MERP converted into BRP?

[Atgxtg]

58 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

Absolutely depends on the edition you are playing. Plenty of people play(ed)1st and 2nd edition as low magic. It's only modern editions that have 'expected wealth' and that certainly wasn't from the time of MERP. 

LOL! No, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. I Played AD&D and still got some old "modules" packed away. Magic was just as common and gold even  more common. I doubt there is a single AD&D adventure that didn't have a magical sword in it. Character advancement was a lot slower, and the opposition used to be tougher, as encounters weren't" balanced" the same way. 

PC couldn't make magical items back then, so magic was much more of a pot luck thing. So a player couldn't customize their magic to better fit their character's abilities in AD&D, but DMs were also more likely to put in magical items with a particular PC in mind.

[Tywyll]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! No, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. I Played AD&D and still got some old "modules" packed away. Magic was just as common and gold even  more common. I doubt there is a single AD&D adventure that didn't have a magical sword in it. Character advancement was a lot slower, and the opposition used to be tougher, as encounters weren't" balanced" the same way. 

PC couldn't make magical items back then, so magic was much more of a pot luck thing. So a player couldn't customize their magic to better fit their character's abilities in AD&D, but DMs were also more likely to put in magical items with a particular PC in mind.

I said people play the game as low magic. LOTs of people, myself included, ran their own homebrew, some of which were low magic. Not everyone uses modules. Sure, if you use the off the shelf stuff, you will find 'em loaded down with magic, but just because they are, doesn't mean that is the way everyone plays. 

And what DM's do is entirely dependent on the DM. Some regard the tables and randomness as holy writ, other's as guidelines, and some ignore them in favor of more story driven games. There is wide variety in the world.

 

[Tywyll]

On 4/1/2019 at 8:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

Uh String was from the troll hord in The Hobbit, while the Numenorian Blades were from the Barrow (different troves)

While I could make a case about there possibly being something to do with the nature of wraiths and evil magic, much like how silver is effective against vampires (yes I wrote vampires, the werewolf vulnerability\came later),  and such I'm willing to accept Merry and Pippin's blades as magical.

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You could make that arguement but it wouldn't hold any water. It's clear that they were magical, Tolkein wrote them as such. There is no debate. And these were knives they grabbed off a random dead body in a barrow. Not the warrior's sword or axes, but their backup minor weapons. There is no telling what else was in that barrow. 

On 4/1/2019 at 8:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

Hmmm, I wonder how many magical items were carried by the fellowship in LotR.

Aragon's Sword (kindabroken but magical)

Gandalf had Glamdring, The Ring of Fire and his wizard's staff. I wouldn't be surprised if he cloak and robes were magical, so let's count them.

Frodo had String and the One Ring. His Mithral shirt is never stated as magical, although functionally it was very good mail.

Merry and Pippin had thier Numnorian daggers

A Palentir pops up.

Frodo get the vial of Galadriel at Lothlorian, Sam gets the Mallorn tree and the box of fertilizer (magical or just more advanced gardening tech?)and everybody gets Elven Cloaks (TM), Boots (TM),  and Rope (TM), not to mention  more than enough waybread (questionable if it was magical) to choke a Gollum.

Now I suppose someone could (and will)_ Make claims about Boromir's horn, Gimlis axe, Legolas' bow or even Bill the pony, but I don't see evidence of it in the books.

 

So we got what, a dozen items, before they get all the "Evlish  bling" at Lothlorian. And this is for a group out to save the world. What is that in D&D terms 4th level?

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Compared to just about any other fantasy series that is not directly based on or set in D&D, that is a LOT of magic items floating around. I've read a ton of fantasy over the years and most series don't have a fraction of that much identifiable magic items show up in the story. So to say that ME is 'low magic' even by comparison to other fantasy fiction is false. 

The elven bling is a perfect example that you casually leave out. Cloaks of Elven Kind just given way. This is again, clearly magical stuff.

There is no metric beyond D&D in which you can argue that ME is a low magic setting.

Hell, Gandalf told Bilbo that there were many magic rings in the world, arguably so many that he couldn't identify the most powerful one after it had been right in front of him for what, nearly a century? This is the main thing they'd been looking for for an age, and because Magic Rings are so common, Gandalf missed it.

 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

I said people play the game as low magic. LOTs of people, myself included, ran their own homebrew, some of which were low magic. Not everyone uses modules. Sure, if you use the off the shelf stuff, you will find 'em loaded down with magic, but just because they are, doesn't mean that is the way everyone plays. 

Certainly. Lots of people play games a lot of ways, but low magic D&D/AD&D was atypical. It was a bit tricky too, since many monsters required weapons that were "+X or better to hit".

Quote

And what DM's do is entirely dependent on the DM. Some regard the tables and randomness as holy writ, other's as guidelines, and some ignore them in favor of more story driven games. There is wide variety in the world.

Of course. That's not even an issue. A GM could even run a BRP LOTR game and up the magic level beyond MERP/RM or AD&D. It would be a bit tricky, and he would need to figure out a workaround for the MP requirements, but it can be done.

 

However the original point I was trying to make is that ICE's MERP stuff is more magic rich than the original setting.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

You could make that arguement but it wouldn't hold any water. It's clear that they were magical, Tolkein wrote them as such. There is no debate.

Clear where.? Show me one spot where Tolkien specifically states that they are magical? Even the quote that g33k made earlier doesn't prove that. Anymore that vampires dying from having a wooden stake driven through their hearts proves that wooden stakes are magical. And the wooden stake through the heart works of just about anybody.

Now I will accept that they probably are magical, but with the way Tolkien wrote LOTR it is far from clear. 

 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

And these were knives they grabbed off a random dead body in a barrow. Not the warrior's sword or axes, but their backup minor weapons. There is no telling what else was in that barrow. 

No, the Barrow downs were where the Numenorians/Arnorians buried their  Kings and Lords. So it was a warrior's weapon, and one of very high status. 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

Compared to just about any other fantasy series that is not directly based on or set in D&D, that is a LOT of magic items floating around. I've read a ton of fantasy over the years and most series don't have a fraction of that much identifiable magic items show up in the story. So to say that ME is 'low magic' even by comparison to other fantasy fiction is false. 

But compared to most fantasy RPGs it is. Sure, as far as fiction goes LOTR is high fantasy. But as far as most fantasy RPGs go, it is on the low end. 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

The elven bling is a perfect example that you casually leave out. Cloaks of Elven Kind just given way.

To a group embarking of the greatest quest of the age. You seem to overlook that. 

In fact take a look at the situation from the typical D&D view. You got a group of high level characters (and MERP makes then high level) plus some low level hobbits (who for some reason aren't all that low level in the writeups, Sam is 9th level), heading off on a mission to literally save all the free peoples from being dominated and enslaved forever, and the best they get is some cloaks, boots, ropes, and some nice rations. Plus a vial.

 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

This is again, clearly magical stuff.

Again not clearly magical at all. The hobbits are able to hide with it, but is that magical or just a case of beings who are excellent at hiding combined with good camouflage, described in a particular way?

Take a look at when Aragon, Legoalas and Gimli chase down the orcs. How many hors or days do they manage to keep running? Certainly beyond human endurance, yet they do so are are fit to adventure afterwards. Yet we hear of no magic that allow this. It's simply part of the heroic nature of LOTR. 

I'd even go so far as to say that most magic in Tolkien is supposed to be clearly identifiable as such. 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

There is no metric beyond D&D in which you can argue that ME is a low magic setting.

Sure I can. The metric of most RPGs. The initial point is that MERP has much more magic than the source material. This is common with most RPGs. 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

Hell, Gandalf told Bilbo that there were many magic rings in the world, arguably so many that he couldn't identify the most powerful one after it had been right in front of him for what, nearly a century? This is the main thing they'd been looking for for an age, and because Magic Rings are so common, Gandalf missed it.

No, he didn't miss it because magical  rings were common, if that were the case he might never had noticed it. He failed to identify it because there wasn't an obvious way to distinguish it from some or all of the rings of power. And that because ring crafting was an obscure art, studied only a a few. 

And the ring is another example of my point. In D&D if a PC escaped from a monster by using the monster's ring of invisibly  nobody would bat an eyelash, and the only problems that could arise would be over if the thief could keep it or if he had to put in into the part y treasure to be split up later. That the thief would lie about a magic item that he found and keep it a secret to himself would also not be much of a surprise in D&D.