I've only played MERP, and not very much, but here's my general take.

If I were to GM a LOTR type game, and wanted to make it "faithful" to the books, I would include lots of low power magic, and reserve the blantant spell-chucking for NPCs like Gandalf. And even then I wouldn't have him slinging around fireballs like some kind of magic artillery piece.

But really, I wouldn't be terribly interested in being that faithful to the books. I can handle some fudging for the sake of a fun game. A nice compromise, as many have already posted, is to say that there are D&D type casters in middle earth, but keep them rare and maybe shuffle the spells lists so that something like a fireball is a big deal 7th-8th level spell.

I voted D&D, but I'm thinking specifically OD&D with a very restrictive GM.

There was a Dragon article that's been circulating for ages about Gandalf being only 5th. If you go with that line of thinking and keep character levels very low, vancian magic turns out to be very effective in keeping magic to a minimum. If a magic-user can only do one or two spells per week at the start and high-level M-Us are so rare, they might be just legends, then magic in the sense of actual spell casting won't be something you see all the time.

I'm thinking the following restrictions in OD&D would work really well:

Magic-Users use spell research rules to prep spells. It takes a minimum of 1 week per spell level to prep 1 spell. The value of the library used counts towards research costs, so the few libraries that exist, such as in Isengard or Minas Tirith, are priceless.

Spell scrolls do not cast spells, they teach spells, and there are only one or two scrolls for each spell known, so if you want to cast fireballs, you'd better figure out where the Scroll of Fireball is, and ask to borrow it for five weeks.

Wands and staves for specific spells can be crafted to allow you to cast that spell repeatedly, as long as you know it and have it prepped. Roll 1d6 when used: if the result is equal to or less than the spell level, the wand/staff shatters from the strain. The length of the wand or staff, in feet, must be at least twice the spell level.

Elves are clerics, the only clerics. Their magic comes from nature, and they can only cast a spell in the location where they prepped it. That natural location becomes their "library", for the purpose of "research" and preparation. They can't make or use magic wands/staves, but can make other items that carry elven magic in them: healing lembas bread, globes that give off light, boots and cloaks of stealth.

To compensate for the extra limitations, Magic-Users and Elves can wear any armor and use any weapons without restriction.

I agree with the D&D shout out above. The books are actually filled with magical items, effects and people, and suggest the existence of much more. This is a magical world where PC spell casters and diverse, crazy items fit right in, and pretty much all of those effects can be represented by D&D magic. Look up the pdf of my fantasy heartbreaker, Balrogs and Bagginses for one take on this.

It's a bit of a tricky topic but as far as fireballs go, Gandalf makes or buys fireworks and a 10' radius non magic fire ball is well within his and likely many other people's reach.  If hobbits have other fireworks to compare his to, then really, petards aren't out of the question.

I would suspect that whoever's building the fireworks keeps the formulas pretty close to their chests.  Is a lightbulb, a battery, a flashlight magic?

So, here's the rub, magic in Middle Earth is largely craft and skill.  There's counter arguments like the spells laid on Sam and Frodo's staves by the rangers of Ithelain.

Really, while it's much maligned, MERP does a pretty good job and I wonder if the detractors have really played it by the book.  Fireball is an eighth level spell and you have to be eighth level to cast it.  Yes you can do it at lower levels in Rolemaster but we're talking specifically about MERP here.  The low level spells are minor, even laughable and they eat up power points, which are scarce in MERP.  Never mind the experience rules and how long it takes to level up.  No first time x5 in MERP for those of you who played Rolemaster.  And the treasures?  Well let's look at the troll lair in the core book.  It's guarded by half a dozen trolls.  Good luck with that.

True.  I think some of the "bad MERP memories" are what comes from mixing MERP with Rolemaster.  ICE had Rolemaster, they could have used it whole cloth.  They didn't.  I think a lot of people were in the Basic/Advanced D&D mindset and thought that you started with MERP and when you were ready to put on the Big Boy pants, you graduated to RM (of course, when you did, you bought more ICE products, so they always mentioned you could use both;)).

I always think a lot of MERP and RM hate comes from people who skimmed the rules, freaked out and gave up.  But frankly you need to play more than two or three sessions to get a real feel for it.  You can't just run it like D&D.  I've never understood why they used that particular starter adventure.  Half a dozen trolls is a really hard fight for a tenth level party.  A first level group is just dead.

The only thing I can think of that would make D&D Magic work in LoTR is removing most of the direct damage attack spells and leaving mostly spells from Enchantment and Divination.  There would be some Necromancy, yes, but those would best be left in the hands of the NPC's.

I want to stress that this is nothing more than a personal opinion and has no basis in fact or objectivity.

Quote from: Larsdangly;910432I suspect this issue elicits more unjustified nerd rage than any other in the hobby. The source books can be used to justify several different takes on magic in the game, spanning everything from magic being subtle, beyond rules, and far out of reach of PC's (i.e., the original 'Pendragon' system of magic) to being quite common, flashy and accessible to everyone.

No frigging kidding.  More than just about any SF&F work, Tolkien inspires a legion of rabid fanboys convinced to the marrow of their bones that their half-baked presumptions and shibboleths constitute realities.  I vividly remember when New Line Cinema started a fan forum -- when the movies were first in development, and even before casting had started -- there was a tong war involving hundreds of posters and something like five thousand posts over the release of an artist's conception of the Balrog having wings ... something that The Fellowship Of The Ring explicitly said that it had.  Didn't matter when people posted the passage ... there was a large faction that Knew What It Knew, and they Knew that the Balrog didn't have wings.

I've seen the same tong wars about PC mages, of course.  A lot of people seem very hung up over the term "wizard," feeling that you can't have "wizards" in Middle-Earth because of conflation with the Istari, or that you can't have PC magic in a Middle-Earth game because the viewpoint characters in Tolkien's narrative didn't see any, or that magic is inherently evil because Galadriel equating people's perception of it as much the same as the "arts of the Enemy."

This is arrant nonsense.  By that same bizarre anti-logic, are people willing to assert that children in Middle-Earth appear by spontaneous generation, because no one's depicted as having sex?  That no one in Gondor ever eats fish, because we never see a fishing boat?  Do we automatically presume that nothing that appears off-camera exists, that every character speaks the truth, and that no one is affected by his or her prejudices?  Of course not ... not if we aspire to something beyond idiocy.

Quote from: CRKrueger;910393Looking back, do you really think it was the "No PC Magic" that was the main difference?

Absolutely!

A big deal of the campaign was seeking out NPCs for magical items, or spells to be cast upon us, or divinations that we needed done. It wasn't just party member doing his thing. It was something precious, wonderful, rare and strange that we needed to seek out.

Quote from: Larsdangly;910471Look up the pdf of my fantasy heartbreaker, Balrogs and Bagginses for one take on this.

Linky linky! Drop some self promotion on us!!

Here's one I found; if it doesn't work well for you I can re-load the file somewhere accessible:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8azW7IbtcxzalBIRUl0VW5zY1k/view?pli=1

[Edited to provide an actually useful link!]

Well, I think we pretty much agree that there's textual evidence that the general populace of Middle Earth references and believes that there are more magic-users in Middle-Earth than 5, even though they use the terms sorcerers, conjurers, etc. perhaps instead of Wizard.

However, that Galadriel quote is very interesting because it shows that to her, the "magic" of the Elves and the "magic" of the Enemy are two completely different things.  Tolkien wrote in his letters about two types of magic "magia" and "goetia".  

Magia seems to be physical magic, magic that effects the physical world.  Gandalf making light or firing pinecones, the magic invested in magic items.  Manipulating the Essence locked in all things.

Goetia seems to be magic of the mind and spirit.  Fear, illusion, deceit, the breaking of wills, the poisoning of the soul.  Saruman's control of Theoden being a perfect example.

While it may be easy to point to Magia as good or neutral and Goetia as evil, IIRC, Tolkien considered neither to be Good or Evil, but it's the intent and reason behind the use of power that leads to corruption.  Goetia would be much more likely to be used by someone who desired power over others and even the Wise have to be careful in its usage.

Morgoth's corruption of the Elves and Ents into Orcs and Trolls would be an example of both Magia and Goetia used for evil ends.

One thing about magic in Middle-Earth is, it seems to be very Animist, meaning everything is alive, has a spirit and can communicate in some way, even the earth and stone.  Magic systems that have a strong spirit world component would seem to be a good fit.  D&D astral or ethereal planes might be of use here as would Mythras/RQ shamanic systems.

Also "evil" in a ME sense seems to be that which goes against the Natural Order of Things, essentially the Ainulindale, the Song of Creation.  Exerting one's own will to manipulate the world to dominate or control others creates dissonance, or evil.  A system which includes a method of some form of evil aftereffects or corruption would be appropriate too I think.

Quote from: David Johansen;910560I always think a lot of MERP and RM hate comes from people who skimmed the rules, freaked out and gave up.  But frankly you need to play more than two or three sessions to get a real feel for it.  You can't just run it like D&D.  I've never understood why they used that particular starter adventure.  Half a dozen trolls is a really hard fight for a tenth level party.  A first level group is just dead.

More than that, i think MERP/RM was a fine fit for middle earth magic until you reached 6th level or so. Most spell lists represent things that can easily be explained as 'natural magic' such as boiling water, finding shelter, starting fires, locating trails or mental tricks like calming people down or making them fall asleep. Stonerunning, limbrunning, all this stuff can easily represent ME magic. The trouble comes when you start increasing in level beyond those effects - which wasn't too much of a problem with MERP, because that only went up to 10th level.

Quote from: talysman;910454I voted D&D, but I'm thinking specifically OD&D with a very restrictive GM.

There was a Dragon article that's been circulating for ages about Gandalf being only 5th. If you go with that line of thinking and keep character levels very low, vancian magic turns out to be very effective in keeping magic to a minimum. If a magic-user can only do one or two spells per week at the start and high-level M-Us are so rare, they might be just legends, then magic in the sense of actual spell casting won't be something you see all the time.

I'm thinking the following restrictions in OD&D would work really well:

Magic-Users use spell research rules to prep spells. It takes a minimum of 1 week per spell level to prep 1 spell. The value of the library used counts towards research costs, so the few libraries that exist, such as in Isengard or Minas Tirith, are priceless.

Spell scrolls do not cast spells, they teach spells, and there are only one or two scrolls for each spell known, so if you want to cast fireballs, you'd better figure out where the Scroll of Fireball is, and ask to borrow it for five weeks.

Wands and staves for specific spells can be crafted to allow you to cast that spell repeatedly, as long as you know it and have it prepped. Roll 1d6 when used: if the result is equal to or less than the spell level, the wand/staff shatters from the strain. The length of the wand or staff, in feet, must be at least twice the spell level.

Elves are clerics, the only clerics. Their magic comes from nature, and they can only cast a spell in the location where they prepped it. That natural location becomes their "library", for the purpose of "research" and preparation. They can't make or use magic wands/staves, but can make other items that carry elven magic in them: healing lembas bread, globes that give off light, boots and cloaks of stealth.

To compensate for the extra limitations, Magic-Users and Elves can wear any armor and use any weapons without restriction.

This is a very concise and astute way of handling it.

Many years ago, when our group transitioned from Holmes to AD&D, our new magic-user rolled for his starting spells (read magic, plus one offensive, one defensive, one misc.) and he didn't get the usual suspects (shocking grasp, magic missile) at 1st level. Nor did he land the high octane spells as he advanced, thanks to bad rolls and a mediocre INT score. He used charms and divination and enchantments rather than fire and lightning in the adventures. In retrospect, he seems like a pretty lame magic-user but at the time he was the best we had and he pretty much functioned as Gandalf did in The Hobbit and LOTR*. Anyway, he must have done something right: he made it all the way to 7th level. That, plus a stingy DM made that campaign seem somewhat Middle Earth-ish, even though it wasn't by design and the setting wasn't very Tolkienesque in any other way.

* No, he didn't kill a demon in single combat, but he did hold one off by drawing a protective circle while rest of the party killed it.

The problem with that old "Gandalf is a 5th level M-U" article is that it's frankly idiotic.  We know for a fact Gandalf defeated a Balrog, in D&D terms a Type VI Demon, so in D&D terms, he's not really a 5th level Magic-User, now, is he?

The article makes a good point, in that "High Level" in ME or any setting doesn't have to be "High Level" in D&D.  Nevertheless, you shouldn't try to make a good point through idiocy, which is what that article did.

Quote from: CRKrueger;910875The problem with that old "Gandalf is a 5th level M-U" article is that it's frankly idiotic.  We know for a fact Gandalf defeated a Balrog, in D&D terms a Type VI Demon, so in D&D terms, he's not really a 5th level Magic-User, now, is he?

The article makes a good point, in that "High Level" in ME or any setting doesn't have to be "High Level" in D&D.  Nevertheless, you shouldn't try to make a good point through idiocy, which is what that article did.

The damn article was tongue in cheek, which has escaped an incredible number of people for 40 years.

Also, re Frodo as a 'conjurer' in Fellowship; You can very easily read 'conjuror' in that instance as the type of charlatan who pulls pennies out of peoples' ears and is a pickpocket on the side.