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| Middle Earth Role Playing first US edition |
Middle-earth imagined by Professor Tolkien continues to have a leading role in the imagination, a role that has again become accentuated thanks to the announcements of the new television series currently in the works and destined to see the light in September of this year. This interest has always been very strong among hobby game enthusiasts with the production of 'unofficial' miniatures by Archive Miniatures (USA) and Mifigs (UK) in the '70s, the distribution of unofficial board games and licensed fantasy simulation games published by the legendary SPI (for example the famous War of the Ring). The real big turning point for Tolkien's games, however, is 1982 when the small company Iron Crown Enterprises, until then known only for its highly detailed Rolemaster RPG (initially a 'universal supplement' which will then acquire its own autonomous identity), obtained the rights to role-playing and board games (but not miniatures) for Tolkien's works. Then appeared MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing), well, almost ...
MERP BEFORE MERP
It is interesting to remember that MERP is not the first attempt to create an official RPG set in Middle Earth. In fact, in the first half of the 1980s, Chaosium magazine Different Worlds reports that the giant MB Games hired a group of designers and put them at work precisely on such an RPG. Unfortunately, however, the titan decided to abandon the project, given that the sales of role-playing games began to decline after a few years of phenomenal expansion in which large publishers had entered the industry, firing all those who worked there. Rights thus remained free because, according to Coleman Charlton (one of the founders of the ICE), no one asked for them. In 1982, therefore, a Campaign and Adventure Guidebook for Middle Earth appeared, the first official role-playing guide in the world by Tolkien, a modest 16-page (later 24-page) booklet and a color poster map representing the entire Middle Earth and not just the area where the War of the Ring occurs - for very many, a revelation. Accompanying this modest debut are two geographic modules, Angmar: Land of the Witch King and Umbar: Haven of the Corsairs, which 'explore' two well-defined areas of Tolkien's creation. It is very interesting that none of these products have any reference to the MERP RPG because the game did not exist yet at the moment of their release. In 1983 the production becomes bigger with the publication of The Court of Ardor in Southern Middle Earth, Isengard and Northern Gondor, Northern Mirkwood: The Wood-Elves Realm and Southern Mirkwood: Haunt of the Necromancer, but still no Middle Earth specific RPG rules.
THE OFFICIAL ROLE-PLAYING GAME ARRIVES
In 1984 the first US edition of the MERP finally appears, after two years of (infrequent but popular) releases of 'universal' Tolkien supplements. The rules of the game are based on Rolemaster, with the limitation of the characters to the tenth level, a certain 'simplification' of the complexity of the rules (which however still remain very difficult), the great mortality of the characters and a magical system based on the books of Tolkien and not on Dungeons & Dragons (no fireballs then). The box contains a 128-page rulebook (also sold separately), a 16-page set of floorplans, a sheet of cardboard miniatures and two 10-sided dice. The game gets great public acclaim and the volume of releases begins to intensify, with the publication of foreign editions: Games Workshop publishes in 1985 its first edition of MERP with a new cover and adding a scaled game map to the box 25 mm and a set of cardboard miniatures - certainly a superior version of the US original that gets exported in many European countries. Hexagonal publishes the first French edition in 1986 and editions in German, Swedish, Spanish, Finnish, Japanese and even in Italian (in 1991) will gradually follow. All these editions, however, will be based on the second US edition, the best known one in the 1980s.
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| MERP first British edition |
THE SECOND (?) US EDITION
The second edition was published in 1986 and it was very similar in content to the first British edition; 128-page manual, maps (but in black and white) in 25 mm scale, cardboard miniatures with plastic bases, dice, a 16-page floorplana booklet and a second booklet containing a solo adventure and a group adventure to learn to play. It is a much more accessible version than the previous one, while still maintaining the complexity of the rules, and this is why it was chosen for the translations. However, this version is also called by collectors and experts 'first revised edition' because it is not considered a 'real' second edition due to the minimal internal changes in the rules. The years between 1986 and 1993 are the true golden age for MERP with the release of dozens of geographic modules, adventures, campaigns, supplements and even an Art Book that collects - obviously in color - many wonderfulillustrations by the artist Angus McBride whose style is almost a sign of recognition for ICE products.
LORDS OF THE RINGS ADVENTURE GAME
In 1991 the ICE decided to publish an introductory box, particularly user friendly, for its flagship game and called it Lords of the Rings Adventure Game, perhaps counting on the greater recognizability of Lord of the Rings compared to Middle Earth. The game is presented in a box containing two booklets (The Guidelines and The Dawn Comes Early adventures), an explanatory sheet, ready-made characters, a map of northwestern Middle Earth, cardboard miniatures and 6-sided dice. The game system is very simple and different from that of the MERP. A new adventure will also be published, Over the Misty Mountains Cold, but no further books were released albeit five more were planned.
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| MERP second (?) US edition |
MERP SWAN SONG
In 1993 in the United States a new version of the basic manual was released, a complete revision of the text that was brought to 272 pages and with both a paperback and hardcover version, still a rare event in the US gaming market at the time. This change was accompanied by the decision to abandon the old 32 and 48 pages books and the paperback volumes (for example the Lords of Middle Earth trilogy) of an average of 112 pages each (such longer sized volumes however were very few). The new edition of MERP is accompanied by books that can be 400 pages long (Arnor, later divided into Arnor The People and Armor The Land) dealing with kingdoms (Southern Gondor), 'disorganized' territories (Mirkwood), specific locations (Minas Tirith), races (Elves), sourcebooks (Hands of the Healer) and even an entire campaign (Palantir Quest). These volumes were obviously expensive to produce and are noe very pricey. Alas, ICE fell victim of the decline in sales of the Middle Earth Collectible Card Game, of role-playing games in general and of the mismanagement of rights related to the Middle Earth Quest/Tolkien Quest gamebook series. In 1999 the company lost the Tolkien rights definitively and then closed due to bankruptcy in 2000, but nothing will be released for MERP after 1997 and the announced third edition of the rulebook will never be released.
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| MERP second official US edition |
COLLECTING MERP RELEASES
Not surprisingly, MERP represents one of the most collected RPGs ever since it can count not only on the interest of RPG collectors but also on the many fans of Tolkien's works. The titles published by ICE are almost all of average availability, but the prices can be very high especially for the expansions of the second (or third if you prefer) edition. Almost all the most requested titles (The Gray Mountains, Moria second edition, Arnor in single volume, The Shire ...) were released for the second edition of MERP but there is no shortage of rare and sought-after titles for the first edition such as Umbar: Haven of the Corsairs and The Court of Ardor. This phenomenon is in all probability due to much lower print runs of the larger books compared to the original 'modules', published in a period in which printing several thousand copies per title was the norm. However, a buter nees to be careful to check the conditions of the big second edition books and the presence of separate color maps, too often absent.