This Stuff is GREAT !

 Other than keyboards and bathrobes (tm) my most popular posts seem to be reviews.  So, here is another one  some more.

So, there's this guy (I guess) who goes by"Lars Dangly" over on one of the big RPG forums. So what?  So he is kind of a random RPG encounter - out of the blue he has posted two free excellent RPGs.

One of them is "Balrogs and Bagginses"   a set of original (and early) edition rules for playing in middle earth -and clearly channeling the adventure ethos of "The Hobbit ".

It is really really good, and this is coming from a massive JRRT geek.   The rules are concise, freestanding (mostly spells are still a bit beta) and very nicely developed from bog standard OD&D.

So, it scores two hits in
1. Successfully pulling off a Middle earth RPG without being wildly concerned with microdetails, and

2. is another excellent example of what I think the OSR is doing (or should do) starting with the very basics of D&D and evolving it in a different direction.

Plus, the cover uses one of the best "adventure and get treasure" pix, evar.


Seriously, I love me some MERP, and tolerated me some whatever the second one was, and pretty much poked at the new middle earth RPGwith a stick,  - but, this is at least as good as MERP for feel, and given that MERP was tied to the mondotablequest engine has a much more elegant system.

No kidding: it's a take on old style D&D that gets around the three class model very elegantly and avoids race as class (which I despise, thank you very much) .  Very elegantly.  Seriously, check it out -I'd go into it in detail, but as it is free, you can download it and decide for yourself.  Plus, my beer is getting cold.


 Again:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8azW7IbtcxzalBIRUl0VW5zY1k