Dear Chris Seeman:

I enjoyed your article on Queen Berúthiel — just enough factual information to set the stage and enough mystery to whet the appetite. Very good. Incidentally, the quote "Ruth could also be a pun for rûth 'ire'...(OH 3: 18)" is by Nancy Martsch, not by Tom Loback as cited.

On the population of Gondor and Arnor: this, and other problems like it, are a direct result of Tolkien's extending the time scale of the Second and Third Ages. Events which in the real world would take place over centuries are stretched to cover millennia, and there is no increase in the number of events to fill the extended time. Númenóreans live 200+ years, and yet have fewer children than real-world people have in eighty. Technological change is virtually non-existent over a span of six millennia. Obviously, real-world statistics won't apply. About the best one can do is to use real-world numbers and multiply the time factor by three or four.

James Owen's exasperation with ICE in the field of metallurgy echoes my own.

My area of interest is language, and it causes no end of annoyance to see sloppy and foolish mistakes (like the wholesale borrowing of Scandinavian words into Orkish without any attempt to modify them to conform to the Orkish phonetic system, or the mistakes in grammar in the Middle-earth Adventure Guidebook II). Not that ICE is the only game company to do this; many games (computer and board games included) do this, and some are a lot worse. But ICE at least tries to present a professional appearance — they employ good artists, they proofread their spelling — which makes such carelessness all the more maddening. Perhaps they could employ the team concept of adventure parties and send the stuff out to experts in various fields for review?

Other Hands is looking good.

Hello,

I play in a Middle-earth campaign setting, but do not use the MERP/Rolemaster rule system (though it started out that way). One set of rules binds this game: 1) we don't play named figures out of the books, 2) we can't change the known history (only the implied history), 3) we can be the children (but not the parents) of known figures (though we have relaxed this rule for human characters), and 4) character races must be chosen according to which peoples were in existence during a particular period (mostly humans now, but as time advances, the characters' children get involved in adventures). This system works extremely well where both the players and GM are familiar with the books (As good role-players, we know not to go searching through The Silmarillion for hints in any case, since events that affect the characters must be taken on their own terms.).

My GM and group began gaming in 1990, starting with the awakening of the Elves in the First Age and progressing from there to around the mid-Second Age. We played it flat through the discovery that there are dangers out there, to the creation of weapons and the beginnings of magic. Since then, some players have left and others have come in, making for a mixed group with very few whose characters were actually present at the awakening. My character isn't one who awoke (I came a week late.), but I am of the first generation of Sindar (My father was Círdan, my mother a Maia of the woods.).

Chris,

As for integrating Middle-earth with GURPS (Generic Universal Role-playing System), things are still somewhat rough. What I've done is to take some ideas from the GURPS fantasy races book and modify them by adding some of my own ideas. Probably the most developed of these ever-changing race templates is the one for Hobbits (since they appear as the main characters in Tolkien's books and are therefore the most clearly defined as far as racial characteristics go; and — though others don't always share my enthusiasm — I enjoy playing them).

As far as settings go, I have several of the ICE modules, but have never had a chance to use them. I think that they're good for general stuff, but lack some of the detail needed for GURPS (especially for non-combat, non-magic areas). I feel that using GURPS gives much more scope for character personality development and interaction than does MERP.

GURPS basic magic (I don't have their magic supplement.) sort of works (We tend not to run non-magic oriented adventures anyway, so it hasn't really been a problem.). The GURPS magic system probably needs revamping if one wants to run an adventure that is true to a Middle-earth setting that does involve magic.

As far as MERP goes, I discovered it while poking around a gaming store (those very rare and hard-to-find places). Being already familiar with GURPS (but really wanting to role-play in Middle-earth), I bought it. After reading through it, I was rather disappointed with the rule system, but liked the background information; so I bought several of their campaign modules, hoping to use the settings with GURPS (as culling the same information from Tolkien's books or developing it on my own could take a long time). As far as others who use MERP, I know of none (other than yourself, of course). [Ed. — Actually, since 1981 I have always used the RuneQuest rule system for my Middle-earth campaign, though in my module-writing for ICE I naturally present everything in MERP mechanics.]

What I like and dislike about MERP: 1) the critical tables for combat are diverse (which makes combat a bit more interesting), 2) although I tend to strongly dislike the concept of classes, MERP does allow characters to buy skills from other areas (But it remains far too restrictive, pigeonholing characters rather than allowing them to be unique individuals.), 3) I also dislike character levels (although I agree that there must be some kind of mechanism for advancing attributes or skills), 4) MERP overemphasizes combat, skills, maneuvering, etc. to the detriment of character role-playing.

Dear Chris,

It seems Other Hands is progressing well. I was most interested in reading the letter from Eduardo Martinez Santamaría on behalf of his Spanish Tolkien role-playing group (OH 3: 2). I too am keen to modify Middle-earth Role Playing and/or Rolemaster to make it closer to what Tolkien would have intended (I have been fiddling with this on and off for about fifteen years).

One idea would be to make character generation quicker but more rigid (i.e., no more Dúnadan Warrior Monks!), while still giving players a wide range of options. Another idea would be to make combat quicker while retaining the accuracy of the existing MERP/Rolemaster system. My aim (were I to involve myself in designing a playable system) would be to computerize as many of the repetitive tasks as possible (e.g., how many rolls it takes to discover that your character gave an opponent a bleeding leg!).

Concerning magic, I think that the MERP/Rolemaster systems are quite good (far better, for instance, than AD&D), but some of the spells and spell lists are out of place in Middle-earth. I'm not sure that Andrew McMurry's proposals for an alternative magic system (OH 3: 11-12) would accurately model magic in Middle-earth (or even be playable), but I look forward to the second part of his article.

I am interested in creating an online GM "Assistant," but will need some sort of financial incentive to motivate me to devote the necessary time to it. I'm also interested in: 1) refining the experience point system, 2) updating War Law, and 3) combining into a single document all of the information relevant to Middle-earth Role Playing contained within the Rolemaster companions. If people such as Eduardo would like to get in touch concerning any of these aspects of game design, feel free to write me.