Back from the Med

After a 2 week jaunt throughout the island of Corfu, Im back, and pumped up with ideas for both my MERP campaign, and also a couple of other game ideas.

Firstly because it was just me and the wife, I was able to read a lot as well as undertake lots of reading too, which in part was the inspiration for the games, but also because I was without the usual distractions of TV, the Internet, and phones as well as work, I was able to focus on writing, and lots of it. Pen and paper, no word processing here.

Although the MERP campaign has already been written, I wrote in during my barren playing days in the early 90s, it was written in a vacuum, without play-testing. As I may have previously mentioned, this is the 4th time I have attempted to run this game, and so therefore the early parts of the game are "well-oiled". So far they have enjoyed the comfort of Bree, and gotten to know the surroundings and the people rather well. Every encounter revealing a little more of the dark plot ahead. Now I am moving onto what I would class as 2nd stage of the game, and has yet to be even play-tested, let alone proof-read. Still I am sure in the intervening years I have got better at running and winging games without the facade falling away.

The next stage is therefore the apparently simple journey to the ruins of Rivendell (this is the 4th age afterall) to see the wisdom of the few that remain, and get answers to why there are many factions of orcs roaming what used to be considered safe lands. As a stream of consciousness I wrote 12 pages of A4 notes in one sitting without pause. There was quite a bit on my mind.

The other material I began work on was the early stages of a Superhero game, but I want to "poll" my group and see what they would expect or want from a superpowered game.

The other major focus on my writing was Dune. No no no. Im not one of the lucky who bought a GenCon copy or each paid out over £ 150.



I am ashamed to say I have acquired a PDF copy of the book, and what little I have read, its rather bland and uninventive. Regardless I will use it as the basis for a Dune campaign. For me, I am sufficiently happy to use a simple home-brew system using coloured counters representing traits along with a "troupe" style of play. I also possess a "printers error" copy of the Dune Encyclopedia which is all the background material I need to run a game.

Vampire in the Wings?

No game this week, as previously mentioned, but we did have a summer jolly last night (Saturday) and got drunk to the early hours on the morning in our cowboy and indian themed party.

During the drunk preceedings we think we maybe have recruited a new player with the lure that we dont just play fantasy and science fiction, but horror games like Vampire.

Oddly enough I passed it off as drunk ramblings, but today I have received 2 phone calls from people saying they want in on a Vampire game. Who am I to disappoint, but there is the small matter of MERP to finish first.

MERP, Holiday and Hawkwind (Starblazers)

An odd mix to talk about, but there you go.

The MERP campaign has finished it's first "book". They have discovered a growing plot in the north, specifically around Angmar and are about to travel to Rivendell for a meeting of great minds. Yes its full of cliches but the players are loving it.

Im off for 3 weeks to Corfu, its my first holiday of the year, and I intend (apart from spending copious amounts of time with my wife) to read 2 or 3 books whilst on the beach. Rumbling through my unread collection (which is shocking despite having not bought any books for almost 5 years) I think Im going to settle on 3 books - 2 fantasy, and 1 sci-fi. I havent made my mind up and it may yet change.

Still very excited about the Starblazers RPG, and been listening to my version of the Rock n Roll soundtrack to go with the game. Hawkwind - Master of the Universe album. Very prog/space rock, totally incoherent and derided, but to me Hawkwind used to make the kind of noise which goes perfectly with the space opera style that Starblazer would expect.

Life after MERP

So whats next on the GM front?

Well, we have L5R all ready from our other GM, which I believe is going to be a double barrel campaign, i.e. he is going to be combining 2 adventures into 1.

This suits me fine as it gives me more time to canvas for whats next and give me time to develop some ideas.

Off the top of my head;

Werewolf: Dark Ages - I need to finish off the 3rd part in my time-travelling trilogy.

MERP - I'm sure the guys wont let this game disappear, as they all seem to be having a blast.

Deadlands - this one kinda died because of 2 players who didnt like the system or the world. Of the remaining players, they all loved it. Of the 2 players who didnt like the game, 1 has left and the other is an infrequent attendee.

And as for new games, well there is Hollow Earth Expedition a pulpy action game that manages to merge every element of the genre I love. And then there is the very new Starblazers RPG, a space opera RPG I have been anticipating for a year or so now.

I am sure there are others, like RuneQuest, a game I had prepared before MERP took over, that Id like to run, say a Big Rubble/Pavis game.

Penultimate MERP Session

This Sunday sees the penultimate session of my MERP campaign before we head back to Legend of the Five Rings.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves as well as wanting to return to it.

One of the problems Ive battled with is maintaining the Tolkien feel of the game which on a personal level I think I have failed on. I canvas the players to get their opinions regularly as I often find out that my perception of how the game is going rarely matches up to the players opinion.

For instance, when I ran my 7th Sea game quite often Id have what I would class as a bad session and the players said they have a great time. And when I ran what I thought was a good session, they said that it was incredibly enjoyable.

With this MERP campaign I have sown seeds of foreshadowing and set up story elements for later in the story. Im pleased that 2 or 3 of the 5 players are keeping detailed notes, partly at my suggestion, but mostly because of the rich nature of the game there is a lot going on.

I have managed to get the players used to low atmospheric music, and candlelight to enhance the mood, as well as encouraging the players to not debate their actions for hours at a time, but rather to act. Because if they don't act then the enemies act anyhow. This way I found that the characters and heroes' nature comes out. That heroes leap into battle and defense of the weak, whilst cowards slink to the back.

MERP - Bree Campaign

So this Sunday is the 3rd session in my fill-in MERP game. One of the players in the group has permanently has quit because he didn't like the way we chopped around the games too much.

Had I know he was going to quit (and the writing was on the wall weeks beforehand) I'd have gone back to Deadlands for a "season", a game which the departed player had immense dislike for.

As it stands now there is 7 of us, which is a lovely sized group, I think we have room for one more player, and I have my sights set on one guy in particular who has been out of the gaming scene for a few years.

Going back to MERP, because its the first time I've run it since the trilogy of films came out earlier this millennium, there are high levels of expectation both from me and the players. The hardest part of running MERP is not the looking up of tables and charts (a less bothersome task than when I ran Rolemaster), but rather keeping the feel and flavour of Tolkien's world. MERP is a game at odds with me as a GM because of the magic.

The magic rules for MERP really spoil the game, and trivial daily spell items and even 1st level spells can impact the game on a regular basis more so than Gandalf ever could dream of. The way I have found to reign in their wanton power is to have consequence. Everything they do has consequences.

You want to start pulling of magical powers? Fine, then the locals populace are going to be turning to YOU to solve their problems. The roving band of black orcs are looking at taming a part of Rhudaur , then they need to eliminate the problem "party" first.

MERP and Ever After

2 sessions into my MERP adventure/side trek, which has the capability of going to a full campaign and having lots of fun with it.

The other DM in our group, he who is running the Legend of the Five Rings campaign, is mooting that he'd like to run a Godlike game. Godlike, for those of you who haven't heard of it, and I don't blame you for not, is a game set during the major WW2 conflict zones wherein some, all or none of the players are "Talents". Talents being super-powered heroes.

What makes godlike different from other superhero games is (a) the 1 die roll combat, damage and location system, but also (b) the fact that there is no spandex to be worn. Just because you are a hero, doesnt make you bullet proof.

Its an interesting idea, not one Im super crazy about, but seeing as Greg Stolze designed the gaming system, based on a concept idea by Dennis Detwiller, is enough to make me sit up and pay attention.

MERP PDFs Online

Life is starting to get back to normal after a break with no internet.

Our Legend of the Five Rings game has ended its 2nd story arc and has gone on the back-burner for a couple of months whilst I run one of the following games. I tried to woo my group with either RuneQuest, MERP, Vampire or to give 3/4th Edition DND a shot.

Oddly they all jumped on RuneQuest, until I realised that I have left all my RQ material with my parents in Spain.

So with less than a week to go, I have decided its going to be MERP, which the crew seem happy to indulge me on. Whilst searching the internet for character sheets, as Ill be using the 2nd Collector's Edition of MERP I stumbled across this website which not only is a great source of MERP related goodies and information, but is also home to virtually every ICE/MERP product in PDF form.

www.merp.com

Now I have no idea of the legal nature of a website holding such documents, after all its illegal isnt it? The website does appear to claim that seeing as ICE (Iron Crown Enterprises) doesnt exist, or that TE (Tolkien Enterprises) has no claim over these products, they are essentially public domain.

Either way, ICE and TE have issued Cease & Desist order and managed to get them to removed a couple of the PDFs listed.

I cant imagine they will exist for long, so Ill leave it to your conscience as to whether you want them for free or buy them on Ebay.