I.C.E. produced the hilariously over-elaborate Rolemaster, and its Lord of the Rings spin-off, Middle-Earth Role Playing. The designer of MERP was Coleman Charlton, and he was also the 'system editor' on Middle-Earth Quest, which uses a lot of MERP terms, and also suggests running the book using MERP, including conversions for all the enemy stats and so on. While that's a cruel and unusual suggestion, the book itself contains two complexity levels of play: basic Questgame™, with a pregenerated character; and advanced Questgame™, with chargen and both more system and more elaboration on existing systems. The advanced version includes the optional spellcasting rules, rather like the Sorcery! series that came out a few years before.
There's also a numbering problem with the series, for which I quote gamebooks.org.
Anyway, enough rambling. The reasons this book got my attention were:The publication of the series was plagued by legal problems. Iron Crown Enterprises, the publisher of Middle-earth Role Playing, had a license with Tolkien Enterprises to produce games based on Tolkien's work. They then forged a partnership with Berkley to publish these gamebooks. Two volumes came out in 1985 under the Tolkien Quest label, and an additional two were planned for 1986 under the new series title of Middle-earth Quest. Unfortunately, around the time that the fourth book was to be released, Tolkien Enterprises deemed the books in violation of the game license, which didn't include permission to print books. The first four books were recalled and destroyed, with the fourth book never even making it to market (though it was pictured in an advertisement published in Dragon #103). Some copies of the first three books do still exist, but they are quite rare. Several years after this incident, legal issues were resolved and publication began anew. Books five through eight were actually numbered one through four in denial of the existence of the earlier volumes. The series came to an end, however, before all of the volumes announced in the original 1985 and 1986 releases could see the light of day.
• The supposed free exploration system, with region-labeled maps.
• The relatively system-heavy setup.
• The situation.
The book puts you in the role of Saruman's apprentice, before the White Wizard openly switches sides. That's a remarkably interesting and vulnerable place to be.
Let's get to the meat.
MAPS