It's certainly not like Middle Earth Roleplaying. It's far simpler to play and definitely feels more Tolkien. I played a bit of MERP when I was far younger and obviously liked the setting so much that I bought many of the source books. In fact I highly recommend the MERP source books - they were an amazing alternative to reading the Silmarillion. Like many of the games I played at the time, the system applied rules liberally. I didn't play its progenitor, Rolemaster, and having heard it's even more chock full of tables I doubt I ever will. A friend I visited recently grumbled that he was quite fond of Rolemaster but unfortunately his GM didn't want to play it anymore. I wonder why...
The lack of magic is glaring. Another player at the table (the DM for our Tuesdays D&D game) had clearly done his homework and knew of some kind of dwarf cantrip. But that was about the scope of it. No pew-pewing through battles. I'd almost say no tactical positioning, but this is actually what stands in place of initiative rolls. Punks at the back, hoods on the right, etc. And there you have your order. This is quite nice really.
The meat of the system is rolling a D12 (with an auto-win Gandalf rune on 12 and an auto-fail Sauron rune on 11 - although this logic is flipped when the baddies roll). You can add to this the scores of some extra D6 that you draw from whatever stat is called upon by the GM (providing you have pips in that stat). You're aiming for a 12-14 result with extra flavour added by the runes on the D12 and by rolling a 6 on the D6s. There's a lot on my character sheet I don't follow. Lots of isolated phrases or words that imply some ability or knowledge I have. It's a concern, but not one that's bothering me because it looks like fluff as opposed to Vancian invocations. I played an axe swinging Beorning with aplomb and let the GM worry about the fiddly particulars.
It has a roll-boosting mechanic called Hope Points. It also has Shadow Points, gained by rolling Saurons or perhaps GM fiat. It gives the game a Call of the Cthulhu feel that's totally appropriate to the creeping madness that claims many of the characters in the Lord of the Rings novels. These I both enjoyed.
I didn't enjoy the experience system. Oh dear. Will anyone ever get experience points right? One gains advancement in certain categories of skills by rolling well. Can you see the problem here? You watch your lucky fellows shoot ahead of you in advancement whilst wondering why you toil at similar tasks to no advantage. Not learning from your mistakes is poetic I'm sure, but not fun. There were some extra experience points elsewhere as well. I suppose to make up for this Who Rolls Wins bullshit.
I've sat through three games, little the wiser about how one would dare to run a campaign of it. But it was nice. It's a relaxing game to play. I recommend playing a game of it if you fancy a step down from the crunch of D&D.
