Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (
LOR) is a simple, "level-less" role-playing game designed to help introduce new players and
gamemasters to role-playing, and was intended as a stepping stone to I.C.E.'s more complex
Middle Earth Role Playing (
MERP) game. in which the adventurers must rescue a companion and deal with a pair of trolls. They also encounter
Gandalf.
Setting LOR is set in Tolkien's
Middle-earth in 3017 of the Third Age, between the adventures of
Bilbo Baggins in
The Hobbit and the events of
The Lord of the Rings. The
player characters can interact with the main characters of
The Lord of the Rings, but do not take direct roles in the events.
System LOR uses a simple "level-less" system that requires only two 6-sided dice to resolve skill checks and combat, an expansion of the even simpler rules used by I.C.E. for its
Middle Earth Quest adventure gamebooks. Attributes and Skills rated between -5 and +5. Skills can be modified to a rating above or below these limits (i.e. under -5 or over +5). An attack roll consists of rolling two dice, adding the attacker's skill rating and appropriate weapon rating and subtracting the defender's defense and armor rating. The result is looked up on a table to determine success or failure, and if it is a success, how much damage is sustained.
Character generation Players choose a profession and race from a limited list: • Scout (
hobbit or elf) • Warrior (human, dwarf or elf) • Ranger (human or half-elf) • Bard (human or elf) The player randomly determines the character's three attributes (Strength, Agility and Intelligence), and chooses skills from six categories (Melee, Missile, General, Subterfuge, Perception, Magic). If the character is a spellcaster, the number of spells and their power are quite limited. ==Publication history==