I got into Rolemaster by way of MERP, as i suspect many RM fans did. Although you can argue (probably quite rightly) that MERP didn't really immerse you in Tolkien's world, they produced some cracking supplements.
I think that i've probably got the most use out of Dagorlad and the Dead Marshes, although Bree and the Barrow Downs and the Riders of Rohan campaign book also gave me a lot of game-time.
What are your favs?
Angus McBride's Characters of Middle Earth.
Of all the things that MERP offered, I thought that his artwork was what really sold me on it. Even today, when I think of his images, those are the pictures that come to mind when I conjure up the look of Middle Earth.
The Shire, by a long shot.
Lord Hobie
Minas Tirith. The hardcover describing the city.
Quote from: Benoist;507263Minas Tirith. The hardcover describing the city.
I never played in it, but, just for the reading, Moria.
The one I got most enjoyable playing from was Northern Mirkwood.
Riders of Rohan, Myrkwood and Dol Guldur. We played the shit of those three combined, as in the official time for the setting (1640 TA) it makes a very interesting place, far more than the South, IMO.
We played in the Middle Earth setting for a while (when 1st Ed came out in 1984 or whenever) but soon got bored of the place. The storyline NPCs are unbelievably powerful and even one of the hobbits had a good chance of slaughtering the party if I recall right. Instead we tacked the MERP system onto the 'known world' Expert game map and had a great time using it instead of Basic D&D. Rather than hacking at cubes of hit points there were spurting limbs, tripping over unseen turtles and stunning the foe with laughter, impaling yourself on your own weapon and creating a light show with your nervous system for impressed onlookers. It certainly beat "You hack at the orc. *roll d8* 4 damage." but at the time statting monsters up meant a lot of work for me.
So the 1st one, the red book, is my favourite. Most of the adventures were full of detail, but a lot of it we didn't even use. (When certain herbs grow, and which son of which lords' daughters cousins married who from where)
My main campaign during the 1980s was set in Eriador, so I got a lot of use out of Rangers of the North, Bree and the Barrowlands, Hillmen of the Trollshaws, and Angmar: Empire of the Witchking.
I also really liked the Mirkwood campaign modules (both the original two, and the later combined book), but only ran a couple of adventures there.
I picked up The Kin-Strife and Palantir Quest much later, and was really impressed with both of them. I ran the first part of Palantir Quest over a decade ago, but the campaign folded when I had to move away.
I hope to use them again someday, perhaps with The One Ring RPG (although I'll need to read TOR first to see if this would work).
Yes. Angmar: Empire of the Witch King is also really awesome. Got my hobbit PC killed by the Witch King himself playing through that one, actually. Long story short, we were searching for some mirror that we could show to a mad Eldar that would show him the fall of Numenor sunken by the seas, got to the Witch King's quarters in the citadel where he kept the mirror. Sneaked into the room, got the mirror... and the Nazgul got me as I reached the door. I threw the mirror to my companions and gave him hell as long as I could so they could escape. It actually worked: the PCs escaped and the mission was a success. My PC died, but that was worth it.
Mount Gundabad - the best megadungeon ever printed. Some day I want to run a campaign in there, probably using AD&D 2e.
I thought Gorgoroth was pretty good too, it really added a lot of colour and depth to Mordor (although you really don't want to go there with any characters you're fond of, not unless it's early Third Age or something).
Actually, I'm sort of tempted to just say the collected maps book. Easily the nicest looking fantasy maps I've ever seen.
Angmar and Southern Mirkwood provided a lot of ideas. I usually just made up my own stuff based upon the sourcebooks. The only book I actually used during a campaign was Thieves of Tharbad, and everyone had a good time.
Northern Mirkwood was my favorite, as it was -- by far -- the one I got the most use out of.
another vote for northern mirkwood, here :)
Quote from: One Horse Town;507260I got into Rolemaster by way of MERP, as i suspect many RM fans did. Although you can argue (probably quite rightly) that MERP didn't really immerse you in Tolkien's world, they produced some cracking supplements.
I think that i've probably got the most use out of Dagorlad and the Dead Marshes, although Bree and the Barrow Downs and the Riders of Rohan campaign book also gave me a lot of game-time.
What are your favs?
Great RPG and I enjoyed allof its products which I own so the proper question is WHICH one did I not like. LOL
The answer is none. I like them all equally but really enjoyed the Empire of the Witch King.
I'm really surprised nobody mentioned the bestiary book. I forget the title. Creatures of Middle Earth? It was really good anyway, even if 90% of it had absolutely no basis whatsoever in anything Tolkien ever wrote.
MERP was the first RPG I ever bought and my favorite book is Angmar. Now I want to flip through my books again.
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.
RPGPundit
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.
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.
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'!
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!
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.
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.
Oh, I had a good time using the Lake Town book, too.