MERP converted into BRP?

[daddystabz]

Has anyone ever worked on or seen anywhere a conversion of Middle Earth Roleplaying (esp 2e) into BRP or MRQ or RuneQuest?

MERP uses a D100 system as well so the conversion probably wouldn't be that tough. I just like BRP more-so than Rolemaster.

[soltakss]

Is this what you were after?

[daddystabz]

Ooh! I will check that out. Thanks!

[Dahak]

Yikes! I was going to suggest checking out the Thieves' World Companion, as it had BRP and MERP stat blocks for the same characters. But it looks like the downloads cover a lot of ground.

[Chorpa]

Well if you could read swedish it would even be more simple than that.

All of the adventure modules that where translated to the swedish version of MERP where dual statted with Drakar och Demoner Expert (Dragons and Demons) which was basicly a pure BRP system.

Otherwise I do recommend getting one of ICEs Arms Law (pre Rolemaster Classic) or you can just download Arms Law Conversions that should be enough to get you going. But since RM is an inverted Percentile system skills should be pretty easy to convert you just have to find the corresponding skill and keep the skill value as it is. The stats you can use the above downloadable document to convert.

I have converted a lot of ICE stuff for use with BRP and it's very simple actually. Just convert Stats and Skills and then you can just calculate all the necessary Derived Stats as usual.

[Kairos]

Is this what you were after?

Seconded. I've been using this as a base for a Middle Earth FGII BRP game to great effect. The magic document is heavily inspired by the DECIPHER LoTR game, too, which is very good. Just turn on some of the heroic BRP options (or not) to suit. What I particularly like about Anthony's work is that Elves are Tolkien Elves, meaning they are unapologetically "unbalanced" the way they should be. Same with Dunedain in relation to, say, Northmen.

Good luck!

[Akrasia]

There is also The Age of Shadow, which is based on OpenQuest.

[Fergo113]

I'm slowly working my way through the three sections that make up Chapter 8 Equipment for ME-BRP.

My RPG group dried up recently but I have been able to rally some of the troop and am about to start the group going again. That's inspired me to get my backside into gear again with the ME-BRP project. Hopefully over the next few months I shall be able to post Chapter 8 (fingers crossed:) ).

Daddystabz, if you want pdf's of the chapters so far complete with images, drop me a personal message through BRP Central here with an email address I can send you the FileFactory links too.

[Baron]

Best news ever!

[Redge]

Most MERP campaign and adventure books have a section on stat and abilities conversion to D20 and 3d6 based games IIRC. I assume that was to support D&D and Runequest folks in the 80's.

[AikiGhost]

There is also The Age of Shadow, which is based on OpenQuest.

I was also gong to chime in with Age of Shadow, it excellently presented and has a nice flavour to it IMHO.

[Kris]

There is also The Age of Shadow, which is based on OpenQuest.

I was also gong to chime in with Age of Shadow, it excellently presented and has a nice flavour to it IMHO.

Apologies if anyone was trying to download the book over the last few days, but it was taken off-line while I updated it to v1.01. Anyway, it's back up now (should anyone still be interested ).

Kris

[Tywyll]

On 6/19/2011 at 2:45 AM, soltakss said:

Is this what you were after?

I know this is Thread Necromancy of the highest order...but any idea what happened to the file you were referencing? Anyway I could get a copy if you still have one?

[Baron]

Tywyll, while I don't recall where that specific link led, there was Fergo's adaptation hosted here on BRP Central, plus one more by an author I referred here; I think he may have uploaded his file here after that, as well. Finally I also recommend Age of Shadow. It's a monograph edition. If you need me to refresh my memory, I have all three works sitting around, so I can get more specific.

[Tywyll]

On 2/21/2019 at 2:46 PM, Baron said:

Tywyll, while I don't recall where that specific link led, there was Fergo's adaptation hosted here on BRP Central, plus one more by an author I referred here; I think he may have uploaded his file here after that, as well. Finally I also recommend Age of Shadow. It's a monograph edition. If you need me to refresh my memory, I have all three works sitting around, so I can get more specific.

Thanks for the info!

Do any of them do a conversion of RM/MERP style magic to BRP?

[Baron]

No, all three that I mentioned have magic that's based on BRP, but tweaked. None of them do the RM Spell Lists by magic "type."

[Tywyll]

On 3/21/2019 at 2:18 PM, Baron said:

No, all three that I mentioned have magic that's based on BRP, but tweaked. None of them do the RM Spell Lists by magic "type."

Ah, bummer. Thanks though!

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Ah, bummer. Thanks though!

What aspect of Spell LIsts are you trying to adapt?

[Tywyll]

17 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

What aspect of Spell LIsts are you trying to adapt?

Someone had referenced converting them and I really liked the idea, but there are several questions it raises. Because MERP/RM is % based, a lot of the things work fine, but things that don't include:
1) Level based duration/effect
2) Damage from attack spells
3) Damage from Crit inflicting spells (or break bone style spells)
4) Healing (though that's probably just 1die=1point)
5) Armor Class/Defence Bonus boosts. 
6) Learning Spells/Spell Lists 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Tywyll

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Someone had referenced converting them and I really liked the idea, but there are several questions it raises.

I think that was me. I've done a lot of conversion.

 

Quote

Because MERP/RM is % based, a lot of the things work fine, but things that don't include:
1) Level based duration/effect

You have a few choices here. The simplest is to give spells a fixed duration. Next would be to tie the duration to something to take take the place of level. Skill % with the spell (or list) seems the most obvious analogue. Something like level = 1/10% skill might work. Or if you want to you could adapt the sorcery rules and it's duration spell. 

 

Quote

2) Damage from attack spells

Something else that could be tied to spell%. Something like 1D(spell%/10, nearest die). So someone with a 40% skill does 1D4, someone with a 60% skill does 1D6 and so forth. You would probably want to cap it at some point, and/or bump certian types up spells up or down a step.

 

Quote

3) Damage from Crit inflicting spells (or break bone style spells)

I'd suggest dumping the critical tables and go with RQs critical hit rules. 

But, I'd look at the Spell Law lists to try and work out Special Success bonuses for the various lists. You could catch on fire from fire spells, cold spells might affect your DEX SR and move, and so on.

Quote

4) Healing (though that's probably just 1die=1point)

Yeah, that was my suggestion and I think it probably holds up well. Characters in RM have a lot more hits than characters in RQ, and a lot of RM healing comes in lots of d10s. 

Quote

5) Armor Class/Defence Bonus boosts. 

You've got several possibilities. 

For AT (Armor Type): Bonuses I suggest adapting it as the Protection Spell or even Damage Resistance. The reason why ius in RM AT does reduce the max damage one can take from an attack. 

For Defense Bonus it depends. If the spell just increases someone's DB then  I'd convert that as the Shimmer spell. 1 point of shimmer per 5% DB. Or, if you want bring back Defence from RQ2 you could have it add to Defense. If it is a DB bonus to a weapon or shield I'd consider adapting it as extra armor or as a bonus to parry instead. 

Quote

6) Learning Spells/Spell Lists 

Depends on what you want. If you want RM spell lists then you could group the spells into lists as in RM and have the more powerful spells become available when skill reaches a certain threshold. 

You should also look at the cast tables to see how high a skill roll is requires o succeed in RM and use that to adjust the difficulty in RQ

 

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Atgxtg

[KPhan2121]

I'm not familiar with MERP, but there is already a Lord of the Rings for BRP document. I never used it myself, but it seems pretty extensive with 172 pages. It says that it's using another LOTR game as a basis for the rules, but it could be helpful for your game.

 

There's also an entire page dedicated to LOTR documents.

https://basicroleplaying.org/files/category/47-middle-earth/

[Tywyll]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think that was me. I've done a lot of conversion.

 

You have a few choices here. The simplest is to give spells a fixed duration. Next would be to tie the duration to something to take take the place of level. Skill % with the spell (or list) seems the most obvious analogue. Something like level = 1/10% skill might work. Or if you want to you could adapt the sorcery rules and it's duration spell. 

3

Skill/5%=caster level maybe? 

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

 

Something else that could be tied to spell%. Something like 1D(spell%/10, nearest die). So someone with a 40% skill does 1D4, someone with a 60% skill does 1D6 and so forth. You would probably want to cap it at some point, and/or bump certian types up spells up or down a step.

This makes the spells incredibly weak from a damage perspective. They'd need to cost little to no mp to make it worthwhile. 

 

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I'd suggest dumping the critical tables and go with RQs critical hit rules. 

But, I'd look at the Spell Law lists to try and work out Special Success bonuses for the various lists. You could catch on fire from fire spells, cold spells might affect your DEX SR and move, and so on.

 

I'm not talking about using the crit tables. There is a class of spells that bypass inflicting damage and simply 'Save or Suffer a C Impact Critical' or 'Enchant a weapon to inflict a bonus B Flame Critical' whatever. That's what I'm looking for ideas on how to convert. 

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, that was my suggestion and I think it probably holds up well. Characters in RM have a lot more hits than characters in RQ, and a lot of RM healing comes in lots of d10s. 

You've got several possibilities. 

For AT (Armor Type): Bonuses I suggest adapting it as the Protection Spell or even Damage Resistance. The reason why ius in RM AT does reduce the max damage one can take from an attack. 

2

Should it map to 2 AT=1 point of BRP protection? So AT20 (the max) in RM equals 10 points of Protection in BRP (which would be about right, as Iron Plate in RQ). 

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

For Defense Bonus it depends. If the spell just increases someone's DB then  I'd convert that as the Shimmer spell. 1 point of shimmer per 5% DB. Or, if you want bring back Defence from RQ2 you could have it add to Defense. If it is a DB bonus to a weapon or shield I'd consider adapting it as extra armor or as a bonus to parry instead. 

2

Sounds good. 

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Depends on what you want. If you want RM spell lists then you could group the spells into lists as in RM and have the more powerful spells become available when skill reaches a certain threshold. 

 

That's probably what I'd do. If you are going to capture the feel of the lists, you'd want to keep them as lists!

 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Skill/5%=caster level maybe? 

Matybe, but that might be too powerful, as most casters will be at level 5 easy. Much faster than in MERP/RM.

3 hours ago, Tywyll said:

This makes the spells incredibly weak from a damage perspective. They'd need to cost little to no mp to make it worthwhile. 

Not really. A Sword does 1d6+1 to 1D8+1 so they are doing comparable damage. This would assume a fixed cost for most spells. MERP does it by Level, but also gives characters a lot more power points than they will get in RQ. 

Note that this also assumes that spells such as Firebolt II would get some sort of upgrade over Firebolt I. So maybe up the damage die. I'd have to look at Spell Law again before I'd suggest just how much of an upgrade, but if Firebolt II upped the damage die a step it wouldn't look too bad, would it? 

One way to look at it is to compare the damage done by the attack to RM?MERP weapon damage. If a MERP Fire attack does about the same damage as a greatsword then yuo know you want to be in the 2D8 ballpark.  

 

3 hours ago, Tywyll said:

I'm not talking about using the crit tables. There is a class of spells that bypass inflicting damage and simply 'Save or Suffer a C Impact Critical' or 'Enchant a weapon to inflict a bonus B Flame Critical' whatever. That's what I'm looking for ideas on how to convert. 

Ah, I'll go through Spell LAw, but a lot of that sounds like standard RQ type spells. For instace the latter is pretty much Fireblade in RQ terms.. 

 

3 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Should it map to 2 AT=1 point of BRP protection? So AT20 (the max) in RM equals 10 points of Protection in BRP (which would be about right, as Iron Plate in RQ). 

I'd say map it according to equivalent armor material. Remember part of the AT in RM is coverage. But basically Plate =Plate, Leather = Leather and so on. 

3 hours ago, Tywyll said:

That's probably what I'd do. If you are going to capture the feel of the lists, you'd want to keep them as lists!

If that is what you want to do. I always considered Spell Lists to be a weak point in RM. 

You know, another thing you could do would be to run this in RM/MERP but with BRP advancement rules. It might give you more of what you are looking for. 

[svensson]

I've been interested in this kind of thing as well.

One problem with getting gamers interested in new campaigns is the learning curve that gives the players the info to make informed decisions. Games like RQ or Traveller have deep backgrounds that don't always appeal to the 'ooh! I saw that movie!' generation.

LOTR is a *dandy* way to get around that and MERP had some of the absolute best off-canon writing I've ever seen for licensed game product.

But it does bring up a question...

Magic is LOTR is both pervasive and very, very subtle. Very few fireballs are flung about and there are only 5 'wizards'... and even they are actually demi-gods given mortal form.

So how do you folks see magic in Middle Earth in a BRP format?

[g33k]

2 hours ago, svensson said:

I've been interested in this kind of thing as well.

One problem with getting gamers interested in new campaigns is the learning curve that gives the players the info to make informed decisions. Games like RQ or Traveller have deep backgrounds that don't always appeal to the 'ooh! I saw that movie!' generation.

LOTR is a *dandy* way to get around that and MERP had some of the absolute best off-canon writing I've ever seen for licensed game product.

But it does bring up a question...

Magic is LOTR is both pervasive and very, very subtle. Very few fireballs are flung about and there are only 5 'wizards'... and even they are actually demi-gods given mortal form.

So how do you folks see magic in Middle Earth in a BRP format?

There seems to be quite a bit of it, but not very well detailed.

Elves have various kinds of magic inherent, of course; and could craft magic items.

Dwarves could also craft magic items, but seem to have done so less than elves.

The Numenoreans seemed to have some magic; the Duneadain still do (at least a bit0.

And then there's stuff like "the Necromancer" in south Mirkwood, in the Hobbit:  none of "the Wise" expected that to be anything but a necromancer; and since all the Maiar in Middle Earth are known (and they would have been shitting bricks at letting any evil Maia act so long un-checked) necromancers can explicitly be non-Maiar.  So, necromancy.

None of which has enough detail to... like... make a RPG with.  But it gives some hints.