In my MERP campaign, it is two years out from the War of the Rings, I realize that TOR in it's present release is quite a number of years pre-dating my campaign, and we can't guess what might be available at that later date in TOR.

But I am interested in how the following scenario would play out in TOR as we know it now, I would like to hear from you Loremasters no matter what experience you have with TOR, and give your opinions of what traits and skills would you advise come into play.
I am still trying to "get my bearings" so to speak and your input is appreciated and will help me be a better Loremaster.

Buella- A thriving Woodman Town situated approximately two days east of the western edge of Mirkwood along the Men-I-Naugrim. It is also a crossroads town where adventurers can find Fellowship, it is a Sanctuary town in TOR terms.

This last fall Buella has seen a fabulous harvest, an incredible bumper crop and resources are plentiful. But also Buella has had to take in a significant number of refugees from southern Mirkwood, the Widu who are victims of a scorched earth campaign launched from Dol Guldur and the Woodman generousity taps into this overabundance.

Over the years prior to this, Isengard has always been a source of modest trade with Buella and other Woodman towns, and this spring Isengard has struck an extremely profitable trade deal with Ellwyn Sandthistle, the master merchant and diplomat who hails from Buella (an NPC).

The order is extraordinarily large, and includes preserved foodstuffs, ciders and ales, leatherworks and metalworks of pre-cut bits and pieces, belts, links, buckles the list goes on. Enough stuff to equip a small army.

The negotiations for the contract were intense and at one point Sauruman himself intervened between the master merchant from Isengard and Ellwyn Sandthistle and the wizard's visage grew stark and cold, his voice intimidating and demanding and Ellwyn was left agreeing to this deal feeling a slight bit of forboding, yet netting enough of a profit to bring a good year to Buella.

And so Buella revs up production to meet the demands of the White Wizard. The Council of Oaks surmises that Isengard must be ramping up and building a military presence to meet the threat of Dol Guldur which would not be a bad thing for the Woodmen Towns and might take the pressure off of the Widu.

A twist in the Plot- Now any of you who have been a GM know that the players can be just as surprising as a GM in their "Fellowship phase" of gaming when they take control and decide what actions they will take and how they will invest their treasure.

The Twist-
Last night my players decided to pool their treasure and present the Council of Buella a counter-offer to the trade deal with Isengard, and not only matched what Isengard bid, but also padded the offer with enough to cover expenses, provide shut-up money, and to grease a few palms along the way if need be.

The money was right, and the reputation of the company "Standing" in Buella after several years of interaction and investment is very good, and their presentation made great business sense, so this twist has the council considering this offer very closely...

The goods would be stockpiled in the Buella area and could be re-sold or dontated back into the community in case of need.
The expense of not having to transport the goods alone is enough to tip the scales in favor of the player-company's proposal.

However, this broken deal would likely NOT improve relations with Isengard, in fact Ellwyn Sandthistle is the biggest opponant of the counter-deal because of his experience at Isengard feels this move might anger Saruman, and Ellwyn does not savor the thought of facing Saruman and delivering the news of this broken deal. In his mind it would not be wise to raise the ire of a wizard.

It was at this moment when I saw the possibility that TOR offered a better system to handle exactly this type of scenario, and while I sat at the game table processing the thoughts of each Council member and how they would vote I wondered what TOR game mechanics I could use.

How would you play this?

Ok so get this... the twists by my players are not done yet...

They are considering tackling a Barrow Wight and if they are successful instead of scattering the treasure all about to dispel it, they are considering send it all, every piece intact, as a peace offering to Isengard for the broken deal.

If a Barrow Wight's power is invested in it's hoard... can you imagine the Irony?

Sounds to me like your players are exploiting knowledge they don't have!

If Saruman is believed to be building an army to take on Dol Guldur, a notoriously evil place, why block him? Seems like they know he's evil before he has shown his hand and sided with Sauron, which means they are using player knowledge instead of character knowledge.

As to converting to TOR... I wouldn't at this point.

I'd suggest you wrap the MERP campaign and start afresh in TOR. New characters and a different point in Middle Earth history.

Thank you.

Yes I don't plan on converting this campaign, and if TOR is adopted we will start fresh in a new place. But these are the kinds of things we play on and I just wanted ideas.

And actually, Elves in the Company wintered in Lorien, and Lady Galadriel warned that something felt "not quite right" with Saruman's questionable activities of late and the characters trust in Lady Galadriel's suspiscions.

But that was not the root of their reasons to out bid Isengard.

They are also aware of the Tide of Darkness that rises in southern Mirkwood and they also thought it best to keep the supplies local in case they might be needed.

My group are great roleplayers and wouldn't step over that line of exploiting player knowledge. This group been playing togehter for 15+ years, with some of us into RPG games even longer than that.
Cheating like that we know from experience doesn't do any good for anyone.

Then scrapping the campaign is a big NO then

You survived 15 years of MERP? With those critical tables!

Out of curiosity, what level are the characters?

Hehe THATS a great way of putting it... there have been some very close calls with only one fatality. I'm generous (but not Monty Haul) with herbs that can be used to repair various damages.

The character's levels are all at 6th level. We get togehter once a month for gaming and sometimes we skip a month so we average about 10 sessions a year.

They use stealth and scouting tactics for every scenario and get a good lay of the land and try kiting enemies into kills zones and choke points.

In MERP you can divert all of your Offensive Bonus from attacking to your Defensive Bonus

And the players have come up with a couple of handy tactics, find a choke point and have one guy the Dwarvish brick as "Bait" with his Shield, his OB diverted max to DB to take blows, his wingman next to him ready to attack with full OB, and a second rank Warrior with his awesome Spear skills at full OB.

Two Elvish Archers avoid melee and take out targets of opportunity taking penalties for our house rules for "COVER" intervening bodies.

6th level in 15 years!

I thought you'd be near Saruman's (50th iirc) levels.

Long time since I played MERP, but I remember enough of the rules. Open-ended D100 rolls were terrifyingly large numbers at times, no matter how much you put into DB.

Rolemaster was never a good fit for Middle Earth for me, too much magic in the setting, but without magic (or some awesome herbs) you had trouble staying alive.

But we're drifting away from your original question and slipping into reminiscing!

So I'll (try to) shut up now and let other speak!

Ohh thats quite all right.
Say on brother!

I don't like the higher levels of magic either, and we play a low level campaign
And if spells are called into play we role-play them as some sort of innate ability instead of "magic"

For instance on Ranger "Find Water" is treated as if the charater were skilled in dousing

I should have mentioned this is our second adventuring "company" the first retired after reaching 10th level and are called into play in the event of great need

That sounds the best way to do it! Keep it low magic.

And if you are sticking within 10 levels, that's just MERP, as it was capped at 10.

At least you have the simplified combat and critical tables, no flipping through Arms Law in search of the right weapon.

Plus you get to avoid the ridiculously powerful high level spells!

I still have my original boxed set of MERP with that Nazgul led horde of orcs...

But can I find my map from the Campaign Guide... of course I can't!

EDIT: House turned upside down! But I found the map of Middle Earth that ICE put out with the Campaign Guide all those years ago!

Dang that set is a collector's item these days. Too bad you can't find the map.

We looked at adopting some RM or converting to RM from MERP but it's all too complicated. We do a lot of role-play and the MERP mechanics was suitable for that unless we got into some big scraps with lots of units on the tactical map. A battle can last over several sessions!

Then we found MERPA written by Wookie. It's an acronym for Merp Assistant. You input all the characters stats and it has a database of monsters and handled all the number crunching and combat tracking stuff like bleeding and stuns and it also displayed the combat results.

That made life a lot easier, but we still would like something easier to manage, thus here I am learning TOR!

We will be playing pretty much the same role-play style but with different mechanics. It ought to translate well for our style of play

I'm afraid the box set is in far from mint condition and the cardboard figures are long gone, but at least I found the map in with some old RPG stuff.

It's not as good as it was in my minds eye, but still useful!

I used to have several of the ICE campaigns packs including Southern Mirkwood, Moria, Lorien and Arnor, but had to sell them when I was between jobs... we all have to eat! They are worth a fair bit on eBay now.

Thats awesome,

I have the Moria as well, and lets see (going off of memory)
The Grey Mountains
The River Running
Mirkwood 2nd Ed
and two copies of Laketown, one still in wrapper I have been saving for many a year. I ended up with two copies which is a story in itself.

I look through them now and then

My 2nd edition rule book is in dreadful shape lol
It would not be collectible I would think with my index tabs on key pages