One of the best RPGs I have ever played! It captures the feeling of middle earth very well and is more about storytelling than simulation... The game has kind of 4 parts: Journeying, social encounters, fighting and usage of talents for other things (like searching a room or follow somebody...). Every subsystem follows the same design of structure and has a tactical element to it. But I have to say, that the rules are kind of abstract and everything has to be interpreted to make it "middle earthly".

All this is done by a special dice system, using a d12 together with a d6 for every skillpoint and then try to reach a target number. There are special points to turn a bad roll into a good one and a mechanik for corruption and madness that sends most characters down into darkness after beeing in contact with the shadow for to long...

This book is the core rules and it really is very good in this department - you can play with just this book for years.