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Favourite MERP Book

Started by One Horse Town, January 20, 2012, 11:26:10 AM

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Shawn Merrow

#15
January 21, 2012, 04:07:08 AM
MERP was the first RPG I ever bought and my favorite book is Angmar. Now I want to flip through my books again.

RPGPundit

#16
January 21, 2012, 10:56:04 AM
Minas Tirith was really a beautiful book and quite well-written, and it absolutely struck home to me that whatever it was, MERP was definitely not the RPG of any recognizable middle-earth setting I knew of.   It also struck home that this setting felt pretty well unplayable to me.

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Philotomy Jurament

#17
January 21, 2012, 11:22:53 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;507512Minas Tirith was really a beautiful book and quite well-written, and it absolutely struck home to me that whatever it was, MERP was definitely not the RPG of any recognizable middle-earth setting I knew of.   It also struck home that this setting felt pretty well unplayable to me.
That was my feeling with many of the MERP setting books: impressive, not very concerned with Middle Earth "canon," and not very suited to actual play.  Good reads, though.

The main reason I picked Northern Mirkwood is because it (mostly) avoided the problems, above.  In particular it seemed very playable (like I said in the earlier post, I got quite a bit of use out of it).

Another one that seemed pretty usable was Dunland.  Although I never got to run any games using it, unfortunately.
The problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.

Philotomy Jurament

#18
January 21, 2012, 11:27:38 AM
Oh!  I can't believe I overlooked this.  One of my all-time favorites is Court of Ardor.  I ran a Court of Ardor game using RM2 when I was in college.  It was great.

Court of Ardor is in far southern Middle Earth, so it's pretty much completely invented by the I.C.E. authors, doesn't try to feel like Tolkien's stories, and has a lot of other influences (e.g. Chronicles of Amber).  Despite its tenuous connection to "authentic" Middle Earth, it's a great setting.
The problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.

Akrasia

#19
January 21, 2012, 02:43:20 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit;507512Minas Tirith was really a beautiful book and quite well-written, and it absolutely struck home to me that whatever it was, MERP was definitely not the RPG of any recognizable middle-earth setting I knew of.

The MERP campaign modules generally did extrapolate freely from what Tolkien wrote, sometimes in distinctly non-Tolkien-esque directions.

I didn't care about that during the 1980s.  These days, though, I'd be careful to tone down -- significantly -- the 'high magic' and 'D&D-ish' elements.

Quote from: RPGPundit;507512It also struck home that this setting felt pretty well unplayable to me.

This, I could not disagree with more.  

I found most MERP campaign modules to be eminently 'playable'.  Indeed, I ran a 'sandbox' style campaign for roughly three years in high-school using Rangers of the North, Tharbad, Hillmen of the Trollshaws, Angmar: Empire of the Witch-King, and a few other things.

The campaign modules Palantir Quest and The Kin-Strife were even more 'ready-to-play' in format.

So, IME at least, the MERP setting was wonderfully 'playable'!
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Akrasia

#20
January 21, 2012, 02:45:49 PM
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;507516Oh!  I can't believe I overlooked this.  One of my all-time favorites is Court of Ardor.  I ran a Court of Ardor game using RM2 when I was in college.  It was great.

Court of Ardor is in far southern Middle Earth, so it's pretty much completely invented by the I.C.E. authors, doesn't try to feel like Tolkien's stories, and has a lot of other influences (e.g. Chronicles of Amber).  Despite its tenuous connection to "authentic" Middle Earth, it's a great setting.

I've been strangely fond of this module for three decades now, and keep hoping to run it (in some form) some day.

However, I cannot think of it as a 'Middle-earth' module (even using the looser conception typically employed by ICE).  It's just too different, it's own setting really.  And a great setting at that!
RPG Blog: Akratic Wizardry (covering Cthulhu Mythos RPGs, TSR/OSR D&D, Mythras (RuneQuest 6), Crypts & Things, etc., as well as fantasy fiction, films, and the like).
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Imperator

#21
January 22, 2012, 05:25:46 AM
Quote from: Akrasia;507554I found most MERP campaign modules to be eminently 'playable'.  Indeed, I ran a 'sandbox' style campaign for roughly three years in high-school using Rangers of the North, Tharbad, Hillmen of the Trollshaws, Angmar: Empire of the Witch-King, and a few other things.

The campaign modules Palantir Quest and The Kin-Strife were even more 'ready-to-play' in format.

So, IME at least, the MERP setting was wonderfully 'playable'!
That was my experience as well. Few settings are more playable than Middle Earth, IMO.
My name is Ramón Nogueras. Running now Vampire: the Masquerade (Giovanni Chronicles IV for just 3 players), and itching to resume my Call of Cthulhu campaign (The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man).

Philotomy Jurament

#22
January 22, 2012, 11:56:02 AM
Pundit's use of "unplayable" is probably too strong a term.  None of the M.E. settings are unplayable, but with many of them I think a lot of the material included was too high-powered for my games, or too far off canon for my games, or I just had a hard time seeing how some of this cool detail would ever come up in actual play.  

It doesn't lower my high opinion of the I.C.E. books, though.
The problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.

Philotomy Jurament

#23
January 22, 2012, 12:12:49 PM
Oh, I had a good time using the Lake Town book, too.
The problem is not that power corrupts, but that the corruptible are irresistibly drawn to the pursuit of power. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.
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