“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”
(This arrived today.)
I played a couple sessions of that as a tweenager. I have the 2e hardcover and once planned a big campaign for it with the PCs as young conscripts to the war, but then never got to run it.
Paging through it, it’s funny to see how hard they work to cram D&D/RM into the setting. “Here’s a short history of the Easterlings. Oh, and you get XP for killing things.”
I liked the pared back magic and critical hit systems.
Paul Czege Yup. IIRC it’s basically how we made RM playable back in college. The idea of using MERP as a base and lightly seasoning with the old Law books sounds ideal to me now.
I remember playing this in my late teens. We were very into immersion at the time and wanted to play ‘living in the world’, so ‘gritty’ games were our thing. IIRC we ended up ‘on the run’, falsely accused of banditry, and ironically forced to become actual bandits to survive.
What intrigues me about ‘that me’ now was the extent to which living in Middle Earth was more important than emulating the kind of adventures in the books.
Ian Cooper I chalk it up to the hobby knowing no other way do it at the time.
I don’t know that I could ever play full-on RM again. I mean, it was kind of a ridiculous game — the ’80s dialed to 11.