Tell Me about Rolemaster

[Obryn]

Yikes. The more I hear, the more I'm actually adverse to the system. Realism is not something I see as a positive attribtue, nor am I good at math on my feet (as Cirex pointed out using calculators just to speed things up!?).

The process sounds fairly labored, with several steps just to resolve a single action.

While it is not my favorite system, or even in my top 10 favorite systems, you should give it a fair chance. Go into it with an open mind, don't intentionally sabotage your experience or look for negatives, and try it out.

Really, it will broaden your horizons if nothing else, so - next time someone asks "What is Rolemaster about?" you will have an educated opinion.

Also, you may find that you like it. While, IMHO, no gaming is better than bad gaming, fun is more about the people at your table than the books you're using.

-O

 

[Cirex]

Yikes. The more I hear, the more I'm actually adverse to the system. Realism is not something I see as a positive attribtue, nor am I good at math on my feet (as Cirex pointed out using calculators just to speed things up!?).

The process sounds fairly labored, with several steps just to resolve a single action.

It's a matter of getting used to it, but obviously it isn't as fast as D&D (I roll a 18, plus my +7, total 25, do I hit? Yes -> Damage. No -> Next.) but it has its own charm, especially with critical strikes.

I think that, at the very end, each player had a copy of his own weapon chart, to speed things up.

A typical round would be :
-Roll d100. 96-00, roll again and plus to the result. The result of the roll plus your offensive bonus.
-The total minus the defensive bonus of the rival.
-Check the appropiate chart for the weapon, in example, broad sword. Compare the result it to the armor type (0 was cloth, 20 was plate, something like that). From here, three different options :
*Nothing. Just no damage.
*Just numerical damage. Normal HP loss. Heavy armors are very easy to hit and get numerical damage, while light armors receive critical strikes from any blow, but harder to hit.
*Damage & critical damage. The critical can be A, B, C, D or E. A is a "weak" critical, an E, a dangerous one. The critical is then bludgeoning, slashing, cold, fire, etc..
-Roll another d100 to see the outcome of the critical.
-Then check the appropiated chart depending the kind of critical, compare to the result and the A-E level of critical.

Your typical critical result is extra damage, extra damage and bleeding, etc.
Then it gradually gets worse, with strong penalizers that last many turns (or till cured) and mutilations, bleedings to death (you can't prevent those) or instant death.
"A" criticals get nasty from 95+ or so, while "E" criticals are nasty from 60+.
A "66" is always special (and nasty).

So, while it's possible to be beheaded by a random orc, you can make a Balrog bleed to death. Been there, done that

It's slow, but exciting, because your character can die at any moment. Still, after 2-3 years of gaming, I only lost two characters. One, by a trap (we all died), and the other, I sacrificed myself in order to gain some time for another character to set up the ultimate attack to defeat the enemy. One friend (Half-elf thief) got his leg amputated by some orc.


Ah, I'm not sure if all this was talked about above, didn't read every post, so sorry, I mislead myself into writing this

This is the old RM, because I know that the edition they released later was very simplified.

EDIT : I forgot, 01-04 is a critical failure. They have their own chart. You can DIE from them. Two glorious moments I remember :
-One of the allied NPCs slashing his own ear with a critical failure while shooting with a bow. It's something that really hurt us, but it was damn hilarious.
-One "friend", he cheated a lot, but karma was there to help us. His character had just died, so he made some Noldor fighter, with 100 in all physical attributes and stuff like that. He tried to attack me because I ignored his plea to join our group. He had a critical failure in the riding skill, fell to the ground, broke his back and ended in a permanent coma state. We didn't laugh. Then he left. THEN WE LAUGHED!

 

[Urbannen]

Certainly, try it. It has good points. I think it has a great "Hyborean" feel as opposed to D&D's Dark Ages feel. The spellcasting system lends itself to roleplaying. You just might consider some house rules to make play easier. Rolemaster Classic or Express is simpler than Rolemaster Standard System (aka RM Fantasy Roleplaying) and so might be a better entry into the game.

 

[Rechan]

While it is not my favorite system, or even in my top 10 favorite systems, you should give it a fair chance. Go into it with an open mind, don't intentionally sabotage your experience or look for negatives, and try it out.

Since the guy is nice, and I haven't been a player in ever, I'll give it a try. But:

It's slow, but exciting, because your character can die at any moment.

The potential of dieing at any moment isn't my idea of excitement. I lean heavily into the direction of cinematic. SotC (or the grittier but still not as lethal DFRPG) are what appeals to me the most.

 

[Rechan]

Certainly, try it. It has good points. I think it has a great "Hyborean" feel as opposed to D&D's Dark Ages feel. The spellcasting system lends itself to roleplaying. You just might consider some house rules to make play easier. Rolemaster Classic or Express is simpler than Rolemaster Standard System (aka RM Fantasy Roleplaying) and so might be a better entry into the game.

Admittedly, I don't know which edition the guy is using, but I posted which Mentalism book he owns in post 3 or 4.

 

[pemerton]

My feeling is that the base RM rules do not give characters enough skill points. It is very hard to get a well-rounded character without sacrficing your non-DP stats.

I agree that this is an issue. The solution recommended for RM2 is to award an extra 50% of DPs. I do the same thing in RMSS.

Because of the double-development cap, extra DPs won't lead to overpowered characters, just ones with an adequate breadth of skills.

Spellcasting is hard. Very hard. For example: It takes three rounds to cast your most powerful spells without a penalty. Then the system seems to favor spell-targets and not spellcasters when it comes to resistance.

I don't agree that this is such a big issue. Bonuses to attack spells are available for range (+10 at 10', +30 if touching) and the target making its RR is penalisd for wounds it has taken. In general, RM casters are fairly strong.

The rule books are poorly organized.

This is true. I used photocopies of the rules organised in plastic pocket folders.

You can't really play the skills system as written.

To an extent. Most GMs rationalise or adjust the skill system in some fashion. RMC 2 probably has the definitive skill system for RM. RMC 6 also has a good version of the skill system.

Because of the crit system, the party needs at least one dedicated healer, such as a cleric or lay healer. No UMD to use a wand of cure light wounds! And even a dedicated healer will not always be able to get the job done.

Self-healing can help here - it is available to several professions. My group has often not had a healer, but we tend to play urban-based campaigns where NPC healers are easily available. Getting stuck in the wilderness with no healing can suck a bit.

2. Spell lists are not just for combat - they have RP applications.

3. Combats are interesting because of the crit system

4. Magic system with 3 realms is flavorful.

I agree with all this.

The game system doesn't get a good score when comparing playability vs. realism. Runequest is my all-time favorite in that respect, btw.

One important difference between RM and RQ is that in RM parry and attack are based off the same skill, with the player choosing the distribution between the two from round to round. This gives combat a degree of dynamism and tactical choice that RQ combat lacks (and is one of the strengths of RM as a system).

Yikes. The more I hear, the more I'm actually adverse to the system. Realism is not something I see as a positive attribtue, nor am I good at math on my feet (as Cirex pointed out using calculators just to speed things up!?).

The process sounds fairly labored, with several steps just to resolve a single action.

It's not as bad as it sounds, I don't think. But as I said in my earlier post, if the GM tries to pack in as much "filler" as is typical for a D&D adventure (eg more-or-less pointless encounters with giant rats at the entrance to the dungeon) then the game will probably drag.

HARP (also by ICE) is pretty close to RM, but uses fewer charts.

I think HARP is probably a better game. But it has some features that will make it play a bit differently from RM, especially (i) no development cap per level with a tarrif on rapid development (ie it is more like 3E D&D skill point rules) which means that specialisation by PCs is mechanically favoured - whereas RM tends to encourage breadth, because of the double development rules; (ii) casting penalties for high level spells in HARP, making low level spells more attractive - whereas in RM it's almost always best to lead with ones best spell.

 

[pemerton]

The potential of dieing at any moment isn't my idea of excitement. I lean heavily into the direction of cinematic. SotC (or the grittier but still not as lethal DFRPG) are what appeals to me the most.

HARP has Fate Point rules which can handle this issue to an extent. So does the RMSS Channelling Companion, or RMC VII for RM2. Still, I wouldn't describe RM as cinematic. Even with metagame Fate Point mechanics, it's still closer to gritty than cinematic.

 

[Tenniel]

The secret to playing RM (especially RMSS) is organisation and discipline.

Organisation

The GM should delegate tasks. One player should look up combat tables, another criticals, another skills. Tools help, I had a ripper monk comabt spreadsheet with buttons and look ups etc. 'Reverse combat tables' which had 1 page per AT rather than 1 page per weapon helped having to flip through arms/claw law. Organise your material and use tabs to find things quickly. Oh the fun I had decoding Amiga files that contained the arms laws table data (in binary)!

Discipline

Have players ready to declare their statement of intent clearly and quickly. Roll dice quickly.

RM is a rich system, but the realism comes at a price and without getting organised and disciplined it will get bogged down.

Jedi and Realms

I always imagined Jedi to be of the essence realm ("Feel the force flow through your body"). So a Jedi knight would be a semi-essence user. But mentalism sort of works as well.

 

[Andor]

First, find out what house rules he is using. Until RabidBob's post I'd never even heard of someone playing RM strictly RAW.

I've played it and enjoyed it but we left most of the rules knowledge up to the GM. I do recall that my character killed himself, more than once, casting spells in his area of specialty. Oddly he never failed at stuff he only dabbled in, but playing to his strengths was suicide. Probably that was my funky dice karma and not the system.

We had a Monkish character in our party, and he was very effective. While they don't deal a lot of damage they crit a lot, and those crits usually break bones. Since we happened to be fighting a lot of undead the monk became our combat go-to guy.

And it's always worth playing RM at least once just for the fun of the crit charts. I still recall one of the 'moving fumble' crits: "You trip over unseen, imaginary deceased turtle. You are very confused."

Not to mention the 'Worst move seen in ages' fumble which was not only painful to you, but stunned your opponent for 3 rounds of laughing.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I played RM for about 6-7 years way back in the mid 80s to 90s. It is a fun system thanks to the randomness of the crits. We called it Table (ie: chart) Master for a reason. Eventually I got tired of the charts.

There were 2 other things that killed the game system for me:

1. Once you got onto a critical chart there was nothing to modify the role. This just bugged me. Basically it meant that: Aragorn vs. Orc baby (hey, you know he killed orc babies, all PCs have done it) Aragorn would get a good critical every round but if he was unlucky those crits never did anything more than a few points of stun. I saw this sort of thing happen a lot. Sure it's just a roll of the dice thing but after the fun of randomness wore off the unfun of randomness bugged me.

2. Flying Vampiric Werekraken. RM was doing 'template' monster long before 3E. They didn't have actual templates (at least not in the rule books, maybe the designers had them, I dont know) but after the first monster book the critters were all just combinations of various other ciritters. Hence the flying vampiric werekraken. And how the hell can you take that seriously?

Actually I'll add another thing: doing up unique foes was hard work, much like in Epic DnD. But it sets in at a much lower level. As a player this is not so much your concern and of course there's published adventures to take some of the load but it's an issue.

But if the guys you're going to play with are cool then any game is fun.