# Middle-earth Role Playing *MERP* - Work: Tabletop RPG - Date: 1984 (1st ed.); 2nd ed. 1986 - Houses: Iron Crown Enterprises, Games Workshop - Platforms: Boxed set and rulebook, Regional campaign modules - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/middle-earth-role-playing/ > The first full Tolkien roleplaying game: Iron Crown's percentile-dice take on Middle-earth, set in the age of the Witch-king, with maps and Angus McBride paintings that became a generation's picture of Arda. **Why it matters:** For fifteen years MERP was the licensed way to play in Tolkien's world, translated across Europe and Japan, and its exhaustive regional modules pioneered the gazetteer-style sourcebook. ## Quick answers **When was Middle-earth Role Playing first released?** Middle-earth Role Playing was first released in 1984 (1st ed.); 2nd ed. 1986. **Who published or developed Middle-earth Role Playing?** Iron Crown Enterprises and Games Workshop. **What kind of work is Middle-earth Role Playing?** Middle-earth Role Playing is a tabletop RPG in the Tabletop Roleplaying Games and High / Epic Fantasy tradition, released for Boxed set and rulebook and Regional campaign modules. **Why is Middle-earth Role Playing important?** For fifteen years MERP was the licensed way to play in Tolkien's world, translated across Europe and Japan, and its exhaustive regional modules pioneered the gazetteer-style sourcebook. ## Overview *Middle-earth Role Playing*, known universally as MERP, was the first complete roleplaying game licensed to recreate [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/)'s world. Published in 1984 by [Iron Crown Enterprises](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/iron-crown-enterprises/) (ICE), it paired a streamlined version of ICE's own [Rolemaster](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/rolemaster/) rules with an enormous line of regional modules that mapped Middle-earth in more detail than Tolkien himself ever had. For fifteen years, from its first sourcebooks in 1982 to the loss of its license in 1999, if you wanted to play in the world of [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/), this was how you did it. ## Origins The first attempts to game Tolkien's world were unlicensed; early [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/) borrowed hobbits, ents and balrogs until legal pressure forced renamings. ICE took the formal route. The company was founded in 1980 by Pete Fenlon, S. Coleman Charlton and Kurt Fischer after they graduated from the University of Virginia; its roots lay in a D&D campaign Fenlon ran in Middle-earth, for which the three developed the house rules that grew into Rolemaster. In 1982 Tolkien Enterprises, the Saul Zaentz company that controlled film and merchandising rights (see [The Tolkien Rights Saga](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/tolkien-rights-saga/)), granted ICE an exclusive, worldwide license. ICE started with sourcebooks rather than a game. *A Campaign and Adventure Guidebook for Middle-earth* (1982) and *Angmar: Land of the Witch King* (1982) were written to be usable with any fantasy RPG, and reviewers were struck by their scale: White Dwarf's Jonathan Sutherland admired how "the detailing of the whole area is on a tremendous scale." In 1984 Charlton's dedicated rules followed, and a revised second edition arrived in 1986. A *Collector's Edition* based on the second edition appeared in 1993. ## How it plays MERP is a tabletop roleplaying game: a [gamemaster](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/game-master/) describes Middle-earth and voices everyone the heroes meet, while each player creates and plays a single character, rolling dice when the outcome of an action is in doubt. The heart of MERP is the percentile roll. Two ten-sided dice are read as a number from 01 to 100, and characters' attributes and skills are rated on the same 1–100 scale. Rolls are "open-ended": a very high result lets the player roll again and add, a very low one rolls again and subtracts, so a hobbit can occasionally land a legendary blow. Players choose a race from Tolkien's peoples, including hobbits, dwarves, several kinds of elves and many cultures of Men, and one of six professions: Warrior, Scout, Ranger, Bard, Mage or Animist, a healer and priest-figure. Like D&D, MERP has [classes](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/character-class/) and levels, but skills are bought separately, so a Ranger can learn to climb or a Mage to ride. Combat is where the Rolemaster DNA shows. An attacker rolls, adds offensive skill and subtracts the defender's bonus, then consults a printed attack table for the weapon against the target's armor type. Good results trigger a roll on a critical table, which describes specific wounds, from a stunning blow to a severed limb, in sometimes lurid prose. Magic works through thematic spell lists, such as sets of healing spells, which casters learn as a whole. The game's default setting is Third Age 1640, more than thirteen centuries before *The Lord of the Rings*. Gondor is recovering from civil war; the Witch-king's realm of Angmar menaces Arnor; Sauron is only beginning to rebuild. The choice solved a problem of any Tolkien game: set it during the War of the Ring and everyone knows the ending, so ICE set it in an era Tolkien left mostly blank. ## Reception & impact Reviewing the first edition in White Dwarf 58 (October 1984), Jonathan Sutherland called it "a well-conceived, reasonably well-written system." Graham Staplehurst, writing in the same magazine in 1985, praised the development work but felt its magic was too powerful for Tolkien's subtle world. He reviewed the 1986 second edition warmly as "one of the more inventive and enjoyable" roleplaying games. MERP's greatest influence was international. [Games Workshop](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/games-workshop/) published the British edition in 1985, and translations appeared in Sweden (1986), France (1986), Japan (1987), Germany (1987) and Finland (1990). ICE's own history holds that at the time of its publication MERP was the second best-selling fantasy RPG after [D&D](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/advanced-dungeons-and-dragons/). In a 1996 poll by the British magazine *Arcane*, it still ranked 11th among the most popular RPGs. The modules themselves, with detailed maps and covers by the Scottish illustrator Angus McBride, are remembered even by players who never used the rules. For many fans, McBride's warriors, wizards and Dúnedain were the first painted images of Middle-earth they knew. ## Legacy ICE expanded its Tolkien line with the simpler *Lord of the Rings Adventure Game* (1991) and the *Middle-earth Collectible Card Game* (1995). But on September 22, 1999, Tolkien Enterprises revoked the license, and in October 2000 ICE filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, ending MERP for good. The Tolkien RPG license passed to Decipher, whose *Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game* (2002) tied into the Peter Jackson films, and later to Cubicle 7's [The One Ring Roleplaying Game](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-one-ring-rpg/) (2011). Fan communities kept MERP alive through magazines such as *Other Hands* and online archives, and original modules remain collectors' items. MERP's approach, deep regional history, careful maps and an era chosen to leave room for players, shaped how licensed games would treat beloved fictional worlds. ## Facts - Iron Crown Enterprises received an exclusive worldwide Tolkien game license from Tolkien Enterprises in 1982, two years before MERP itself appeared. - ICE's first Middle-earth books, such as Angmar: Land of the Witch King (1982), were written to be usable with any fantasy RPG. - The default setting is Third Age 1640, some 1,378 years before the War of the Ring, when Gondor recovers from civil war and Arnor faces Angmar. - All characters and skills are rated from 1 to 100 and resolved with two ten-sided dice read as percentiles. - Games Workshop published the British edition in 1985; translations followed in Sweden, France, Germany, Japan and Finland. - Tolkien Enterprises revoked the license on September 22, 1999, and ICE filed for bankruptcy in October 2000. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_Role_Playing) - [Wikipedia: Iron Crown Enterprises](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Crown_Enterprises) - [Grognardia: Retrospective, Bree and the Barrow-Downs](http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2020/12/retrospective-bree-and-barrow-downs.html) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.