The Rolemaster Standard System verses Rolemaster Second Edition debate of course.  It pisses me off like I can barely begin to express.  Some folks have probably noticed.

Here's the thing.  Back in the days of the old ICE before the bankrupcy RM2 fans would constantly thread crap and attack RMSS every bloody time it came up.  Not just one or two of them either, half a dozen a thread.

Then old ICE died and the fans started talking about buying it to bring back RM2 and I shuddered.  Fortunantly a good fellow from England happened to have more cash on hand than the fans could muster.  So we actually got the rest of Spacemaster Privateers.  And we dutifully bought product hoping that ICE would carry on producing stuff for it.  They didn't, they cleared the cue and then did HARP with a heavy RM2 / MERP vibe.  Arrgh we needed Blade Lands not HARP.  Yes there needed to be an introductory game.  No it shouldn't have been backward looking or a completely new game for that matter.

Then we got a couple RMSS books and some quarterly 16 page supplements and it was okay and then WHAM ROLEMASTER CLASSIC!.  And there's Tim (HARP's designer) ripping down RMSS on every bloody thread and taking the RM2/C side of things.

Hell yeah, it pisses me off.

Don't get me started on Traveller fans...Or D&D fans...Or Football fans (1e was the only edition)

RM2 is the only true way to play. RMSS took a good thing and crapped all over it by destroying the character creation process and making an already complex system idiotic.

But I'll forgive you. It's not your fault you were born slow.

Yup, just like that, dickwad.

Interesting; I didn't know any of that history.

I've played in one RMSS campaign, and I really enjoyed it.  I'm fond of the system and I have the books, but I don't think I have the time to put into learning it well enough to run it.  The way they split the books up in RM Classic kind of bugs me, but in a cursory glance, I couldn't see any big rules differences.  I figured it was solely a re-issue for sales.

What I've seen of RM2 didn't do much for me, but I actually really like HARP.

Ah, Edition Wars.

We even have wars against editions that haven't been published yet - see D&D4e.

Many (not all, but many) of the loudest Edition Warriors, when questioned, it turns out they don't play any edition... I suppose all that pouring over books in a rabbinical way and arguing about "canon" is a substitute for rolling dice and eating cheetos. If only they spent all that energy looking for a game group instead...

Actually I'm running RMSS right now.  Got a game tommorow night.  Sixth session in and going strong.  There may even be a combat this time.  I've got some real talkers in this group.  Always trying to weasel their way out and turn a profit.

I'm not denying that the implementation of skill categories could have been a bit better by the way.  I wouldn't mind cutting the number of categories in half and ditching some of the redundant skills + spell mastery (the skill that should not be).  I'd also have prefered a uniform skill progression rate.  I love training packages but I hate the discount they get and wouldn't mind seeing it gone either.

Really, old ICE missed a prime chance to clean things up and win back some of the RM2 fans when they did RMfrp.  Even if they'd just made the number of skill ranks in the background and training packages match up with the number of category ranks, it would have made it a thousand times easier to drop the individal skills if you wanted to.

What provoked this thread?  :confused: The "HARP vs RMX" one over at RPGnet?

Anyhow, I'm a fan of Rolemaster Classic (formerly 2e), especially if some choice optional rules are used (including some ideas borrowed from RMFRP, e.g. standardised body development points, power points, individual spell list acquisition, etc.).

I tried running a RMFRP/SS campaign in 1999 and it left a rather bad taste in my mouth.  It seemed to have a number of rather cool ideas, but character generation was painful, and it seemed rather easy to create grossly unbalanced characters.  I encountered problems running RMFRP/SS that I never encountered while running RMC/2e.  Of course, that was many years ago, and so I don't remember all the specific reasons why I abandoned RMFRP/SS.  I'd consider looking at a simplified/streamlined version of RMFRP.  However, it seems that by using some optional rules, I can add most of the things that I liked the best about RMFRP to RMC, without the hassle of full-blown RMFRP.

I agree that creating HARP was a strange decision for ICE.  While I think that it's a good game, it seems strange that they decided to create a new game instead of fixing up and simplifying Rolemaster (either version).  I don't see how such a small game company can support three different FRPGs.

1st edition was fine, but seeing as I now only own the 2nd edition, and 90% of the companions relate to this edition, it is the version we play/I run.

I have nothing against RM2, but I enjoy my RMSS/FRP hybrid just fine--I'm running it (streamlined) right now.  Skills and skill categories were my players' biggest complaint during chargen, but once you're done with it, everything runs smooth as silk.

Quote from: AkrasiaWhat provoked this thread?  :confused: The "HARP vs RMX" one over at RPGnet?

Well, that and the thread last week and the one the week before that.    If I had it to do over I'd have started a GURPS campaign.

And an offer from Tim (who's a standup guy even if I very much disagree with him about many things relating to RM) to do some more writing for ICE which I'm not at all sure I'm willing to do.  If I wrote a d20 asswiping pdf supplement I'd make more money.  Not that it's about the money, but I do have a lot of my own projects that might.

I came here because I won't catch a ban hammer for speaking my mind about  it.

I enjoyed RM2 (almost completely stripped down to basics; I have RoCo I-III but don't really like much of what's in them) when we played it, though my players didn't.

Never had a chance to try RMSS, but I liked what I saw of it.  It seemed to fill in a lot of holes that RM2 had, but the six page character sheet I downloaded told me that I'd never be able to get my group on board for that.

The character sheet pares down to as little as three pages quite easily.  The complexity of the system is overstated and much of it (training packages, talents and flaws) is optional.

Even so, if they'd just tidyed up the the Culture and Training packages a bit and made sure a few things like Body Development had even numbered costs when they put out RMfrp you could just hand out half as many dps and just buy skills at the listed cost, except a couple like Body dev which you'd have to half the cost for, but if you made the cost things like 4/4 it wouldn't be a big deal.

I'm right there with you; everything I've read about RMSS is really cool.  And I love the core RM system and open-ended rolls.  But even three pages for a character sheet would scare the bejeezus outta my people.

Even with a wickedly cool spreadsheet that calculated everything automatically for them (the spreadsheet that became a crash course in advanced Excel use and efficient macro coding for me!), my players felt RM2 to be just over their crunch threshold.  Which was a shame.

One page is equipment...does that help?

Anyhow, I don't believe in totalling every last bonus.  There's several that probably won't ever get totalled in the course of the campaign.

Quote from: Kyle AaronAh, Edition Wars.

We even have wars against editions that haven't been published yet - see D&D4e.

Many (not all, but many) of the loudest Edition Warriors, when questioned, it turns out they don't play any edition... I suppose all that pouring over books in a rabbinical way and arguing about "canon" is a substitute for rolling dice and eating cheetos. If only they spent all that energy looking for a game group instead...

I have to admit, I tend to suspect that the most die hard edition purists are playing nothing, just sitting at home polishing their dice bag and cursing the heathen players of editions that are not the one pure edition.

Enjoying the edition you like in actual play is the best revenge, ideally enjoying it in a non-canonical setting too...