Recent content by Lurker Above

I found character creation pretty cumbersome and, at times, confusing, and I played a ton of MERP back in the day. But we're going to dive in full-bore this summer or whenever the new printings are out. I hate trying to work from pdfs.

Yeah, and watching some of the play videos on youtube it looks like people often ignore many of the rules like reach to speed things along, which is fine by me. But it's hard to figure out what to cut until you've actually played a bit. I love the vibe of the books but yeah, the organization...

Not what you're looking for, I know, but I really want to play it. Just can't find other players. My regular group doesn't want to learn another system so I've been converting Modiphius Conan over to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, keeping some of the mechanics. Has been...

Then sure as Hell styay away from Arden Vul. Some of the single encounter descriptions in there run in excess of 4 pages!

Yeah, OSE is pretty great! It is simply much better organized and easier to use than the other variants, including the original. And the advanced options are cool too, since they expand things without a bunch of extra rules. Their tweaks on some classes make them more streamlined and playable...

Nightmare Underneath

The best answer is probably get rid of all your worthless 5e crap (it's the Rise of Skywalker of D&D), spend $26 on a nice hardback copy of OSRIC and just start playing. But Joe is apparently more diplomatic than me in this regard....

Hmmmmm.......as it turns out, an academic conference I was supposed to attend was cancelled and I'm due a full refund of my $265 conference registration fee. This will work out to $275 for the hard copy. Synchronicity anyone?

Never liked this one as much as a lot of folks did. It was okay, just not one of my favorites. So I'll likely pass. I did buy the "Into the Borderlands" and "Isle of Dread," from Goodman because I wanted the new bonus content in these two adventures. It's decent, though I had to convert it...

For the reasons others have noted, I'd still personally rank MERP at the top, especially considering Middle Earth more broadly. I find both TOR and AiME pretty limited in scope and too slavishly wedded to trying to replicate the "feel" of the books. If that's what you want, fine. But I always...

The setting detail alone in the ICE products is amazing. Sure, they went "off canon" a bit, but is it cool to have names and backstories for all nine ringwraiths? Hell, yes! And unlike TOR or AiME, they didn't just try to shoehorn you into reliving the books with restrictive journey...

Oh well, another Middle Earth tabletop rpg bites the dust, leaving MERP as the continuing champion of the genre. I wanted to like TOR/AiME but I just thought the mechanics in both cases were too intrusive and meta-gamey. The character classes were pretty lame as well. This is too bad because...

Damn! Cost myself a deal there, though as an author I don't begrudge the creator getting their fair share. Still on the fence, as I play neither 5e nor SotDL, though the setting is intriguing enough that I might just buy it to read for pleasure. I'm a professor of Asian history & culture and...

Can't imagine trying to navigate this beast via pdfs. Hard copy for me.

So with the Anniversary Edition Hardcover, what's the difference between the premium and standard versions? And why is the anniversary edition cheaper than the other one?