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 idiotic part, really, is expecting any class-based system to meaningfully replicate any fictional work for which it wasn't explicitly designed.  Hard enough for a point-buy system to do.

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.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;910892The damn article was tongue in cheek, which has escaped an incredible number of people for 40 years.

Agreed. Don't take the article literally. Hell, we can't go by the level of the Fireball spell, anyways, because maybe Gandalf can't actually cast fire magic except with the aid of the ring of fire. But we do know that a D&D representation of Gandalf or the other Istari doesn't have to be all that powerful in terms of numbers. Most of the high numbers we see in literary character write-ups are based more on feelings than anything in the text. "I really like Gandalf, he ought to be 20th level!"

But very few of the effects we see in Lord of the Rings are what we would call high level spells, and we don't see Gandalf or Saruman casting a whole bunch of spells in one encounter, the way we'd see it in a modern fantasy movie or a comic book. Most of the magic we do see could be based on artifacts and other enchanted items, rather than spells: the rings of power, the palantir, the wizards' staves. We do see a weather control effect, which is 6th level in OD&D. If we go by the books, then, we could make a case for Saruman as 12th level. Gandalf confronting the Balrog could be construed as Hold Monster, a 5th level spell, so Gandalf could be as low as 9th level, but if we make him 11th level as Gandalf the Grey, he could come back as 12th level as Gandalf the White, and he becomes evenly matched with Saruman. That's all we need, in terms of numbers. And really, the lower end is better, to represent the rarity of spell casting compared to other magic in the books.

Both Gandelf and the elves are angels, (different interpretations of Christian Angels)  Their power comes from their essence not their experience.

Level donesnt make sense.

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.

Is there a lot of MERP hate out there?  I always felt it was a solid RPG with bloody combat and a bit much (simple) arithmetic.  The most credible criticism I've heard is that it is hard to do all of the addition and subtraction after several hours of drinking.

QuoteOriginall posted by One Horse Town
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.

Right. MERP magic is pretty low key until you hit all of the bolt and ball spells that begin at 6th level.  Few of PCs ever made it that far.  

I'm not much for RoleMaster (MERP hit the sweet spot for complexity) but I did use Spell Law for optional spell lists because the Elemental lists for MERP mages didn't quite feel right, and because it was easy to swap lists for nuance and flavor.

Also in 1984, ICE was perhaps less restrained by canon than a modern game would be and there were some liberties taken in both the game and the setting (which probably annoys some people).  I think for the most part they did a fairly good job adhering to the spirit of Tolkien's ME with this new material, and like Tolkien there was remarkable detail and consistency within ICE's world, but the game (heavily influenced by Tolkien) existed before the license, and the setting material was new. For me, MERP was a pretty Middle Earth-y game in a highly detailed but slightly apocryphal setting.  Both were well crafted (I think I actually prefer ICE's ME to Tolkien's, at least for gaming - blaspheme I know) even if they weren't perfectly aligned with canon.  In any case, if we are talking about getting ME magic "right," then I am not sure it is fair to judge MERP by that standard as it wasn't exactly their intent.

I havent seen the latest iteration of LoTR RPG, but my gut feeling is, having non-magical classes is the best way to run a Middle Earth game.

I assume the magic using class would be able to use most weapons, wear light armour, and relies on spells only minimally, and those spells tend to be enchantment type magic, not obvious blasting spells.

Gandalf "beating" the balrog was CLEARLY GM fiat, just like many key events in The Hobbit and LotR. Tolkien was always one to roll behind the screen.

I'm going to say Burning Wheel. Note: I haven't looked at The One Ring, at all. Maybe not so much on the human magic side, but Elvish, Dwarfish, and Orcish magic in that system are all very Tolkienesque to me.

Quote from: Psikerlord;911466I havent seen the latest iteration of LoTR RPG, but my gut feeling is, having non-magical classes is the best way to run a Middle Earth game.

I assume the magic using class would be able to use most weapons, wear light armour, and relies on spells only minimally, and those spells tend to be enchantment type magic, not obvious blasting spells.

Unfortunaly at least in MERP you are just wrong.  I am playing a hybrid caster now.  I have to cast spells in combat cause that's all I can do.   It's too expensive for casters to get any kind of skill at arms.  9 points a level for the first weapon.  20 points after that.  Hit points côst 8? points per level.  A typical charcter will have between 30 and 40 points.  Most things cost 2-5 points.  Less if you are good at it.   Casters can't be fighters.

Quote from: Headless;911479Unfortunaly at least in MERP you are just wrong.  I am playing a hybrid caster now.  I have to cast spells in combat cause that's all I can do.   It's too expensive for casters to get any kind of skill at arms.  9 points a level for the first weapon.  20 points after that.  Hit points côst 8? points per level.  A typical charcter will have between 30 and 40 points.  Most things cost 2-5 points.  Less if you are good at it.   Casters can't be fighters.

ah. alas! thanks for the insight.

Quote from: Headless;911479Unfortunaly at least in MERP you are just wrong.  I am playing a hybrid caster now.  I have to cast spells in combat cause that's all I can do.   It's too expensive for casters to get any kind of skill at arms.  9 points a level for the first weapon.  20 points after that.  Hit points côst 8? points per level.  A typical charcter will have between 30 and 40 points.  Most things cost 2-5 points.  Less if you are good at it.   Casters can't be fighters.

hmm... I seem to remember some Mages in my old MERP games that had decent combat abilities, but I recall that these characters were built this way from chargen with the right stats (ST), racial bonuses or cultural skills, and background options geared towards combat.  I think it is quite possible to make a mage that has a fighting chance in melee (armor (MM) skills were the toughest part).  On the other hand, if you started your character with mage-like options, then yeah, I could see that it would difficult if not impossible to catch up.

Quote from: Manzanaro;911468Gandalf "beating" the balrog was CLEARLY GM fiat, just like many key events in The Hobbit and LotR. Tolkien was always one to roll behind the screen.

Right, either that or the whole thing was a story game and the GM didn't have authority to kill the PCs when they should have died.

Speaking of which, MERP is about as far away from a story game as you can get.  Not even a re-roll.  It would be nearly impossible to play the events of lotR or the Hobbit with MERP stats.  The guys at ICE never tried to explain how a bunch of mid-level Hobbits, with help, defeated the Dark Lord and all of his minions.  You would need to roll a lot of dice behind the screen to force that outcome.  However, I think the assumptions of MERP is that it is good enough to play a humble character in Middle Earth.  Such a character might be able to change the world, change history, but if he did, it wouldn't be because he was one of the great powers or that the world (game system) somehow artificially favored you.  In MERP you played a humble hero in a world full of great powers that you could never hope to confront directly, and as relatively weak and fragile PCs might be, there was always the hope against hope that you could make an difference (or at least a story worth dying for), and THAT made it feel like Middle Earth - at least it did to us.

Quote from: Madprofessor;911555Right, either that or the whole thing was a story game and the GM didn't have authority to kill the PCs when they should have died.

Am I the only guy that remembers that Gandelf was an angel?  Just like the Balrog?   He isn't and old man.  He isn't a Wisard.  He is just as much super natural power as the deamon he fights.  And he dies.

Quote from: Headless;911582Am I the only guy that remembers that Gandelf was an angel?  Just like the Balrog?   He isn't and old man.  He isn't a Wisard.  He is just as much super natural power as the deamon he fights.  And he dies.

No dude, you're not the only smart guy in the room.  I know my Tolkien and I assume that anybody responding to this thread does as well.  I was reacting to the spirit of Manzanaro's argument about how games or gamers reinforce Middle Earth flavor and story, not the specifics of Gandalf vs Balrog.  I thought the thread was "what games get ME magic right?" not "do you know your Tolkien celebrity death-match match-ups, or what's a Maiar?" My error was that I assumed we were beyond that.

...and to be fair, there is history to the conversation.  Manzanero hates fudging dice rolls especially by the GM, and I am no fan of narrative mechanics - we know this about each other from other threads - so if you missed those parts of the conversation and how it relates to Maiar vs Isatri or MERP stats, it's understandable.

Quote from: Madprofessor;911599No dude, you're not the only smart guy in the room.  I know my Tolkien and I assume that anybody responding to this thread does as well.  I was reacting to the spirit of Manzanaro's argument about how games or gamers reinforce Middle Earth flavor and story, not the specifics of Gandalf vs Balrog.  I thought the thread was "what games get ME magic right?" not "do you know your Tolkien celebrity death-match match-ups, or what's a Maiar?" My error was that I assumed we were beyond that.

...and to be fair, there is history to the conversation.  Manzanero hates fudging dice rolls especially by the GM, and I am no fan of narrative mechanics - we know this about each other from other threads - so if you missed those parts of the conversation and how it relates to Maiar vs Isatri or MERP stats, it's understandable.

The lines Manzanaro and you wrote above just look like you are both saying that if Tolkien were a GM playing a LOTR game and had Gandalf beat the Balrog, that it would mean either he was cheating as GM, using GM fiat, or it was a story game.

Seems to me that Headless is quite right to point out that this none of those conclusions are needed if you know (as we all seem to) that Gandalf actually was simply equal to the Balrog. Neither GM fiat, fudged rolls, nor story-gaming. Well, since it was a novel, it was story, but story wasn't needed to explain the result. It only looked improbable to the first-time reader and the other characters who didn't know that Gandalf was equal to the Balrog.

Did both of us miss a place where you said "If Tolkien were playing a LOTR RPG and had Gandalf be a human wizard..."? Maybe that's just such a common issue with the whole proposition of playing a LOTR RPG that it's just in the water?

Quote from: Skarg;911602The lines Manzanaro and you wrote above just look like you are both saying that if Tolkien were a GM playing a LOTR game and had Gandalf beat the Balrog, that it would mean either he was cheating as GM, using GM fiat, or it was a story game.

Seems to me that Headless is quite right to point out that this none of those conclusions are needed if you know (as we all seem to) that Gandalf actually was simply equal to the Balrog. Neither GM fiat, fudged rolls, nor story-gaming. Well, since it was a novel, it was story, but story wasn't needed to explain the result. It only looked improbable to the first-time reader and the other characters who didn't know that Gandalf was equal to the Balrog.

Did both of us miss a place where you said "If Tolkien were playing a LOTR RPG and had Gandalf be a human wizard..."? Maybe that's just such a common issue with the whole proposition of playing a LOTR RPG that it's just in the water?

Argh. OK. Fine.  There are some misunderstandings here, and I'll own my part.  I realize that Gandalf defeating the Balrog makes perfect sense within the literature and no mechanics or play-styles are needed to explain it.  It wasn't the point. I was commenting on the gaming approach to the literature, not to the specific match-up between the Balrog and Gandalf.
 
I should have prefaced my comments with "in that particular case events went exactly as expected, but you are right that in general, many of the heroes' victories seemed like they could only be accomplished through plot device." or something to that effect.

The point is that there are events in the stories that seemed unlikely and the heroes seem overwhelmed and succeeded anyway.  Manz suggested that, with a bit of snark, that J.R.R must have been the kind of DM who fudged rolls, I responded, with equal snark, that a story game would accomplish the same thing.  Despite the snark, both criticisms are valid if we are talking about how to approach ME as a game and understand how a bunch of hobbits and outmatched heroes triumphed against great odds and defeated the Dark Lord and his forces.

I wanted to explain the way MERP handles this, and used manzanaro's comment as a segue to explain why I liked MERPs approach to ME (I obviously did this poorly or we wouldn't have all of this confusion).

If you look at character stats in MERP (and they are all provided) there is no reasonable way that the events of the LotR or the Hobbit would have played out the way they did - the protagonists would end up dead - you would need GM fiat or story game player power to arrive at the story.  MERP is very traditional RPG without any story mechanics to fudge out the situation, and I don't like fudging die rolls any better than Manzanaro.  MERP takes the assumption that the PCs are not Gandalf, they are humble, heroes in a world that is contested by great powers largely beyond their ability as a PCs to confront.   This is an important theme in Tolkien, that even a humble hobbit can change the world, and MERP captures that very well.  In MERP, you get the feeling that you are in over your head, and whether you succeed in making a difference in the world, or die trying, it still feels like ME because of it.  If you have a game that assumes you have the right to change the world as a protagonist, either through GM fiat or story mechanics, then you would lose that critical Tolkien-y aspect of the common hero who struggles against great forces and impossible odds.