Lords of Middle-earth, Volume I

This was followed by a large number of supplements, including a series of three books highlighting every named character that appears in Tolkien's Middle-earth works.

"[3] In Issue 79 of Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer, J. Michael Caparula noted "This format and amount of information here is terrific, but I'm anxious to see it applied to more down to earth types.

[1] In Issue 7 of Adventurer, Ste Dillon found the sheer number of elves described "rather daunting, as to use as chance occurrences or even as active non-player characters, there are too many to be employed with any effect in most campaigns."

Dillon concluded by calling this "a must for Middle Earth fanatics, but most of it is of no great use to GMs other than as a compendium of background detail, most of which can be gleaned from Tolkien's own writings ... this one is rather superfluous."

[4] In Issue 127 of Dragon, Ken Rolston questioned the usefulness of this book, saying, "This is a lot of information on many high-level PCs, few (if any) of which will ever interact with any character in a typical MERP campaign.