TheRPGSite

Has anyone played using these bad-boys?

I must confess, as they are available via pdf download from the ICE forums only, i've reached analysis paralysis from only a couple of 'light' read-throughs.

For people who thought that previous editions were too mechanic driven or laugh about "chart-master", well, you ain't seen nothing yet.

I like the ideas behind a lot of the revisions, but it really is sensory overload on a computer screen and i'm hoping that a not insignificant proportion of the material provided doesn't make it into a print edition. Creatures and Treasures is 800 pages long for goodness sake. Spell Law is well over 400 pages. Considering those two books plus Arms Law from 2nd edition probably added up to about 350 pages in total, it's mind-boggling.

I've been out of the loop since 2nd edition really (there have been about 20 editions since then! - well, alright, 4, i think if you count Classic as a distinct edition), so i really miss the delightfully under-powered, yet flavourful professions like the Seer or Astrologer. However, from my first impressions, SL is the least changed really, so it shouldn't be too hard to import their spell lists.

When all is said and done though, the material released is far too complex, even for Rolemaster. You don't even get to creature stats until nearly 400 pages of the C&T book!

What are your thoughts on the beta?

So hang on.

They went and made Rulemaster a LOT more complex?

WTF?

GRANT US EYES! GRANT US EYES! SO THAT WE MIGHT SEE!!

Haven't looked at it yet, but now I feel like I have to to see the glorious madness of making the RM books more biggerer.

The obligatory reaction:  I never felt that Rolemaster was all that complex, just extremely fiddly and cumbersome.  However, I don't think adding to it is a step in the right direction.  RM still has its fans.  They must be catering to this crowd rather than trying to win new converts.

Heh.

I'm still playing in a  long running 2nd ed game. Not really interested in the new iteration, and what the OP has posted terrifies me.

What I am more interested in would be a more streamlined version of RM, something that I could easily teach new players and keep moving quickly in play. Keep the class flexibility, provide a decent amount of skills (but not too many), winnow down the armory of weapon charts into broader weapon types, and make the colcurful crits operate on a bell curve. Something.

Maybe a rejigged version of MERP, but w/o the middle earth.

Quote from: saskganesh;903572Heh.

I'm still playing in a  long running 2nd ed game. Not really interested in the new iteration, and what the OP has posted terrifies me.

What I am more interested in would be a more streamlined version of RM, something that I could easily teach new players and keep moving quickly in play. Keep the class flexibility, provide a decent amount of skills (but not too many), winnow down the armory of weapon charts into broader weapon types, and make the colcurful crits operate on a bell curve. Something.

Maybe a rejigged version of MERP, but w/o the middle earth.

RM II is probably my favourite game. Dunno why, but it has always just clicked with me. I've always been able to gauge what parties can deal with much easier than any iteration of d&d.

But honestly, the C&T book for this beta is horrible with a capital arrgg!! They've basically decided to catagorise everything. There are about 7 million 'options' for building your own monsters, down to the smallest detail (which isn't necessary) and then once that exhaustive nonsense is out of the way, they get on with the actual stat blocks, which because what has come before is so complex is near indecipherable on the computer screen.

Truly, they could have detailed making your own monsters in 3 or 4 pages and at the same time kept the stat blocks easier to read.

Instead of 'buying' Acid Attack - Mouth or Hopping - Great for your beast just fucking give your beast an additional acid crit on a successful bite and the Leaping spell as a permanent effect. Oh, wait, that's pretty much what they've done, but with everything and over a couple hundred pages, instead of a few pages of advice.

Someone has got seriously over-eager with the current design.

Less isn't always more, but sometimes, more is only more.

Edit: Turns out that the thing i'm talking about is Talents, and they only run to 70 pages. Then there's about a zillion pages on monster descriptions before you get to the stat blocks.

Tone deaf I Sense Birth talent Flaw 1 5 -5/ tier -10/ tier Auto
Creature cannot perceive pitch and cannot sing or play instruments correctly. Apply Penalty to performance art: singing and play instrument.

Leaping: bouncing
Movement Other [Move, Bonus, Pace] 2 5 35' -10 Sprint 30 Movement
Creature is walking with large jumps, instead of strides. Its musculature and bone structure provide this gait is more energy efficient.

Leaping: great bounds
Movement Other [Move, Bonus, Pace] 5 20 80' -25 Sprint 80 Movement
Either using some magic, or terrible power in its legs, this being moves around using great bounds, up to Range.

Leaping: leap gait
Movement Other [Move, Bonus, Pace] 10 30' -5 Run 26 Movement
The creature has a specific mode of movement: it takes a few normal steps and then a larger step, not unlike a leap.

Leaping: leap gliding
Movement Other [Move, Bonus, Pace] 4 15 60' -20 Run 60 Movement
Being has wings that will allow it to glide. As an extra, it may make jumps, gaining Height for gliding Range. This is a very efficient way of movement.

Leaping: leaps
Movement Other [Move, Bonus, Pace] 3 10 40' -15 Sprint 40 Movement
The being possesses strong motor muscles and bones. It may jump 10' when moving around and up to Range when making a serious jump.

Leaping: Slow leaps
Movement Other [Move, Bonus, Pace] 0 5 0 20' 0 Run


WTF is that all about? 6 fucking entries for a leaping ability. It's like that for every conceivavble thing that you'll never want to use in a game.

I despair sometimes.

I adore Rolemaster and I've never had a bad game or bad group but 800 pages for the monster book?

Hell no, I can't get my players to learn FATE effectively much less take this time for that brute  and I don't have the  time for that many rules either.

On any topic regarding Rolemaster I reply with my standard answer.

The first time I sat down to a RM table, a fellow player gave me this piece of advice: "Whatever you do, don't run". During the heat of play I forgot this advice and I announced that my character runs. I got lucky and only fractured the character's ankle, and not anything serious like bashing his skull in... :rolleyes:

Needless to say that I am not interested in this newest version either.

Edit - In one of my RPG groups this game is known as "RuleMonster" :p

I always felt that Rolemaster was a game with some good ideas, and a lot of bad implementation. Looks like it will stay that way.

I was on the development team for the first year or so.  It was pitched to me as an honest attempt to unite the fan base.  Then they put the most rabid RM2 troll they could find in charge and he and his henchman had a prewritten draft and they used the discussions to practice shooting down any arguments.  Anyhow, I personally think the document was not a complete disaster when I stepped off in disgust but the changes made as they've put it to public playtest have completely destroyed the thing.  I don't even think the team leader would be happy with where things have gone.

In any case I went back to working on my own systems and only regretted the year I spent arguing with a brick wall who thinks personal attacks and insults are the way to run a committee.

For all that, I don't think the RMSS / RM2 is bridgeable.

And I don't think ICE is redeemable.

I first encountered RM as the original Arms Law, which when first published was clearly intended to be a bolt-on combat system for D&D. It was (and remains) a cool idea. I still like the old versions of the game I own, but I have to say it is not easy to play. It is structurally simple as a rules set, but so many fucking tables and modifiers! I always felt like the natural progression of the system should be to turned into a PC program or phone ap that takes all the tables and hides them under a simple interface. How has that not happened yet?

Quote from: Larsdangly;903613I first encountered RM as the original Arms Law, which when first published was clearly intended to be a bolt-on combat system for D&D. It was (and remains) a cool idea. I still like the old versions of the game I own, but I have to say it is not easy to play. It is structurally simple as a rules set, but so many fucking tables and modifiers! I always felt like the natural progression of the system should be to turned into a PC program or phone ap that takes all the tables and hides them under a simple interface. How has that not happened yet?

I used to use post-it notes to mark the most important tables, and a calculator during play. After handwaving a few clunky rules it suddenly ran smoothly. I dare say it was one of the more popular systems with my group, but I don't think the players knew how much I simplified things. But it was still definitely Rolemaster, with tables and all.

one of my friends from college told me about the Rolemaster campaign he was in.  They spent a month creating characters. He had a wizard.
First session of actual play, the GM told them it was a bright sunny day, not a cloud in the sky.  They had been hired by the mayor of the local town to go and kill some bandits, when suddenly, they see a dragon flying towards them.
The party leader decides "quick, let's hide in the nearby field of sheep!"
Guess where the dragon was headed?
After that they played Call of Cthulhu.

Quote from: remial;903624one of my friends from college told me about the Rolemaster campaign he was in.  They spent a month creating characters. He had a wizard.
First session of actual play, the GM told them it was a bright sunny day, not a cloud in the sky.  They had been hired by the mayor of the local town to go and kill some bandits, when suddenly, they see a dragon flying towards them.
The party leader decides "quick, let's hide in the nearby field of sheep!"
Guess where the dragon was headed?
After that they played Call of Cthulhu.

I don't really see how this is specifically a Rolemaster issue.

Well, if it was MERP or RM2 the sheep devoured the party in a single round and the dragon got spooked and flew away crying.  You may laugh but in Rolemaster combat, numbers tell.

In RMSS the party probably could hold their own against the sheep but the dragon went down to a jolts spell on the first or second round and the sheep devoured him where he lay.

Quote from: David Johansen;903606Then they put the most rabid RM2 troll they could find in charge and he and his henchman had a prewritten draft and they used the discussions to practice shooting down any arguments.

Yeah, well, this would be my key argument: "Whether or not you agree, Rolemaster is so well known for being overcomplex and rules-laden that it has a well-known mocking nickname for the same.  Therefore, any more to add more complexity and rules is BAD, and odds are that many suggestions to streamline would be good.  You want more rules?  Then frigging house rule them in, but don't weigh the system down more for every other remaining RM player out there."

Quote from: David Johansen;903606I was on the development team for the first year or so.  It was pitched to me as an honest attempt to unite the fan base.  Then they put the most rabid RM2 troll they could find in charge and he and his henchman had a prewritten draft and they used the discussions to practice shooting down any arguments.  Anyhow, I personally think the document was not a complete disaster when I stepped off in disgust but the changes made as they've put it to public playtest have completely destroyed the thing.  I don't even think the team leader would be happy with where things have gone.

In any case I went back to working on my own systems and only regretted the year I spent arguing with a brick wall who thinks personal attacks and insults are the way to run a committee.

For all that, I don't think the RMSS / RM2 is bridgeable.

And I don't think ICE is redeemable.

I'm not convinced the fanbase is split. Seems to me that the development team is the part that's split, judging from your post.

So, how complex was the document before you scedaddled?

Quote from: David Johansen;903606Then they put the most rabid RM2 troll they could find in charge
Snip
For all that, I don't think the RMSS / RM2 is bridgeable.
Snip
And I don't think ICE is redeemable.

No they didn't because they know I exist at ICE and yet I was not put in charge.

Certainly it is, we all did it in the late 90's the first time around

Now we get to the heart of the matter, sorry your feeling got hurt.

Ravenswing, understandibly I have been playing RM for over 20 years now, but your comment shows a very common misconception, Rolemaster is a very simple ruleset and is easily resolvable, most actions including combat take at most 2 die rolls, the majority take 1. What is complex are which options you choose to use, and the horrible indexing because of bad layout and the companions. The system itself is delightfully simple however.

Sounds like they hired Steve Long to save Rolemaster the same way he saved Hero with their 6th edition. More pages = better.

Quote from: RKBrumbelow;903661Certainly it is, we all did it in the late 90's the first time around

Ah yes, all those lovely years when any RM discussion on the internet would be thread crapped by bitter RM2 fans.

Anyhow, the problem is simply this.  The project lead absolutely had to have hit points not scale with size and instead use multipliers and the same tables.  The shifts got more complex than x2 per size level.  This was okay.  I did try to argue that people would prefer to have hits scale up with size and only have damage multipliers for the table.  Not that the world will be poorer for it or anything.  I just don't care enough to bother anymore. It's not like freelancing is the road to riches.

Of course, I was right about people whether the lead was right about scaling well, math's more his thing.  So the compromise is a three hundred page table with weapon classes per size.  As I've said, I think the original beta document was okay.  I've laughed pretty hard as most of the points I was fighting for keep being integrated by the beta but it keeps looking messier and messier.  One of the reasons I left is that I felt, strongly, that there had to be a direction and a vision and I was in the way of that.  Another was that I felt there was no clarity on how to proceed on Monsters and Treasures.  Just take the current text and mess around with it and go from there I was told.  And I was paired with a guy I knew I couldn't work with.  In the will trash every word I write sense.  So, when Rasyr went and shared a private rant about the process, I felt it was time for me to step down.

Really, I shouldn't have stepped up when I was asked.  It was a learning experience.  I doubt I'll ever be willing to work on a property I don't own and control outright ever again.

Quote from: Matt;903665Sounds like they hired Steve Long to save Rolemaster the same way he saved Hero with their 6th edition. More pages = better.

No but there is a very strong bias towards mathematical accuracy and scaling at all costs.

Different people want different things from their game.  I've gone on at length for years about my RMSS preference.  But had I not been asked to work on the revision I would have been done and gone for years now.  The RM2 fans can have it.  It was theirs first anyhow and they're the larger group.  It's a dead issue, and that's okay by me.  But the revision scratches a sore spot and I tend to bitch about it.

I glanced at the playtest files last week, but my Rolemaster experience was 25 years ago, and it was never extensive or rigorous play. While looking at the introduction to the new Spell Law evoked some pleasant nostalgia, it's not the kind of system I'm looking for. A large part of it is that I'm looking for lower grittiness and lethality in combat than RM typically provides. :D I admit that I was intrigued by HARP when it launched, and should go back and look again at those PDFs that I grabbed cheap ...

But I must admit I'm curious about something, David. When I stopped keeping up with Iron Crown, RMSS was on the brink of launching, so I never really got a sense of how RM2 and RMSS differ 'in the trenches'. Now, part of that's because once you go beyond the original box, it's very difficult to have a sense of what RM2 is with the maddening array of options. :) So what makes RMSS different? I've heard that skills got considerably more complex, even beyond all of the RMCII options.

RMSS is pants and anyone who likes it is a weirdo...

Sorry, David seems to expect that kind of thing. :) I've never encountered any of the schisms he has regarding editions. In fact, i have a mix and match of a few RM II and RMSS books that i have no problem in implementing at all.

Seems like in most things, if you want to avoid the crap don't go on the internet. I only came online in 2005 so i guess i missed all the juicy stuff, although it seems that the designers haven't :(

What a waste of a great game.

I'll re-write it much better than any of you.

Okay, so Arms Law didn't change much.  There's actually minor changes to the charts with every printing since the first.  The RMSS Arms Law had little symbols for hits per round, bleeding, and stuns rather than writing them out.  A second version from post bankruptcy ICE had simpler tables that didn't specify the critical type.  They also did a book with 50 more weapon tables called The Armory.  Sadly it was in the second version's format.  Yes got the pdfs and printed a combined version on parchment.

Character creation is the biggest change.  RMSS has fixed cultural skill packages.  The stat bonuses are on a different scale and you add three stats to get skill category bonuses.  Okay, even I'll admit that they needed to clean up and rationalize the skill list a bit more.  By using categories you only have a one page list of skill costs by professions and its easy to implement new skills by putting them into a category.  On the other hand, RMSS has many skill progression rates for Power Point Development (by race), Body Development (by race), Standard Skills, Skill Categories, Combined Skills, and Limited Skills (detect ambush, spell lists).  Characteristics are bought with 6d10 + 600 points with scores over 90 having an inflated cost at the square of score -90 + 90.  Maximum characteristics are essentially determined by rolling enough dice to make the score 100 if all the dice roll 10s (this was a very contentious point during revision discussions).  Development Points per level are Agility + Constitution + Memory + Reasoning + Self Discipline /5.  Profession bonuses are a fixed value rather than a per level value.  This considerably improves low level Fighters.  Training packages can be purchased which give a 3/4 discount on skill packages and stack on top of the ranks that can be developed per level.  This makes RMSS characters much better at first level.  Spell Lists are learned at one level per rank purchased rather than in 5 level blocks.  Talents can be purchased with background option points with random options and the potential of flaws reducing the cost of better talents.  There's also a GURPS style points system option.  There's many other little changes.  And some things like the training package discount getting increased to make navy seals a first level character option (a really weird decision right up there with first level high elves).  Essentially the bigger the package the greater the percentage discount.

Anyhow, I think the biggest difference in play is that first level characters can be very competent and character sheets run to four or five pages.  It's a glorious, baroque mess, and I love it to death.  However, I do think that a few tweaks would have made it better accepted.  Firstly, the set-up with race and training packages is impossible to simplify.  Skill categories needed to be more modular so those who hate them could ignore them.  Ideally you should be able to run with straight training packages instead of skills for a really simplified character sheet, or skills straight up and it shouldn't break the system.  As written everything kind of falls apart when you try to do that.  All in all, greater modularity would have been an improvement.  My understanding is that Rolemaster Companion 3 had may options that were integrated into the RMSS core.

I think the place where things really went off the tracks was the introduction of HARP by ICE 2.0.  It could have been and needed to be a unified RM. I was against it at the time but if I'd known just how impossible it was for ICE to reprint the supplements I think I'd have understood the need.

I own MERP and always thought it was interesting. I downloaded the current Rolemaster beta about 2 weeks ago to see how it compared to MERP and after about 5 minutes looking at it I was like, hell no.

Quote from: RKBrumbelow;903661Ravenswing, understandibly I have been playing RM for over 20 years now, but your comment shows a very common misconception, Rolemaster is a very simple ruleset and is easily resolvable, most actions including combat take at most 2 die rolls, the majority take 1. What is complex are which options you choose to use, and the horrible indexing because of bad layout and the companions. The system itself is delightfully simple however.

Perception is reality.  If what the design team was after was to put out something for RM veterans only, sure, great, whatever.  If they had hopes to sell so much as a single frigging copy to anyone who'd never played RM before, going for the highest page count for published RPGs was so far from the way to go they'd need a road map and a native guide.

Don't worry, it's all tables :D

Okay, so here's the run down.  Rolemaster is a percentile based class, skill, and level game.  The classes are called "professions" but they still serve the role of niche protection.  As each class pays a different price for different skills the fighter can learn a few spells or the wizard can use a sword but only at great cost.  (Talents in RMSS and RMC3 soften this a little but only at the front end of character creation)

Success rolls are made by rolling d100 with 01=05 open ending low and 96-00 open ending high.  The usual target number is 100 with the static maneuver table giving graduated results.  (In RMSS it's 110)

The bonus to these rolls is either the average of two or three stat bonuses (RMSS adds three together) and 5 points per rank in the skill up to rank 10, 3 from 11 - 20 and so on.  You guessed it, this is summarized on a useful and simple table.  (RMSS breaks standard skills down to 3 points per rank for skill and 2 for category.)

There are really only four core tables.  The Static Maneuver, Moving Maneuver, Weapon Table, and Critical Table.  Of these the Weapon table and Critical Table have three axis with a separate page for each attack and damage type.

In combat, at the start of each round the combatants declare their targets and the portion of their skill being used to parry.  Action declaration is vital to the function of Rolemaster's combat because if you know whether you won the initiative or not when declaring your parry you'll parry more when you lose initiative and less when you win it.  It also allows everyone to make their rolls and add their bonuses and even check their results and roll their criticals if copies of the charts are available (A pdf of Arms Law and a printer are worth their weight in gold, if you buy only one pdf get Arms Law) at the same time.  Failure to do this is the reason some people think Rolemaster combat is slow.

So you roll to hit, check your total against the target's armor on the appropriate table and that gives you a number of hits and a critical level and type.  Yes, if you roll exactly what you need to hit the first critical is a krush for most weapons, you didn't get through the armor but they still felt the blow.  I love that.  Be aware that RM combats tend to last fewer rounds than D&D or GURPS combats.  Sooner or later someone catches a bad crit or gets stunned and it's over pretty quick after that.

Okay, what about that wacky percentage activity rule?  Well, if you run across the room, that's half of your activity for the round.  Most actions have a percentage range and if you're under the percentage minimum then you can't do the action.  If you're under the maximum you take a minus one penalty per point you're under it.  Movement can be a bit scary with the paces interacting with percentage activity, but it's really not bad.  Pace just multiplies your movement rate at the cost of Exhaustion Points.  Jog 50% and you just move your normal movement rate. (This is the RMSS version, I can't recall the RM2 version well enough to explain it.  It seems to me it was multiply your skill by the percentage used for other things / 100 but even that's not bad if you keep to 25 and 50% increments)

And that's it really, yes there's spells and they're categorized and codified and very easy to use because they rarely require a quarter of a page to explain.  As for the organization, the big issue is that there is a main body of the rules and then a series of appendixes with the appropriate tables.  So half of character creation is at the front of the book and half of it is at the back of the book.  It takes some getting used to but it's actually quite functional and you'll refer to the back half way more than you do the front.

It's a really great game and it works very well once you get the hang of it.  And it's way simpler than any edition of D&D other than Basic.  It's the volume of the data that's scary, not the complexity of the process.

I played with a group up here in Seattle. The gents were fun gamers but the system was too fiddly for me (and I like GURPS) - it does have some cool ideas, mired in a cesspool of complication. The drafts are so poorly laid out and written I cannot imagine salvaging them. There are just too many old farts in this business with no idea of how to run a modern cottage-industry small publishing house. It's the free market at work folks. RIP Rolemaster, may you play long in the Summerlands of our forebears.

This is the first I heard of the beta. I downloaded it and took a look-through. When I saw the chart that showed target numbers above 100, I closed the PDF.

I used to have a joker in my group that whenever it came to movement, he would insist that he dashed the distance - even if it was 10 feet. My response was, sorry you can't get up to dashing speed over 10 feet, x % activity gone.

Next time it came up - "i sprint to the doorway to block it". It's 5 feet away! You step there, you pillock, x% activity gone.

Rolemaster has no business being anything other than an app-based product now. The older editions showed the limits of the print-based medium back in the day, limits that become strengths once digitized. Why this hasn't happened yet says plenty of things, none of them good.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;903847Rolemaster has no business being anything other than an app-based product now. The older editions showed the limits of the print-based medium back in the day, limits that become strengths once digitized. Why this hasn't happened yet says plenty of things, none of them good.

I agree. It's custom made for apps.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;903834This is the first I heard of the beta. I downloaded it and took a look-through. When I saw the chart that showed target numbers above 100, I closed the PDF.

uhm...dude...it's d100 + Skill.  The target numbers start at 100.

As for custom aps.  They have one now.  I haven't tried it yet.

Really the only part that's bad is totalling the bonuses and as I've been saying for years and years.  If you don't plan to use it a couple times a session, don't bother totalling it.  One skill doesn't take long to total.  You can work on it when other people are center stage if it bugs you.  I know the book tells you to total all the bonuses.  But your Lore Obscure: Lizardman Philosophy skill can usually be added up when you need it.  If you ever need it.

Quote from: Ravenswing;903813Perception is reality.  If what the design team was after was to put out something for RM veterans only, sure, great, whatever.  If they had hopes to sell so much as a single frigging copy to anyone who'd never played RM before, going for the highest page count for published RPGs was so far from the way to go they'd need a road map and a native guide.

Bullshit, of course, and evasion. If perception were reality, it would be called reality. Simplistic nonsense without meaning. Advertising and political hack speak.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;903847Rolemaster has no business being anything other than an app-based product now. The older editions showed the limits of the print-based medium back in the day, limits that become strengths once digitized. Why this hasn't happened yet says plenty of things, none of them good.

I was asked by a friend to define what a "board game" is.  It's harder these days, what with the digitization of so many existing games, and games that exist solely on a digital platform that could easily be made into board games.  My definition of a board game is one where the play mechanics are transparent to players.  If you can theoretically run the game in your head, then it's a board game whether or not a computer is managing things for you.

I mention this because RM seems complex enough that a digitized version pushes the boundaries of what I consider a tabletop game, and not because of the platform itself.

Wow. When they released the first beta in 2012 it seemed a more manageable project. This second beta has spiralled into a behemoth: ~200 pages for Arms & Character Law, ~450 for Spell Law, ~350 for Treasure Law, ~900 (!) for Creature Law. I can't see this appealing to anyone but hardcore fans.

Quote from: Matt;903875Translation: the comment pissed me off and I'm a stone fanboy, so I'm going to resort to ad hominem attacks.

There.  Fixed it for you.

Moving on to discussions among grownups, y'know, that's an interesting notion: how otherwise table- and minutiae-heavy games could be affected by apps.  It does remove houseruling from the equation, but even that's solvable if the code's easily rewritten by amateurs.  Dunno if RM has a surviving player base deep enough to make this marketable, but no doubt there are those out there better versed in the economics of app sales than I am.

Quote from: David Johansen;903863uhm...dude...it's d100 + Skill.  The target numbers start at 100.

My point exactly.

Ah well, not the game for you then.  Really, the math isn't that big of a problem.  And I've had some pretty mixed groups with some pretty rough math skills.

Quote from: David Johansen;903918Ah well, not the game for you then.  Really, the math isn't that big of a problem.  And I've had some pretty mixed groups with some pretty rough math skills.

The math parts are fine.

Let's face it, Rolemaster could be relaunched with a new edition that somehow makes both RM2 and RMSS fans happy, is streamlined while retaining all of the features that make the game unique, have great art and layout and a full suite of functional apps...and still not make a dent in the market these days. And as that will never happen, I'll just keep my RMSS books and gaze at them now and again.

I think it could be done but it would take something really special.  Rules don't, as a rule, sell games.  Settings sell games and RM is a game that would kill most settings.

Back in the eighties the Middle Earth licence was the killer app that raised RM to prominence.

Now?  It's hard to say.  With a really tight reinterpretation of the rules that's fast and clean and easy to use.  Tied to a really cool property.  I don't know what that would be right now.  But just for the sake of argument let's say it's the next big thing rather than a big licence.  It's possible it could be developed in house but it's far more likely to be something out of the blue like Harry Potter.  And I think Rolemaster could ride a wave like that.

It'd take vision and forward thinking, neither of which is in vogue at ICE these days so I'm not holding my breath.

Quote from: The_Shadow;903926Let's face it, Rolemaster could be relaunched with a new edition that somehow makes both RM2 and RMSS fans happy, is streamlined while retaining all of the features that make the game unique, have great art and layout and a full suite of functional apps...and still not make a dent in the market these days. And as that will never happen, I'll just keep my RMSS books and gaze at them now and again.

Was there a need for a new edition of Role Master? Are the previous editions out of print? Or out of date? Was the plan to make a revised edition with bug-fixes included? Or to make a whole new rule-set that was streamlined? Or one that was more detailed?

Well, when Tolkien Enterprises drove the original ICE into bankruptcy a lot of freelancers went unpaid.  This meant that they weren't too friendly with the CEO of ICE 1.0 and 2.0.  I'm not sure if the CEO in question knew the buyer before the purchase but I'm not sure anyone who really understood the situation would have hired him.  This meant that a great deal of RMSS material couldn't be republished.  This is something they should have just said up front.  I think people would understand that.

HARP was an attempt to replace MERP as an entry point to RM.  It should have been a new edition with the ability to layer on detail.  But at the time nobody really wanted a new edition as we'd just purchased the 2.5 of RMFrp which was RMSS hammered into a single cut down volume.  Actually, it's pretty well done but it was a real missed opportunity to bridge the gap and placate the RM2 fans.  HARP is just too close to RMSS, it's got Talents and Training Packages.  It does integrate the attack and critical table into a single entity, which is interesting.  Really, RM's weapon differentiation is interesting but focuses too much on weapon verses armor without reflecting how a weapon is used.  ICE 2.0 further muddied the waters with Rolemaster Classic, a restatement of RM2 and RMU a lighter version that was intended to get new people in.  Rasyr wrote the vast majority of ICE 2.0 material and got screwed from both ends for it.  It's kind of funny / sad as neither end wanted to screw him but the licence yanking put him in the position of either going against his close friends who managed ICE or losing his ability to work on Rolemaster.

With the owner yanking the licence from the CEO due to complaints about the non-payment of freelancers and a new ICE 3.0 I do think a new version is appropriate.  Especially with all the clouded ownership issue but also because RMSS is too clumsy and RM2 is too messy.  A standardized, modular game with the best of both would probably be well received by the fans.

But trying to please everyone is a road to failure.

I'm not in love with RMU like I am with RMSS but I think the beta was pretty solid.

Not perfect, dry and workman like, more concerned with getting the numbers right than the tone, but solid.

It's drifted too far from that.  I wanted training packages.  I'd have liked a different paradigm for dealing with Size.  I'd have liked a shield skill rule that made some kind of sense.  I'd have liked a supported option for skill categories.  But I think it worked and had some internal logic.  I look at the changes and I can't help but think this will be the final nail in Rolemaster's coffin.  HARP will go on.  The guy in charge these days loves HARP and wrote HARP sf.

I hope they prove me wrong.

I really do.

I hope I'm just a whiny ass.  (well I am but even so)

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;903935Was there a need for a new edition of Role Master? Are the previous editions out of print? Or out of date? Was the plan to make a revised edition with bug-fixes included? Or to make a whole new rule-set that was streamlined? Or one that was more detailed?

The last major edition came out twenty years ago, so I'd say a new edition is not a stretch. RMSS comes across as a dinosaur, and was never as successful as its predecessor. And the major problem has always been the split - roughly 50/50 it seems - in the fan base between the two major editions. ICE blundered around for a decade, creating HARP, reissuing RM2 as RM Classic, while continuing to support RMSS, nominally at least. When that iteration of ICE went belly-up, the time was right for...anything. Just keep the game alive somehow.

But we've had 5 years of development of a new edition, by a committee of the most grognardy and opinionated FANS (not experienced game devs) that you could imagine. It's the worst of all possible outcomes, probably worse than if the game had once and for all gone OOP and some legally-grey retroclone had filled the gap. Pretty much all goodwill and patience has disappeared in the fan community, and the game has sunk to oblivion within wider gamer circles.

Quote from: The_Shadow;903956The last major edition came out twenty years ago, so I'd say a new edition is not a stretch. RMSS comes across as a dinosaur, and was never as successful as its predecessor. And the major problem has always been the split - roughly 50/50 it seems - in the fan base between the two major editions. ICE blundered around for a decade, creating HARP, reissuing RM2 as RM Classic, while continuing to support RMSS, nominally at least. When that iteration of ICE went belly-up, the time was right for...anything. Just keep the game alive somehow.

But we've had 5 years of development of a new edition, by a committee of the most grognardy and opinionated FANS (not experienced game devs) that you could imagine. It's the worst of all possible outcomes, probably worse than if the game had once and for all gone OOP and some legally-grey retroclone had filled the gap. Pretty much all goodwill and patience has disappeared in the fan community, and the game has sunk to oblivion within wider gamer circles.

Ouch. Fans of other editions that know nothing about game design make the worst playtesters. I've seen it too many a time. I remember the HARP stuff in stores back in the day. I'll have to look those up on their site to refresh my memory how they compare to the other rules.

HARP's designer, Rasyr, has a game of his own called Novus.  If you don't like the d100+ Skill mechanic of Rolemaster you might want to look at Novus as it uses 2d10 instead.

Just picked up the Channeling Companion for £7.99. Result!

Quote from: One Horse Town;903976Just picked up the Channeling Companion for £7.99. Result!

Not one of the best companions but I do like the guidelines for custom priests.

RM with a bunch of companions and the right group makes for a glorious game. The thing is to dive into the baroque mess of options, and enjoy the unique features of the game...the chart results, the incredibly granular character creation, the myriad of spells, etc. It provides, dare I say it, an immersive experience.

And a saving grace is that those who say "it's really quite simple at its core" are actually at least half-right. It can run fast with one or two rolls for every action and combat is faster in my experience than say, Hero, maybe on a par with Runequest.

But on topic...who has time for the Beta playtest? RMU is basically vaporware, and I just can't see anything worthwhile that it will offer anyway.

It's funny that this thread came up.  I was just wondering about that beta the other day, after years.  I even went by Guild Companion, but you have to log in and everything to look at the beta.  Just couldn't be bothered with all that.

I was just looking over my Holmes D&D and Arms Law 1e set-up this week.  I wish the game would be more like the original concept, without a character creation element.  The first Arms Law is about 10 pages of phased combat rules with an economy of tactical points (offensive bonus), the rest is the individual weapon tables and the few critical tables. It's basic compared to AD&D 1 really, let alone actually complex games.  The mess is in the character creation part that became so over-arching to the game.  A new edition that had some short and sweet guidelines for using Arms Law and Spell Law with games that are popular today is all I would like to see. No Character Law, Campaign Law, Creature Law, etcetera, etcetera... The original idea of moduler combat and magic systems to replace another game's method.  The 1st edition reworked, with new fancy layout and illustrations, for TODAY's and yesterday's games.  Any new content should be guidelines for any new games that have come out.  So, the first companion for this hypothetical modern slightly reworked 1st would contain brief one page guidelines for a bunch of games that came out in 2017.  Anyway, that's what I would like, given my use of it.  It won't happen.  I have the old 1st Arms and Spell Law to use like that, though. Still debating on a new Holmes D&D, (Everything else remains D&D, including character creation, tweaked monsters and spells, with a few miniscule AD&D 1 bits.), Arms Law campaign .

I don't see the problem here.  Arms Law has combat rules in it so you can do exactly that.  The format is still modular.

You could quite conceivably use Character Law with D&D combat and magic.

Character Law is about creating characters with depth and flexability while retaining niche protection.

That's Rolemaster in a nutshell really.  It tries to have it both ways.  Fast and Detailed.

As for the beta, I suspect they drove off too many moderates.

Problem?  Nothing problematic.

It sounds like you know the editions.  Pick up your 1st edition of arms law.  Does it mention any specifics about skills, body development etc? No.  The newer editions are just not written like that.  There is an assumption that it will all be used together.  The rule exteme bloat is mostly all the character definition stuff bleeding into everything. That part of the game is just the worst everyone complains about.

Quote from: The_Shadow;903987Not one of the best companions but I do like the guidelines for custom priests.

That's what i got it for. I've got RM II companions coming out my wazzoo, so i've played for years with the options and professions i want, but no official options for Clerics and the Gods, so looking forward to seeing that! For that price, considering how much this stuff goes for these days, i'm happy enough.

As for the playtest, it should be jettisoned and i should be put in charge of doing a proper Rolemaster edition. ;)

Quote from: David Johansen;903970HARP's designer, Rasyr, has a game of his own called Novus.  If you don't like the d100+ Skill mechanic of Rolemaster you might want to look at Novus as it uses 2d10 instead.

I was pointed to Novus on here a couple of months ago, and I really like it.  I wish the eleven small supplements were put together in a printed volume, but that's not a huge deal.

Received the channeling companion. Love the cover, really cool. Not the sort of style you usually see on an RPG book. Some really good 'new' spell lists (mostly cannabalised RM II lists really with a few new things thrown in) and i like the priest material and the stuff on spirits and the spirit world.

Next month i'm going to get a couple soft-cover Shadow World books POD from drivethru.