An As Yet Untitled Set Of Rules

An Attempt At Forming A Set Of Middle-Earth Rules Using Chaosium’s System As A Basis

A Warning: Since this is written for the consumption of other gamer’s, and since we all should be able to grasp these things fairly quickly, I’m not going to couch this in the language we often see in published character creation rules.

A Note: I’ll be using Tolkien’s descriptors for races, such as Men instead of human - capitalised race names always refer to Tolkein’s races.

Introduction
Step 1 - Make Some Choices.
Step 2 - Generate Statistics
Step 3 - Derived Stats
Step 4 - Skills
Step 5 - Previous Experience
Step 5A - Discussing The Degree of MERPishness
Step 5B - Aging
Step 6 - Background Points
Step 7 - Finishing
Skills By Category
Notes & Discussions & Difficulties

Appendix 1: Peoples of Middle-Earth in the Third Age of the Sun
Appendix 2: Magic

Introduction

These scribblings come out of an off-hand remark made by Gavin during a Rune Quest game, to the effect that that system would be better suited to running a game set in Middle-Earth than the licensed MERP rules. This comment lodged in my febrile brain, and this is the result.

The particular rules we were (and are) using for that game are a kludge of RQ2 and Stormbringer 3rd edition. While these rules would have probably been fine for running Men & Hobbits, it lacked a certain something for Dwarves and Elves.

Especially Elves.

Chaosium’s basic system supports a number of games designed to cover specific genres , and all of these have differing character creation rules while sharing the same basic mechanics. The difficulty with the Elves, and their long, long, lives, led me to Elfquest, a Chaosium game licensed from the comic of the same name. These elves have extremely long lives, and the mechanic used to deal with this gives skill points based upon the age of the elf.

This seemed perfect for creating Elves in Middle-Earth, so it was adopted. At this point, I was going to have separate ‘prior experience’ steps for Elves (and maybe Dwarves) and everyone else, but this led to some minor problems, and extra work, so I went with the one system, applied to everyone.

This is, however, a draft. It is all up for negotiation. Input is essential, and changes will undoubtedly occur before it reaches a conclusion.

Other problems exist, of course, the biggest being a magic system that works within the context of Middle-Earth; this is one thing MERP does not provide, but I still haven’t come up with anything concrete. It will have to wait for later.

And I’m also considering kludging in the Backgorund Options from MERP; they provide some colour, and give Men a small advantage over Elves.

Step 1 - Make Some Choices.
choose which ‘race’ your character was born of. There is quite a lot to choose from, so the GM should have a say in what it is appropriate for player’s to choose from. For example, Hobbits in deepest, darkest Mumakan need a reason to be there. Let’s look at a list of the various beasties out there:

Elves
Noldor
Sindar
Sylvan Elves (Avari)

Dwarves

Hobbits

Edain (High Men)
Dunedain
Mornumenedain
Corsairs

Men (Common Men)
Beornings
Dorwinrim
Dunlendings
Easterlings
Haradrim
Lossoth
Men of the West
Rohirrim
Variags
Woodmen

Long time MERPers may have noticed I have left out the Umli, the ‘Half-Dwarves’, and Half-Elves. Yes, I have. In the first case, I don’t like them, and couldn’t be bothered. In the second, I don’t think there is any real necessity.

It might be suggested that Noldor not be allowed as PCs in a Third Age game. If we take ICE’s base-line for beginning games, TA 1640, then the average Noldo PC was born in the late First Age, and starts knowing things PCs perhaps should not.

Step 2 - Generate Statistics.
roll those stats, given for each race in the Appendix. There are seven stats - Strength (STR), Constitution (CON), Dexterity (DEX), Size (SIZ), Intelligence (INT), Power (POW), and Charisma (CHA). You will also have to roll to see how old your character is.

At any point, the player may choose to take the listed average for a stat or for age rather than rolling dice. You may do this for all, none or some of your stats.

Step 3 - Derived Stats.

Hit Points (HP) - equal to CON + 1 per point of SIZ over 12

Location HPs: refer to the table below

Total HPs
Location	01-06	07-09	10-12	13-15	16-18	19-21	each +3
Each Leg	2	3	4	5	6	7	+1
Abdomen	2	3	4	5	6	7	+1
Chest	3	4	5	6	7	8	+1
Each Arm	1	2	3	4	5	6	+1
Head	2	3	4	5	6	7	+1

Magic Points (MP) - equal to POW

Damage Bonus - average STR and SIZ, and refer the total to a table below

	average of STR & CON
	1-6	7-12	13-16	17-20	each +8
Melee	-1d6	+0	+1d6	+2d6	add +1d6
Missile	-1d4	+0	+1d4	+2d4	add +1d4

Luck - equal to POWx5

Experience Bonus - equal to INT

Step 4 - Skills.
Each race has listed the base chance for skills and skill categories. Figure the base chances for the skills as listed under your character’s race. A list of skills by category is to be found at the end of these rules.

Step 5 - Previous Experience.
Add up your character’s seven stats (STR, CON, DEX, SIZ, INT, POW, & CHA). Once you have this number, multiply it by the number given under ‘factor’ in the table below:

Men, including the Edain			Elves
Age 01-15 15-30 31-45 46-60 61+	Factor x2 x3 x4 x5 x6	Honorific child youth adult elder ancient	Age 01-20 21-100 101-400 401-800 801+	Factor x2 x3 x4 x5 x6	Honorific child youth adult elder ancient

Hobbits			Dwarves
Age 01-15 15-30 31-45 46-60 61+	Factor x2 x3 x4 x5 x6	Honorific child youth adult elder ancient	Age 01-40 81-80 81-160 160-300 301+	Factor x2 x3 x4 x5 x6	Honorific child youth adult elder ancient

This will give you the number of skill points you have to divide between your character’s beginning skills. These points are added to the base chances already figured out in Step 4. Thus, an average Rohir, with 13 in all seven stats and aged 28, will have 273 Skill Points (13x7=91, 91x3=273). An average Noldo, with an age of 5500, will have 666 Skill Points.

Do please note that, unless states otherwise, all skills begin at the base level for their category, and points are added to that level.

Step 5A - Discussing The Degree of MERPishness
Magic is a contenious issue when it comes to Tolkien’s world, and one it’s easy to get disagreement over. If the GM wants a more magically active world, then I suggest using the magic from “Magic World” in the Worlds of Wonder boxed set. Spells, and other powers, have to be learned just like skills, except that there is no category for magic skills, and they all start at 0%.

For some of the truly potent enemies of Elves and Men, “Super World” from the same box could provide useful abilities.

Step 5B - Aging
An unfortunate consequence of living, older characters age and die. Of course, this doesn’t effect Elves, who can live for the life of the world, but others are not so lucky. Starting at forty, Common Men will begin to suffer the effects of aging. For Hobbits this begins at seventy, one hundred for Edain, two hundred for Dwarves.

I’ve yet to decide upon the actual effects of aging, so for the moment I’ll borrow those listed on page 11 of the AdvRQ hardback:

Roll 2d6 on this table:		Then roll 1d10 on this table for each point on the first table:
2 = 4pts 3 = 3 pts 4 = 2pts 5 = 1pt 6 = none 7 = none	8 = none 9 = 1pt 10 = 2pts 11 = 3pts 12 = 4pts	1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 9-10	-1 STR -1 CON -1 DEX -1 CHA no loss

Step 6 - Background Points.
This is a mechanic borrowed from MERP. Characters gain a number of Background Points, listed under their ‘race’. These points can be used to purchase benefits for starting characters. Like other parts of this document, this needs fleshing out, but here are some starting points.

Languages - for 1 Background Point, learn another language to INTx2; if the character begins being literate, then they learn Spoken and R/W skills.

Stats - 1 Background Point can be used to purchase a 1 point increase in any stat, up to racial maximum.

Status - in Tolkien’s quasi-feudal world, status is a serious issue. For one point, the character comes from a good family, and learns their letters. For two, they may even have a title. These both would probably alter starting wealth as well. This is less of an issue for Elves, however. Also, some races, such as Edain, are already considered to have a certain status within society.

Money - this would probably multiply starting money by the number of points dumped into it; now we just have to figure out starting money...

Special Items - In the Third Age, we’re probably not talking about magical items, just particularly well made ones. Each point would gain the character an item that provided a +5% bonus to the skill related to that item (ie. surgical tools adding to Healing Lore) or +1 to damage or armour points. Points spent on items are stackable, but no more than three (3) Background Points can be spent on one aspect of the item. Therefore, a sword could be so well made as to give a +15% bonus to skill or a +3 bonus to damage, or +10% to skill and +3 to damage, but not +20% to skill, nor +4 to damage.

If a MERPish flavour is desired, then each point could purchase the character a 5pt. Magic Point storage item.

Special Abilities - this is probably a little hazier than the rest; let’s just look at some possibilities:

Empathy with one type of animal (ie. dog, cat, stoat, horse). Begin play with a loyal companion, and add +20% to Animal Lore when dealing with that type of animal (Queen Beruthiel of Gondor, for example, had such a close relationship with her cats that she and they passed into proverbial language).

Very Observant - +10% to Perception skills.

Lighting Reactions - +5 to DEX for determining initiative ONLY.

More, or even less, could come to mind. If Background Points are used, they should be the focus of discussion between GM and player.

Step 7 - Finishing.

Give the character a name, determine what gear they start with, etc. All that annoying background stuff.

Skills By Category:

Agility Boating Climbing Dancing Dodge Drive [X] Riding Swimming Tumbling	Communication Bargain Credit Fast Talk Oratory Sing	Knowledge Animal Lore Cartography Craft [X] Elf Lore Evaluate Healing Lore Hobbit Lore* Human Lore Magic Lore Mechanical Lore Mineral Lore Navigation Orc Lore Plant Lore Poison Lore Troll Lore World Lore

Manipulation Juggle Pick Lock Play [X] Rope Work Sleight of Hand Set Traps	Perception Balance Listen Scent Search Spot Hidden Taste Track	Stealth Ambush Camouflage Hide Move Quietly

Notes & Discussions & Difficulties
One tasks loom large that is still undone - a magic system. Of course, the rest of this needs some editing to, but I’ll leave that to others for now.