MERP Campaign & Resources

My MERP Campaign work is pretty much finished. I’ve customised the 2nd edition MERP rules to suit the way I’d like the game to run, and completed my tables for character creation and campaign play. I’m now in the process of converting ICE’s LOR (Lord of the Rings Adventure Game) adventures into MERP adventures. My aim would be to use the first two LOR modules as the start of my MERP Campaign.

Here’s my campaign adventure plan so far – leading from Bree to Rivendell, then around most of Rhudaur:

LR-0 Dawn Comes Early, LR-1 Darker Than Darkness, <Rivendell>, The Loons of Long Fell (1^st level), Hillmen of the Trollshaws – The Trolls Watch-Tower (Low level), Trolls of the Misty Mountains – The Dwarves of Duildin Hill (1^st – 2^nd), Trolls of the Misty Mountains – The Village of Garkash Hill (2^nd – 3^rd), Phantom of the Northern Marshes – The Phantom of the Woods (1^st – 2^nd), Phantom of the Northern Marshes – The Riddle of Ridorthu (2^nd – 3^rd), Dark Mage of Rhudaur – Before the Snow Falls & Beseiged, Hillmen of the Trollshaws – The Tale of Mong-Finn & Miffli (Mdm level), Hillmen of the Trollshaws – The Rescue of Alquawen (Mdm level).

The LOR system is like a simpler version of MERP – it uses a smaller set of skills than MERP (LOR skills are like the MERP skill categories), a simpler set of races/classes and rolls are all using 2d6. Most MERP products come with a guide for converting LOR Characters to MERP, but it’s mostly along the lines of “work out what level your character would be and assign DP’s for each level to the skill categories determined by the LOR bonuses”. What I really like about the LOR modules is the way they are written – lots of detail about what the characters see, or can learn/interact with through skill rolls. The first adventure is designed for players who haven’t played LOR (or many RPGs) before and is great for the GM to lead them through the basics of skill use, combat and general role-playing.

Most of my conversion requires converting the LOR skill roll results to MERP Static Maneuver results. When it comes to creatures/NPCs, I’m just making my own NPC’s using MERP rules, or adding the relevant MERP creature stats. The adventures also have a lot of maps and visual aids and I’ve been able to use a lot of them to make floor-plans or game play maps. (I recently learned that one of my graphics programs can overlay a grid on an image, and I found another program that takes large images and break them up into A4 sheets for printing!) I made up four new characters using my rules and I’m play-testing my conversions – going nicely so far!

I also decided that with all these things that I’ve developed, it would be worth adding a new page to my blog that lists internet resources that I’ve found helpful and also made some of my RPG files available to others who may find them useful. So far it’s mostly MERP materials – character sheets, tables, etc – but I’ll add Greyhawk material (D&D and Hero Lab) as I find it or finish it.