History
I.C.E. published a First and a Second Edition of the MERP ruleset, along with many adventure and campaign modules, until Tolkien Enterprises revoked the license for games based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 1999. I.C.E. subsequently declared bankruptcy in 2000.
A related quarterly magazine, Other Hands Magazine supporting the MERP community, was also sent a cease and desist by Tolkien Enterprises, and ceased publication in 2001. A magazine named Other Minds Magazine (named in recognition of the previous Other Hands quarterly, both in reference to a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters) began publication in 2007, it also supports the role-playing community using ICE's MERP, Decipher's LotR, and other Tolkien-centric role playing games.
In 1991-1993, I.C.E. also published the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game. It used a much simpler system than MERP and was intended to introduce new players to role-playing.
A UK edition was published by Games Workshop in 1985. It featured the First Edition rules, with new box and booklet art by Chris Achilleos, along with 25mm floorplans for the sample adventure.
In Sweden a translated version called Sagan om Ringen: Rollspelet was released in 1986 by Target Games, followed by several translated modules, but it never became popular, possibly because most fans of the setting already had bought the U.S. version and others preferred the popular Drakar och Demoner.
A Finnish language edition (Keski-Maa Roolipeli or KERP) was published in 1990 and the game became one of the most popular fantasy role playing games in Finland.
A subsequent Middle-earth based RPG, the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game (often abbreviated by the Tolkien role-playing community as Dec LotR or just LotR), was published by Decipher Inc. Except for the original source material, (and some of the same authors) the Decipher game shares no link to ICE's MERP and uses an entirely different rules system. Decipher chose not to renew the Tolkien license and let it expire in 2007.
In the Summer of 2005 a new annual convention began known as Merpcon (Middle-earth Role Playing Convention). It initially used exclusively the ICE MERP and ICE Rolemaster role playing game systems, but has since expanded to include other Tolkien-centric game systems. ) In 2011, UK games company Cubicle 7 Entertainment (in association with Sophisticated Games) began publication of The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild.
- The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild (August 2011)
Read more about this topic: Middle-earth Role Playing
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