to choose: Swimming, Healing arts or smoking pipeweed? (and yes, you cannot learn how to really smoke later on).

There are also dozens or so homebrew rules for Middle Earth; I think there is a more than decent one for Runequest/BRP, which is the one I would suggest to play. From the official ones, the Decipher game is probably the best, but requires a few adjustments. MERP works, but not necessarily very well. The One Ring looks pretty and as far as I can tell, includes decent adventures and so on, but the actual game system is mostly disappointing.

I ran a MERP / Rolemaster campaign in which Thorin hedged his bets and hired PCs to take down Smaug for their weight in gold. The campaign lasted about two years, playing every other week or so.

I handed out copies of the weapon tables to players, and each player was responsible for handling info about the weapons in their stack. It worked pretty well, even though the group ranged from 8-12 players. Everyone was familiar with the rules and that helped a lot.

The One Ring contains a dogs breakfast of sub-systems but deserves better than the mini review above. Some things about it are exceptional. Actually, most of it. The setting books and adventures are very good. It is the only official middle earth game that really strives to immerse players in the world of the novels. The character archetypes are quite good. The rules for travel, 'down time' between adventures, and the struggle between Hope and Shadow are very good. The treatment of magical powers and objects is very setting appropriate. The only problem is that you have, like, 50,000 different little sub-systems each with its own variables and related but not quite unified mechanics. It is the sort of game you would write if you were a huge fan of Burning Wheel but didn't want to use the extended metaphor of the wheel.

The One Ring is a system that requires a lot of investment, but it looks to me like the payoff is worth it. Everyone I know who has played it raves about it.

That's probably the best concise take on the thing. If you really want to roleplay in a satisfying version of middle earth, and you don't want to create the material from scratch, you should just suck it up and learn to play TOR. It would probably take 2-3 sessions for a brand new group to really get the hang of it.

As far as MERP goes, I wrote for MERP; four of the books have my name on them.

That being said, ICE didn't do a good job on the line.  The typefont on their books is microscopic, and there's a Monty Haul dungeoneering approach that for too many of their products have scanty information on personalities and places, and exhaustive information on every room in ruins and castles, loaded down with traps, and stuffed to the windowsills with magical items.  Beyond that -- and this is admittedly the doing of the Tolkien estate, which is inexplicably bitchy about licensed writers creating details -- most of the adventures and settings are set many centuries before the events of LotR, because the estate didn't want us mucking around with that time period.  A lot of the feedback I've had over the years was that this turned off many folks who were wishful of questing in the time of the War of the Ring, and for whom ICE provided almost no source material.

Quote from: Ravenswing;813569As far as MERP goes, I wrote for MERP; four of the books have my name on them.

Ooh, which ones?

I love MERP. Then again i love Rolemaster, so the two go hand in hand, even if i can admit that MERP has very little Middle Earth flavour to it.

Quote from: Ulairi;813337When I was in high school we played MERP a whole lot but I was never a big fan of how MERP handled the world. I loved the product but when it comes to simulating the feel of Middl-earth I found it wanting.

Quote from: Silverlion;813411Look, I  have never played "The One Ring. However, just making a character online with  friend, felt like it was a Middle Earth thing.

Quote from: One Horse Town;813598I love MERP. Then again i love Rolemaster, so the two go hand in hand, even if i can admit that MERP has very little Middle Earth flavour to it.

What is this flavor that's so unique to Middle Earth that everyone is after?
Is it that the world seems full of magic but the core characters themselves are not overtly magical (except for a few powerful movers and shakers)?
What magic there is often seems very subtle and not something that would be well served by game rules.
Is it the atmosphere of being a small part of a greater epic? Big powers and ancient history.
Is it the inner struggles of the various characters to rise above their petty greed and fear and be capable of great, historic deeds?

I think if I were to play it I'd prefer smaller stories that let me explore the setting vs. EPIC tales that involved vast powers and big important NPCs.
It also seems like everyone should be willing to sing...