I'll just list my top 5: 1. Mirkwood combined (Our campaign was mostly based here & in Laketown) 2. Gorgoroth 3. Gundabad 4. Angmar combined 5. Grey Mountains
Cool list. Gundabad was a lot of fun to play adventure based. Gorgoroth and Angmar (combined) were great for large scale military campaigns. Liked the Grey Mnt Dwarven layouts and dragons. Mirkwood (Combined) was a little harder to get into but recreating the Hobbit and War of the Ring was doable. They did come out with a Lake Town stand alone module (I will get to that one later).
Another great video. I do not have all the books only 4 and here is how I would rank them on playability for the man in time period T.A.1640 1. Angmar, Northern Mirkwood, Southern Mirkwood and then Moria.
Podríais volver a reeditar el merp y hacer todo módulos y campañas y más para comprarlo es la mejor edición y el mejor sistema de rol . Somos millones de fans . Ke deseamos ke vuelva el joc internacional del señor de los anillos y los módulos 💯💪💯 rol deseamos ke vuelvan .la segunda mejor sistema es el dyd
I truly wish they would bring MERP back to life. The worst decision ever made was giving the license to another company that just based everything on the Peter JAckson Movies.
I liked the Shire, Arnor (esp the Cardolan section) best. We ran a campaign to make Eochrian of Hir Girthian a restored King. It was a blast. We ended up marrying him and the princess of Dol Calantir.
I have all of the 90's books and will get to the Shire and Arnor later. I loved the Arnor book. I ran a campaign that had Cardolan reunite with Arthedain. Prince Minastir led the Arthedain Army while Crown Prince Arvegil did the diplomatic work. We had prince Minastir marry Finduilas of Calantir and arranged for Eochorian to marry Pelewen of Tyrn Gorthad (Hodhath). We used the rules from the Kinstrife module to use large armies. The Shire module was a pleasant surprise as Hobbits generally try to avoid trouble. I liked the different time periods and locations listed.
Does anyone know if there is information on the ruined keep that is North West of The Last Inn and Last Bridge? Dol Elerilde? I can only find a mention of it but no details.
Great video! I've played but a fraction of the campaign books you have, but it seems we both love the what-ifs implicit in what you call the Four Kings Scenario in The Lost Realm of Cardolan. So far, the time for that kind of campaign just hasn't been right in my RPG groups. I keep looking for an opening, though! Also, totally agree with you about Gundabad - what a cool perspective you get on orcish society. All the best! :D
Thanks, It was isn't easy to rank them. I flip flopped a couple orf times while making the video to the point where I sat down and reread them. Cardolan was by far and away the best one for me.
I wish they had made Hillmen of the Trollshaws as the Campaign module for Rhudaur. All they had to do was add a few more locations and it would have made for a really good one.
@romandacil3984 Dark Mage was pretty good, too! (Watched ur vid on it last night.) There are lots of little areas like that in MERP sandwiched between two larger areas and defined only by a little adventure module lol. Love me some MERP!
@@McHobotheBobo Dark Mage is one of my favorites. They could have combined it with Hillmen of the Trollshaws and Phantom of the North Marches to make an Excellent Rhudaur Campaign module.
Roman, my mqn! What are the odds of both of us uploading tabletop Middle-Earth content with a drinking game at the introduction? Rating all these awesome modules seems a mammoth task for sure Riders of Rohan was a boxed set in Sweden, I remember that. I also remember our gm using Isengard, Dunland and a few more. Seeing these bookcovers brings back memories. Good times. Great vid, man.
I just watched your video on the new LOTR game system and laughed at the drinking game. I noticed while editing mine that the word "cool" comes up at least 100 times and thought in a drinking game I would have blacked out at the midway point. Plan to go through the whole collection so more to come as well as the Games Workshop LOTR.
There is Hillmen of the Trollshaws which is the Rhudaur book but it's not a Campaign module just an adventure module that should have been made into it's own Campaign module.
Very very good review of these modules, I have them all printed & originals from the 80's, with the exception of a couple of the realms modules. The realm of Cardolan was one of the last modules I got but one of my favorites. The mirkwood modules had so much promise but were a bit of a let down, My list would be: 1. Shadow in the south 2. The realm of Cardolan 3.Greater Harad. 4. Empire of the witch king 5. Moria So cool to see a review on my favorite modules, Takes me back to the 90's when we had a strong MERP campaign going. Cheers. I also liked thieves of Tharbad, I can't remember if you reviewed that one.
Agreed the system has it's drawbacks but the Critical Table descriptions more than make up fo it. The maps and the military tables were what I loved the best.
I was lucky to buy most of them as they came out in the late 80' to mid 90's. I had to go on ebay to get 1st Angmar, Umbar, Ardor, South + North Mirkwood. Court of ardor cost me $75 USD (2000) and I had it shipped to my mom in Canada instead of to S. Korea (where I was at the time) so I never had a chance to see it until 2005. Prices on ebay are pretty high keep an eye out for them at used bookstores or garage sales.
@@romandacil3984 Aah I see. I was born in 86 so no merp for me at that time and my parents did not known the existence of ttrpgs. You have a great collection.
Have you seen the new game, Against the Darkmaster? It's designed to be an homage to MERP and you can pretty much play the old MERP adventures with it. Even the cover of the rulebook is clearly inspired by the image you posted here from the old MERP boxed set. And another image in the book is basically a copy of the cover of the Cardolan module.
I just took a look at their website for Against the Darkmaster. It looks really cool from what I read. Problem with me is time and being pretty invested in Games Workshop LOTR. I am well behind in my painting as I have the Grim Hammers, Wood Elves and a Gandalf with a cart to get done. Would love to get the Smaug model from GW but have to justify $600 CAD to my wife (not an easy task)
I liked reading the modules but sometimes wondered how anyone could possibly play in some of the locations, like Saruman's tower, or Sauron's abode in Southern Mirkwood. I mostly bought the Rolemaster modules though, those were intended to be more descriptive than the MERP adventure modules like Shelob's Lair. That's another one, good luck to any fools who ended up in there... Or how about "Let's go cause trouble in Lothlorien" -- I wonder how that would go, good luck with that one. Elves are thousands of years old, they've seen it all and have been through Hell multiple times already. I was quite happy reading the modules which filled gaps Tolkien had left, Christopher's books hadn't been published yet. I tried to figure out how one would play a high level character like Saruman, but I couldn't see it happening. So many high level spells... We did play south of Angmar and the characters moved toward Moria, much of their time was spent fighting wilderness animals, brigands, some orcs. The Rolemaster RPG can be brutal to low-level characters. :-) I did a play through of an encounter between a party of adventurers and that ancient dragon south of Angmar... Within the first round all but two paladins/fighters were incinerated, within a couple more rounds the paladins were dead too. Probably the only thing left of them were dark burnt spots on the floor. The poor paladin's armour glowed white hot while he was cooking, eventually the metal melted altogether. Rolemaster dragons are not like AD&D dragons. For one thing, they're smarter than humans. For another thing, their breath lasts 3 rounds. Regarding Umbar, I bought it when the only other thing published for ME was the introductory map. I snapped up that map the first time it appeared on the shelf at my local store in Ottawa, Fandom II. Imagine what I.C.E. could be doing now in the 2nd Age, for Beleriand locations and Numenor, including fleets. More Elven and Dwarven locations, etc. So much content we're missing out on. The authors of the modules did research the Tolkien material and put it together concisely by area, it was a great way to learn more about Middle-Earth and my imagination was definitely sparked. Here's an article on Peter Fenlon who drew most of the big maps. www.escapistmagazine.com/rolemaster-puppetmaster-catan-master-pete-fenlon/
I hear you. I loved reading the modules just in order to add unofficial depth to the history of Middle-Earth. I also loved the maps that added color to the world as Tolkien never went into too much detail as he was always revising what he did. He was his own harshest critic. I also wondered how adventures could penetrate Dol Guldor, Orthanc or even Gundabad without getting sacrificed. I used to belong to a fan based MERP sight that continued to push the boundaries of what ICE did but found it too relatable to our own ancient societies.
After a two year long campaign with high level charectors, we decided, Let's go to the Sorcer King's keep and free the Gondor Royalty traped there so there. We had a ton of fun and realised the next magnitude of power levels. We ran away from the Nagazul very fast!
I love the ICE modules, but Rolemaster is a terrible system for Middle Earth roleplay. It's both too slow and too ridiculous. Also, usually people try to play like d&d murder hobos and it doesn't work.....its much better if you try to play seriously as plausible Middle Earth lords.
True it does adventure like other game systems. But I love the military tables in the Campaign books as that alowed me to run military campaigns using Middle-Earth Lords.
@@BanjoSick rolemaster is really cheesy once you figure out how to abuse oB/dB. It yields a high adventure gonzo science fantasy crunchy rules exploitation experience pretty well if you can stand how slow it is and don't try to fight more than a couple monsters at a time...but Tolkien play has never worked in an rpg for me because it requires narrative cohesion to work and players generally gonna murder hobo and loot, not roleplay serious lords of middle earth in a novel building up to doing fated things to hold back the crushing dark of Sauron's evil. That takes special effort in my experience and I'm not sure any rpg system really works for true Tolkien.
@@erikturner8005 I don’t understand why you think it’s slow, I find faster that most and I don’t get the gonzo thing either. DCC got some insiration from RM for sure but the approach is very very different. Rolemaster was made as a simulationist alternative for DnD. I also don’t get what you mean by cheesy…. As for the murder hobo, you die very fast like that i RM since positional mods are big and even a peasant can murder you from behind. Played Rolemaster very much, never saw a murder hobo, since the rules don’t allow for that. Their slogan even was «Get Rea, Get Rolemaster!!!»
I'll just list my top 5:
1. Mirkwood combined (Our campaign was mostly based here & in Laketown)
2. Gorgoroth
3. Gundabad
4. Angmar combined
5. Grey Mountains
Cool list. Gundabad was a lot of fun to play adventure based. Gorgoroth and Angmar (combined) were great for large scale military campaigns. Liked the Grey Mnt Dwarven layouts and dragons. Mirkwood (Combined) was a little harder to get into but recreating the Hobbit and War of the Ring was doable. They did come out with a Lake Town stand alone module (I will get to that one later).
Another great video. I do not have all the books only 4 and here is how I would rank them on playability for the man in time period T.A.1640
1. Angmar, Northern Mirkwood, Southern Mirkwood and then Moria.
Excellent ty!
Podríais volver a reeditar el merp y hacer todo módulos y campañas y más para comprarlo es la mejor edición y el mejor sistema de rol . Somos millones de fans . Ke deseamos ke vuelva el joc internacional del señor de los anillos y los módulos 💯💪💯 rol deseamos ke vuelvan .la segunda mejor sistema es el dyd
I truly wish they would bring MERP back to life. The worst decision ever made was giving the license to another company that just based everything on the Peter JAckson Movies.
Neat!!
Thanks
I liked the Shire, Arnor (esp the Cardolan section) best. We ran a campaign to make Eochrian of Hir Girthian a restored King. It was a blast. We ended up marrying him and the princess of Dol Calantir.
I have all of the 90's books and will get to the Shire and Arnor later. I loved the Arnor book. I ran a campaign that had Cardolan reunite with Arthedain. Prince Minastir led the Arthedain Army while Crown Prince Arvegil did the diplomatic work. We had prince Minastir marry Finduilas of Calantir and arranged for Eochorian to marry Pelewen of Tyrn Gorthad (Hodhath). We used the rules from the Kinstrife module to use large armies. The Shire module was a pleasant surprise as Hobbits generally try to avoid trouble. I liked the different time periods and locations listed.
Does anyone know if there is information on the ruined keep that is North West of The Last Inn and Last Bridge? Dol Elerilde? I can only find a mention of it but no details.
I have Moria as my #1 Choice. Cardolan is at #3 with Riders of Rohan at #2. Ents of Fangorn was the least favorite with Dunland as runner up.
Great video! I've played but a fraction of the campaign books you have, but it seems we both love the what-ifs implicit in what you call the Four Kings Scenario in The Lost Realm of Cardolan. So far, the time for that kind of campaign just hasn't been right in my RPG groups. I keep looking for an opening, though! Also, totally agree with you about Gundabad - what a cool perspective you get on orcish society. All the best! :D
Thanks, It was isn't easy to rank them. I flip flopped a couple orf times while making the video to the point where I sat down and reread them. Cardolan was by far and away the best one for me.
Thanks - great review!
So many happy memories
Had a lot of fun playing MERP back when I was younger.
Rhudaur kind of had a module in form of "Hillmen of the Trollshaws" iirc
I wish they had made Hillmen of the Trollshaws as the Campaign module for Rhudaur. All they had to do was add a few more locations and it would have made for a really good one.
@romandacil3984 Dark Mage was pretty good, too! (Watched ur vid on it last night.) There are lots of little areas like that in MERP sandwiched between two larger areas and defined only by a little adventure module lol. Love me some MERP!
@@McHobotheBobo Dark Mage is one of my favorites. They could have combined it with Hillmen of the Trollshaws and Phantom of the North Marches to make an Excellent Rhudaur Campaign module.
Roman, my mqn! What are the odds of both of us uploading tabletop Middle-Earth content with a drinking game at the introduction?
Rating all these awesome modules seems a mammoth task for sure
Riders of Rohan was a boxed set in Sweden, I remember that. I also remember our gm using Isengard, Dunland and a few more. Seeing these bookcovers brings back memories. Good times.
Great vid, man.
I just watched your video on the new LOTR game system and laughed at the drinking game. I noticed while editing mine that the word "cool" comes up at least 100 times and thought in a drinking game I would have blacked out at the midway point. Plan to go through the whole collection so more to come as well as the Games Workshop LOTR.
Thieves of tharbad was my #1
There is a Rhudaur book.
There is Hillmen of the Trollshaws which is the Rhudaur book but it's not a Campaign module just an adventure module that should have been made into it's own Campaign module.
Very very good review of these modules, I have them all printed & originals from the 80's, with the exception of a couple of the realms modules. The realm of Cardolan was one of the last modules I got but one of my favorites. The mirkwood modules had so much promise but were a bit of a let down,
My list would be:
1. Shadow in the south
2. The realm of Cardolan
3.Greater Harad.
4. Empire of the witch king
5. Moria
So cool to see a review on my favorite modules, Takes me back to the 90's when we had a strong MERP campaign going. Cheers. I also liked thieves of Tharbad, I can't remember if you reviewed that one.
Thanks, I plan to do Thieves of Tharbad soon. I got an little side tracked with the Games Workshop side of LOTR but will be getting back to MERP.
Having several of these. The system is difficult. I just loved the detail and the maps.
Agreed the system has it's drawbacks but the Critical Table descriptions more than make up fo it. The maps and the military tables were what I loved the best.
That is a tough question which I liked the most. I would agree with Cardolan being one of the best.
Moria was a close 2nd but the main adventures in Cardolan were far superior to Moria's.
I don't know which is my favorite because they are too expensive for a Canadian like me :'(
I was lucky to buy most of them as they came out in the late 80' to mid 90's. I had to go on ebay to get 1st Angmar, Umbar, Ardor, South + North Mirkwood. Court of ardor cost me $75 USD (2000) and I had it shipped to my mom in Canada instead of to S. Korea (where I was at the time) so I never had a chance to see it until 2005. Prices on ebay are pretty high keep an eye out for them at used bookstores or garage sales.
@@romandacil3984 Aah I see. I was born in 86 so no merp for me at that time and my parents did not known the existence of ttrpgs. You have a great collection.
Have you seen the new game, Against the Darkmaster? It's designed to be an homage to MERP and you can pretty much play the old MERP adventures with it. Even the cover of the rulebook is clearly inspired by the image you posted here from the old MERP boxed set. And another image in the book is basically a copy of the cover of the Cardolan module.
I just took a look at their website for Against the Darkmaster. It looks really cool from what I read. Problem with me is time and being pretty invested in Games Workshop LOTR. I am well behind in my painting as I have the Grim Hammers, Wood Elves and a Gandalf with a cart to get done. Would love to get the Smaug model from GW but have to justify $600 CAD to my wife (not an easy task)
I liked reading the modules but sometimes wondered how anyone could possibly play in some of the locations, like Saruman's tower, or Sauron's abode in Southern Mirkwood. I mostly bought the Rolemaster modules though, those were intended to be more descriptive than the MERP adventure modules like Shelob's Lair. That's another one, good luck to any fools who ended up in there... Or how about "Let's go cause trouble in Lothlorien" -- I wonder how that would go, good luck with that one. Elves are thousands of years old, they've seen it all and have been through Hell multiple times already.
I was quite happy reading the modules which filled gaps Tolkien had left, Christopher's books hadn't been published yet. I tried to figure out how one would play a high level character like Saruman, but I couldn't see it happening. So many high level spells...
We did play south of Angmar and the characters moved toward Moria, much of their time was spent fighting wilderness animals, brigands, some orcs. The Rolemaster RPG can be brutal to low-level characters. :-)
I did a play through of an encounter between a party of adventurers and that ancient dragon south of Angmar... Within the first round all but two paladins/fighters were incinerated, within a couple more rounds the paladins were dead too. Probably the only thing left of them were dark burnt spots on the floor. The poor paladin's armour glowed white hot while he was cooking, eventually the metal melted altogether. Rolemaster dragons are not like AD&D dragons. For one thing, they're smarter than humans. For another thing, their breath lasts 3 rounds.
Regarding Umbar, I bought it when the only other thing published for ME was the introductory map. I snapped up that map the first time it appeared on the shelf at my local store in Ottawa, Fandom II. Imagine what I.C.E. could be doing now in the 2nd Age, for Beleriand locations and Numenor, including fleets. More Elven and Dwarven locations, etc. So much content we're missing out on. The authors of the modules did research the Tolkien material and put it together concisely by area, it was a great way to learn more about Middle-Earth and my imagination was definitely sparked.
Here's an article on Peter Fenlon who drew most of the big maps. www.escapistmagazine.com/rolemaster-puppetmaster-catan-master-pete-fenlon/
I hear you. I loved reading the modules just in order to add unofficial depth to the history of Middle-Earth. I also loved the maps that added color to the world as Tolkien never went into too much detail as he was always revising what he did. He was his own harshest critic. I also wondered how adventures could penetrate Dol Guldor, Orthanc or even Gundabad without getting sacrificed. I used to belong to a fan based MERP sight that continued to push the boundaries of what ICE did but found it too relatable to our own ancient societies.
After a two year long campaign with high level charectors, we decided, Let's go to the Sorcer King's keep and free the Gondor Royalty traped there so there. We had a ton of fun and realised the next magnitude of power levels. We ran away from the Nagazul very fast!
I love the ICE modules, but Rolemaster is a terrible system for Middle Earth roleplay. It's both too slow and too ridiculous. Also, usually people try to play like d&d murder hobos and it doesn't work.....its much better if you try to play seriously as plausible Middle Earth lords.
True it does adventure like other game systems. But I love the military tables in the Campaign books as that alowed me to run military campaigns using Middle-Earth Lords.
Love Rolemaster for Middle Earth. The realistic approach befits Tolkien. The magic system, of course, is not tolkienean at all, sadly.
@@BanjoSick rolemaster is really cheesy once you figure out how to abuse oB/dB. It yields a high adventure gonzo science fantasy crunchy rules exploitation experience pretty well if you can stand how slow it is and don't try to fight more than a couple monsters at a time...but Tolkien play has never worked in an rpg for me because it requires narrative cohesion to work and players generally gonna murder hobo and loot, not roleplay serious lords of middle earth in a novel building up to doing fated things to hold back the crushing dark of Sauron's evil. That takes special effort in my experience and I'm not sure any rpg system really works for true Tolkien.
@@erikturner8005 I don’t understand why you think it’s slow, I find faster that most and I don’t get the gonzo thing either.
DCC got some insiration from RM for sure but the approach is very very different. Rolemaster was made as a simulationist alternative for DnD. I also don’t get what you mean by cheesy….
As for the murder hobo, you die very fast like that i RM since positional mods are big and even a peasant can murder you from behind. Played Rolemaster very much, never saw a murder hobo, since the rules don’t allow for that.
Their slogan even was «Get Rea, Get Rolemaster!!!»