my favorite thing from MERP 2E

MERP (Middle-Earth Role Playing) is one of my favorite fantasy rpgs that sits outside the "fully compatible with D&D" space. Don't get me wrong, you can introduce a MERP PC into a D&D game and make it work, or use a MERP module in your D&D campaign, but it requires more effort than something written for Castles & Crusades or HackMaster or other alt-D&Ds.

I played first edition MERP when it came out and greatly enjoyed it. In a test run with my buddy Dave as GM an ordinary cow kicked my first level elf's scrawny ass (which is totally realistic, if you've never pissed off lifestock). In a solo adventure I got lost in a cave and ended up merked by the first orc I encountered. When it was my turn to run, a combination of combined arms tactics and good die rolls allowed the the players to slay trolls and barrow wights by the skin of their teeth. Then they ran into a evil wizard that TPK'ed the party with a single fireball spell. Somehow, after that, I managed to convince everyone to play Call of Cthulhu instead. That campaign also ended in a TPK, following an encounter with Tsathoggua.

When the second edition of MERP came out I never bought the rulebook. A quick flip-through suggested that it was almost the exact same game, but with the order of the sections reshuffled. Certainly, the later modules seemed completely compatible with the earlier rules. However, a pirate electronic copy of the 2nd ed rules came into my possession recently and I was able to find a very cool addition to the rules, table ST-12, the Spell Use Risk Table.

The upshot of this chart is that every time a spell is cast, there's a chance that it results in the forces of the Enemy taking notice of the caster. The level of bad guy attention varies widely by four factors:

1. The relative safety of the location the spell is cast in.
2. The level of activity of the Enemy, as reflected by the Age the campaign is set in.
3. The riskiness of the individual spell cast. More on that below.
4. The die roll. Note that this is an "open-ended" d100 roll, meaning any result on the dice of 96 or higher prompts and additional percentile roll, which is added to the prior roll.

Every spell in the MERP 2e book is rated for RF (Risk Factor) associated with it. Low level, low impact spells can come with a RF as low as 1 or 2, but big flashy spells like firebolts and lightning balls come with Risk Factors as high as 40 or 50.

Riskiness in spellcasting is not new. In D&D, saving throws often ruin a wizard's scheme. Many systems, including MERP, require some sort of die roll for casting to succeed. Casting spells in Call of Cthulhu often costs sanity points. I quite like the overcasting and fumble rules that James Raggi introduced in Vaginas are Magic! Fellow fans of Douglas Bachmann's article "Believe it or not, Fantasy has reality" (Dragon #40) will recall that, in his system, every spell cast has a small chance of upsetting the World Balance, possibly resulting in things like blizzards, plagues, and earthquakes.

But a system where each spell cast has a chance of tipping off the bad guys? I quite like it. The only analog I can think of is the psionic rules in AD&D1, where every use of a psionic power or psionic-like spell has a chance of attracting the attention of something off the psionic wandering monster chart. A LOT of ordinary spells qualify as psionic-like and the chart is full of powerful monsters. Literally the first time the cleric casts Cure Light Wounds could result in Demogorgon showing up to kick everyone's ass. It has never, ever made a lick of sense to me.

But this MERP chart? I totally get it. The result is that the further you go into enemy territory the less you can safely rely on magic to save your sorry ass. Sending a couple sneaky halflings on the ultimate quest actually makes a lot of sense under this system.